Love At First Site

In honor of Valentine's Day our Website Marketing Specialist Team has put together some important tips for you to show your website a little love.  What is the first impression you give when potential clients first view your website?  Follow this tips to help your chances of love at first sight for your real estate website.

Update and maintain your look.

Valentine's Day is meant to impress and shower your loved one with gifts, flowers and often nice dinners. If it takes this much effort to tell someone that they are important to you, shouldn't it take this kind of time and effort to tell your website visitors that you care about them as well? Your website visitors come and go at all hours of the day and you don't want the reason they leave to be the appearance of your website. Some good questions to ask about your website template and home page layout are:

- Is my template / design appealing to the type of client I want to reach?
- Do I use too many images or slideshows which could slow down the load time?
- Is my text easy to read on my template background or does it make my eyes water?
- Do I need to put on a pair of sunglasses due to all the neon green buttons and hot pink background?

Is your website design effectively courting your visitors and enticing them to stay just a little longer? If not you should consider working in a little flair and romance (site appeal) to your design. Maybe it is even time for a makeover with a new template!

Another way to update the look of your website is to update your photo on your website. A picture is worth a thousand words, so why not make your photo tell your visitors that you are confident, friendly, helpful and approachable rather than out of touch with modern society. An outdated photo can make your real estate services seem as out of date as a leisure suit, and your knowledge of real estate as dated as Farrah Fawcett's feathered haircut. If your photo is 3 years old or more, I beg you to update your photo as soon as possible! Visitors create their first impression of you within 10 seconds, so make sure your photo leaves the best impression possible.

Search engines need love too!

Don't get your hopes up boys because it won't be as easy as picking up some flowers and a balloon at the local supermarket on your way home. Girls, if you're the type to go all out for your significant other, this will be really easy! To get started, open up your favorite text editor (Microsoft Word, Writely, a pen and paper, etc.) and get ready to start writing. For this Valentine's Day, you're going to treat the engines to something special and write one paragraph of text for your homepage. In light of the belated nature of your Valentine's gift to the engines, you're going to have to make the content extra special. To search engines, original and keyword-rich content is like the most delicious box of candy you can get and it doesn't cost a dime (unless you need help and order the Typewriter service of course). With that in mind, be sure to use all of your primary keywords within the text you write (i.e. Your Primary City Real Estate, Homes in Your Primary City, etc.) and please, please, please make sure it's entirely unique to the Web (no re-gifting!).

Don't forget the card.

Sometimes secret admirers are sweet, but when it comes to your website, you need to let the search engines know who their gift is from. So always make sure you add the "tag" to make sure you can be rewarded for your good content; the meta tags that is. Don't give your "Valentine" a card for the wrong holiday, make sure you adjust your meta tags to reflect the content that is actually on each page. This will help the search engines find your content and actually be more likely to index your pages.

Your clients don't want to be on a blind date.

First impressions on your About Page are very important! To give a good first impression prior to meeting your clients, you should spend a little time working on the details of your About Page. First, you will want to remove any default content that is still on the page. Secondly, you will want to give a few personal details about yourself, your background, and why you live and work in the area that you do - this gives the page more of a "personal touch" that connects you with your visitors. Also, it is OK to talk about your professional designations and accomplishments here - go ahead and brag a little! Having confidence in yourself, your abilities as a REALTOR, and your website is a great first impression to give to your website visitors!

The Link Love Boat...

The Link Love Doctor is in the house and ready to answer one of the most asked questions. "How do I find a link that's right for me?" Before you can even consider starting a link relationship you have to get yourself motivated to find long lasting link partners to grow old with.

Get up, get out, and find some links. Introduce yourself to them and ask them out on a link exchange but avoid links that are exactly the same as yours; you don't get as much credit for those.

When asking other links out, speak with them one on one. Don't ask your friends to go ask them out for you. Approach them with a phone call or an email. Some will refuse so be ready to be told no. You are good enough, you are smart enough, and they will be missing out on a good thing. Just pick yourself up and move on to the next opportunity.

Long distance links are okay and they can work but look locally first. Focus on finding a link in your own town or area (for example: roofers, plumbers, landscapers, pool cleaners, carpenters, house cleaners, etc). A local link will be there for you when your down and can often comfort you with the things that long distance links can't such as targeted local area leads.

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day from the Marketing Specialists at Advanced Access - Adam, Audrey, Bryan, Cara, Jessica, John, Mike, and Scott

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