OnlineRealEstateSuccess.com

5 Different Ways to Use Your Domain Name in Google Ads

2008-01-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

Have you ever tried to change how your domain name is displayed in your ads? Hopefully you have tested out different methods and different display types with your domain name in your Google Pay Per Click ads. A better question might be why even try? The main reason you try different ads is to appeal to different people and see which one tests better giving you the best results. I thought today we would go over different ways to use your domain name in your Google Adwords Ads. Remember you 35 characters for display.

5 Different Ways to Display Your Domain Name

www.LovelySantaMonicaCondos.com - Try capitalizing the different words in your domain name and see what effect that has. This happens to be our favorite.
www.lovelysantamonicacondos.com - all lower case may appeal to some as well so it is good to try it in different ways.
LovelySantaMonicaCondos.com - remove the www. It is not required for Google to have it and if someone typed in your address without the www most web browsers resolve this automatically.
LovelySantaMonicaCondos.com/BuyNow - use a word or phrase after the slash. You don't have to have the directory on your website but it will attract the potential visitors attention.
www.lovelySantaMonicacondos.com - capitalizing just the city that you work in is also a great way to attract the users attention.

I always recommend testing two different displays of the same domain name or URL when you are running ads. If you have a greater CTR(Click Through Rate) when you have a different display format of your domain name then you have a winner on your hands! Good luck and enjoy success online.

3 Things You Shouldn't Say to an Internet Prospect

2008-01-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

Ever heard the phrase "If you don't have something nice to say don't say anything." Well there are definitely some things that you shouldn't say to an Internet prospect. Remember they found you online and that is where the relationship starts and they do want to speak with you but we have found there are some things you want to avoid when speaking to an Internet prospect.

Top 3 Things You Shouldn't say to an Internet Prospect

I will mail you out a list of properties - This may sound funny but think about it. They found you online so they will want their information on line. Unless you have some large relocation packet that can't be e-mailed make sure they get it via e-mail or a website.
I will set you up to get listings next week - If they found you on the Internet they want things fast and by fast we mean modern day standards of fast. They want things done quickly and don't have days to wait. Make sure they get their information "as soon as you hang up the phone" or "by tomorrow morning". This is the speed they are looking for.
I will call you as soon as a property meets your criteria - while they certainly do want to hear from you on the phone Internet prospects prefer e-mail or texting and this is the way they want to receive updates about new properties.

Remember Internet prospects want their information quickly and will actually help you by doing much of their research online with you. You just must give them their information quickly and make sure that you use the correct real estate scripts when speaking with them.

4 Reasons Not to Use More Than 20 Words Per Ad

2007-12-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

Has anyone ever read the sentence in Google where they tell you not to use more than 20 words per ad? It is right above the area where you add new keywords to an ad group. This small one sentence is terrific advice that unfortunately I rarely see followed. I have seen ads that have literally over 1,000 words pointing to the same ad.

So why shouldn't you use more than 20 words per ad? Well let's take a look at some great reasons to have less than 20 words per ad and see why?

Your ad should use your keyword - If you have 20 words that are similar to each other you can use them in your ad. Keeping your list to 20 will allows you to do that. Remember that "Santa Monica CA home" and "Santa Monica CA homes" are two different words that are close to each other and would work well in the same ad group.
The more specific your ad the better it will perform - we all want better performing ads because that means cheaper costs, a better Click Through Rate, and more people visiting. When your ad matches the words it is advertising on it will appeal to more to the people searching.
More than 20 words makes it hard to make the landing page match - Remember that your landing page should match up with your ad. Remember if you are advertising on "Santa Monica CA Home" than your landing page should have a title and a heading that mention that same phrase. This connects the ad with the page and makes the visitor likely to stay longer and request more information.
Your domain name hopefully has your keyword in it - If you have 20 words that are similar to each other you can either have a domain name that contains them or at least a directory for that phrase that you can display to the potential visitor. The more times that a potential visitor can see the keyword or phrase in the ad the more likely they are to click the ad and visit your website.

Remember that the more specific you are in your ad the better off you will be. You will reap the rewards in lower costs and better CTR(Click Through Rates) which means more visitors and more customers.

To Your Success online!

Right Keywords Increases Ad Performance

2007-11-28T09:18:00.000-08:00

When we are setting up a new Google Adwords campaign it is important to be as specific as possible with the ad and the keywords that you select. We found that some of the biggest frustrations with Google Adwords is what words should people select to advertise on and then once they have those words what ad should they put with those words.

So we have the two problems:

Word Choice
Ad matching those words

Let's keep this as simple as possible. Sometimes it is easier to write the ad before the keyword selection. You can always write the ad and then modify the key words.

Lets look at the ad that above. The ad is for Spring Valley Homes. Now The web address has CA in it so it is the Spring Valley in California and not the one in Indiana.

Ad Matching those keywords

When we hit a wall with keywords selection we will write an ad first and then find the words that will go along with that ad. In the example above we have an ad for Spring Valley Homes. It is simple and to the point.

Word Choice

This is usually the harder part of the equation. So in our ad example above we mention Spring Valley Homes. A few rules for adding keywords to an adgroup are that you don't want more than 30 keywords. This actually makes it easier because the ad will match better to a smaller set of words.

A sample word list for the ad above would be as follows:

Spring Valley Home Sales
"Spring Valley Home Sales"
[Spring Valley Home Sales]
Spring Valley home sale
[Spring Valley home sale]
Home Spring Valley sale
Sale Spring Valley Home
Spring Valley CA Home
[Spring Valley CA Home]
Spring Valley CA Home Sale

For why we use brackets or quotes see the post on match types. As you can see above the variances in the keywords for that ad are small. You are always better off having less keywords in an adgroup than more as it will increase performance of your ad because the ad will be more specific.

We hope this helps you focus your ads and your keywords and remember to take it step by step to make things easier. Implementing the strategies above helped many of our ads increase conversion by over 10% and increase Click Through Rate 30%.

Don't just optimize your home Page - 3 ways to capitalize on visitors from any page

2007-11-27T08:52:00.000-08:00

Looking at just the home page of your website to ensure a user gets to the "most important" areas of your website can be a big mistake. I have seen some groups state that you MUST put a tool to search the MLS and a tool for CMA's prominent on your home page because that's what a internet buyer is looking for. While I think they are often looking for that type of information, only making tools like that easy to get to on your home page can lead to losing the visitors who enter from other pages.

For example on one of our websites dedicated to Long Beach Condos, only 14% of our visitors came in through the home page! WOW! If we only concentrated on making powerful tools available on the home page we might miss out on a some great contacts.

So what should we do instead? Here are 3 ways to ensure you capitalize on visitors coming in through any landing page:

Call to Action - Have a Call to action on every page. Whether the call to action is to a buyer tool like an MLS search or a seller tool like a CMA make it easy for the visitor to see they need to go there.
Menu Choice - If you find your MLS search tool is possible, make it a selection on the navigation of your website so regardless of the landing page a visitor can get there.
Review your reporting tools - See which pages have become popular using your Google Analytics or other reporting tool so you can ensure people are converting from those pages.

So have fun looking at the pages on your website so you can capitalize on visitors finding your website on any page!

Google Match Types - Broad vs Exact Which is better?

2007-11-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

For those who are new to Google Adwords there are 4 different types of matching that can be done for your ads. They are as follows:

Broad Match
Exact Match
Phrase Match
Negative Match

These are used when you add words to your ad groups. For today's post we are going to cover Broad Match and Exact Match. By the way one is not really better than the other it just depends on what your goals are. So let's get into each one and figure out why we would want to use each one differently in our real estate ads.

For all of our examples today we will use the word that we are advertising on as 'Spring Valley Homes' in reference to my hometown of Spring Valley, CA.

Broad Match

If I want to advertise on the search phrase 'Spring Valley Homes' and I want a match that covers as many different search possibilities as possible I will add the phrase Spring Valley Homes to my Google Ad Group without "",[], or - around the word. I would merely just add the word to my campaign. So what does this mean then.

This means any time someone types any phrase that contains the words spring valley homes my ad will appear. So what are the problems with this. If someone typed in the following phrases I would appear:

spring valley homes for rent
homes spring valley by food
food in spring valley homes
Rent spring valley homes

This means my ad is possibly showing up to people who I don't need to see my ad and may click it even though I don't want them to. Keep in mind this isn't always a bad thing but it is a very broad search and for that reason you will want to watch your ads carefully.

Exact Match

This is basically the opposite of a broad match search. When you put [] around your words such as [Spring Valley Homes] that means the user must type exactly that phrase. In fact if they type anything else before or after those words your ad will not trigger. The sample list below shows when my ad would NOT show up.

Spring Valley Homes for sale
Spring valley homes for purchase
buy spring valley homes

Now you can see that I would miss out on these searches but I would get anyone interested in just Spring Valley Homes. I would probably be getting a person just starting their search and that is who I would be targeting with the ad.

Each match type has it's place in your ad groups. You want to make sure to use different types of match types in your ad so it triggers for different types of users. Have fun with it and you can always check out the free guide I wrote on Improving Your Performance on Google Adwords. We also have a free video tutorial section on different portions of Google Adwords as well at http://www.onlinerealestatesuccess.com/resources_video_tutorials.shtml.

Top 3 ways to use FeedBurner to Publicize your BLOG

2007-11-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

FeedBurner is a free product, now owned by Google, that allows you to achieve greater exposure for your BLOG. The tool has some extensive tools to analyze your BLOG data, but here I thought we would focus on the aspects of FeedBurner that allow you to promote your BLOG. These can be accessed from the "Publicize" tab.

Headline Animator - This allows you to create a banner ad that rotates the latest headlines that are on your BLOG. This is wonderful to put on your websites so you can get people to visit your BLOG as well.
↑ Grab this Headline Animator

E-mail Subscriptions - This tool will allow you to include a small form on your website or BLOG to allow people to subscribe to your new posts by just entering an e-mail address. As more people are more familiar with E-mail, than RSS readers, this can allow you to gain more subscribers quickly.

BuzzBoost - This tool allows to republish your feed as HTML. Again, you could put this on your website so visitors can take a look to see the latest activity on your BLOG.

FeedBurner has many different tools available for FREE, but even just using these 3 will help to gain more exposure for your BLOG.

4 Reasons Not to Point Google Ads to Your Home Page

2007-11-13T08:50:00.000-08:00

One of the things that can frustrate anyone who uses Google AdWords is not seeing results. Now one of the surest ways to make sure you don't get the results you desire is to drive all visitors from Your Google AdWords Campaign to your home page. There are reasons for this so we will go over our

Top 4 Reasons Not to Point Your Ads to Your Home Page

They are looking for something specific - this is the best reason not to point an ad to your home page. A user who clicks your ad has something very specific in mind. Your home page is general. Give them what they want.
It will take more visitors to get the same results - If you weren't paying for each and every visitor this may not be a big deal but you are. So if you have to pay for 10 times as many visitors to get the same results then you are just wasting money.
It is not how Google Recommends you to do it - Now Google even tells you in various tutorials that you want to make your ads specific and make sure they match up to your landing page or destination page. Ensuring that you follow a winning formula is a great way to ensure success.
Your Visitor wasn't trying to get to your home page - often times the home page is a great place to start for a user who finds you organically because it provides an array of choices to start their visit but the visitor wasn't trying to get to a general page.

Remember you want your ads to go to pages that match up to exactly what the user was looking for. In a perfect world each ad would go to it's own page and that would be exactly what the user was looking for. Since we don't have the time for perfection we want to strive toward it and make sure that each ad goes to a page within the website that matches to that ad. If you don't have a page that matches the ad you may want to ad a page. Good luck with Google. For more information on how to improve your ads check out our 5 Tips to Improve Ad Performance Guide.

Top 4 Places to Submit Your Website

2007-11-09T09:09:00.000-08:00

One of the best ways to kick start your website in the search engines is to let them know that you exist! Here are 4 places that you must submit your website to, in order to be found.

Google - www.Google.com/addurl
Dmoz.org - This open directory project is a must have! - www.Dmoz.org
MSN - They are quickly growing their search engine and you will definitely want to be a part of the growth. - http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Yahoo - The number #2 Search Engine can't be ignored. They have some great products to help you, but make sure you start by submitting to get listed - http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/dir/suggest/index.html

If you at least get started with these steps, your real estate search engine marketing results will start off strong.

4 Reasons to use Google Conversion code

2007-11-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

Google Adwords is a great program to get traffic to your website instantly. In fact it is the quickest way that you can get visitors to your website.

Now having people visit your real estate website is great but having them convert to buyer leads or selling leads is better. So how can you tell if people converted to leads? Well you use Google's conversion tracking code that's how. Don't be afraid if you aren't a technical wizard. Thanks to Google you don't have to be. So let's go over 4 Great Reasons to Use Google Conversion Code.

1. It is easy to implment the code - Google gives you the code necessary in order to track how many people converted to a lead from your paid ad.
You will know the cost of your leads - nothing helps you determine if your money is being well spent wisely than knowing what you are getting for your dollars.
You have something to judge success on - You want a conversion rate of at least 5% on all of your landing pages. Some of our landing pages have conversion rates as high as 36%.
Google gives you tutorials - if you want to put this code in yourself google offers multiple tutorials in both print and in video format that make it easy to get going.

So get that code added today so you can begin to have the kind of success you want out of your Google Ad campaigns. The picture above shows where you need to go in your Google Adwords account to get things started.

6 Reasons to Use Statistics in Your Blog

2007-10-31T10:33:00.000-07:00

OK so you can't possible think of something to put on your real estate blog. How about statistics? There isn't a home owner or home buyer out there who doesn't want to know what the real estate market is doing yet statistics is one of the hardest things to find on the Internet. I know that some MLS systems even have built in reports and if you are allowed to use graphs or charts from them even better. Even if you can't use their charts you can quickly create your own using Microsoft Excel or another spreed sheet program. So we thought we would give you:

6 Great Reasons to use stats in your real estate blog or real estate website

Statistics are hard to find - Try seeing what sold last month in an area without using the MLS. It is so difficult it is unfair. Think how home owners and home buyers would view your knowledge if you let them know about what is going on.
They are valuable - Everyone needs to know what is happening. Tired of losing a listing presentation because someone said the market is doing better than it is. What if you became the source?
Consumers want them - Home buyers and sellers need to know what is going on and they are searching for it. They are just having a hard time locating it.
Others aren't doing it - It is always better to be first rather than last. Just because everyone has access to the data(Realtors(R)) doesn't mean they are letting people know about it. Let consumers know.
They always change so it is always something new to write - One of the hardest things to do sometimes is come up with something new to write. Thankfully someone is always buying or selling so numbers will change. Even if no one is buying or selling you can still show that as well!
It makes for great charts & Graphs - Having visuals is great because it makes your blog different and more interesting to your readers. You can create charts in literally minutes with Microsoft Excel.

So go forth and add stats to your blog or website and become the source for information.

5 Reasons to Use Multimedia in Your Blog

2007-10-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

So are you tired of just writing sentence after sentence in your blog? If you are your readers might be as well. After all we are in the new era of the web were bandwith is high and people have high speed access at home and at work so why would we only just write text? The answer is you probably shouldn't be just writing. So we thought we would give you 5 great resons to use multi media in your blog.

It adds a visual impact - nothing adds impact like a great picture. After all a picture is worth a 1,000 words right? So why not throw up a picture of what you are talking about. If you are talking about the benefits of improving a kitchen maybe a nice before and after picture.

Video says it for you - That's right a little video never hurt anyone. In fact you can upload your video to http://www.youtube.com/ and they will host it for you and give you the html to put in your page. We put up video on our Long Beach Home Blog so you can see a sample of what to do. That clip took about 40 seconds to record, 2 minutes to upload to youtube, and another 60 seconds to copy and paste the HTML they gave me into the blog. So for under 5 minutes I think it is worth it.

Sound is a great way to introduce your blog - we put sound on our blog as well using some easy to use software by in InstantAudio.Com. This software is great and is easy to use. By the way we use it to describe our properties on our regular websites as well.

Others aren't doing it - Want to be first? That's right many people aren't yet adding pictures, sound, and video to their blog. This makes you stand out among all of the other blogs that are available for a user to select. After all you are competing for readers and what better way to improve your blog by adding something that no one else will do.

Your readers want it - so if all of the other reasons don't convince you to do it your readers do want it. People want more out of websites and blogs than just plain text. They want entertainment with their information so give it to them!

In case you also are thinking we don't practice what we are asking you to do we have some video for you as well!

We hope that convinces you to add some multimedia to your blog. You can always check out ours for ideas at http://www.homeofthequeenmary.com/ and another great one we like is http://www.raincityguide.com/.

Creating Focused Content brings a Quick Buyer!

2007-10-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

As you are developing content for both your BLOG and your real estate website, think about what visitors are looking for in relationship to the time frame that they may be looking. A wonderful post on the Real Estate Tomato brought up how you can take a look at the relationship of terms someone is searching for to the time frame that they are willing to purchase in. Here are some highlights derived from their post that were arrived at by Cydee Haydon:

Blogging about a large area like a city (Tampa Bay was used as her example) - resulted in buyers who were 12-24 months out.
Blogging about a city within Tampa, like Clearwater she was able to get buyers in the 12 months and under time frame
Blogging about a neighborhood or condo complex like SandPearl she was able to get buyers from 1-6 months out.

If you think about how someone does research for real estate on the internet this makes alot of sense!!! This type of data has occured in our websites as well. As people search for the Long Beach real estate they can be on a longer time frame, but if they request a specific building like 1400 Ocean Blvd they have already become familiar with the city of Long Beach and now know they want downtown long beach area and preferrably a specific building.

So have fun creating content for your BLOGs and your websites that bring in clients of all time frame.

5 Topics for Your Real Estate Blog

2007-10-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

Now hopefully you have a real estate blog that is either integrated with your website or is separate from your website and marketed differently. One of the things that we find is hardest for agents to do is to come up with new topics to write on and because they don't have new topics they stop writing and their blogs aren't updated on a regular basis. Here are 5 content ideas you can use for your blog and the great part is you can keep reuse them every single month!

5 Topics for Your Real Estate Blog

Monthly Sales Statistics - This is one that you make sure to report every first of the month. Keep it consistent and you will have a regular following that checks to see what the figures were at. Let agents know you will be posting it so they can check it as well.
Loan Products - Banks are continually offering new products so that buyers can buy or builders can build. Get your favorite lending partner to post every month on what is new out there.
Loan Rates - A great resource to reference is www.bankrate.com. They always post the latest available rates from different lenders. If you had a few lenders send you what the latest rates where one a week or once a month you would have a regular topic that people are always interested in.
New Construction - Most areas have some form of new development occurring on an ongoing basis. Blogging on it and reporting it are key to more great content.
Fun Events - It doesn't always have to be about real estate. You can mention a carnival or fair that is going on and mention what area of town it is in. Since it has to take place somewhere it is related to real estate and people always like to have a source for information.

Have fun with this 5 Blog Topics for your Real Estate Blog. It is more important to keep posting than to not post at all so good luck with your blog!

Click Through Rate - Make Sure You Check Your Cost

2007-10-23T08:39:00.000-07:00

With all of the great tools that Google has to report to you what is going on with your ads, campaigns, and keywords it is quite easy to get soley focused on a few stats and the one that is, in my opinion, the easiest to get focused on is CTR or Click Through Rate. Now obviously this is a very important part of the Google formula. Google uses CTR to judge how effective your ad is and by that where you will place combined with your bid amount. That is not the point of this post however. Today I want to make sure you focus on your cost per conversion. This is how much you are paying to get a lead or to get a purchase. In real estate you are paying for a chance to help someone with real estate information.

So the cost you pay is very important. We find that at least 1 out of every 10 leads that we receive is ready to meet with us today. Now of course we have to ask them to meet with us but we find this to be true time and time again over the number of leads our team generates every month. Keeping an eye on the cost is key. We of course always want the lowest cost per lead possible and are always looking at our ads to drive the cost down. Currently our cost is just slightly over $10.32 per lead for our condo website. The average commission on condos we sell, we focus on the entry level, is $7,950. We know that it will take at least 10 leads or $103.20 to get 1 solid buying appointment and 25% of the time that person will buy within the next 90 days. So we pay $412.00 for each closed sale or a 19.29 times our money in return. That that is just within 90 days as we know that another 25% of those will also buy within 12 months and we just have to follow-up with them.

So with all of these numbers you want to focus on your ads and your cost per lead. Make sure that you use Googles conversion code in your website. Have your webmaster put it in for you so you can judge the ultimate success of your landing pages.

4 Key Factors to determine Search Engine Relevance from SEOMoz

2007-10-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

4 Key Factors to determine search engine relevance. There was a great post on SEOMoz that I wanted to make sure I could share. It really helps break down the sometimes complex theories of the algorithms of the search engines into 4 simple rules. This post was done by Randfish and I definitely encourage everyone to take some time to review the post. Here is a breakdown of his 4 key factors:

Keyword Usage and Content Relevance - He breaks this rule down from the obsolete idea of keyword stuffing to ideas that relate to latent semantic indexing.
Raw link Juice - Here you get to understand how high powered sites linking to you has a dramatic effect.
Anchor Text Weight - Learn how the keywords that link to you affect how your page is found.
Domain Authority - In a nutshell, how long term domains that have been trusted can impact the success of your website.

Take some time to review his post for some wonderful imagery and a great set of detailed explanations on each item.

How long does it take to see the effects of our SEO efforts?

2007-10-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Patience helps you see how your real estate SEO efforts are progressing. Often we make changes like updating content, adding new links to pages and then immediately check Google to see what happened :) Unfortunately it's not an instant world at this point so we have to wait a bit to see what the effects are of what we are doing. If you use some of the tools provided at http://www.seomoz.org/ you will be able to track your progress. Here are some of the results we have encountered on one our websites dedicated to homes in Long Beach.

Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Jul 26, 07 Position on Google: Pg 3, Pos. 2
Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Aug 23, 07 Position on Google: Pg 2, Pos. 3
Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Oct 04, 07 Position on Google: Pg 1, Pos. 8
Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Oct 21, 07 Position on Google: Pg 1, Pos. 7

As you can see from being on the 3rd Pg of Google results in July we have now come to be on the first page. In that time we have added extensive new content, have posted on many BLOGs, and continued to improve our internal links on our website. Lots of little changes and some pages have helped us to get to the first page. Our work isn't done (it never seems to be) but if you track your results using some of the great tools out there you can see how you are progressing. Good luck and be patient! :)

5 Tips to Increase Page Visibility

2007-10-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

As you are adding to your web presence, it is important that when you do add content that it is viewed by as many people as possible. Here are 5 tips to increase your page visibility:

Focused Content - Don't try to accomplish too much in 1 page. When you write a page concentrate on a particular topic (like california first time buyers, or condos in Long Beach) so the meaning of your page will be clear to visitors and to the search engines.
PPC Ad - Create a PPC ad on Google and Yahoo and direct it to your page. A nice targeted group of words and phrases can bring that traffic you are looking for.
Site Map - Make sure to update your site map to reflect that you have added a new page. Optimally you will have physical HTML page as for a sitemap as well as an XML sitemap. Keeping this up to date will help your the spiders to see you regularly update your website and bring them back more often :)
BLOG Post - As are are all BLOGGING, put up a blog post providing a snippet of information about your new page. Maybe it is about a new loft development or a new loan program, whatever it is, give a hint about it on your blog and link back to your website!
Internal Linking - Hopefully the content you are creating is somewhat related to other areas within your website. Link from one of your other pages in your website (optimally one that is indexed already) and link to your new page!

Following these 5 tips everytime you ad new content will belp increase the visibility of your new pages. With powerful Calls to Action, you will be able to quickly get some contacts out of those new pages ! Good luck.

Avoid the Google Content Network - At least at first

2007-09-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

I find that when everyone gets started on Google and advertising with Google PPC (Pay Per Click) they either leave all the check boxes checked or start checking as many boxes as possible. This can make your first campaigns not as effective and can make them very costly to you. I want to make sure that you avoid the hard times of advertising on Google and make sure that you get the results that you desire. One setting that I encourage people (read into that tell them) to turn off when they get started is advertising on the Google Content Network.

The settings by default encourage you to advertise on the content network. Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with the Google content network it is just a different kind of ad that you would want to run on it.

Think of it this way. The Google Content network is literally thousands upon thousands of websites that run Google Ads. So a user may be reading an article on say the New York times on real estate and they might also see an ad for real estate. So this potential buyer is not looking for real estate info exactly they are reading an article. Your ad would have to make them not want to read the article anymore and visit your website or page instead. This is possible and there can be great traffic to be found on the content network but you shouldn't start there. You should start with only Google Search and I like the Search Network as well. That means your ads will be shown when someone is searching Google or one of their affiliate search engines. These are potential buyers that are seeking information out and these are the ones that you want to attract first as they already show a willingness to look for your information.

So when you are just getting your first Google PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns started start with just Google and their search partners and stay of the content network until you determine how things are working. Good luck!

Keep Track of the Blogs you Like with RSS Readers

2007-09-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

RSS Readers

You don't have to have to book mark all of your favorite BLOGs and have to go back daily to check them right? You don't have to! Using an RSS reader you can subscribe to BLOGs and keep up to date as easily as checking your e-mail.

RSS is defined as Rich Site Summary or it's most popular - Really Simple Syndication.

RSS feeds have been in existence for a number of years, but now are finally hitting mainstream. If you have a BLOG, then most tools, easily allow your BLOG to be picked up by an RSS reader. As many of you may be new to finding RSS feeds, we thought it might be helpful to point out a few RSS Readers so you can make it an enjoyable experience keeping track of your Favorite BLOGs.

Google Reader - A wonderful FREE tool so you can keep track of the RSS feeds that are of interest to you. You can add it to your Google Account so you can check in like you were checking your e-mail.

NewsGator - They have a FREE version as well so you can sign-in and start using their powerful tool.

BlogLines - Create a personal web page easily that is updated with the news sources that are of interest to you.

Have fun adding your favorite BLOGs. Sign up for our real estate BLOG dedicated to the Long Beach real estate market - www.LongBeachHomeBlog.com

Google Webmaster BLOG Can Help!

2007-09-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

Google is by far the leader in traffic online for searches, so it is helpful to know how they are looking at pages and what they are up to. They actually provide a wonderful BLOG for webmasters so you can keep up to date on changes and make sure that you aren't going to fall into the Penalty Box!

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/

Some of the posts are a bit more on the technical side, but please feel free to read through the ones that are of interest to you as there are some helpful posts. Enjoy!

Traffic Generating Keywords vs. Conversion Keywords

2007-08-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

As you are continuing to practice your SEO skills through development of content and use of tools like WordTracker to find the most often searched words, sometimes we lose track of which words are the ones generating traffic and which ones are actually leading to conversions.

The high volume search phrases "myarea real estate" are usually the most competitive and many strive to show up on the first page of Google so you can get those customers, but are they converting for you? It very well may, but before you spend more time writing up pages and garnering those coveted back links take a look at which words are really working for you. Here is a small sample from one of our websites. This is a snapshot from Google Analytics of some terms that are providing traffic to our Long Beach Condos website.

(the first column next to the keywords is the number of visitors, 2nd column is # of pages visited, and the last column is the average time spent on the website)

Now, note the same portion of the report, but we have a view of the word phrases that are converting.

(the column next to the words is the number of conversions for that phrase)

Hmmm, they aren't the same! This is important as you are working on your website as you may want to add content, create PPC ads, or put up some BLOG posts for the words that are converting.

Now, dig in your reporting tool deep so you can find out what is going on. We looked and found that the plural version of one the phrases we listed above "long beach lofts" is converting so we added some more content and kept our ads running for that so we can continue get contacts from our website.

Save Money on Your Domain Names Today!

2007-08-25T09:29:00.001-07:00

Often times we purchase domain names and then we realize that we could have saved money by buying it somewhere else. What is available to you is the ability to transfer your domain name to another company. Now let's be clear that you really want to save money on renewal fees because those can add up and it is an easy way to save.

You can transfer your domain to a company like www.TopAgentDomains.com. This site has a transfer feature and even shows you in a chart how much you can save from some of the other major domain programs out there. Go to their Transfer Page and it shows you the comparison of what you can save. They have tech support that can walk you through everything to get things all settled. We have our domain names from them and hosting from them as well.

Good luck and we hope this helps you save money on your domain name purchases and hosting as well.

Buy Website Domains for Less!

2007-08-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

Top Agent Domains

As real estate professionals we are always looking for ways to continue to add leads for our business. As most of us have more than 1 domain, it is important that we save where we can on our purchase of domain names.
In order to save money while creating more websites and getting additional Domain names, we have partnered with GoDaddy to save money on the purchases of Domain names. Check out our website where you save over $1.00 for each domain you purchase!

http://www.topagentdomains.com/

Widgets Add FREE Functionality to your Website

2007-08-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Widgets are small applications that can be put on your website using simple HTML. It's a wonderful way to add functionality to your website without being a heavy programmer. There have been some great posts on ActiveRain speaking about some of the widgets related to real estate.

Now, you may be asking, why would I want to use a widget? Here are some reasons you may want to emply a widget.

They are FREE!
Widgets can provide functionality in your website like a newsfeed that keeps your site up to date and differentiates you from the competition
You don't have to be a developer to use them!

So...where do you get them? There are many great sites out there to find widgets, but we thought we would point out a couple of sites where you can find some widgets. Try out one on your website so you can see how your visitors like the new functionality.

Widgets are going to be developed more and more so keep an eye out for these to become more popular.