SEO/Website Guide

Scott Le Roy Marketing’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Website Performance improvement guide

Hello there!

We receive questions nearly daily about how a KW Associate can make their KW Website powered by Placester show on the “first page of Google”. While there is no magical button to press to accomplish this, we do have some advice for how to improve your search engine rankings through Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Keep in mind that we will never promise to “get you to the front page of Google”, whether it be overnight, in a week, a month, or any other time frame–and anyone who does promise you that is selling snake oil.

SEO is a multi-faceted operation, involving mostly the actual content visible on your site. Search engines have become very, very sophisticated, so gone are the days of loading up “meta tags” in site descriptions, or in white text on a white background on the home page, in hopes that you would show for a search that your site may not necessarily have anything to do with. There are no “quick fixes” for improving your search engine rankings. It will take time, effort, and dedication.

The best rule-of-thumb is that “content is king”. The more content you have on your site (of any type: blogs, area pages, videos, whatever), the better. And the more relevant content, the more likely you are to show up for a specific search.

Below are links to some of our SEO-oriented content including videos, services, and written instructions. We encourage you to take your time going through these suggestions:

First, see our video overview of SEO:

Covered in that video are a couple of Google services that we can set up for you:

Also covered is adding custom pages to your site:

Adding Blog posts to your site:

Then make sure to check out our 30 Day Blogging Challenge!

How often to blog, and what to blog about, are entirely up to each Associate. A good starting point is once per week, on the same day and time every week. Topics can include your experiences in your practice, your opinion on market trends, what is going on in your local market, comments on another agent or organization’s existing blog, your newest listing, someone else’s listing (with their and the owner’s permission, of course), how national/world events have affected your community/market/practice, etc. Video is another strong tool to use in blogging, and can either be used in place of a blog post, or as an augmentation to illustrate/discuss something that doesn’t translate well into text. And don’t fret over the quality of the video. Get something out there, and make it better later. You carry a 720p HD or better video camera in your pocket all day long. Turn on the selfie mode, or turn it around for a listing walkthrough, and get started! See this video for how to add a video to a page (or blog post, the process is the same) on your site:

Adding Area Pages to your site:

Adding Testimonials to your site:

Requesting Testimonials on your site:

Remember that content is king. The more times all of these content types mention the keywords that you want to be found for, the more likely you are to be found for those keywords. And remember that “meta tags” are very nearly a thing of the past, so simply listing your keywords separated by commas can be a strike against you, especially if those keywords don’t have anything to do with the other content on the page or site.

Make sure to add the links to your social media sites to your website, and to link to your website on those social media sites.

Many Associates ask our advice for the “best” custom domain name, and our advice is something that is short and easy to remember. Search Engines care very little (not none, but very little) about the actual site address name, so “www.thebesthomesforsaleinbeverlyhillscalifornia.com” may have the “keywords” you want to be found for, but unless those same keywords are found in natural language all over your site, the search engine doesn’t really care that much. You’re better off with something short and sweet to put on marketing materials, that clients are likely to remember if they lose the actual marketing piece, such as “www.firstnamelastname.com“. In a similar vein, buying up two dozen similar-sounding domain names and pointing them all to your site doesn’t really hurt anything, but it’s likely not helping as much as you think.

Purchase a custom domain from GoDaddy for $.99 for the first year:

Forward your custom domain to your KW Website:

Lastly, we recommend becoming very familiar with our beginner and advanced courses on the KW Website:

This is not intended to be an exhaustive guide, so if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at Support@ScottLeRoyMarketing.com!