Tag Archives: search

Listless Website Syndrome And How to Cure It

If you are not getting the Internet leads you want and need to support your business, your Website may be suffering from Listless Website Syndrome. This potentially curable condition could be keeping you from reaching your full potential Online. So, let’s look at a few of the main symptoms of Listless Website Syndrome and how to counteract each one.

Website Has Poor Search Engine Placement

If your real estate Web design is languishing out there in cyberspace where no one can find it, it will be difficult if not impossible for it to help you connect with prospective buyers and sellers. The cure for this symptom is to modify your existing Website or set up a new site that is optimized for top search engine placement. Another option is to promote your Website using AdWords or some other pay-per-click option. Poor placement could be the problem when you have a Website that is number one on page one but still does not generate leads. It could be that your keyword phrase is weak or not one your prospects use. In other words, you need top search engine placement for keyword phrases that your prospects actually use to search for real estate in your area.

Website Has Poor Lead Capture Capabilities

While top search engine placement is important, it is also important to make sure your Website includes Lead Capture Tools. Lead Capture Tools are exciting offers that will cause your visitors to sign up, to register, to give you their contact information. Skimpy offers will not do it. You must make offers of things that people really, really want, such as a FREE E-Book on How To Buy A Home Below Market. People like Free things. The cure for this symptom is to add exciting offers to your Website. If your Website has good placement for a good keyword phrase or search term and you are still not getting leads, it is probably time to look at redesigning your Website.

Website Lacks Search Power

You know why people visit real estate Websites? Buyers and sellers visit real estate Websites because they want to see property that is for sale and no matter where you are you have lots of competition. So, it just doesn’t make sense to try to compete without the most user-friendly IDX that is possible. The cure I always recommend is a Custom IDX Option. You cannot go wrong with a powerful search tool on your Website.

How to Tell If You Have Listless Website Syndrome

If you have any of the symptoms listed above, suspect Listless Website Syndrome. However, to find out for sure, I suggest you get a professional site evaluation and plan for fixing the problem. You can start by finding your Website’s Real Estate SEO Score. Your SEO Score pinpoints your Website’s SEO and Lead Capture weaknesses so you know just what you need to do. It is easy for people to seem to be blind to the faults of their own Website but unless you turn a critical eye on your Web strategy or arrange for someone else to give you an honest evaluation, you can float around in cyberspace for years not getting the results you should get. You may have a Website that is attractive and you may be comfortable with the back page and tools you have for making changes, but if your Website is not producing good results, it is worthless.

Leveraging WordPress SEO Plugins

Creating and publishing a website is no longer a mysterious, esoteric task that is reserved only for computer geeks. These days, just about everyone and their dog has a website. Anyone wanting a piece of the virtual pie can easily sign up for a free Blogger blog or one of the major Web 2.0 properties like HubPages or Squidoo in about five minutes. Plus, there are lots of WYSIWYG editors available that make creating a beautiful, interactive webpage a very simple process.

One of the most popular tools for hosting a blog is WordPress, an open-source project that is freely available for the downloading. There are at least a thousand tutorials available on the ‘net for how to set up a WordPress blog, configure the theme, upload it to your own hosting account, and so on. This article is not going to re-cover that ground. It has been done more than enough. The question is, what do you do once your blog is online, to get the word out so that you can get traffic?

The answer to that question is: search engine optimization. SEO is basically the process of driving traffic to your website organically (that is, not paid) from the search engines. To get the search engine “spiders” or “bots” to notice your site among the “billions and billions” of pages out on the web, and then rank it “high” in the results pages (so people will find it easily), you’ll need to work on these three general tasks:

  1. Make sure your content is relevant to the keywords people are searching with
  2. Optimizing your website and its content with keyword emphasis and linking structures
  3. Building inbound links to your website from others, preferably those in your same niche

This article focuses on the tools that can simplify item (2) in the list. Backlinking, the process described in (3), is a subject for a whitepaper, not just a short article. And, obviously, it is up to you to be sure your content is relevant to the keywords you are attaching to your pages as mentioned in item (1); just use your common sense.

The good news is that there are any number of tools to simplify the job to improve the optimization on your website. Owing to the popularity of WordPress, an entire industry is producing add-on capabilities in specialized themes and WordPress SEO plugins to facilitate optimizing sites built with the platform. You can dig up all sorts of tools, ranging from free plugins like Platinum SEO, HeadSpace2, and Google Video Sitemaps to premium plugins like SEOPressor or SEO Booster Pro.

Here is a short list of plugins you should investigate:

  • SEOPressor WordPress Plugin
  • Platinum SEO Pack
  • All-in-One SEO Pack
  • Google XML Sitemap
  • Google Image Sitemap
  • Google Video Sitemap
  • Automatic SEO Links
  • HeadSpace2

Always remember, though: put good content on your site that will provide real value for your visitors. Treat your visitors well, and you will get your fair share of traffic; just be sure to do your SEO correctly, and you can speed up the process considerably!

Leveraging WordPress SEO Plugins

Creating and publishing a website is no longer a mysterious, esoteric task that is reserved only for computer geeks. These days, just about everyone and their dog has a website. Anyone wanting a piece of the virtual pie can easily sign up for a free Blogger blog or one of the major Web 2.0 properties like HubPages or Squidoo in about five minutes. Plus, there are lots of WYSIWYG editors available that make creating a beautiful, interactive webpage a very simple process.

One of the most popular tools for hosting a blog is WordPress, an open-source project that is freely available for the downloading. There are at least a thousand tutorials available on the ‘net for how to set up a WordPress blog, configure the theme, upload it to your own hosting account, and so on. This article is not going to re-cover that ground. It has been done more than enough. The question is, what do you do once your blog is online, to get the word out so that you can get traffic?

The answer to that question is: search engine optimization. SEO is basically the process of driving traffic to your website organically (that is, not paid) from the search engines. To get the search engine “spiders” or “bots” to notice your site among the “billions and billions” of pages out on the web, and then rank it “high” in the results pages (so people will find it easily), you’ll need to work on these three general tasks:

  1. Make sure your content is relevant to the keywords people are searching with
  2. Optimizing your website and its content with keyword emphasis and linking structures
  3. Building inbound links to your website from others, preferably those in your same niche

This article focuses on the tools that can simplify item (2) in the list. Backlinking, the process described in (3), is a subject for a whitepaper, not just a short article. And, obviously, it is up to you to be sure your content is relevant to the keywords you are attaching to your pages as mentioned in item (1); just use your common sense.

The good news is that there are any number of tools to simplify the job to improve the optimization on your website. Owing to the popularity of WordPress, an entire industry is producing add-on capabilities in specialized themes and WordPress SEO plugins to facilitate optimizing sites built with the platform. You can dig up all sorts of tools, ranging from free plugins like Platinum SEO, HeadSpace2, and Google Video Sitemaps to premium plugins like SEOPressor or SEO Booster Pro.

Here is a short list of plugins you should investigate:

  • SEOPressor WordPress Plugin
  • Platinum SEO Pack
  • All-in-One SEO Pack
  • Google XML Sitemap
  • Google Image Sitemap
  • Google Video Sitemap
  • Automatic SEO Links
  • HeadSpace2

Always remember, though: put good content on your site that will provide real value for your visitors. Treat your visitors well, and you will get your fair share of traffic; just be sure to do your SEO correctly, and you can speed up the process considerably!