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My Web provider says I get 10,000 hits a day.
Well, that's great but the actual definition of a hit has nothing to do with how many people have viewed your Web page. In fact, it is a measure of the number of graphics, icons, and text boxes on each of your Web pages. So, if you have 201 hits on your page it may mean that one person viewed your page one time and they saw all 201 pieces of graphics (in all likelihood, since they only spent a few seconds or minutes on it, they did not see half of them). The more accurate method of counting those who have come to your Web site is known as visitors or unique users.
I have a great Web site already and paid a lot of money for it, so I don't need any help marketing it, right?
Having a great looking Web site is helpful, but if no one ever finds it or it is not easily navigated, then why have one at all? Now, I am not saying that you should not have a Web site, but if you are going to have one, make sure you market it properly. The reason companies like Yahoo and MSN do so well is because they market themselves through traditional methods as well as on the Web. Also, most people use the Internet for either e-mail or to search, therefore it is important to market your Web site where you will be seen and the search engines, both paid and free, are the best and the most cost effective method to do so. The added value to using the search engines is that they are targeted and people only find what they are looking for most of the time.
I already have a company that will keep my Web site within the top 20 positions on the Internet and checks it at least once a week.
Well, being top 20 is better than being in the top 500 I suppose, but not much better. The difference between being #1 and #2 is dramatic. Your Web site is 40% more likely to get clicked on and through to if you are in the #1 position rather than the #2. If you are further down the list than #3 or 4, forget it! In all likelihood, no one either cares or is willing to scroll past the first few to find what they are looking for. People's patience online is almost impossible to measure because they don't have any. If you do not grab them within the first 20 seconds they are gone. Therefore, it is crucial to be in that top spot all the time!
Well, I am on realtor.com and get plenty of leads...
That is a decent Web community to be a part of, but did you know that realtor.com and homegain and most others rotate all of the real estate agents in all of the towns they have them in. This means that if you are registered with them and 15 other agents in your town or city are as well, you are loosing 14 out of 15 customers they bring in the door. Why should you loose any of them? If you want to maximize success so that you can increase the odds of a sale then you want as many leads as possible, right? So, you may get plenty of leads through those other sites but you may also be loosing the opportunity to become even more successful than you are right now.
Why should I use a name like santa-barbara-ca-homes.com, its too long a Web address to give to anyone or to put on my business cards?
You are right, it is a long name. But when people on the Web search for a city and town that they want to live in you can bet that they put the town name and state they are interested in and probably something like, "home", "homes", "property" when they are looking for real estate. So, your name should match the search criteria being used. Another complaint with a name like this is, that you don't like the "-" between each word. There is a reason for having that little"-" between each word. The search engines recognize "-" as a space, so when people type in words in the search box the search engine spiders (cute word for software Robot) see the words more clearly separated. Then they see the "-" they will see your Web address.
Ah ha you say. :-)
How do the search engines work now-a-days?
They work very differently than they did just a few years ago. Most of the major search engines have lost big money gambling that advertising would be their biggest profit generator. They were very wrong, so they have started to charge people/companies who want to be at the top of searches for words and terms. It has become a pay-for-play situation on the Web and there are companies paying a lot of money to keep ahead of you and to make sure that anytime you or anyone else search for specific terms you always find them.
I have too many leads as it is, I don't need anymore.
I don't believe there is such thing as too many leads. You may think real estate is invincible to downturns in the market, but history says otherwise. Having more leads will only allow you to make more money and increase the odds of getting a sale or selling a listed home. If you have too many leads then you need to consider hiring more real estate agents or at least referring them out, not turning the leads away. Use this system to your advantage. Think about building independence It is the light at the end of the tunnel and protects you against the possibility that you may not be able or wish to work this hard for many years to come.
Can my Web site actually make me money?
Yes, it can and it should. It should not just be a compliment to what you do already it should help drive money in the door. That is what makes an investment in a Web site so important. If it is simple to navigate, easy to obtain more information from and gets people to your door that is what the Web was made for. It is there to help any and all business get added exposure and targeted results.
Key Terms to impress your neighbors:
- Hit or Hits: These are the requests for graphics on a Web page by a server and you can have as many or as little as is designed on the Web page. It has little to do with the amount of traffic you are receiving. If someone requests your Web site and you have 200 graphics the number of visitors is actually 1 and the number of hits is counted as 201.
- Unique Users: These are individuals who have registered at your Web site and who return more than once. They can also be referred to as customers. The better the site the more visitors become customers.
- Visitors: These are people who come to the site but who do not register
- ISP: This is the Internet Service Provider. They allow you access to the Internet for a fee. Companies like AOL, MSN, Earthlink, and many others are ISP's.
- Browser: This is the icon on your screen, which allows you to surf the Internet. Many people use the large E on their desk top - this happens to be Microsoft Internet Explorer; others prefer Netscape.
- Cookies: These are requests from the Web servers to your browser with regards to your information. It can be shopping habits or surfing habits or as simple as your name, so sites can greet repeat visitors.
- Spam: This is the inappropriate use of an e-mail list.
- URL: This is the standard method for providing someone or anyone with an Internet address (example: http://www.nmreonline.com ).
- Bit: This is the smallest unit of information for computers or the Internet. It is a single piece of information that is described as a one or zero. It is what makes up binary code. Strings of ones and zeros are what make the world go round these days.
- Homepage: The most common use for this term describes a person or companies main Web page. It represents the starting point of a collection of Web pages.
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