TECHNOLOGY

Everyone tells you how important search engine listings are, and many think that they have the secret as to how to get to the top. The truth is that it is critical, and it is usually trial and error. The best way to start might be in accepting that we mere mortals will never really understand how the crawling spiders and algorithm wizards work. What we can believe—though it is often hard—is that they are trying to improve search, the goal being to have people put in a keyword or keyword phrase and find something close to what they are actually looking for.

Optimization is key. You must build your site or rework your existing site around your keywords and keyword phrases. The place to start is by picking your keywords. Real Estate keywords are highly competitive. If you are using pay per click (PPC) or sponsored listings (listings that you pay for) these words are expensive. Being in the top three here is just a matter of money.

If you want to be where we all want to be, on the first page of the natural—or organic—search listings, you either hire a company like OneUpWeb for a minimum of $50,000 a year, or someone like Bruce Clay, with whom you can at least hope to spend a little less than that for excellent results. Beyond that, you get serious about making your site searchable by engine rules. If you do not have the time or the patience to do it yourself, you can hire other companies who perform certain tasks at reasonable rates. Just search for search engine marketing and choose one that is at the top of the listings. At least they know how to promote their own site and will probably be able to help you.

In truth, if you are not on the first page, you do not exist. Brutal, I know, but I tell you the truth. You can pay to be on the first page in sponsored search, and if you have that kind of money to spend, go for it. But the only place to be,—no matter how much money you have to spend—is on the first page, preferably in the top 10 of the natura listings, and they are not for sale at any price.

Don’t despair; it is possible to get there. First pick your keywords and phrases carefully. Focus on the things you offer that people are most likely to be searching for. A good example of this is the currently popular high-rise and loft. These seem to be hot search words right now. However, if you do not deal in high-rises or lofts and you do not have those words legitimately appearing in the text of your pages it would be a serious mistake to use them in your meta tags. Search engines frown on that sort of thing and can punish you severely. You do not want to be blacklisted.Help in choosing your keywords is available by using:

• Google’s Keyword Tool
• Overture’s Term Suggestion Tool
• Webmaster Toolkit’s Keyword Research Tool
• iwebtool’s Keyword Suggestion Tool

So, be honest and go for promoting what you really have to offer. Thedays when putting a keyword like “free” or “sex” in your meta tags or hidden somewhere on your site would garner millions of hits are GONE. Search engine spiders are extremely sophisticated. They are constantly roaming through the Internet and all of our sites using the criteria set for them by their search engine masters like Google and Yahoo and the like, and they want to find the words that you have put in your meta tags in your site text.

Some basic guidelines:

• Make your site focused and relevant
• Write lots of search engine friendly content
• Use meta tags
• Use alt tags¹
• Create a sitemap
• Optimize your title tags
• Write and submit articles and press releases
• Make all changes look natural

If you have questions, e-mail me or go to EREE Business Social Network and drop me a note. Or even better, add to the blog or forum. I will answer. And if I don’t know the answer, I will find out.

Alt tags¹ are those tags that come up when you mouse over an image. Alt stands for alternate as in alternate text.