Advanced Access Blog

It seems that every time we blink, search engines evolve with new ways to search and provide us with information.  In 2007 the major players in the search engine world began to focus on “universal search,” a means to provide searchers with relevant content spanning various forms of media, including web, news, blogs, video, and images.  Yahoo and Ask.com took their efforts a bit further by implementing search results taken from popular sources like Flickr and Wikipedia, with many of Yahoo’s image results coming from Flickr and Ask.com offering wiki’s within their search results.

So what does this mean for you and your real estate business?  It means that you now have even more opportunity to rank higher in the search engines and various other online mediums.

You can rank for image results by optimizing the images on your website and including descriptive alt tags for all of your images. Make sure your alt tag describes exactly what the image is.  For instance, if you were optimizing your photo, your description could read “Anaheim Hills REALTOR® Joe Somebody”.  Here you generate the overlapping keywords Anaheim Hills REALTOR®, REALTOR® Joe Somebody, and Anaheim Hills REALTOR® Joe Somebody, while also describing what the image is.

If you are a photographer, you can post quality photos of your listings and photos related to your business on Flickr.com.  Though using Flickr will not generate actual image results from your website, it does give you another platform to promote your business.  Use your website address as your Flickr username and with each photo you upload, add tags and descriptions that mention your business name and web site address. Be sure that you actually describe the photo; do not use this as a means to sell a listing.

Similar strategies can be applied by posting virtual tours or your real estate videos on YouTube, giving you the opportunity to appear in video search results.

There are a number of other ways to try and show up in the universal search results by focusing on the various mediums available on the internet.

Starting a blog can open you up to ranking for blog results.  Submitting your site to Google Local and getting reviews and testimonials posted on local sites and directories such as JudysBook.com can give you an edge over your competition in Google Maps/Local results.  Submitting your press releases to free press release sites provides the potential to appear in the Google News results.

As universal search continues to be a focus in search engine development, now is a better time than ever to get involved and market your business through the various mediums available.

by Mike Wilton – Advanced Access Website Marketing Specialist

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 1:56 pm and is filed under Weekly Marketing Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.