Search Engines

A Basic Element in Online Promotion

So now you have a website. Once your website has been placed "live" on the Internet, it's important to begin the process of marketing and promoting it to the world. One of the avenues for the promotion of your website is through submission to the search engines.

What IS a search engine?

A search engine is a website whose primary function is providing a means for gathering and reporting information available on the Internet. Basically, a search engine is a website consumer’s VISIT to find INFORMATION on the Internet.

What Items do I need on my Website to Succeed?

There are THREE MAIN ITEMS that a Web site has to have included to SUCCEED in the Internet World. Your Web site needs to have:

• Proper Meta Tags and Title Tags
• Relevant Unique Content
• Quality and Relevant Inbound Links throughout the Internet that point to your website

Some Factors in Search Engine Placement

Keywords (Meta Tags) and CONTENT

Some of the older, "robot driven" search engines, such as Yahoo, the Excite Network, and Ask, utilize meta tag recognition programs to determine a site's placement. In these cases, placement on the search engines is determined in part by the CONTENT included on the main page of your website, the name of your website (its Domain Name,) and in the manner in which your web site is set up "behind the scenes" through programming in meta tags by our trained designers.

ADVANCED ACCESS ensures your site is thoroughly optimized for searchability in the robot driven search engines with the appropriate CONTENT and META TAGS for maximum exposure. To ensure that the search engines are returning on a consistent basis, we recommend that you continually update your website with unique and relevant information that pertains to your keywords. Find out how to give your website PIZAZZ, get better results in the search engines, and keep your visitors returning back on a consistent basis.

Link Analysis

Every major search engine uses link analysis as part of their system for ranking your website. Crawler-based search engines follow links which means that the more quality links you have pointed to your website (commonly called Inbound Links), the better the chance of finding you and listing you for your particular search words. This is the best way to be found by the search engines. The good news is that ADVANCED ACCESS is already attempting to create links to benefit you when we submit your website to the Open Directory Project. The bad news is that only one link will not help you a great deal as you need quite a few links from QUALITY websites to pop up on the search engines radar. To start working on your Quality Link Network, please visit our information page that shows you the best authoritative sites to link with (one-way links are the best choice). If you don’t have the time to work on your Inbound Links, we also offer a Premium Marketing Package that will get your website the quality links it needs to succeed.

We strive to provide you with the latest tools to maximize your success with a Quality Link Network on the Internet. For additional ideas on increasing your Inbound Links, visit our listing of weekly Marketing Tips. Also, for a comprehensive list of websites that link to REALTORS®, courtesy of our friends at RealEstateABC, click here.

Paid Placement

Another trend in Internet marketing is "paid placement" search engines. With paid placement search engines, you are GUARANTEED your site will be listed under certain keywords of your choice. In many cases, you can choose exactly which position you would like to rank in certain areas. This concept guarantees that websites will show up for the correct keywords, making it easier on consumers to find what they need, and easier for website owners to be seen in front of their targeted audience.

Most of the paid placement search engines allow you to start with a nominal amount of money (paid ahead of time,) and that money goes into an online account. Each time a visitor clicks on your website through the paid placement search engine, a pre-arranged amount is deducted from your account.

Many of our clients have had phenomenal success using paid placement search engines. Some search engines that currently employ "paid placement" are Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing.

"How important is my choice of Domain Name for Search Engine Ranking Purposes?"

Many of our clients ask if they will gain more exposure for their website and boost their rankings in the search engines if they secure a domain name relevant to real estate, using the word "real estate" and/or "homes" in the name. The answer is a definitive "it depends."

Your placement in the search engines is determined by many different factors. In fact, the nature of search engine placement changes on nearly a daily basis. (See "factors in search engine placement" above.) A FEW of the search engines will take into account your domain name when determining the placement of your website. However, the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) do NOT factor in the domain name.

All of our websites are fully optimized for searchability on the Internet so we can submit them on a regular basis for listing in the search engines, no matter which domain name is chosen for that web site.

Approximately 80% or more of our clients use their first and last name as a domain name, and they are still chosen for listing in many of the search engines. This is due to several other factors that influence placement, as described above. There are instances; however, where using a domain name that exactly matches your #1 keyword will help boost your rankings in certain search engines even further.

For example: If Bob Jones sells real estate in Brea, and he chose www.BreaRealEstate.com as his domain name, it may help boost his rankings in some search engines because "Brea Real Estate" is his most dominant keyword, which exactly matches his domain name. (That's what we call "relevance" in search engine terminology.) However, if he decided on www.BreaBob.com as a domain name, he will still be listed in certain search engines anyway, because his site is fully optimized by our firm.

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