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Drive Traffic to Your Website

Did you know that “Direct Navigation” can often account for as much traffic to your website as do search engines…perhaps even more?

“Direct Navigation” can happen when someone types in your domain name, or URL directly into the address bar of their browser. This also  can include links from emails and bookmarks.

What might some of these marketing solutions be? Business cards, direct mail, magazine ads, newspapers, signage, etc.

For example, in Homes and Land…or newspaper advertising, you could continue to show 2 or 3 listings or whatever, but would devote the thrust of your message as to why they should visit your website with 2 or 3 zingers…maybe even only one if it is a biggie.

And another idea…send out those postcards. You could display an image of your website on the card, and then list a zinger or two as to why the recipient should visit your website. Agents that have done this  say they could see the increased traffic to their websites via their stats.

You can probably reduce the size of your advertisement one notch!

Here is a list of zingers that you can place in your advertising.

  • NEW! Search homes by neighborhood!
  • See Photos of your favorite listings!
  • View all MLS listings from all real estate companies.
  • See what homes sold for in your neighborhood.
  • Estimate what your home is worth.
  • Save your favorite listings for future viewing.
  • Save your search for future viewing
  • Find information on schools, and neighborhoods.
  • Receive the latest email notification of new listings matching your search criteria.
  • Send listings of interest to family and friends by email.
  • View Buyer and Sellers tips.
  • Calculate how much home you can afford.
  • Calculate your mortgage payments.

Integrate your marketing strategies…offline marketing and online marketing…then watch your traffic grow!

Statistics / Analytics For Your Website

If you have not already added Google Analytics to your website…now is a good time to do so.

All that a GraphicalData website user needs to do is create an account in Google,  sign up for Google Analytics and then do a quick copy-paste and you are done.

This powerful Web-based statistics package used to cost hundreds of dollars per month before Google bought it and now makes it available for free.

To begin, go to http://www.google.com/analytics/ and if you already have a Google account, just use it. If not follow the steps for creating an account and you are on your way.

Once you have created your Google account, you can then sign up for Google Analytics. After creating your analytics account and providing the domain name for your website, a small snippet of code wil be displayed. You will need to copy the “UA” account number from within the script of code and insert it into the appropriate place in your admin center…which will activate it.

[NOTE: GraphicalData has provided a manual to walk you through this whole process. Go into your admin center>website>website statistics>New! Google Analytics (or view manual here). Also take note of the field where you will paste in your Google Analytics account number. Then click the “Update Analytics” button and you are good to go.]

After this process is completed, you will be able to log into your Google Analytics account from any Web browser and see daily real time statistics on everything you could ever want to know about your site visitors and their behavior. All kinds of charts and graphs and information.

If you should have a challenge creating this account, call our support line as found on www.GraphicalData.com and we will be glad to assist.

Website statistics are highly useful if you have the ability to a) understand what they are saying about your site’s ability or lack of ability to convert visitors to clients, and b) they can be used to help create a strategic plan of action.

Did You Know That You Can Manage Your Listings?

Did you know that you can add a virtual tour/photo gallery, reposition the listing on the map, and overwrite the MLS comments from your GraphicalData Admin Center?

After logging in, hover above LISTINGS on the top navigation bar, and select INVENTORY.  You will then be taken to all of your listings, from most expensive to least.  You can now navigate to the listing you wish to alter, and either click on the picture, or the listing number to the right of the picture.

You will then be on the Listing Information page, where items can be modified.  The 3 boxes under Virtual Tours can be used for Photo Galleries, Virtual Tours, or other media for this listing.  Beneath this section is the Listing Description, anything you enter here will overwrite the MLS remarks only on GraphicalData websites.

To the right of this feature is the map where you can change the position of the property if positioned incorrectly.  If you CLICK HERE TO REPOSITION PROPERTY you will go to a different page that has the location of the property, you can then click and drag the sign to the desired location.  After it is in the correct spot, click UPDATE LAT/LONG.

If at any time you have any questions, do not hesitate to give me a call and I can help in gettin things straightened out.

Search Engine Friendly

We often see real estate websites on the internet that we refer to as “Realtor-in-the-Box-Sites”. These are sites that cater to real estate agents and offer some of the types of products that we have available. However, there are usually major differences…

Many of these sites are based on what we call “active server pages” technology. These (website) pages don’t actually exist in real time…each page is generated dynamically when it is called up (by clicking on the page’s button in the nav bar). These pages don’t really exist in real time for a search engine to crawl, compounded by the fact that they often have a “query string in the URL than can confuse a a search engine’s “crawler”, thereby making it more difficult to index.

Some sites do not allow you the ability to modify the title tag in the head section. This is one of the most important areas to control for search engine rankings. Your business and the area of your business should certainly be reflected in this section (ie. Bellevue Washington Real Estate and Relocation).

Of course, it is also beneficial to be able to control the content of your Meta description and keywords tags.

Your site should allow you to control the sizes and emphasis (ie BOLD) of your fonts. Search engines perceive larger sizes and emphasis to be important.

You should have the ability to provide ample amounts of text (in real live html format) on your page, not generated into graphics. Search engines read html text. They don’t read graphics. The text on your page should be good, “honest content” and reflect what your site is really all about. This means good target words/phrases that describe your area/business. Remember this: Good quality, relevant content is king! If you provide that, your ranking will nearly take care of itself.

You should have the ability to add ALT tags (Alternative Text) to any graphics (You know, the text that pops up when you hold your cursor over a graphic).

It is also important that your keyword phrases be used as html in your buttons (links)…and on GraphicalData sites, if you provide for the keywords in the button name, our system automatically takes care of this for you, so you don’t even need to worry about it.

Your site should, if at all possible, provide for a site map of your website. Many search engines like them, especially Google. We provide for a static html site map as well as XML.

Actually all of the above criteria that I have touched upon happens in the best light on a GraphicalData website. We want to not only provide the best in real estate web sites, but also make them search engine friendly…and the best part of all…you can control most of it yourself (unless you really don’t feel comfortable doing so…then we are more than happy to assist).

Troubleshooting – Sending a screenshot will help us, help you.

Occasionally, a strange occurrence may happen within your website system. Should that be the case, it will assist us in “troubleshooting” the situation if you are able to provide a “screenshot” of what may be happening. This is especially important if for some reason we are unable to replicate the same occurrence from our end.

How to take and email a screenshot:

First, have the “anomaly” showing on your computer screen. Then find the Print Screen button and while the anomaly is still on the screen, hit that button.

You will now need to paste this “screen capture” into a photo editing program, such as Paint. Once opened, click edit, and select paste. This will paste the screen into your paint editing program. You will then need to save it (gif, jpg or png), and when doing so, you should give it an identifiable name.

Then, open your email program and attach this file to an email. Be sure and explain what is amiss (unless you have already done so to client support and they are expecting this screen capture. Send it to support@graphicaldata.com where we will be able to take a look and determine the solution.