It’s no wonder more and more agents are turning to the web to generate qualified leads. Because of the current market slump agents are spending less money on newspaper classified ads. Agents and brokers are now realizing that their ad dollars pay off more when they invest in their own websites. Investing in their own websites they own and control makes more sense.

If you plan on being in business in the next 5 – 10 years now is the time to get a website.

It’s getting harder and harder to obtain top rankings on search engines like Google. Being on the first page of any search engine when someone searches for keywords related to your business is not a random occurrence. Google and the other major search engines like Yahoo and MSN have complicated algorithms that determine who is on that first page when you search. Do you want to know what one of the factors they use to determine who should rank where?

It’s how old a website is.

That means sites that have been online longer take precedence over newer sites. It’s a fact. That means if you are not already online you are losing precious leads to those who are. A websites age is only one of a hundred or more factors that play a role in where a website ranks however. It takes more than just being online or having an older website then your competitors.

Just having a website is no longer enough.

Many businesses offering website design to agents are offering inferior, quick DIY websites that are built from templates. So your website looks like a lot of other agents websites and are built around outdated technology that makes your website immediately less favorably to the major search engines. There are several reasons for this.

They simply can’t see your content.

Online content is king and many DIY sites and even expensive website designs are designed using a technology called “Frames” which means your content is separated from the main site which makes your content basically invisible to search engines. See my post Real Estate Websites with No Frames for more info. Your content, the text on your website is a huge factor in how search engines know what your website is even about.

It’s better to be unique.

A majority of real estate website design agencies offer cheap alternatives so you can start building your website immediately online. They offer template based designs that even though might look enticing have a negative drawback – they are cookie cutter designs. The search engines can tell who is unique by what is commonly referred to as a “foot print” which a site leaves. Websites based on templates have a foot print you don’t want to have. Unique is better if you ever want to rank for your keywords and generate leads.

You have less control over your website.

When you choose a company who offers inexpensive website alternatives you are giving up your freedom to control many things you should have control over. Sure, you might be able to update colors, text and even images but there are a lot of things that you cannot control that are important to your websites rankings. Things like Meta tags, page titles, site structure and more. All which play a big role in where your website ranks in search engines.

This is where I can help you.

I can design your website so that it is unique, fully editable and found by search engines – a site that will continue to bring you qualified leads for years to come.

When you have me design your website you will receive the highest quality design — one that meets current web standards and is completely accessible by searchers searching Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Even though your website will be editable we offer complete maintenance programs to boot, just in case your not comfortable editing your own site.

And I don’t stop there.

I offer complete search engine placement services so that you rank for the keywords you need to be found under. After your website is designed I put into effect techniques for gaining top positions for your website.

This includes content creation, link building, article marketing, press release writing and more. It is a complicated process which I have mastered over the last 5 years.

See for yourself. You can check the rankings of www.bleschandassociates.com on Google right now. Just search for Redlands Real Estate, Yucaipa Real Estate or even San Bernardino Real Estate.

If you would like these types of positions – ones that will bring you qualified leads 24 hours a day please contact me.

If you’d like to view more real estate site I’ve designed please check out my web design portfolio.

It seems like a common occurrence that realty websites are built using frames. I see it all the time and I still see real estate website design agencies designing or offering websites that still use frames. Frames are outdated, hide your content from search engines and are just plain wrong to use.

Most agents, like most business owners don’t have time to figure it out or have time to edit their websites so they go out and find the first web design company to build their site. Well let me tell you that that is a big mistake. If you ever want to rank for your real estate keywords then you need to get a website that doesn’t use frames.

Framing your content is like putting all your valuable information in a vault that no one can get to. Sure your visitors can see it but search engines can’t. It’s hard to explain in words why search engines can’t see your content and I’m not going to describe it in words. I might make a video later if you still don’t understand why frames hurt your website in search engines. Then I can atleast show you why it’s bad to have your website designed in such a manner.

If you are serious about your business you should go with a completely custom design. One that doesn’t use frames, is designed using CSS and is XHTML valid. I can’t express how important that is to where you rank in the search engines.

If you ever expect to receive qualified real estate leads from your website you need to make sure that it is optimized for search engines. That is unless you want to spend a fortune on pay per click services like adwords. Do yourself a favor,, have your website designed right and spend that pay per click money on content and a bit of good SEO. Your business will thank you for it!

If you are in need of custom, search engine friendly real estate website design then you can click that link and then contact me. I can design and optimize your website and help you achieve top rankings.

An example of what the keyword list looks like:

real estate 2,125,503
new york ny real estate 435,049
lowell ma real estate 313,162
atlanta georgia real estate 298,286
charlotte north carolina real estate 279,785
real estate agent 265,103
travel real estate career 225,284
real estate appraisal 210,891
las vegas nevada real estate 180,366
miami beach fl real estate 176,985
orlando real estate 154,440
raleigh north carolina real estate 128,526
san antonio texas real estate 108,398
houston texas real estate 106,549
virginia beach va real estate 99,837
real estate pittsburgh pa 99,538
san diego ca real estate 94,734
austin texas real estate 94,698
real estate brooklyn ny 87,132
chicago il real estate 81,639
bronx ny real estate 79,346
century 21 real estate 78,422
florida real estate 74,026
myrtle beach south carolina real estate 73,404

How many real estate sites are competing for each keyword?

When you conduct searches you want to keep track of how many websites show up under each keyword by noting the info in an excel spreadsheet. You could also write it down on paper too if you want. Examples shown below. Notice the difference in numbers between Google and Yahoo.

The number of results are how many sites you will be competing with to get to the top position. In reality though you will only be competing with the top three sites listed because it is your goal to be in the top three.

Once you’ve completed the first search start looking closer at each of the sites. You will first see site titles which usually contain the keyword you searched for. You will also notice the description under the title of the site. Make note of this as the title and description plays a role in why these sites are listed first.

Ok, so you are now studying the #1 listing. To get a quick overview of what’s going on behind the scenes you will need the Google toolbar installed on your browser. It makes things a bit easier when researching Google. Check the sites Pagerank. That’s that greenbar that is a rating from 0 – 10. Pagerank is Google’s way of rating sites. If you don’t want to install the Google toolbar you can check any sites backlinks by using this method in your search.

link:url or link:http://www.url.com/ – replace www.url.com with the domain you are researching.

How many links a site has plays a great part in determining how popular a site will be in the search engines. The higher quality of links you have the better. More is not necessarily better. It’s quality over quantity. I will go into that more later.

To beat out the #1 site you need more high quality links and you need to optimize your sites on-page factors which will also be covered later.

You should have a good idea of the keywords that people use to search out real estate when doing research. The major keywords come to mind such as real estate, realtor, realty, home, homes, MLS, MLS search, housing, house, property etc. Keep in mind there are a lot of smaller keywords that you can optimize your site for that when added with major keywords can bring you even more targeted traffic. You will be using variations of each keyword with different keyword combinations such as, California homes, CA. MLS, Southern California properties.

Do some initial keyword research to find variations of keywords. Overture and Google’s keyword tools are the most popular. Overture’s keyword tool will also give you an idea of how many searches were done in the prior months so you can see how popular the keywords are. Wordtracker is a paid tool you can use that gives you some more features that are usefull.

Doing the initial real estate keyword research and finding your competitors is absolutely necessary to a successful real estate SEO campaign. Once you gather that data it is time to figure out your plan of attack.

If you are an agent and are looking to build a successful real estate website, looking to finally rank in the top ten for your major (and minor) keywords or need help marketing your current website please contact me. I have years of experience with design, SEO and online marketing and have helped dozens of businesses with their online marketing goals. Learn more about real estate web design.