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Does Your Home Page Need a Makeover?

When 2006 rolled around, we sent out our annual "New Year's Resolutions" Marketing Tip.  We once again shared with you some important things that can really help boost your website success.  And, of course, being the nagging sort that we are about keeping your website fresh and competitive, we will be sure to bring this up throughout the entire year.  We'll occasionally go into greater detail about one of the items included on that list.  Think of it as our way of helping you be able to finally say you were able to keep a New Year's Resolution after all these years.  Now for those of you who are great at keeping your resolutions, don't go making the rest of us feel bad about it, just bear with us and make sure you haven't forgotten any of this key information as well.

Does that paragraph above sound familiar?  I hope it does, because that means you've been reading the Marketing Tips we send you each week!  If it doesn't, well...it's never too late to start reading these tips.  Hey you're reading one now!

So last time we brought up this list of resolutions we talked about your 'About Me' page.  This time we're going to go over one of the most important items...your home page.

Your home page is your 'first impression', the first thing you put in front of potential clients who find you on the Internet.  And not to mention people who find out about you elsewhere and go online to 'check you out' first.  So this is serious business here, and I mean bu$ine$$.

When your website was created, we included some default text on your home page for you. This was meant to be a guideline to give you some ideas, and to make sure there was at least something on the main page of your website from the beginning.  Is that same text still there?  Do you really think that best represents who you are...your 'first impression'?  What do search engines think about that content that is the same on thousands of other sites out there?

What do I do if the text is still there?

First of all, don't go to your home page and just delete all the text.  If you did that you'd just have a blank page (or close to it), and that certainly isn't a good first impression.  You need to create some replacement content first.

No one knows better than you what should be on your home page. Not sure what to write? Think of what you would normally say in person to a new prospect/client.  What are the first few things you want them to know?  Type or write those things down and form that into your text.  Be professional, and be yourself; you are trying to get people to do business with you, not a 'made up' version of you.

What if I changed the text a little bit?

Even if you've rewritten some or most of the text in your 'own words' it's bound to be very similar.  Search engines can pick up on this as well, and it's still not your very own.  So even if you have made some changes, you'll want to start from scratch.

If you're really stuck, you can always contact one of the virtual assistants on our website.

What do search engines have to do with this?

Search engines look through millions of sites...hundreds of thousands of them being real estate websites.  How many other people may have started off with the same content or perhaps have stolen the content (sad, but it has to be considered).

When search engines see the same content, or close to it, on more than one website it is considered 'duplicate content'.  Search engines; especially Google (the #1 search engine) can impose penalties to your ranking, or can even decide not to index you if you have duplicate content.  For this reason alone it is important to change your default home page text.

Don't fret, there is an upside ... you can add things to your new home page text to help you with the search engines.  Here are some tips:

• Start with your first city, not your name.  For example, if the primary city you serve is Boston, the first text on your home page should be Boston Real Estate, not your name.  You want to rank well for your service areas not your name...people looking for real estate on the Internet are not likely to know your name, let alone search for it.  The most important text goes at the top.
• Use the names of the areas you service on your homepage along with the words 'real estate'.  Don't go overboard and list every city within a 50 mile radius, list the first few cities that you actually work in the most in order of priority.  Don't shove them all in there just to be there, make them fit logically into your text; it needs to sound natural for your readers and for search engines...they can spot 'key word stuffing' very easily.
• Link the names of the areas you service to other related city pages in your website.  We have talked about this in a few of our past Marketing Tips.  Check our tip about unique and quality website content for helpful information.

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