news & tips — posted April 26, 2005

Be wary of "guaranteed" search engine placements

"We guarantee No. 1 placement on search engines — or your money back!"

That may sound like music to your ears but in reality, website hosting companies who make this claim are selling you an empty promise.  The truth is that there's no way for a website company to guarantee a No. 1 placement on a search engine. What can be guaranteed are the company's best efforts to get you to the top, but the results can't be guaranteed.  Why?  Search engines and their indexes are proprietary and no one other than the search engine has control over them.  Plus, most search engines' algorithms are closely-guarded trade secrets that tend to change often just so other companies can't figure them out.

So how do these guarantees work if the company has no control over the search engine?  Many search engine optimization (SEO) experts will say that these types of companies guarantee a No.1 position for a keyword on search engines by purchasing the No.1 keyword on a paid search service like Overture.  However, the website's rank would drop as soon as the customer stopped paying for that keyword.  And because the company never indicated how long the customer's site would be ranked No. 1 — the terms of the guarantee were fulfilled.

Of course, you can be guaranteed a top spot on a search engine by using a pay per click service where you pay for each visitor the service sends to your site.  However, these services can become quite costly and you can pay anywhere from $50 to $100,000 for specific search terms that will get you a top spot. But if a competitor outbids you for a keyword, you'll likely have to pay more to regain it — not always a feasible expense for an independent agent.  Further, your site will likely be featured in a "sponsored links" section, not in the general or "organic" results.

On top of promising you something they can't really deliver, these companies distract you from the things you really can do to improve your site's search engine results.  One of the most surefire ways to rank high — without digging into your wallet — is to increase your site's "link popularity" by acquiring quality, relevant links that point to your website (For tips on how to do this, see the April 13 Agent e-newsletter here).  Most search engines, like Google, interpret a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.  But, Google also analyzes the quality of the page that casts the vote.  As Google puts it: "Votes cast by pages that are themselves ‘important' weigh more heavily and help to make other pages ‘important.'"

To learn even more ways to drive traffic to your XSite, attend one of our Web Marketing Strategies Seminars for agents at our new Orlando training center.  The seminar teaches you what search engines look for on your site and how to build content that will improve your rankings.  Plus, you'll learn valuable techniques for turning site visitors into qualified leads — which is what you're really after!

The next Web Marketing Strategies Seminar will be held May 11 from 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Subsequent seminars will be held May 25, June 15 and June 29.  For more information and to register online click here.

XSellerate provides more ways for you to communicate with clients

Over the past few months, we've been hard at work adding new campaigns to the XSellerate marketing campaign library to provide you even more ways to communicate with new prospects and past clients, buyers or sellers.

The newest features to XSellerate are fully customizable newsletters for you to send to your contact list.  Newsletters allow you to reinforce your rapport with existing clients, at the same time as establishing you an expert in the eyes of prospects.  The information you provide can stimulate your prospects to take action and contact you for their real estate needs.  And by sending your customers useful news and information, you're also using one of the most effective marketing tactics in the business — providing a free gift!

We've provided the templates for you, but you can name your newsletter, edit the existing text, input your picture and contact information and customize it however you like.  You don't have to worry about writing articles, either.  Each month, we'll automatically upload new timely stories and tips to your newsletter templates.  Of course, if you'd like to write your own news, there's room to add them or replace all of our stories — it's up to you!

Along with the newsletters, we added more than 60 new campaigns to XSellerate.  That includes a selection of sympathy and get well messages to give your clients the personal touch and  spring and summer-themed messages to target buyers and sellers during the busiest time of the year for the real estate business.  We also added campaigns that prompt recipients to visit your XSite or serve as value-added service messages.  For example, the "Best Places" campaign urges buyers to check out the website www.bestplaces.net, which provides tools for buyers to compare schools, cities, crime rates, climate and even differences in cost of living between communities, giving them a "big picture" overview.

To check out the new campaigns, just log into XSellerate and view them in your e-mail and print libraries.

We're constantly adding new features and campaigns to your XSellerate marketing solution (at no charge), which we hope translates into more leads for you.  If you ever have a suggestion or a question about XSellerate, feel free to e-mail us at info@alamode.com.

Don't have XSellerate yet?  Buy it for just $199 (retail $499) now through April 29!  Click here for more information or call
1-800-ALAMODE today!