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A
Web Owner's Lament
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The
problem with cleaning house, mowing the lawn and most
all the pesky little tasks in life is that we have to keep
doing them over and over and over.
Why can’t the house stay clean?
Why does the car continually need more gasoline?
Why is it that your marketing strategy, once
implemented, continually needs to be tweaked, modified and
updated? I
recently received an Email from a real estate agent who
complained that his Website used to generate leads a few
years ago but not anymore.
Another agent writes: My Website was on page one of
the search engines but now, for some reason, it cannot be
found. I’ve
tried everything. Help!
WHY
SOME WEBSITES
MAY STOP WORKING
In the case
of the agent whose Website used to work but no longer
does, a quick consultation including a visit to his
Website solved the problem.
The agent was one of the first to have a Website so
he enjoyed the benefits of exclusivity for quite some
time. At some
point his Website no longer showed up on page one of the
search engines and he accepted that and turned to the
pay-per-click option.
But then, even with good search engine placement,
his Website was not delivering results.
So, together we took a look at the Websites he was
competing with. Lo
and behold, these other Websites were modern, effective
marketing tools whereas the technology on his site had
become dated and somewhat less user-friendly than the
other sites.
WEBSITES
DO NOT WORK
IN A VACUUM
As new
technologies become available and marketing studies tell
us more about the behavior of the online shopper, tweaks,
modifications and total Web overhauls might be needed.
Also, as your competition becomes more
sophisticated, you may have to upgrade your strategy to
maintain the advantage. If your site needs an overhaul, call me toll free at
888-814-5347.
THE
TRUTH ABOUT
SEARCH ENGINES
The second
agent had a similar problem.
Her site was a template put together with design
elements that were NOT search engine friendly. However, several years ago, when there was less competition
for good positioning, poorly designed Websites did
sometimes enjoy good placement.
Today, if you want free placement on page one of
the major search engines, your Website had better follow
their design rules. Anyone
who does not want to do that can participate in the
Pay-per-click options and Pay, Pay, Pay.
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Why
Search Engines Make it so Hard |
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may seem that search engines
take delight in
making it difficult to figure out their rules and to
get good placement for the keyword phrase or search
term that is important to you but it is only a
business decision.
They are trying to do the best they can to
run their business profitably and if you look at it
from their point of view, I think it will help you
understand what you need to do to get the free
search engine placement that you want.
SEARCH
ENGINES USED US
Search
engines make money by selling advertising.
When they first started out they did not have
a plan in place to charge the average Web owner for
placement but they needed to make sure that the
Websites that were available were as good and as
accurate as they could be.
Why? Because the public (i.e. you, me and a
lot of others) using the search engines to search
for information did not like it when we did a search
for Kansas City real estate and found a bunch of
Websites about Kansas City steaks.
In
fact, if that happened too often, we would quickly
change our allegiance and use a different search
engine. Remember
Alta Vista and InfoSeek?
When we changed our allegiance the search
engine we had been using lost the ability to sell
banner ads and other forms of advertising.
Way back when, the search engines had a
string of rules for placement that hardly anybody
understood or followed but it didn’t matter
because at the time, they needed Websites and so a
lot of poorly designed sites managed to get top
ranking at no cost.
But those days are gone.
PAY
PER CLICK AND DEEP POCKETS
Now
poorly designed Websites can still get good
placement on the search engines in the paid
advertising sections but to get that coveted FREE
spot, you have got to follow their rules for Web
design. Depending
on where you are in the country, paid search engine
placement can be so costly that knowing and
following their rules is definitely something you
might want to consider.
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When
All Else Fails...Obey the Rules |
| Websites
that get good placement on page one of the
major search engines either pay for it by the
click or earn it by following their rules for
Web design.
Now, some of you may not care about good
search engine placement but for those of you
that do, please visit http://www.sellrealestate.net/FreeWebPlan.asp
to receive a Free Custom Web Plan that will
spell out in detail what you need to do to get
good, free, search engine placement.
WHAT
ARE THE RULES?
Rules
for Web design are pretty basic.
Search engines prefer to give good
ranking to Websites that have content on the
pages. Content
means TEXT or WORDS.
TRICKS
THAT
SEARCH ENGINES USE
Let’s
say that you have a Website that follows the
rules for Web Design.
Will that alone guarantee good search
engine placement?
NO!
In addition to having content on your
pages, it is also necessary to have other
Websites link TO you.
Search engines judge a Website’s
importance and relevance based on the number of
incoming links.
THE
DOWNSIDE OF THE RULES
If
you simply follow the search engine rules
without giving thought to your customers or
thought to why the search engines have their
rules in the first place, it is easy to go
astray and fail to reach your goal.
For example if you try to cheat on how
you obtain your incoming links by buying them,
the search engines will know and your strategy
will not work.
Some template companies offer internal
link sharing capabilities but that does not fool
the search engines.
There can also be a downside to creating
content rich pages.
People do not like pages of text; too
many words on the page is off-putting for
people. So
you have to balance with words, pictures and the
use of interactive technology on your Web pages.
You can see samples and read all about
this on our Website at www.sellrealestate.net.
BUT
WILL IT LAST FOREVER?
Well,
there are no guarantees that if you follow all
the Web Design rules today that you will never
have to make changes or updates but remember,
the search engine rules haven’t changed in all
these years so it might pay you to consider
looking into a custom Website that is optimized
for the search engines.
Go here http://www.sellrealestate.net/FreeWebPlan.asp
to get started.
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