Shawn Parsons - Internet Marketing and Web Design (Other Side Marketing)

Introduction / The Question:

In a recent blog post of mine, 2009 SEO and Web Design Tips - Introduction, the following question was asked by Pensacola Real Estate - Team Sandy Blanton Realty, Inc.:

If you were to suggest a link building service, who would you use? I'm all about improving our rank on Google but I don't want to do so with the risk of being frowned upon and actually creating a negative result. Is it best to avoid these all together?

Answer:

If you are asking the same questions, you are on the right track. It is good to be weary of link-building and "SEO" professional. I will most likely be posting a new blog entry to answer these questions in-depth but I won't keep you waiting on the main points.

All-in-all I would encourage you to learn how to link-build in an SEO/Google friendly way on your own. Submitting to relevant and reliable directories is the best way to do this. However, there are some SEO/Link-building companies out there that know how to do this the right way and not anger Google. One of them would be http://www.submitedge.com/; they focus on directories that are relevant to you. Another is http://www.linkassure.com/. Make sure you don't go with a company that will submit you to directories, or otherwise linkbuild, from websites that don't match your industry or purpose.

For instance: a link from a UT Football sports fan website that has a high degree of traffic would not help you nearly as much as a link from realtor.com directory. Additionally, multiple links from unrelated sites will be looked at as "link farming" and will make you drop in rankings.

There are also companies out there that specifically target your competitors by building poor links to them in massive quantities so that they will be penalized and drop in the rankings. It's good to keep SEO professionals on your side 8-).

A Web Design Company - Where the grass is always greener.

Sometimes agents can get confused with all of the different options out there…

Do I get a template site from iHouse, or is Agent Image better?

Do template sites rank lower in search engines?

Is it worth it for me to invest in a custom designed site?

Let me take a second to clear up some of the gossip about template websites, and at the same time shed some light on the “essentials” that every template website needs to have.

The Good:

Cost~

Hands down template websites are the cheapest option out there. They range from $0 to $250/month and you can cease use at any time. The cost of a template website generally will include some kind of hosting service and even domain registration.

Build Time~

A template website can be live within hours of purchase. With most custom designed websites the process can take anywhere from 1 month to 4 months depending on the complexity of the website.

After all who wants to wait for a website when they can have one up NOW.

Editable~

Most template sites come with a content management system (CMS). Essentially this allows the user to login to the website and quickly make changes to content.

Custom designed websites will charge more for this functionality; however it is also more custom tailored to fit your individual needs, making it harder to accidentally change something you don’t want to.

Tools~

Many good template sites have deals with certain software creators and IDX companies that can help you. These relationships result in functionality embedded within your template site that some custom designers don’t know anything about. (IE: MLS listings automatically updated on your page).

The Bad:

Ownership~

Stop paying the template site company for a month and see what happens. Chances are your website will vanish until you pony up the dough. This is because you don’t own that website, and you don’t have any rights to the server space that it is occupying.

Don’t kid yourself. Even if you own the domain (http://www.thedomainishere.com) you still don’t own the content that is currently occupying that space. Think of it like owning the land while renting the house that sits on it. Sound like a messed up relationship? It is. But ownership isn’t right for everyone.

Sloppy Coding~

The average template site provider out there couldn’t tell you what “cascading style sheets” and “clean semantic markup” mean. Many of them do not wish to “update” their template’s code because it would cost money. So it becomes more and more outdated as the years go buy.

Once it starts to look old, template companies will sometimes reskin the website. They do this by keeping the same basic code and updating old images so that it has a fresh look.

Pop the hood and you see the same old mess that was always there.

Here is a list of things to make sure that your template site has:

Table-less HTML coding that complies with W3C standards.

All styles and positioning to be done in an external cascading style sheet (CSS).

All Javascripting needs to be in an external file.

A robots.txt file (very important to have, generally found at http://www.yoursitehere.com/robots.txt.

A .htaccess file.

A sitemap.xml or sitemap.html document; generally found at http://www.yoursitehere.com/sitemap.html.

Ability to update meta title, description, keywords, and content tags.

User friendly URLs!!! (This is essential to good SEO and client navigation)

User Friendly: http://www.yoursitehere.com/search-for-homes.html

Versus: http://www.yoursitehere.com/search.html?LinkID=1451&title=Our%20Listings

If your template site is lacking any of these main components you could suffer severely in search engine rankings or even client usability. In some cases Google can’t crawl your site easily while in other situations your clients are stuck with long load times.

Additionally some template sites do not look the same across multiple browsers. Sections of the website could be shifted or broken on Safari while on Internet Explorer it looks good.

Uniqueness~

How important are first impressions? Think… meeting the girlfriend’s parents for the first time… or even some of those interesting first dates you have been on. First impressions are everything.

Your website is the first impression that many potential buyers and sellers will have of you. So shouldn’t the face that represents you on the web be as unique as you are?

If you have a template website you are risking not standing out from the crowd. By definition the website is a “template.” Hundreds, if not thousands, of real estate agents out there would have the same exact website as you.

Which leads me to the final two points…

The Ugly:

Uniqueness of Content~

While the main design also is identical to other real estate agents websites… most template providers have templates that come prefilled with pages of information that is useful to potential buyers and sellers.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Why generate all that content yourself when it is provided there for you. Let me enlighten you. Google does not like duplicate content. They like original, helpful, and consistently updated content. This is under “The Ugly” section because it can be EXTREMELY hurtful to your page rankings in the major search engines.

Let’s look at it from Google/Yahoo’s perspective. It sees 200-7000 sites out there that not only revolve around real estate… but also have the same coding layout of pages, and the same content on those pages. You think you will see page one results with that? Doubt it.

Lumped In, Kicked Out~

Sometimes template sites do things that put them on Google/Yahoo’s bad list. You better believe that your website loses a gold star when it is connected with the provider. Additionally, sometimes just being a template site can hurt your rankings if it is evident to the search engine. Google and Yahoo haven’t seemed to have cast their final vote quite yet on where template sites stand in the pecking order.

Recently Advanced Access, among others, has become a target of Google’s and some are finding their website drop dramatically in the rankings.

In Summation:

Templates~

Templates are a godsend for new agents trying to get their feet wet. They are cheap, go up fast, and provide an excellent base to build on.

Additionally, if you do your research and sign on with a good template company that knows SEO well, and follows the latest coding standards, you could end up ranking quite high on some of the major search engines.

***Note: Even the best template companies will come with prefilled information and pre-made pages. Delete the content and start from scratch! If you are going to go with a template site, the least you can do is try and make your content unique. Otherwise it will be even more of an uphill battle when you are trying to get ranked by search engines.

If you are a more experienced agent and are ready to make this your professional career… you might consider researching a custom web design solution.

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Upcoming Blog Post Preview~

I have tried to provide a fair, balanced, and truthful view of template companies in the above blog post. But in the name of full disclosure I should make it known that I own a custom web design company that specializes in the real estate industry. Below is a preview of my next blog post.

On average custom web designs require an investment initially, without any monthly payments down the road. 50% of that is paid up front and 50% of that is paid upon completion. After that it is yours forever.

The design is 100% unique and made from scratch with search engine optimization and user experience in mind. This allows not only for increased visibility in search engines… but when you are found it allows you to really show your clients what you are about. Here are examples of two of our clients that have a lot of personality in their websites.

Trident Realty Group – A Southwest Austin Real Estate Company

Austin Music Realty – A Creative Agent, For Creative People

All content is created with keywords and industry knowledge that is helpful to your customers.

Unique integration options like MLS search, Blog integration, and content management systems are available.

Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog post for a comprehensive breakdown of what a good “custom web design company” should offer its clients.

For my debut post I would like to present a brief summary of search engine optimization industry practices and standards. These are the things we focus on specifically when creating an agent website from scratch. If you enjoy this information please keep an eye out for later posts as we tackle each individual topic in-depth. If there is something you want to know more about specifically, send me a email request or post a comment with your question. I will do my best to answer.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

Flash Intro~

This is a no-no in the realm of SEO. Let’s face it… flash looks pretty, it is engaging, and it shows professionalism. That can’t be ignored. But because Google/Yahoo/MSN cannot read the code of a Flash movie there is effectively no content on that page, which is the index page. The index page is the first page that Google will “crawl” looking for content. There are also no links on that page to the main content areas of your site. If you MUST go with a flash intro then you should have a bottom navigation bar that has links to other content rich areas of your website.

You can see that we have integrated flash movies on some of our sites. We do this in a way that preserves content and still maintains a high degree of search engine accessibility.

http://www.ausitnmusicrealty.com http://www.tridentrealtygroup.com

Flash Navigation Bars~

As mentioned before, Google and other search engines can’t read flash code. What this means is that Google can’t follow those links to see the other pages of your site. Google can only read HTML/CSS coding, so wherever flash is used it would appear like a big blank to Google. Alternatively, some of your customers will not have flash enabled on their machines. This results in them not being able to navigate your website. These reasons are why we recommend keeping all navigation links coded purely in HTML/CSS.

Meta Keywords, Description, and Title~

These meta fields are a great place to stash keywords that you are focusing on. They should be UNIQUE on a page by page basis. Additionally they should also relate to each other. For instance, the keywords should be part of the description and the title.

Content~

Your content needs to be abundant and unique. We help you write content for your site and at the very least help to enrich it with keywords. This is the meat of your site. It is the reason why people are there. There should be a great deal of effort in generating a lot of content for your site, and this should generally happen before the site ever goes live.

Sitemap~

We create a sitemap page that does not only have links to all the pages on your site, but also is enriched with keywords that can give you a boost with search engines. Not to mention will help you with internal link building.

Link Building~

This is the number one way to help raise your Google ranking. You need to build relationships with outside partners that will link to you using keywords that your provide. For example, if I wanted to rank higher in “Bryan College Station Web Design” I would ask my link partner to link to me like so: “Other Side Marketing: a Bryan College Station Web Design Company”

However, even if you don’t have specific links that target keywords coming in… the sheer amount of links going to your site from “related and professional” sites will increase your rank in Google.

There are professional link building services that can help on this aspect of campaigning. However, it should be noted that these services can sometimes be considered “black hat” SEO and are frowned upon by Google. Here is a link to one that is well used. http://www.linkbuilderspro.com/.

Social Networking~

Create profiles on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, ActiveRain, LinkedIn, etc… And link back to your main website. This will help you build link popularity and help you advertise for your website to various groups.

Blogging~

Welcome to the modern age. Blogging is the latest trend in SEO practices. It provides an excellent way to actively update your content to keep it fresh and interesting. Your blog posts should be full of keywords that you are targeting and relevant information to you customers.

Pay-Per-Click Campaigns~

Basically a PPC campaign is a great way to jump start traffic on your site. You are guaranteed page one and do not get charged until someone clicks on the link to your site. You start out by setting your PPC budget and seeing what kind of competition there is in the area. You then target keywords with your PPC campaign and donate the budget to those keywords. Generally speaking it costs 87 cents to $1.50 per click. So if you have a $300 budget, you will at least get 200 people accessing your site from that ad campaign.