Real Estate Forums

itgl72 · 03-07-2007, 10:10 AM

I have a website through my company I have been happy with. Its loaded with tools and back end functionality for the agent. I haven't expected much from search engines because its a template site and due to thoughts on the URL for the site once you start clicking around. However in the backend I have the ability to work a drip campaign, newsletter, manage registered clients, add pages, content, and edit some of the meta tags.

On offline marketing I have myname.com which redirects to my company website, also have my personal custom domains email.

I'm starting to look into ways of developing linking strategies to my website but would like to start now, rather than wait and develop another site that's search engine friendly. I need to budget my time for the RE business working with people and not spend all of my time working on web activities.

My main URL, is "myname.companyname.com" but then changes to something like: "myname.companyname.com/company_GA/index.asp?acc=123456"

DOES GOOGLE FROWN UPON THIS? Or other search engines? I have seen this URL in Google if I search just for the second and third level domain of other agents in my company so I know its atleast IN THERE, but I'm not sure to its degree of success.

Just wondering if I should even bother submitting this site to search engines, with optimized meta tags and content NOW?

Thanks for your thoughts...

PS: If my linking endeavor works, will it only improve relevancy to the url "myname.companyname.com" or other links within my site that have different content the crawling spiders may crawl to. For example I may have an optimized page for "new home owners" but my main page is optimized the "cities and towns" I service. I just am not sure if the link back to my site work for all pages in the "myname.companyname.com" or just the first page it dumps a visitor to.

Mert · 03-09-2007, 10:11 AM

my suggestion is get yourself an image. I mean make it yourname.com 301 forwarding to your company's subdomain name. optimize your name and link exchange to your domain name rather than the company subdomain name. It should help you immensely. Links back to your home page directly affect your home page. If your company is remax or coldwell banker what happens if you want to move that company? I honestly cannot give an answer without knowing your domain name.

itgl72 · 03-09-2007, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mert

my suggestion is get yourself an image. I mean make it yourname.com 301 forwarding to your company's subdomain name. optimize your name and link exchange to your domain name rather than the company subdomain name. It should help you immensely. Links back to your home page directly affect your home page. If your company is remax or coldwell banker what happens if you want to move that company? I honestly cannot give an answer without knowing your domain name.

I agree with you. I sent you a PM about some of my details but I use myname.com to redirect to myname.companyname.com.

Plan in the future is to get another domain, maybe a .net of my name, or something region specific (picking those always seem to take me a lot of time to think through) and make it look like my company website I use so I can keep the same look and feel through out.

Mert · 03-09-2007, 11:20 AM

Again I do not know your exact situation in terms of finances but I would strongly consider opening your own website. If you need an MLS search on the website make a nice graphic nofollow tagged link to the MLS search of your company. Plus the content and onpage optimization limitations of your current site seems to block a lot of opportunities for a good seo campaign.

itgl72 · 03-16-2007, 10:49 AM

I'll have to look into the NO FOLLOW link, thats news to me.

Mert · 03-16-2007, 07:10 PM

NO Follow Link? huh?

itgl72 · 03-16-2007, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mert

...make a nice graphic nofollow tagged link to the MLS search of your company...

Sorry if I sounded confusing, I was referring the line above.

SEOWolf · 03-17-2007, 08:25 AM

Mert is right on about starting your own website for many reasons.

Why spend the time, effort and resources to promote a sub-domain of your company’s website? It takes a long time to get, manage and age links. Why do it for a company that you may or may not be with in a year or so?

There are no fast tracks for high rankings in the Search Engines. It takes time, money and a great deal of effort on your part.

Start a website as you would a Bank Account and develop a long term plan and deposit funds (so to speak) as they are available. Your website may not be or rank as you want it to in 6 months, but it will get better as time goes on.

Websites and links to websites are like fine wine and only improve with age.

When you get a domain of your own it is good to do so without hyphens. There is also an advantage to use key words in your domain name but keep the name as short as possible.

Example:
USE BestYourCityRealEstate.com or BetterYourCityRealEstate.com
NOT Best-YourCity-RealEstate.com or Better-YourCity-RealEstate.com

If you have a budget available to launch a new site you might contact a SEO Professional. Use a great deal of caution. There are a lot of “Snake Oil” salesmen out there. One of the most honest in the Biz IMHO is right here in the forum. HHI Golf Guy is one of the best and he may tell you things you don’t want to hear but he won’t lie to you. And he does get results.

Hope this all helps.

~VegasMack

itgl72 · 03-17-2007, 08:38 AM

I used to be a website designer years ago, I put my hat back on this week and recreated my paid for company website look and feel in CSS rather than its current tables layout. I have a new domain with keywords and am hosting it on another server I have access to. SO, I am using my company website for MLS functionality, and I have my new domain/css website on another hosting provider with the same look and feel so visitors wont feel like they left a website to go to another.

I started another post HERE http://www.prorealestatenetwork.com/...ad.html?t=1678 Because I seem to have questions about the right way to get started.

I did research the NOFOLLOW attribute and understand how to use it - thanks for that tidbit.

I understand this will take time. I'm willing to do the time. Meanwhile I am generating traffic with PPC to my MLS website. Long Term I would like to be in the search engine game so I wanted to start off right. I'm researching the best ways to get going correctly for google and friends! THANKS!