"Your area + real estate"

[Real Estate Forum]

is what you guys want to rank for, right?

The more local web sites add you on their pages and the more real estate webmasters feature you somewhere where the content is predominantly real estate, the better are your chances to move up.

[HHI Golf Guy]

I would say that in 99.9% of the markets, "your city" + "real estate" is the most popular search term. Other popular. common phrases are:

your city + state abbreviation + real estate
your city + full state name + real estate
your city + mls
your city + homes
your city + realtor
your city + real estate agent

In most markets, phrases like your city + homes for sale and your city + relocation yield much fewer searches.

Of course, you can verify the most popular with Wordtracker.

Once we optimize for the real estate terms, we work on optimizing for the city itself. It's a lot more work, but can lead to conversions.

We also optimize pages for each of the residential community names in the markets of our clients, as well as local weather conditions and annual average temperatures. These usually bring nice bonus visitors, especially in our home market - a prime resort area.

By now we have built 100-200 local content pages. We strengthen this local theme with additional local information including attractions, arts, golf, government, schools, recreation, etc.

Optimizing for your city is very tough and time consuming because you need to develop original content. Sure, it's easy to copy content from another web site or magazine, but that can get you in trouble with copyright laws and duplicate content penalties. That's why we also ask our realtors to provide 1-2 new articles every few weeks.

Of course, all of the SEO and great rankings in the world are useless unless you develop a solid plan to convert web surfers into prospective clients. That's the part that most people leave out - then they wonder why they have no leads :)

[apascu]

I've found the conversion for "mls" searches to be poor - at least I wouldn't pay PPC for them anymore because people are either a realtor if they know what mls means or they are too smart to be a legitimate lead.

'houses (for sale)' also gets some hits. In some areas, don't forget the word "condos (for sale)" and for popular areas, you can also get traffic for 'property' or 'properties (for sale)'

[STVP]

doesn't mls mean "multi leg spider" :D real estate property, homes,houses, ect... i think that is what people are looking for and please no guest books.

STVP :cool:

[HHI Golf Guy]

I've found the conversion for "mls" searches to be poor - at least I wouldn't pay PPC for them anymore because people are either a realtor if they know what mls means or they are too smart to be a legitimate lead.

PPC for MLS is usually a waste of money. It's much easier to optimize for your city + MLS. Besides, even with only 1 conversion a year it's "free income". In other words, you didn't have to work to get that listing or market it.

If you have the right sales and marketing strategy you can live off of MLS sales.

[Las Vegas Homes]

Yes your city plus real estate is what every agent that has a site wants to be ranked for. There are also a few others such as city plus homes, city plus condos and if you work for like Century 21 that plus your city. You also want to include in all those for sale as well.

[HMiller]

Wouldn't optimizing for city + real estate, city + homes,... already optimize for just the city? Or is there more optimizing that can be done? I've found that on my pages whether i'm optimizing for city + real estate, city + homes or city + any other term I'm also having just the city mentioned numerous times.

[HHI Golf Guy]

Wouldn't optimizing for city + real estate, city + homes,... already optimize for just the city? Or is there more optimizing that can be done?

Ay, there's the rub. Optimizing for a city is much tougher. Depending upon how many competing web sites there are, you need a lot more information and a lot more pages as well as more inbound links with the city name.

Then again, I'm just picky. I don't consider a key phrase optimized unless it actually drives traffic to a web site.

[HMiller]

you need a lot more information and a lot more pages as well as more inbound links with the city name.

So would having more information and pages be to add weight/authority to your site, thereby helping with the serps?

[Las Vegas Homes]

Yes content is king, but content alone does not guarantee you serps. When you create a site it is always best to write the content with the consumer in mind and not the SEs. Real estate however is a little different, most consumers only care about pictures and being able to view homes.

Content does however help with your keywords. The more content you have the more keywords you can target. That is the problem with real estate sites. Yoiu can write a ton of content and have thousands of pages, but most consumers wont even look at those pages. That is what drives me nuts. We spend hours and hours writing content on communities and offering advice, but consumers never even look at those pages at least according to our logs anyway..lol.

[HHI Golf Guy]

So would having more information and pages be to add weight/authority to your site, thereby helping with the serps?

Your site needs to be well rounded, and you need the proper anchor text within you site as well as links pointing to your site.

Las Vegas Homes - IMHO, whether people view your extra content depends on two things:

1. The type of content you are offering. If a real estate site offers the same old buyers tips and sellers tips, they will go largely unseen. Web surfers will rely more on nationally recognized authority sites for this type of information.

2. Where is the prospective buyer coming from? If they are already from that region of the country, they probably don't have as much use for a lot of local information. If they are from a different part of the country and aren't quite as familiar with your region, the information is invaluable.

FWIW, our community pages are not only popular, but we also receive a lot of SE traffic directed at these pages.

[Las Vegas Homes]

Your site needs to be well rounded, and you need the proper anchor text within you site as well as links pointing to your site.

Las Vegas Homes - IMHO, whether people view your extra content depends on two things:

1. The type of content you are offering. If a real estate site offers the same old buyers tips and sellers tips, they will go largely unseen. Web surfers will rely more on nationally recognized authority sites for this type of information.

2. Where is the prospective buyer coming from? If they are already from that region of the country, they probably don't have as much use for a lot of local information. If they are from a different part of the country and aren't quite as familiar with your region, the information is invaluable.

FWIW, our community pages are not only popular, but we also receive a lot of SE traffic directed at these pages.

I agree however, most consumers just want to see homes and pictures of the city. These are just a couple of factors that drive the senses in ones mind to consider that city of interest to them. There are other factors as we know, job market, schools, cost of living, home prices and several others.

There are those that I do agree with you that want to find all this type of information out and they will spend hours on a good website reading this information, but I would say IMHO 95% do not nor care to.

Content is king and you can never have to much, plus this also allows you to target more keywords and therefore produce more real estate prospects. Plus not to mention you become known as an expert in your field.

[LPass]

New to this forum, thanks for the invite VegasMac!

I would say that in 99.9% of the markets, "your city" + "real estate" is the most popular search term. Other popular. common phrases are:

your city + state abbreviation + real estate
your city + full state name + real estate
your city + mls
your city + homes
your city + realtor
your city + real estate agent

Mind you I only work with one real estate site, but I don't find realtor and real estate agent terms to be very hot.

In my experience, the general searcher is not looking for a person (realtor, agent), they are looking for what they want to buy, (real estate, property, lots, homes, houses).

These are the most searched on terms I see, and the ones that bring the highest conversion:
our city + real estate
our city + homes
our city + property
our city + lots

with each of these searches I find a various number of
additions such as
+ full state name
+ abbreviated state name
+ for sale
+ listings

Before you do a great deal of optimizing for a term, you really will benefit by doing your research to see what people are actually searching for =)

[San Diego Real Estate]

Great information guys thanks for sharing! I will keep all of this in mind and apply accordingly! ;)

[MaxSinclair]

HHI Golf guy, what do you put in your community pages? I went to your site but couldn't them.

[HHI Golf Guy]

HHI Golf guy, what do you put in your community pages? I went to your site but couldn't them.

????? On the Hilton Head Area Luxury Homes (http://www.hiltonheadarealuxuryhomes.com) and the Hilton Head FSBO (http://www.hiltonheadfsbo.net) each of the main menus has a link to the communities - it even says "communities" :)

Seriously, do the menus not stand out enough? They are directly below the main images.

You can see what information I put on each page.

[MaxSinclair]

I found it. Somehow my eyes were drawn towards the content right away and missed the nav links altogether.

BTW, you mentioned about converting traffic into leads / clients. What kind of strategies do you use? Do you mind sharing? Thanks.

Max

[MaxSinclair]

BTW, I really like your FSBO strategy. Brilliant!

Max

[Phoenix Realtor]

I have always included area content for my site. I even have info on a local thing called the Monsoon (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=176107). I have airport info (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=460599), arts and culture (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=460596), of course schools, but even sports (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=460609) teams and all.

My entire site is geared for Pheonix Real Estate overall, but each page does have it's own theme and I find the extra traffic does not hurt. I initially wanted a site that people would remember well after buying homes in Phoenix (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/ListNow/Default.aspx) from me. Some have even commented that they booked their airline tickets from my site and loved the convenience.

Content IS king. But you do need more off site factors to get 'er going.

Build fo rhte visitor and you can't go wrong! But I will add that city real estate is the best term to rank well for!!!

[Phoenix Realtor]

Oh yea, BTW... anyone in Phoenix Arizona or it's surrounding cities should know that I do have a lawyer on retainer and do prosecute content theives.

All web pirates will walk the plank! :eek:

Just thought I should remind any new webmasters out there who may read this thread! ;)

[HHI Golf Guy]

I found it. Somehow my eyes were drawn towards the content right away and missed the nav links altogether.

BTW, you mentioned about converting traffic into leads / clients. What kind of strategies do you use? Do you mind sharing? Thanks.

Max

Thanks for the feedback.

After 3 months, we're finally going to do something to actively market the FSBO site to attract sellers. We have a massive direct mail campaign going out, as well as print media advertising. In just a few months, we have over 200 home buyer prospects - even without great SERP's.

The reason we did not recruit sellers right away is because the site was brand new, and not driving any traffic. I'm all for making a buck, but in my opinion it would be ripping people off to charge for listings when there was very little web traffic.

As far as sharing conversion strategies, I'm sorry but there are some particulars that I am not willing to share at this time. I don't mean to be a pinhead, but one of my businesses is providing real estate web marketing services. It would be counter productive to my cash flow to divulge certain information.

[Phoenix Realtor]

Will be interesting to see how the direct mail campaign (and others) turns out for you. Keep us posted on the mailings.

Also, I don't blame you one bit for not sharing everything since it is how you put food on the table. Maybe you could throw him a bone though?


My post: My Monsoon section will be getting some updates again soon. Our Monsoon will be starting at the end of June or early July. Then I will begin posting more photos there. What did you guys think of the content there so far?

[HHI Golf Guy]

Will be interesting to see how the direct mail campaign (and others) turns out for you. Keep us posted on the mailings.

My post: My Monsoon section will be getting some updates again soon. Our Monsoon will be starting at the end of June or early July. Then I will begin posting more photos there. What did you guys think of the content there so far?

The direct mail piece that is going out is pure target marketing based upon our demographic. In all my years of running hotels, marketing, and consulting I have never done any marketing that was not highly focused. I am confident that we will meet our ROI goals.

As for your site, I think that the monsoon content is a neat idea, especially when your site has all of that canned AA material on it. I am extremely biased against AA sites. Why? They do absolutely nothing to help create a brand identity for agents - that's one of the first steps to developing relationships and turning web surfers into prospects, customers, and clients.

AA also hinders sites by using frames. This is evident on your monsoon pages.

Personally, what I would do with the monsoon section is work more of your great photos into your actual content on monsoons, instead of a separate page with pictures. You can stagger the pictures throughout the right and left sides of your paragraphs. Better yet, use CSS to create boxed areas that unclude the picture and the caption underneath. Users could still click on the picture or hyperlink to see the full photo.

When you have a bunch of great pictures, use them to turn your web site into a great piece of online art and not just a typical web site. The key to this is finding just the right picture - I struggle with this all of the time.

I literally take hundreds of photos to find just one picture that I like and can use for a web site or print media. (I just took some great black and white photos of beach driftwood that I matted and framed for our new house!).

Looking at your pictures I can envision a few great CSS designs for a Phoenix web site :)

[MaxSinclair]

Phoenix,

I'm too much of a newbie to comment like Golf Guy can as far as technical strategy is concerned. But I find your site interesting and easy to navigate. Information offered is also valuable to people who are new to your area. Well done!!

[Phoenix Realtor]

Thank you Max!

[Phoenix Realtor]

HHI Golf Guy,

WOW, that's a mouthful. Thank you for taking a minute to analyze and psot your thoughts on my real estate website.

First off, AA: I initially went with Advanced Access because of all the "canned" content they offered. A big site, with many pages from day one! I really liked the idea. As I've matured, the only thing keeping me at AA is Kristina and the rest of her staff. They rule! And you can't knock the where I stand in the SERP's on all SE's! As for the canned pages, they have a "no follow" atribute so we don't all get spanked with a nasty dup content penalty.

Frames: Not sure why you said the frames hinderance is evident on my Monsoon pages. Maybe because the lightning photo (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=761496&NF=1), rainbow photo (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=176114&NF=1) and other Monsoon weather pictures (http://www.phoenixhomes.com/PageManager/Default.aspx/PageID=176135) I have opening in a non-framed new window? No worries though, AA is working on a total re-wrtie that will solve the frames issues and allow ur to name our interior URL's which will really help in the SERP's since right now I only have about 10-15 of my interiors that place well in the SERP's out of 500+ pages on that site.

A big issue with AA sites is that the interior URL's have no less than three variations all going to the same page, and you can really screw things up by adding a thrid level domain and making more URL's for the same page (IE http:// Carefree.PhoenixHomes dot com). So they are doing the total re-write to allow for only one URL per page. Boy oh boy will that be nice!

"Personally, what I would do with the monsoon section is work more of your great photos into..."
This is a great idea. Thank you. I am going to ponder it for awhile and see.

I also struggle with which photos to use and where. I take them constantly, I have tons of pictures of Carefree and Cave Creek, even more of Paradise Valley because I have to use just the right shot so no one gets mad at me singeling out their home and using that picture, etc. Even when it comes to lightning, which I am still learning to shoot, I am never sure which ones to use becasue I capture many when I am shooting. I usually shoot over 100 pictures when trying to capture lightning.

Ahhh CSS: my favorite new past time. I am playing with some ideas, and have a friend toying around to. He just sent me another quick draft of ideas in CSS. This one uses no tables and no frames, of course all CSS uses much less code so it is light and airy... see here: http://www.ibsteam.net /temp/css/csslayout.htm Just take the space out, I do not want that version getting spidered, but might as well give my buddy a BL, right?

Thanks for your insight and input HHI Guy! I'll post more when I get closer to finalizing some ideas for dropping the frames on my site and using strickly CSS.

Did you notice that I do indeed have CSS on every page of my site? I love that stuff. I was the first to use it on an AA site, besides my buddy at IBSTeam.net, he manages an AA site for someone else so he used it there before me.

Got to go now and sell some homes to put some food on the table, take care.

[HHI Golf Guy]

As I've matured, the only thing keeping me at AA is Kristina and the rest of her staff. They rule! And you can't knock the where I stand in the SERP's on all SE's!

I always stick with and promote companies that continually provide great service. Recently, I promoted a local Men's store on one of my real estate blogs because they are just that good at what they do!

Frames: Not sure why you said the frames hinderance is evident on my Monsoon pages.

Most SE's now follow frames using proper HTML with no problem. Personally, I never take that chance (same with javascript links). Plus, to me, frames seem unprofessional and old fashioned.

Ahhh CSS: my favorite new past time.

Have you ever checked out some of the work at CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com)? On the surface, the photography and artwork on some of these designs really make the designs pop. Notice how they find a great picture, then incorporate those colors into the overall theme of the site.

What gets interesting is when you study some of the CSS techniques used on these sites. It makes for great reference material.

[lovethecoast]

What? Noone targets City + Realty? Or City + Reality? (I know it's misspelled, but it's a common search term)

WordTracker and Overture both report significant search results for these terms -- in some cities, more than the term "Real Estate"

We have a major competitor in one of our markets that has City Realty. We already have #1 results for City Real Estate and now we're close to overtaking the competitor for their own company name. (This market has more searches on "Realty" than "Real Estate")

[HHI Golf Guy]

What? Noone targets City + Realty? Or City + Reality? (I know it's misspelled, but it's a common search term)

It all depends upon your market. Some phrases that we think might be good fetch very little results. Overture and WordTracker are a good place to review popular phrases. One caveat - when you study popular search phrases study the data over a longer period of time than the 1 month data sets that you usually see with these services. Don't be thrown off by some nut that checks his rankings 5 times a day throughout the course of the month.

[lovethecoast]

It all depends upon your market. Some phrases that we think might be good fetch very little results. Overture and WordTracker are a good place to review popular phrases. One caveat - when you study popular search phrases study the data over a longer period of time than the 1 month data sets that you usually see with these services. Don't be thrown off by some nut that checks his rankings 5 times a day throughout the course of the month.

I know I'm new here, but I promise anything I post has been carefully researched for months or years on end.

If you're not targeting "realty" and "reality" you're shooting yourself in the foot.

S

[HHI Golf Guy]

I know I'm new here, but I promise anything I post has been carefully researched for months or years on end.

If you're not targeting "realty" and "reality" you're shooting yourself in the foot.

S

I would never intentionally mispell anything on a web site, especially for a client in a high end market where educated people are spending millions of dollars on a home purchase. Your web site is a reflection of you, and you only get once chance to make a first impression.

[Phoenix Realtor]

You know, I never thought of the word realty. But, since my company name is Realty Executives I guess I'll get by.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-47,GGLD:en&q=phoenix+realty

Placing at #4 with absolutely no effort. Love it.

[Phoenix Realtor]

Have you ever checked out some of the work at CSS Zen Garden? On the surface, the photography and artwork on some of these designs really make the designs pop. Notice how they find a great picture, then incorporate those colors into the overall theme of the site.

What gets interesting is when you study some of the CSS techniques used on these sites. It makes for great reference material.

Thank you, thank you and thank you. That is a cool resource. I bookmarked it and emailed it to my buddy (before posting this) who is learning it with me, though he is way ahead since I am a realtor and he is a webmaster.

I've seen you at other forums before. I am beginning to remember you now by the quality of your posts, I just can't remember where I know you from???

[HHI Golf Guy]

I've seen you at other forums before. I am beginning to remember you now by the quality of your posts, I just can't remember where I know you from???

Thanks for the compliment.

Let's see - I spent a number of years working all over the U.S. as a General Manager for Marriott Hotels (A few cities in SC, and also in Maine, Louisiana, Colorado, Wyoming (with Holiday Inn), Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts), so you may know me from that industry . I played college hockey for a top ranked Division II team back in the mid 80's. I grew up in Connecticut before that.

[Phoenix Realtor]

Thanks for the compliment.


You are welcome!

I'll figure it out soon enough.

[lovethecoast]

I would never intentionally mispell anything on a web site, especially for a client in a high end market where educated people are spending millions of dollars on a home purchase. Your web site is a reflection of you, and you only get once chance to make a first impression.

Technically, in the eyes of a dictionary (and Google), it is *not* a misspelling.

Many, many people type it though, as evidenced by doing a search on Google for "san diego reality" or "houston reality." Furthermore, if you listen to people, you'll notice a lot of them say "reality" instead of "realty."

And before you say those are ads in quotes that appear on anything, try the city searches and you'll see these are ads targeting that specific keyword.

Even millionaires misspell -- if you're not there for them, your competition will be.

S

[HHI Golf Guy]

Ok - so it is a word, although not the one intended. Ignorance is bliss, eh?

[frobn]

Technically, in the eyes of a dictionary (and Google), it is *not* a misspelling.

Many, many people type it though, as evidenced by doing a search on Google for "san diego reality" or "houston reality." Furthermore, if you listen to people, you'll notice a lot of them say "reality" instead of "realty."

And before you say those are ads in quotes that appear on anything, try the city searches and you'll see these are ads targeting that specific keyword.

Even millionaires misspell -- if you're not there for them, your competition will be.

S


Use a little imagination. Create a page "Common real estate typos and mispelled terms" the description with mispelled words, and then a content describing the mispelled words. I sure with a little creativity the page can be SE optimized.

[MaxSinclair]

good idea, frobn.

[Phoenix Realtor]

Max!!!

I see you changed your Web site recently. I really like all the colors! Nice and bright, some will disagree, but I like it!

[MaxSinclair]

Hey Matt, thanks!!! That was nice to hear. I just launched it a couple of days ago and still working on it. It'll probably take me another couple of weeks before it's finally done.

[San Diego Real Estate]

Max...Nice look...I like the bright colors! ;)

[Phoenix Realtor]

Fang Shoe-eee all the way.

Kidding.

I have read about Feng-Shui and find it very, very interesting. Especially since I am drawn to water, and I decorated my home with chocolate travertine (very dark stone), medium colored walls and light colored ceilings. Going for that earth feel. All, well before I read up on Feng Shui which seems to promote peaceful living in harmony with natures elements.

[MaxSinclair]

Thanks, SD.

Phoenix, I didn't use to believe in Feng Shui. Thought it was a load of xxxx. I used to own a restaurant chain and one of the outlets weren't doing well. A friend of mine knows about FEng Shui and he asked me to change a few things. At that point, what had I got to lose, I figured? So I did it. Within days, business started to pick up mysteriously. I didn't believe in magic. So I started to study it trying to understand why. The more I got into it, the more I realized that it was a science. Just not the kind of science that we're used to. Pretty cool! :)

[Phoenix Realtor]

It's funny how many things we find out we don't know once we begin to open our minds and learn. :cool: