(Written for the San Francisco Women’s Council of REALTORS)

Introduction: Maintaining a content-rich website is the most efficient way to market your specific services. I recommend you devote 45-50% of your website budget to developing excellent content and lots of it, and the remainder goes to design and development.

The more specific you are, the easier it will be for customers to find you on the internet.

For example, SeattleCondoReview.com posts breaking news on condo developments and includes walk-through videos, behind-the-scenes advice, pictures and plans of buildings, and comments from current and potential owners. Through the camaraderie and information generated through this site, the author, a Seattle-based realtor, also finds clients who are happy to work with her because of the quality and honesty of her information.

How do you make the most of your own website and internet presence? Here are twenty specific ways that you may implement over the next few months.

1) Focus on the quality of your content.

Site content trumps beautiful design most of the time (unless you’re an artist, photographer, or entertainer). Keep your website content fresh, up-to-date, and helpful. You have less than 10 seconds to capture your visitor’s attention: use it wisely!

Keep your pages updated with articles, links, calculators and estimators, white papers, downloads, or genuinely helpful information.

Put most of your marketing budget into content generation and spend less on the “bells-and-whistles” until you establish a readership base and grow your community of clients. Content gets searched and stored by Google, but sounds, images, movies, and Flash do not.

NOTE: Samples for quality content include: top ten lists, how-to manuals, research findings, survey results, original articles, resource links, interviews, and events.

2) Always add a contact form.

Your website is like an employee that works 24/7. Some companies (like ours) receive 90% of their business through website requests. Make sure there’s a way for visitors to contact you on every page, including the client’s name, address, phone number, and e-mail (if necessary), the reason for the request, and how they found your website.

3) Use Frequently-Asked Questions to explain your procedures and services.

Make sure your pages describe the processes involved for those who choose you as a provider. Adding a “FAQs” page will help tremendously in directing people to correct information and it will minimize the number of procedural-related requests. Once a viewer understands your products or services and learns a little more about why they should choose you, they’re ready to move to the next step of purchasing.

NOTE: Lead your customers forward by making your process easy to use.

4) Establish excellent incoming links.

Your page ranking in search engines is determined by the relevancy of the content on your website. If your pages are linked to or referenced by many other websites, this contributes to the “authority” of your pages. Higher-ranked pages have higher authority and the best way to claim this authority is to provide quality content in your field of interest. Encourage and ask others to link to your pages and highlight your work and reward them with cross-links.

NOTE: Beware of “link farms” or directories with unrelated or poorly-organized content: these actually detract from your page ranking.

5) Provide excellent outgoing links.

Your outgoing links determine your page ranking too. Be discerning and wise about your outgoing links. Typically, blogs, news sources, or business sites with relevance to your own website will provide good linking power for your site. Use this power!

NOTE: The HTML to create a link is:

< a href=http://www.thelink.com > This is the link text </a >


6) Specify, specify, specify.

Web searches typically are very specific and done by humans, so use keywords that match what others would be interested in. For example, the very specific terms “New York State platinum LEED certification” brings you to the co-op built by my good friends, Jeff Golden and Kavitha Rao, for their environmental non-profit, which is committed to LEED certification.

What words currently bring users to your site? Is there a way to narrow your field of interest so your site moves higher and higher based on the types of content you publish?

7) Measure your data.

Google Analytics offers a free service to monitor your web visitors. With this weekly report, you receive information on the numbers of unique visitors to your site per month, the returning visitors vs. first-time visitors, the length of time they spend on your site, and the pages they visit.

If you use blogs, sign up for the free Feedburner service to understand who is subscribing to your blog. The number of subscribers gives you a good indication of who’s receiving your messages.

8) Personalize your content

Are you real or are you a robot spammer? People want to know what you’re like *before* they work with you. Use your internet presence to identify your best specialty, to share your knowledge, and to highlight your values, philosophy, and mission.

9) Define your universe of clients

Brainstorm ways to market your business online and truly dominate your defined, targeted universe. Most customers start their research on the Internet: give them ways to find you when they use a search engine. Becoming the niche provider in a certain market means you become the main provider within that universe.

For example, for realtors, some brainstorming ideas include:
+ become the expert realtor in your city for green and LEED-certified buildings
+ specialize in working with minorities like Asians, African Americans, or Latinos
+ focus on buying and selling homes for gay and lesbian families with children
+ become synonymous with real estate in one particular, narrow neighborhood

10) Social networking may be your next step

Meet people at all kinds of events, like alumni groups, religious groups, professional associations, and BNI. Invite guest posters for your blog. Publish your articles with others in an e-book or published book format.

Other ideas for networking include answering questions in Linkedin.com, using your Facebook profile to share listings, creating a website for your trade group, developing weekly call-in mastermind groups, and sustaining referral networks with other professionals for mutual benefit.

Use these ten specific ways to get started, and as you rank higher and higher (and receive more and more web-based referrals), you may continue building on your website success.

Monica S. Flores is a web developer based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Hawai’i. She is the author of A Successful Woman’s Handbook: Fifty-one Ways to Build your Community of Clients Online to be published in Spring 2008. She blogs regularly on women’s success in personal and professional development at http://www.asuccessfulwoman.com.