What if all websites were the same and everyone hired the same SEO company to do the same SEO work on each website? Who would show up in search engines first?

Invest heavily in Search Engine Optimization [SEO] and you may generate an adequate return on investment. This is dependent on what your competition is doing and how many are going after the exact same market as you and how active the particular target audience is and and and… Whatever you do – how you want to spend your money in this type of marketing is still dependent on facts.

Be mindful that search engines are not paid for organic search traffic.  They use programming known as “algorithms” to find, index and list websites. Many of these  algorithms are trade secrets and are known to change from time to time.  According to Google’s CEO, Erick Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes – almost 1.5 per day. With this lack of guarantees and certainty, do you really want a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic to keep sending visitors? Seomoz.org, a highly regarded SEO software company completed a study where they suggest that even “search marketers, in a twist of irony, receive a very small share of their traffic from search engines.”

Before closing let’s be clear that analytics and SEO are not the same thing. Gathering analytics is all about gathering facts. These facts are important to performing good marketing in general. This marketing might include SEO and/or traditional advertising.

Avoid suffering major losses due to search engine uncertainty. Of course SEO is good but be aware. Where ever you spend most of your marketing dollars consider business practices that leave you liberated from dependence on search engine traffic.

The clearer the understanding one gets of how the internet works the better view we get of SEO and its value. Yes, SEO work done on a website can bring you sheer numbers if… and there are a lot of  ”ifs”. The big one to keep in mind is that the more crowded your market place the more amount you’ll need to spend and the longer it will take before you begin to see any traction.

How much is your competition spending on SEO? How many? What are their keywords? How long have they been doing it? These are just some of the local questions no one can guarantee.

Is spending a fortune on SEO right for you? To be honest, it’s not the best marketing strategy for every business owner and I’ll venture to say it’s simply a lousy investment on its own for industries like real estate and fitness. You need to think about what the goal of your site is going to be because there are so many other internet and real time marketing strategies that can be far more effective.  Whether well crafted, targeted mass media, print media or internet marketing, a successful campaign depends on engaging emotionally and persuading visitors that you have the better mouse trap. Just getting traffic is not enough.

Now you’re thinking, “yea but the ‘numbers game’ theory!  the ‘numbers game’ theory!”

So you believe this is still like cold calling. If you call 100 people a day on the phone with a 1% success rate you’ll get 3 customers in three days, right? Not so online.

When you call a person, there is no way of knowing if you will relate to this person until the two of you begin talking. The relationship begins to happen on it’s own and you begin targeting this person more than the last 99. This kind of relationship can’t happen through a  website visit.

If they don’t like what they see right away, they “bounce” away. Even the ones who would have related to you bounce if you’re hiding behind a bunch of sales speak and slogans that are similar to every other website in your industry.

What I’m saying here, and if you only get one thing from this post then here it is:

It’s better to invite and send visitors to your website that already relate to you than it is to pull them in by fooling a search engine.

Your website must be a high quality build and design with web pages that engage and persuade your customers so the goal of your website is realized. This is called conversion. Conversion needs more than just SEO to work.  A website where an objective that can be met as easy as possible by customers that relate to your offering and send their friends and family there will make you so busy you will have no time to worry about traffic and bounce rate.

The next time you go about building a website, why not try breaking it down into smaller pieces and publishing it and re-publishing it on specified release dates. Building a website is not like publishing a book. All the chapters don’t have to be there right away. The promise of more to come is enticing. No matter how small your project, there are number of reasons building a website in versions is a heck of a good idea.

1. Publish smaller sooner to start the Google juice flowing and get indexed.
2. Adding and building content later is actually creating on-site activity. Google likes this. Your fans like this.
3. Budget your project; Can’t afford it all right away? Break it down to bite sized chunks.
4. Set it and forget it doesn’t exist on line – you may as well publish in versions.

Publishing a large site in versions requires a couple of things to remember:

Build a following first with a marketing plan. Avoid waiting until the website is complete to advertise it’s completion. Think movie trailer.  Tweeting and creating a Fanpage following is a great idea. CYGY Online Magazine did it this way. They even asked fans to vote on the logo colours prior to the site release.When the site is published it’s done with a fanfare and rides a wave of activity. Don’t forget other forms of advertising that include business cards. Include those basics in the first version budget.

Then let your fans know about the next release and what to expect. But of course, hold something back as an unexpected surprise.

Keeping your website up-to-date is important for a number of reasons. One is security of your database and information and another is usefulness of the latest plugins and the browsers visitors use.

It’s much easier to stay instep with the updates than get behind. If you haven’t updated your WordPress platform for some time, it’s a good idea to check the comparability of your theme first.

The latest WordPress Version is called Sonny Stitt. The Version is 3.3 and it was released yesterday, December 12, 2011. You can update your WordPress website from the site’s back end. Please don’t forget to back-up your database first.

If you need help updating your WordPress Website, please contact us. We will:

• Back-up your data-base and store it in your folder.
• Perform theme compatibility check and report issues.
• Perform update to the latest version.
• Update all relevant plugins

We’re keeping our ear-to-the-ground for you. You keep on doing what you do best!

I am asked this all the time. I must sound like a nutty-internet-social-media zealot when I answer  those who have been successfully doing the old school sales thing for years and years without a real online presence. So sometimes my consultation is met with a glazed expression, silence at the other end of the phone or an email response about Mary Poppins; It doesn’t get very far and my creativity is superseded with the client’s own more excellent ideas. There are many reasons a website doesn’t work that are obvious from terrible design to poor content. That list is long. Here is a short basic list of how to hire someone to make a website that doesn’t work.

1. Place little value on creative marketing ideas involving the gain of website leads. Do not take any professional consultation seriously.
   Every business is different and every solution is different. Without an audit the quick answer to “Why isn’t my website working?” is always the same: Do the basics. Want to push past your competitors? Then for the love of all things don’t be just like them.
2. Spend as little as possible on the website marketing budget because it’s supposed to just get found in Google anyway.
   A nice looking store on the corner of a busy city street doesn’t always get the business it deserves if the sign isn’t clear, it looks closed, has no access and no parking. Whether it’s viral marketing or traditional marketing, at least have a plan. If the plan isn’t followed we’ll then know why the site didn’t work.
3. Have the website automated so you never have to touch it. Your phone number on the homepage should work.
   This is taking the view that the internet is not entirely real and a website is just a cost of doing business. Imagine walking into an open house where the agent is a cardboard cut out with a pasted on grin and a motorized arm waving  back and forth. The feature sheets are there with a “please take one” sign and we follow a roped off path through the home. Yea, it would work I guess.
4. Have the site created so it will be all things to all people. Avoid focusing on a target group of search terms.
   Specializing in Vancouver Real Estate is like a lawyer announcing they specializing in legal stuff. Come on. Have some balls and choose a market, geographic, demographic or caged monkeys. Choose it.

This internets stuff is a tough sell for some. Those who don’t like being on line, don’t have time for it or simply don’t care. They have been successfully doing the same thing for years. If they are in sales then it is probably a front loaded business which is to say, they have to jump through hoops, have meetings, drive people around, gathering documents and hold hands to get the sale closed. It’s a lot of free personal time with their clients before they close the deal and see any monetary gain. It’s no wonder the internet seems to contain little or no value to them. I understand this.

Just remember, online marketing is the most scalable choice for the small business. It’s measurable and most eyeballs start their search online for almost everything. Even if it’s something a prospect needs to see and touch in person before a final decision, the search will start online. Social media is getting easier for people to use – we are just at the beginning of what the internet might eventually be, and already is: A real space thick with engagement, communication and networking places.

Do you have a question or something to add? Please do so below or contact me today

I have a number of Youtube channels and a Vimeo Channel so I get your real estate home tour video updates as they are uploaded, if they are uploaded. So I go to your website to see how that same latest video is posted there. I click on the Video Tour Tab and notice that only an external link is offered to the video!!! Holey lost traffic Marketing Man! This blows me away!

Curiously, like a cat smelling it’s own up-chuck, I click the video link to see where it goes. As expected it opens a new window away from your website.  I am now on some butt-ugly video company’s website looking at your listing! Why? What kind of nincompoopish reasoning is behind taking me away from your website? Did you know you can display a video right in the listing’s details without sending people away from your site?

Link to Butt-Ugly Video Tour Website

I know what’s happened. You were sold the full java script enabled video package complete with galleries and mortgage calculators and map views and more; You already have all that available at your own website! Why pay for it twice?

Look, all you need is to embed the video into your website. And here are 3 reasons why…

Water Down your SEO Juice:

If you link to another site with your listing then there are now two website domains with that listing dividing up the Search Engine Optimization. Your website and the Butt-Ugly Video Company’s website and I am sure Butt-Ugly Ltd is very happy about all that traffic. Without you, they would have no traffic. Don’t let them sell this the other way. I bet they said something like “we’ll link it to your website so you’ll get more traffic”. No, not the case. I have also seen these sites without a link back.

Allow Your Customers to Drift away:

Many times I notice that the Butt-Ugly Video Company’s website offers all the same tools that your website has. Let your buyers discover the tools on your site so they can keep searching there. Don’t let your website visitors think (even for an instant) that your site doesn’t offer these tools. It looks like they are selling the listing and you are their assistant contact person.

Let them Mess up Your Visual Branding:

Your visual branding is completely different on the Butt-Ugly Video company’s website that you just sent your buyers to. Oh sure they add your name and throw up (pun intended) your mugshot but it’s their brand they are wrapping you around and it never works.

A couple of other things to consider

When a customer comes to your website and clicks the video tour tab, they really expect to see the video. No really. They expect that because every site can have video – including yours. If Butt Ugly Videos Ltd tells you their video tours can not be embedded, end the conversation.

Using something like Youtube to serve your video from is terrific because it is a strong social sharing website that is linking into your website. The video can remain after the listing is gone. Also, savvy users and newbies alike expect to see your videos there. The ability for them to comment, “like” and subscribe is very powerful and goes a long way to creating a tribe of followers.

How to solve this

Some video companies have different packages and perhaps they have a cheaper price for not offering the separate Butt-Ugly website.  I know that there are scripts needed to display some of these 360 degree tours that can not be embedded. My answer to that is don’t bother with it because nothing is going to replace seeing the home in person. All you need is a video so buyers will want to schedule a viewing in person and make an offer. I’m not seeing “Buy Now” buttons beside listings yet.

The best thing to do is save yourself some money and find a person who has a camera and some video editing skills. They make a video – you uploaded it to Youtube and simply embed the video into your website. Award winning music videos have been shot with less.

If you need help with any website administration please let me know. We do Web administration also becoming known as Virtual Website Assisting and used to be called Web Mastering.

Comments are appreciated!

You’ve probably already seen the notice in your dashboards, so I’ll keep this one short and sweet:

http://wordpress.org/development/2010/06/thelonious/

3.0 is faster, stabler, and more secure, so you can focus on what matters (your audience) and let the rest fade to the background.

Custom post types, MU merge, menu editor, Twenty Ten theme, over 1,200 bug fixes… there’s so much to enjoy in this new release, we’re really proud of it. It’s the best WordPress yet, and available for a limited time for only free ninety nine.

Tell your friends, help them upgrade, write new themes that use the new features, spread the good word.

Please back up you database before updating. You can follow these instructions or contact us to have it done for you.

For those of us who learn by seeing, here is what html 5 is, what it will do and what browser works best with it – in a glance.

• Ben Chimes website
• Alan M website
• Robert Britch website

What is Google Goggles?
Imagine taking a picture of a house with your phone, submitting that picture to a Google search and getting all the listing details on it. That’s what Google Goggles will do.

Thanks to the ever advancing Google, you can now search the web by taking a picture of the item you want to know more about. While this technology is in its infancy, in 2 years it will be full blown so the question is: What does this mean for Real Estate?

Image searching. It’s not new and it works by analyzing the image name and alt tags given to the image within the HTML code. What is new is the ability to take a picture and submitting it to a search – That will affect real estate.

What are image names and alt tags?

Image Names
If you upload an image with a name DC0023854.jpg blind luck will produce any search results. Changing the image names to something like 103-548-main-st-vancouver.jpg has a much better chance of being indexed by search engines and found by someone, which hopefully leads back to your website

Alt Tags
Alt tags are descriptions written into the HTML. You don’t need to know HTML to add Alt tags. When you upload images to Facebook, flickr or Picasa (and almost any image hosting site), there is an area to add tags and many times a description.

Surprising how many images from the MLXchange describes itself as “exterior front” (the default). Please change this to the appropriate room at least. Add to the description in the MLX to help yourself further. Put the address or who it’s listed by or even your website in that additional description area. The question remains whether or not the MLXchange is adding these descriptions into the HTML as Alt tags. We know for sure that it renames the pictures. For now, who cares, let’s get used to doing this and hope the MLX will change.

Here’s the result
When someone (anyone using Google) types in a particular address of a house to get info on it, the idea is to have your listing images show up first. In the future, (a few years away), when someone takes a picture of that house for information on it, your information will show up.

It’s important to note: Adding text on the image via Photoshop (or image editing software) does not help at all.

If you feel like geeking out on this subject, read more about it here:
http://www.realestateseopros.com/blog/seo-news/google-goggles-for-real-estate-coming/

Don’t forget to contact us if you need any help with this or anything else.