I have been trying to play the search engine optimization game for years. In fact, I would be willing to bet that the only reason that you have come to this website right now is because you found it on a search engine or through some other form of social networking.

I feel that my website traffic numbers are generous considering my chosen niche, but it has required a consistent source of new content (among other things) to achieve these traffic numbers.

The one thing that seems to have taken me forever to figure out is that the content required to promote my website doesn’t just grow on trees. To make web marketing work effectively you need to come up with original content. I have tried pulling in RSS feeds from other blogs but they simply do not give the traffic impact of an original blog. The problem with original content is that it requires you to become a Writer. If you would have asked me if I ever pictured myself as a Writer when I first started developing websites, I would have laughed. Truth be told, ALL social networking online requires writing skills.

These days if you have a website to promote you had better be prepared to write. With the popularity of blogs, Twitter, facebook, and now Google Wave there is one thing that is for certain, now and in the upcoming future. Writing skills are required. Brush up on your writing skills at every opportunity, as long as Social Networking remains popular, writing skills are a must.

These days trying to decide where to invest your marketing dollars is a pain. There are so many media outlets that are available that it becomes really hard trying to figure out which marketing effort will give you the most bang for your buck. Through my years as a web developer I have had the opportunity to work with many different kinds of people with many different kinds of ideas and they all have one thing in common; they are looking for leads. This is truly the main reason that web masters exist, we are here to assist the net community so that their voice can be heard and to try to get as many followers to support their cause as possible. Early on, I found it interesting how it seemed that I had become the portal for bringing new entreprenurial ideas to life. With that responsibility came the added fact that I also became sort of a marketing consultant to the people that I have worked with. Somewhere along the line they start figuring out that I have set up a project like theirs in the past and that I must have some inside knowledge of how the previous projects worked out. Unfortunately, the only thing that I can ever really comment on with any sort of confidence are that of my own endeavours. I have experimented with several different Internet business models myself and have come up with a few insites on the subject of creating a new business presence…

1) The most successful people that I have seen are those that are committed to their trade or idea that they are trying to present online. If you truly believe in what you are trying to do and you put forth any kind of effort into promoting your ideas you WILL get followers. The only thing that I have not totally figured out yet is how to maximize my efforts into the right balance of promotions. You can spend a lot of time on one marketing effort that would only produce one new lead where if you would put a little effort into another area of marketing you would possibly receive 10 times the leads. However, the point that I am trying to make here is that you need to at least make an effort and do so with a passion.

2) The fact that I have an online business myself makes me a little bias toward online marketing. I was drawn to the field of web design primarily because of the low cost of entry into the field and the fact that most everything that I do online usually carries a low price tag as well. I am always amazed at the fact that individuals and large corporations shell out millions of dollars on a new business idea that they don’t even know for certain if it will work. As an example, I just took a family vacation and one of the days that we were out we went to the Wet n’ Wild water park. At the end of the day I had a headache from trying to picture the pressures that the owners must have gone through to open a place like that up. Could you imagine investing millions into an idea like that? Obviously it is paying off for them but just the thought of being the original start up of that idea just boggles my mind. With that being said there are two totally different business ideas that require two totally different marketing efforts. The point here is that you cannot use the same marketing strategy for every scenario. I know that Wet n’ Wild has a website that I am sure is a valuable part of their marketing efforts but I can also pretty much guarantee that the majority of their leads are not coming directly from an Internet search. There are many media outlets that they use and each one that they try has their own expected results.

I created this blog posting to point out the fact that I have discovered that there are several different ways to market a business. Not all marketing strategies work for all businesses but the one common thread in all successful businesses is that you need to truly believe in your product. This passion is pivotal to the success of any business.

After several weeks of reworking the Websting.com website I think that the re-do is finally complete.

Once a year I try to give the Websting site a complete content overhaul. There are several reasons that I do this but one of the first reasons that come to mind is the effect that a content overhaul has on my search engine results. I discovered early on that whenever I make the attempt to freshen things up on my websites that this usually results in a spike of added traffic to my site.

Prior to my yearly re-do I usually try to evaluate the search traffic that is coming to my site. I do this by closely examining the traffic stats and taking note of the top keyword traffic that I am receiving. This information can easily be attained by opening up my webstats program that is attached to my site and going directly to the “searh terms” section for each month. If all is going as planned I usually won’t see too many surprises. With any luck the keywords that are being searched to find my site are exactly what I might expect. I like to take a closer look and see how these keywords are converting into new business, usually, this is where I find that I need some help.

While I have had some success achieving my keyword goals I usually find that I could do much better on my conversion goals. This means that I am making the right decisions as to my keyword placement throughout the site but when prospective customers type my chosen keyword into Google or any other competing search engine they will click on the link that gets them to my site but once they are there they will just look around at a few pages and then leave, totally bypassing the order forms that I have worked so hard on.

The Search Engine Optimization game is a very daunting task, while you might be pretty good at one portion of the process you might need some real help at other stages in the process. Personally, I know that I have always had a little trouble converting the traffic so I give it my best shot at bringing as many visitors as I can to the site. I have always felt that if I can increase the number of visitors to the site that this will at least add a few new buying customers. However, I have long been convinced that if I could just do a better job of converting my site traffic into new customer sales that I would not need to spend so much time bringing the untargeted traffic to my site and I could spend a little more time actually producing new client websites as opposed to just generating new traffic to my site.

In an attempt to improve my conversions I have shifted my main focus back to the real estate market. My sales and marketing training has provided me with the knowledge that if I focus on a specific niche that this should help my conversion rates. Over the years I have been gradually expanding my niche to include the mortgage industry and the small business start ups. This did a pretty good job of adding some additional visitors to the site but I now feel that it just left some of the real estate prospects more than a little confused. By bringing my core focus back to real estate I feel that this will not only show prospective customers that Websting specializes in real estate related web design but this should also help to show Google and other search engines that Websting is an authority on the subject of real estate web design. My theory is that if I can get Google to send my site more specific keyword traffic that this traffic should convert to sales a little better. If Google thinks that that I am enough of an authority on the subject to increase my rankings for the real estate web design traffic then this should also be the case with prospective new clients. If new prospects think that I am an authority on the subject of real estate web design then this, in theory, will bring better conversion rates to my sales efforts.

For now, the new content overhaul is complete and the targeted traffic has increased. As for the sales conversions, only time will tell if I got it right.

I have been busy slicing and dicing up templates for a few days now. I am producing a few working examples of real estate websites developed in the WordPress publishing platform. My current client portfolio consists of sites that were custom developed using another kind of software and they lack the flexibility of WordPress. I am looking to WordPress to assist my client base by giving them the ability to keep their site up-to-date with the latest technologies.

While there are many content management systems available, all of them require some sort of learning curve. Usually when a potential client makes a specific request for their website I try to include a content management system that will fit the needs of their request. There is usually a great option available for nearly every request, however, the time and effort required to learn how to use a new software solution can sometimes be painful. Just like with any new thing that you get, you have to learn how to use it.

I have found that real estate professionals actually working in the field really don’t have the time (or desire) to do much else than their job. Every task that they perform needs to apply to getting ahead in their business. Learning a new software program usually doesn’t qualify as “time well spent”.

In a perfect world you should already know and understand how to use the tools of the trade before you even get into business and that is the mindset that I am using to create these new templates. I have developed a system that is not only simple to use but will provide every real estate professional the opportunity to grow there website as their business grows and I am excited about this new service offering.

The key component that I am trying to achieve is flexibility. The flexibility that is required to keep up with the ever changing ways of the Internet coupled with the ever changing rules and regulations in the real estate industry has made for some challenging transitions. With the addition of using the WordPress blogging platform combined with my own real estate listing system I am able to provide my client base with a product that should easily allow them keep up with and stay ahead of their competition.

Pardon my dust… The new Websting website went live last night complete with a slightly new look and a completely new back end. This time around I have decided to put all of my eggs into the “WordPress” basket.

Over the past several years blogging has increasingly gained popularity and doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. I have been playing with WordPress for a few years now on several of my experimental websites and I am quite impressed with the capabilities that this blogging platform has to offer. WordPress offers the ability to easily add new content pages, new information, and does a great job of keeping up with the latest technologies that hit the web by offering the ability to add plugins.

While the new Websting site is “live” it is far from complete. Over the next few weeks I plan on completing the empty pages and fine tuning the rest of the site. Websting web design has been developing real estate related websites since 2003. If you currently work in the real estate industry and are looking for a way to grow your business via the internet then you should look no further than Websting Web Design. Even though the official Websting website is currently going through some changes, the products and services that are offered here are completely ready to go. We are currently offering the ability to add a complete IDX/MLS web solution to your current site, single property address websites, the ability to manually add real estate listings to your current website, and we are now offering real estate websites that are maintained via the WordPress blogging platform.

If you are currently in the market for a real estate related website contact us today!