Search Engine Optimization is probably the most important aspect of producing your website!

We design our real estate and builder/construction websites to be "Search Engine Friendly"

Our web templates use layouts that offer multiple areas for Headlines and Content areas - you'll also find that the page designs contain many text-based linking options so the spiders have lots of ways to crawl to other content on your site. We even designed our drop-down menus on the newer designs to explode into links for the Search Engines - we keep the JavaScript in a separate file!

What IS Search Engine Optimization?

It's the process of giving the search engines what they want to see when they index your site, such as relevant content and keywords that will match what a user is looking for when they enter a search request.

How do Search Engines read the content on your website?

A Search Engine crawls your website and reads it just like you and I read a newspaper... The spiders come in and look for a "total page" that focuses on a key topic at the beginning, middle and end of the page. The algorithms look for Headlines (like we do when reading a newspaper, and they expect to find content that matches the headlines and page topic.

Keeping a good position in the Search Engines requires that you add new content on a regular basis - otherwise the "spiders" think your website has become another one of the millions that have been abandoned... The newsletters we provide in our template packages offer you a quick, easy way to offer fresh content to the hungry spiders AND interesting material for your users or members!

Meta Tags are an important part of your web pages!

Meta tags are invisible to your users - they reside in the source code of your page's HTML. There are many "experts" who say that the Meta Tags are no longer used by the Search Engines, but common sense dictates that you should include anything that helps your page become a part of the results when prospects search for services or products that your website offers.

ALL areas of your website need to include keywords and keyword phrases related to your business and target market!

Keywords are basically the search terms that users input to find your services or products... For example, "real estate" would be a logical keyword phrase and search term. But it doesn't define YOUR market enough for a user to find your website in the sea of a billion realtors and real estate sites!

YOUR keywords might be more like "real estate seattle", or, even better, include more specifics, such as "real estate university area seattle".

It's not wise to guess at which search terms you should use. There is a powerful tool that allows you to input any variations of keywords and keyword phrases and receive a statistical response that tells you which search terms are the best and most popular in your market... We urge you to get this tool - it will return your investment many times over - just click on the link below:

Word Tracker: Helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service - many of which you might never have considered.

The three elements/areas of a Meta Tag are:

Page Title

The page title is what's displayed at the top of your browser when you visit any particular web page. Search engines weigh the Title of your page quite heavily and you should always include your most important keyword phrase. Your company name or your domain name won't help your search engine rankings when a prospective buyer is searching for what you sell!

Keywords

The keyword tag contains a list of keywords and keyword phrases that are normally separated by commas. Use this area to enter the different variations of all your possible keyword phrases. Use the lowercase form of the words and separate each phrase with only a comma. Be sure to use this area to include locations, such as your county, city, etc., and of course you should include keyword phrases that relate to your target market.

Description

The description tag is the most important area - try looking at a page result when you do a search for something... In most cases, you'll find that the description matches that website's description tag! Your description tag should include some of your best keywords, and you should spend some time making sure that the final description is one that would attract YOU to the website...

Forget the cute phrases that work in brochures and advertisements. The Search Engines send out "spiders" that look for content that tells them what your website DOES. The only way the spiders can classify, category-index and rank your website is by finding the KEY WORDS and KEY WORD PHRASES about your products or services!

When a home buyer or home seller prospect searches the Internet, the words they are likely to enter are (for example) "real estate in Phoenix" or "homes for sale in Seattle", NOT "Million Dollar Sales Winner", so your first challenge is to establish which keyword phrases YOUR target market is likely to use.

If you sell ranches, try using keyword phrases such as "...ranches for sale in Bloomsdale County", or for luxury homes, "...see these beautiful luxury homes in Harrisburg" - these brief examples should give you the idea of the kinds of things you need to say.

Leave out the whiz-bangs and noises!

Flash or other "moving content" might be 'fun', but how many websites do YOU see in the Top Ten search engine results that have Flash?? Or, have you ever asked yourself why most of the web design sites that sell "Flash" templates don't actually use it themselves?