Christian Real Estate Blog

Is your Real Estate Site Generating Leads?

To read the full article, click Here: RIS Article

Commentary by Mike Parker
It’s no secret that as things get a little tighter and everyone is looking to maximize results from every tool in their arsenals that the first tool real estate professionals should consider is their Web site.

"I have a good one!" is the prevalent opinion (Before saying that you have a good one, please remember that over 80% of all Americans rate themselves as "above average" drivers. Just as 80% of drivers can't be "above average," neither can 80% of real estate Web sites!). Are you getting any sales from your Web site? You should be, for the Internet is where people look for homes. If you are not, there might be some simple things you can do to change the situation.

Unfortunately, it is often the case that although the site may look pretty (or not), from a performance standpoint, well, it's frequently a "handyman’s special." We know this because the first thing we look at when someone contacts us is their Web site and the home page and title tags on that Web site. You would be surprised to know that we have commonly found situations where the site builder FORGOT to finish the title tag, making the site impossible to be found by the search engines. What is a "title tag?" Well, go to any site. Hit "view" on your horizontal navigation bar, then scroll down to "page source." A window will open, showing you your title & meta tags, things you may not be familiar with or never thought it necessary to focus on.

You do need to focus on your title tag, however, for with a poor one, it is exponentially harder for you to be found when anyone goes looking for a neighborhood. Generally speaking, you don't want your tag too long or too short but you DO want it to tie in to key words on your homepage and to the towns you truly service. As an example of how simple this fix can be, a new customer had "Central Pennsylvania Homes for Sale" as his title tag with his business in Harrisburg.

posted by Justin Smith @ 6/22/2006 08:31:00 AM