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a la mode news & tips — posted May 25, 2005

Capturing quality leads with local search engine services

Lately, you may have heard a lot about web features like Yahoo! Local and Google Local that enable search engine users to find relevant local information with neighborhood business listings, maps, directions and web pages.  Why should you list your business on one (or both) of these sites?  You'll make it easy for qualified prospects to find your business, you have full control over your listing and, best of all, it’s free!

Both Google Local and the Yahoo! Local Listings program collect business information from their own indexes of websites, Yellow Pages directories, and other sources to populate search results. However, the best way to get an accurate listing is to submit your own listing to the directories.  You can sign your website up at Yahoo! Local here and for Google Local here.

It takes 3-5 business days for your listing to appear in Yahoo! Local.  After submitting your information to Google Local, you’ll receive a letter to your business address within two weeks containing a unique PIN number and activation instructions for your listing.  Your listing will then display on Google Local four to six weeks after it's submitted.

While both the Google and Yahoo! local tools allow you to edit your listing whenever you like, changes can sometimes take six weeks or more before they’re reflected in the search results. 

Need help setting up your business listing?  No problem.  We’ve created a tutorial for setting up your listing on Google Local and Yahoo! Local in our Web Marketing Strategies section of our website, which you can access here. If you have XSellerate, the tutorial is also located in the Marketing Aids section under Tools.

How to analyze your XSite traffic

You’ve chosen your themes, uploaded pictures and added content pages, calculators and videos.  But how do you know who's visiting your XSite?  That’s where your XSite’s Statistics come into play, which you can view by going to the My Office section of your XSite and clicking on "XSite Statistics."  It’s here you can find out how many visitors came to your site, where they’re coming from, what keywords they entered that brought them there, what pages they viewed, and much more.

Although all of this information is available at your fingertips, some of you may be confused by terms such as "visitors," "page views" and "entry pages" and what they tell you about your XSite visitors.  So let’s clarify things a bit.

Who's there?
A visitor to your XSite is just that — someone
who comes to any page on your XSite. When referring to the number of visitors your XSite has generated, you’re referring to the total number of people who access a website over a certain period of time.  A single person is counted as one visitor each time he/she visits your site.  So, if a person visits your site three times during a specified time, it counts as three visitors.

A unique visitor, on the other hand, is someone with a unique IP address (A number used to identify a computer connected to the Internet) entering your site for the first time during a specified period. Unique visitors are counted only once no matter how many times they visit your XSite.

You can check your unique visitors on your Statistics page by scrolling down to the "First Time Visitors" section.  You can also how many times a visitor returns to you site in the "Returning Visitors" section.  This is a good thing to check regularly since people that visit your site again and again are most likely to become new clients!

What do they want?
While it’s important to know how many people are visiting your site, you also want to know what tools and content they find most useful.  That’s why many XSite owners monitor the "Page Views" section of their Statistics, which tracks the number of times each page on your site has been visited.
Similarly, the "Listings" section of your Statistics page tracks the number of views each of your listings receive.

Many agents fine tune their most popular pages with the goal of turning those visitors into leads.  For example, if you find that the content page "9 Steps To Owning" has the most views of any other page on your site, you’ll want to make sure there’s a lead generation form on that site.  And if there’s a page on your site that you’d like more people to view, you can simply rearrange the pages on your homepage to make it more visible.

How'd they find you?
The entry pages in your Statistics indicate where visitors entered your site.  Due to search engines used and links on other websites, you’ll likely see that not all of your visitors arrive at your home page first.  If you find that many visitors are arriving on one page but you’d like to have them visit other pages, you may want to modify that popular landing page to include links to the page you’d really like them to visit.  

The "Referring URLs" section shows you other websites that are sending visitors to your XSite, such as Yahoo! Or Google.  And, if you’ve created linking partners with other Agent XSite owners or other websites, this is a good way to find out which of those sites are bringing you the most traffic.

"Common Search Terms" will tell you what keywords and phrases people use on major search engines to find your XSite.  The section also tracks the number of times the keyword or phrase was used over a specific period of time.  Because you can see exactly what keywords visitors typed in to get to your site, you can better target your marketing campaigns as well as any pay-per-click services you use.

Now what?
Analyzing your XSite’s statistics regularly
allows you better target your website and marketing efforts so you can achieve better ROI and, of course, turn more leads into clients!

 

Briefly Speaking


Quick Tips: Freshen your XSite for summer
People are more likely to return to your site if you offer them something new from time to time.  And with summer on the horizon, now’s a great time to update your XSite with new themes, content pages and tools. 
It only takes a few minutes and a few clicks in your Wizard to change around your XSite and there are never any extra charges for changes you make.

Updating your XSite will not only increase traffic, it can also help your search engine placement.  The more often you update your pages, the more often the search engines "crawl" your site.  If a search engine comes back after a month and nothing has changed, it may wait two months before returning.  Here are tips to freshen up your XSite for summer and keep visitors coming back:

Change your content pages. Since spring and summer are pinnacle months for the real estate business, many homeowners will be spending extra time sprucing up the exterior of their homes for potential buyers.  Try adding pages such as "Flowers Add Curb Appeal," "Should You Paint?" and "Curb Appeal Checklist" to your XSite to help out your clients trying to sell.

Add some summer to your content pages. Tweak your pre-built content pages to reflect the season by using phrases like "This summer I can help you find the home of your dreams" or "Let me help you sell your home this summer so you’re moved into your new home by fall."

Change out listing pictures. Do some of your listings have pictures of homes with bare trees and six inches of snow on the ground?  Now may be a good time to update those pictures to reflect the warmer weather, giving prospective buyers a fresh look.

Community events.  Add a custom page to your XSite detailing local summer events and festivals and other summer activities in your community. Include new home buyer seminars here as well.

News they can use.  Add the daily Inman real estate news feed to your XSite by checking the "News" content page and clicking on "dynamic content" under Other Content Options.

Be patriotic.  Switch your normal XSite theme for the "Patriotic" theme for Memorial, Flag and Independence Day.

While updating your XSite can attract new prospects, sending your clients regular marketing e-mail and print campaigns with XSellerate keeps you in front of them throughout the year and helps increase your profitability!  Don't have XSellerate yet? Get it here or call 1-800-ALAMODE!

Contact us


Questions or comments on the newsletter? E-mail the editor at Amanda@alamode.com.

For sales inquiries, contact sales@alamode.com or call
1-800-ALAMODE.

If you have an idea, tip or feedback on any of a la mode's products, we'd love to hear from you! Please e-mail us at info@alamode.com.

 
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