I use a real estate webmasters template site with some customizations and a custom IDX. If you are code savy it may be the company for you. Worth a look

I'm not an expert, but I read some place that the market leading search engine, "G" takes a dim view of pay per clicks.

I dunno...my competitors are doing well with ranking and they do a lot of ppc.

I am using Ubertor, they offer an SEO enhancement for $500 but I am hesitant to purchase it. Other than that I dont know how else to rank high in the Search Engines except to wait it out.

Ok I am really getting frustrated! Looking at my Google Analytics report this morning to see where an traffic might be coming from - it shows that my keyword hits were "Brazosport Movie times"!!!!

I am thinking of getting a Yahoo Site Builder website as they allow title and meta tags. Any ideas?

When you register your domain, there are usually a number of services available from the provider. I know 1and1.com as well as GoDaddy both offer these hosted website services and usually for less than $25 a month. They are easy to use and can make getting your site online much faster.

As far as the search engines go, there are many theories on ow the majors search engines rank you. To dispel one myth that was posted above by Greene "but I read some place that the market leading search engine, "G" takes a dim view of pay per clicks." - if this were true, their stock would not be over $300. They derive the major portion of their revenue from search. In fact having your Pay Per Click ad on the same page you score well on the organic side (the left side of the results) increases the likelihood of having your organic listing clicked on.

Here is a way to get your pages to rank better using information from Pay Per Click results.

1. Make sure that the Title, Description and Keywords of the page is descriptive of what you do and the content of that particular page. You NEED to use the most popular search terms you want to be listed for. If you do not know what the "hot" search terms are, use the tool Google gives for this located here:
The Google External Keyword Tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=2

(NOTE: you will also want to look at your website analytics to review which keywords people are finding you on and perform the same review as I will show you below on those keywords)

Enter in a keyword phrase (always use at least a 2 or 3 word phrase as that is how the average user searches), such as "buy homes orlando".

Then on the results page where it says "Choose columns to display:" select Display All.

Next, place an amount (try $1.00) in the box under the text: "Calculate estimates using a different maximum CPC bid:"

Then, go to the column named "Approx Search Volume: June" and click on it to reorder the results by the terms that have the most natural search activity. On the left side of the results you will see the terms that are the most popular.

Here is the real nugget: Use those exact terms that have the highest amount of activity and place them exactly as they are (do not mix up the order of the words as it is really important they stay together) into your Description (work them into a usable sentence) and also for your Keywords in your meta tags.

There is also a lot more information on the Google External Keyword Tool that you can use to make better website decisions and not waste money. Such as if you scroll down towards the bottom, Google is nice enough to supply "Keywords related to term(s) entered" and this will show you the BIG BOYS of the keyword terms you entered. Usually you want to be aware of these terms but as they are very broad you probably aren't going to get many buyers or sellers with them unless you are a nationwide agency.

Another useful column is the "Search Volume Trends" which will tell you when the most activity by month occurred on a particular term.

The main thing to take away to be a successful agent in search engines is that you need to think like an end user. So if you want to sell homes in Orlando, FL, then you need to micro focus your efforts on everything Orlando FL related to home buying and selling. Create separate pages on your site (and use the advice above to optimize each page) that address specific topics such as schools in Orlando FL, the history of Orlando FL, the real estate market in Orlando FL, and on and on. The more pages you have and the more those pages are super targeted to the topic the better your search engine ranking will do.

If you need more clarity or are interested in really seeing what the web can do for your business, visit me at www.jimlillig.com and leave me a message and I can explain more of this further with you.

I hope this helps.

Jim Lillig
www.jimlillig.com

Well now I see how my site was coming up under the keywords "Brazosport Movie Times", apparently it is picking up on a blog entry I wrote. My ActiveRain blogs seems to pop up quite a few times as well. Now if I could just get my website to come up under the right keywords.

For anyone that is using Ubertor did you purchase the SEO Enhancement Pkg?

What you need to do is write most of your blogs around your keywords. While it's nice to have local info on your blog, the majority of your blog info should be real estate related. You have to strike a balance so that your blog doesn't appear spammy, but you want your site to come up for Lake Jackson real estate, not Bazoport Movie Times.

Suggestion: write a blog about how many of your real estate customers interested in the Lake Jackson area come up for the weekend and may be interested in local movie times...

Here's a blog I wrote about local stores, but I definitely got some real estate key words in there too:

Karen's Friday Five: 5 Places to find "Old" Stuff

It's not the best example and reading it, I see some other stuff I can do to make it more key word rich, but you get the idea.

Thanks Perky_REALTOR and Jim! I have been studying Google Analytics all day and am hoping to tweak my website without having to spring for the $500 SEO Enhancement Pkg.

I thought my site did include the necessary keywords, but it is only coming up in searches that are totally unrelated - such as movie times or employment opportunities.