We established in the first article that online promotion of a real estate website can be difficult, confusing, and expensive. So what should real estate agents do to begin gaining internet traffic that can expand their client base and increase their sales?
There are several options that will work if an agent or mortgage broker is willing to spend a fair budget on marketing themselves online, or willing to wait for their organic search engine rankings to take hold. Even if you are incorporating traditional internet marketing techniques there are several inexpensive methods to further expand your ability to market yourself online to potential clients.
There are 3 quick and easy options that will jump-start your real estate related marketing within a month! Even if you currently have a good website and are utilizing search engine optimization techniques, these methods can still be valuable tools to improve your visibility and internet marketing.
1.Craigslist.com - If you’re a real estate agent and you haven’t discovered Craigslist, you are way behind the curve. Craigslist is a quick, easy and effective way to advertise your listings, your website, and business. Agents can post on a very regular basis for free, which includes free hosting for the property photos, inclusion of links to your website.
Another valuable aspect about using Craigslist is that your listing will more than likely get picked up by the search engines, and many other sites use postings in Craigslist to populate data for their sites such as HousingMaps.com. In less than 10 minutes you can get hundreds to thousands of prospective clients to view your listing, see all of your contact information, have you ad go out on many other websites and get another page indexed in the search engines, and it doesn’t cost you a dime!
2.MyLocalProfile.com – MyLocalProfile is a fairly new product that leverages the power of several prominent data providers that the major search engines use to backfill the their local listing information on their regular search results, and on their local search listings. MylocalProfile gives any company or business that has a physical location to create and control the information that is listed in the search engines pertaining to their business. This powerful tool gives companies the ability to update and change items such as their address, phone number, website address, company products, and many other listed items from one central profile. Another great feature about MyLocalProfile is that it creates a basic website that provides all their pertinent information. This is a valuable asset to local businesses that are not really in need of a fully functioning website such as a neighborhood coffeehouse to a local hardware store.
3.Real Estate Directories – Many real estate professionals may be unaware of this, but there are thousands of directories that will list your site absolutely free. This is beneficial for several reasons, most notably free traffic to your website, and increased links to your site (this is one element that can improve your search engine rankings). Taking this a step further there are a decent amount of directories that are specialized towards the real estate industry only. Most of real estate directories are free or less than 20 bucks to have your site listed.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your internet traffic. The opportunities I’ve laid out are quick, effective, and moreover inexpensive methods of driving traffic to your site. Spend even 1 hour a week implementing these quick results strategies and you’ll see viable results without committing thousands of dollars towards a seo campaign, or tens of hours trying to learn and optimize your site on your own. Even if you are implementing a search engine optimization campaign utilizing the above-mentioned techniques will still benefit your hunt to gain traffic quickly as your seo campaign develops.
Click Here To Read Part 1 of This Article
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Organic Search Conversions Nearly Match Paid Search
If you gathered the opinions of 100 paid search practitioners, and compared that to 100 organic search optimization experts, you'd find persuasive arguments for each method being superior at driving conversions. A new study from WebSideStory will justify the arguments of both sides.
The study looks at traffic and conversion data from 20 business-to-consumer e-commerce sites during the first eight months of 2006. Paid search had a median order conversion rate of 3.4 percent, while organic search results produced a conversion rate of 3.13 percent. The data set included more than 57 million search engine visits.
There are arguments to support both sides, Rand Schulman, WebSideStory's CMO, told ClickZ.
"On the one hand, because you control the message of paid search, you'd expect higher conversions. On the other side, because people value the 'editorial integrity' of organic, you'd expect higher conversions," he said. "Ultimately you need to do both. I think the eye-opener here is that neither side has a significant edge."
In the case of paid search, marketers have better control over the ad's message, the landing page and the ability to eliminate low-converting keywords. For organic listings, users often perceive them as "independent," which can increase click-throughs, but the lack of control of what the search result says, or what page it links to on the marketer's site can decrease conversions.
There are many factors on both sides of the argument, which ultimately balance each other out, according to Dana Todd, executive VP of interactive agency SiteLab and president of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO).
"Most visitors are not looking past the top three paid search ads, and the top three organic results. At that level of quality sites, you'd expect to see conversion rates that are close," she said.
In addition, organic search's higher volume of clicks, which tends to be 1.5 times higher than paid search volume, is balanced by the recognition by users that paid search ads are ads, which leads to a self-selection by users who have a commercial intent to their search, Todd said.
Organic Search Conversions Nearly Match Paid Search
The study looks at traffic and conversion data from 20 business-to-consumer e-commerce sites during the first eight months of 2006. Paid search had a median order conversion rate of 3.4 percent, while organic search results produced a conversion rate of 3.13 percent. The data set included more than 57 million search engine visits.
There are arguments to support both sides, Rand Schulman, WebSideStory's CMO, told ClickZ.
"On the one hand, because you control the message of paid search, you'd expect higher conversions. On the other side, because people value the 'editorial integrity' of organic, you'd expect higher conversions," he said. "Ultimately you need to do both. I think the eye-opener here is that neither side has a significant edge."
In the case of paid search, marketers have better control over the ad's message, the landing page and the ability to eliminate low-converting keywords. For organic listings, users often perceive them as "independent," which can increase click-throughs, but the lack of control of what the search result says, or what page it links to on the marketer's site can decrease conversions.
There are many factors on both sides of the argument, which ultimately balance each other out, according to Dana Todd, executive VP of interactive agency SiteLab and president of the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO).
"Most visitors are not looking past the top three paid search ads, and the top three organic results. At that level of quality sites, you'd expect to see conversion rates that are close," she said.
In addition, organic search's higher volume of clicks, which tends to be 1.5 times higher than paid search volume, is balanced by the recognition by users that paid search ads are ads, which leads to a self-selection by users who have a commercial intent to their search, Todd said.
Organic Search Conversions Nearly Match Paid Search
iMedia Connection: Take the Risk out of Ad Networks
In recent months we have seen too many articles citing instances of brand advertisers using ad networks and finding their ads running next to inappropriate content, tarnishing their image. Advertisers need to ensure that their ads are running alongside content that is in keeping with and will bolster their own brand. Agencies need to make sure there are controls in place and that when buying through a network they won't end up fielding calls from an angry client who came across their ad on some questionable or inappropriate site.
Because of this, the industry has placed importance on advertising networks providing full site transparency to help solve this problem (and rightly so). But is this really the answer?
The reasoning behind requiring advertising networks to provide a complete site list is so that the advertiser and/or agency can review the list and eliminate any sites that they feel may contain inappropriate content. To begin with, some networks contain thousands of sites. In order to include this number of sites these networks have a large number of small sites which typically do not have their own sales force, making it easy to reveal an entire site list (as explained below). To be able to distinguish which of these sites are appropriate and which are not will be extremely time consuming. These small sites decide what content to publish, and at anytime can change their tone or direction, with you, as the advertiser, having little recourse. So, if you are working with a network that consists of thousands of small sites, there is no doubt you will have to monitor your buy very closely because networks that contain so many sites do not have teams in place to go through and examine each page of each site on a daily basis to guarantee their appropriateness.
Read the complete article here
Because of this, the industry has placed importance on advertising networks providing full site transparency to help solve this problem (and rightly so). But is this really the answer?
The reasoning behind requiring advertising networks to provide a complete site list is so that the advertiser and/or agency can review the list and eliminate any sites that they feel may contain inappropriate content. To begin with, some networks contain thousands of sites. In order to include this number of sites these networks have a large number of small sites which typically do not have their own sales force, making it easy to reveal an entire site list (as explained below). To be able to distinguish which of these sites are appropriate and which are not will be extremely time consuming. These small sites decide what content to publish, and at anytime can change their tone or direction, with you, as the advertiser, having little recourse. So, if you are working with a network that consists of thousands of small sites, there is no doubt you will have to monitor your buy very closely because networks that contain so many sites do not have teams in place to go through and examine each page of each site on a daily basis to guarantee their appropriateness.
Read the complete article here
Monday, September 11, 2006
Local Online Advertising to Grow 31%
Borrell Associates Inc. released a report, "Outlook for 2007: Pac-Man Pace for Local Online Advertising," which predicts local online advertising will grow 31 percent in 2007.
The report includes analysis of the two fastest-growing segments: local paid search advertising and email advertising. Paid search, already a $938 million category locally, will swell to $1.8 billion in 2007.
Email ad spend is estimated at $150 million this year but will grow to $233 million in 2007, according to the report.
"Media companies that figure out how to use the web as a database marketing tool are going to out-survive their local competitors. Finding prospects with a laser instead of a light bulb takes a lot of corporate re-engineering, but companies that have made the investment are starting to see the returns," says Colby Atwood, president, Borrell Associates.
Original article
The report includes analysis of the two fastest-growing segments: local paid search advertising and email advertising. Paid search, already a $938 million category locally, will swell to $1.8 billion in 2007.
Email ad spend is estimated at $150 million this year but will grow to $233 million in 2007, according to the report.
"Media companies that figure out how to use the web as a database marketing tool are going to out-survive their local competitors. Finding prospects with a laser instead of a light bulb takes a lot of corporate re-engineering, but companies that have made the investment are starting to see the returns," says Colby Atwood, president, Borrell Associates.
Original article
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