Question: When prospective home buyers and sellers search online for agents and listings in your area, does your website appear in search results?
Simply put, the higher you rank in google, especially if your website can get on Google’s “Page #1” search results, then you are going to receive at least twice the attention and business as your less fortunate competitors. Of course if you ‘google’ your own name, and other agents show up first, then you are certainly facing a serious “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) crisis.
If you haven’t been getting the search engine placement you have wanted, then you could be in the same boat with search-engine-struggling agents.
While the computer code that search engines (we are mainly talking about google of course) that re-organize all those ever changing search results change all the time; there are a few proactive steps you can take to make sure your website isn’t shooting itself in the footer.
Here are a half dozen website design recommendation that will help your domain gain a higher ranking:
1. Page Metadata/Keyword wisdom
Years ago, website got ahead of the packing using techniques such as “keyword-stuffing” but now any pages with ‘keyword spam’ are penalized. However the different pages of your website should be optimized using appropriate keywords for each page. When people look for specific information, services, areas/neighborhoods, then they will be able to find it.
What should I enter in each field for each page of my website?
Title Tag – Create a clear and accurate title for what the particular webpage contains. If the page is about information on the “Burnaby” neighborhood, title the page “Burnaby Neighborhood Information” or similar. Avoid adding anything else, such as your name or your company name; it is best kept simple.
Meta Description – This is the advertising tagline of a website that show up on google search result descriptions; a compact, alluring teaser, of what the webpage contains. The description under 140-150 characters so it all shows up in a Google search result; without being cut-off mid sentence.
Meta Keywords – Meta keywords as the terms that you want to highlight to search engines for a particular page. Your meta keywords should be especially about the name of that area that you service. An important rule of thumb is to limit keywords to less than10 meta-keywords on a particular page; so only add the most important keywords – until 10 at most.
Meta Robots – Just as our warning on the page indicates, this option is for pages that you DO NOT want search engines to index, such as special landing pages you might create for a site, or pages that you have under-construction on your website.
2. Go mobile-friendly or bust!
Over a year ago, Google made a big change to its search result algorithm. So now for your domain to even show-up respectively in search results when your prospects are searching from a phone/tablet, then your website has to be mobile-friendly. If you need help on “mobilizing” your site, feel free to contact us. We would be glad to help.
3. Frequently update your website
Find some spare time to keep the content on your website fresh each week, or at least each month. Return visitors, even search engines, are not impressed with seeing the same content as before. Updating content frequently attracts search engines to re-index (to likely increase your site standing) your web pages more frequently. The easiest way to regularly add fresh content to your Point2 Agent website is by publishing and updating a blog; perhaps using a easy to use CMS such as WordPress.
4. Write in tune with your your audience and not for the search engines
Useful/quality information that visitors enjoy is much better perplexing content written in an attempt to outwit search engines. And the more likely they will be to share your site with others. The more the writing on your website engages you readers, the more time they will spend on your pages. Google somehow can also tell how much time people spend on your pages, in determining page quality. With better content, people are more likely to also share the link to your pages with some of their contacts.
5. The importance of social media
Your social media channels can appear prominently in search results, and can even help you claim more real estate on the first page. In addition to your website, your Facebook page, Pinterest profile or Twitter account might appear in the search listings; displaying to your prospects that you are a local authority & competent at marketing. Also make sure all social media pages link back to your main website.
~
Would you like to super-charge your career with 40+ fresh & real leads per month? Just contact us for for information on our Canadian Real Estate Lead marketing system.
