Optimizing Your Page Copy
When writing copy for your website there are some best practices for SEO purposes. You also don't want to write your copy just for SEO purposes as that can have a really bad effect on conversion.
Page content optimization is a balancing act and you should be testing your results. Allow a month or two for conversion tests. SEO effects should take a little less time to see results in your rankings two weeks or so.
Header Tags
Header tags are what you see at the top of the content on this site. On this particular page the H2 tag is: "Optimizing Your Page Copy". I use the h2 tag instead of the h1 for design purposes.
Your top priority keyword phrase should be in an H1 or H2 tag. For your homepage it will likely be "yourcity real estate". H1 tags should carry the most weight but the differences are probably to minimal to worry about.
H1, H2, H3, etc. are all header tags, H1 being the highest level and H6 being the lowest. When unformatted these tags will make the text in them really huge. So when you use them on your site, if they look to huge and unattractive, highlight the text and change it's size with your editor.
To use these tags you might have to use the html editor within your page editor. Find the area you want the text to appear and use the code below. These codes cannot be used in the normal area where you edit your website. You must be in the html editing section.
Tip: Sometimes you can click the area you want to place the tags and when you switch to the html editor the curser will already be at the desired location.
Keywords in Copy
If at all possible you should get your keywords in the copy of your pages early and often. But only if it makes sense. To be a litle more clear, one occurance of your keyword in my opinion is a must. More is better but not if your just throwing it in there to get more occurances of the keyword.
Your copy should be written for people, NOT for search engines.
Bad copy, written for search engines will not only kill your conversions it will also make it harder to get legitimate links to your website. And links are Gold.
At least one occurrence of your keyword(s) in your copy shouldn't be to hard to accomplish. Bolding or underlining a keyword on a page has been common practice in SEO for some time, but honestly the value of a bolded keyword isn't going to be much different than the value of a normal keyword occurance.
Keyword density is the ratio of your keyword to words on the page. This is something that has been pretty much a theory in the SEO field with no substantial evidence to back it up. Don't worry about wasting your time trying to find the right keyword density. It doesn't exist.
Multiple Target Keywords
Most likely you will be targeting multiple keywords on a single page. You should focus your efforts on the one with the highest and most targeted traffic. But, if one of your other keywords can be fit in your copy easier... Go with it. Still try to get that one occurrence of the highest searched term in there.
Optimizing Your Homepage for Visitors
Your homepage will probably be your most general page. The traffic you will be sending there will be a potential buyer or potential seller. If your targeting general keywords like "(your city) real estate" you need to have something for both of them there.
I'm not talking about a paragraph for each. You should have some links near the top of the page that draw their attention. One of those links will probably be to your IDX search page or your featured listings page(maybe both). Ask yourself what are they really looking for.
A good way to draw people in, is images. Pictures help, there is no doubt about it. But they have to be above the fold. Don't make them scroll down on your homepage. The option to scroll down can be there, but they should be able to get where they want without having to do so. Put a picture of a house next to a link to your IDX/MLS search link.
Also, provide something for the potential seller. You want to focus on the buyer a little more as that also looks good to a potential seller. But, there should be a link for the seller to follow as well.
Did I mention that your phone number should be impossible to not notice? Your phone number should be impossible to not notice. There. Most of the templates provided will have a spot for your name and number at the top of the page.
I would recommend using your cell phone number on your website rather than your office number. Some people will call the office number and just say I'm calling from your website. Then your lead get's handed to whoever your office decides because they thought the lead came from the office website.
I'll cover more on this topic in the blog a little later. Hope this is enough to get you started in the right direction.
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