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April 21, 2008

Why Search Terms Matter - Part 1

To succeed in online marketing as a real estate agent, you need to know the most
searched-for real estate terms. Understanding search is key to making it in
the online business of real estate.

Real estate has moved online. And the nice thing about the Internet is that
by its nature it is a pretty fair playing field. The real challenge, though
is getting found.

Here's how I can help you with that quest this week. I am going to devote a portion of this week's blog to understanding search. I will base each day's entry on
data I have received from research firm Hitwise on real estate search terms.

Why is search so important? Because nearly every potential buyer or seller
going to turn to a search engine at some point during their home search. And
if you know which words they are plugging into search engines to find homes,
you'll be better positioned. We'll get to what those words are in a minute,
but let me explain why they are so important.

A good web site is built on key words, typically three to five
words that form the foundation of your site's theme. By theme I
mean the words you want potential buyers and sellers to find you by, but
also the words you want Google to use when it ranks the sites in its
results.

The way you get found on search is by optimizing your site. The first thing
Google looks for is what's in your title bar. The title bar is the area on
the top of your browser that displays the keywords your website hopes to be
found by. On this blog you'll notice the key words are, "San Francisco Real
Estate Blog"

In all browsers the words should display on the very top of the browser. Go
ahead and check your own site and see what it says.

All week long I'll post the top 50 most searched for real estate terms,
revealing 10 new ones each day. Tomorrow, I'll start to explain how to use
these terms to your advantage.

Below are the 40-50 most search real estate terms in the past four weeks.
The information comes from online audience measurement firm Hitwise. A big
shout-out here to Bill Tancer from Hitwise, author of the forthcoming book
Click.

40. Weichert
41. Zip realty
42. Foreclosed homes
43. Prudential real estate
44. Realtors.com
45. Har.com
46. Long and foster
47. realtors
48. keller williams realty
49 homes.com
50. John I scott

One of the services my company Real Estate Convergence provides is in
helping realtors optimize their Web sites for better search.

Posted by Jeff Brooks on April 21, 2008 07:26 AM | Permalink

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