Meta-Tag Myth (Article 1 of 2)

What’s the best way for homeowners and home buyers to find you investor website on the Internet? What’s the best way for those motivated buyers and sellers to find you on the web so that you can get more deals? Specifically, I’m gonna expose something that I call the “Meta-Tag Myth.” By the end of this article, you’ll know the most effective, efficient, and fastest way to start getting motivated buyers and sellers to your website.

ORGANIC OPTIMIZATION

If we’re gonna talk about motivated sellers finding your investing business on the internet, what better place to start than Google, the number one search engine on the planet? Let’s say there’s a motivated seller who searches for “foreclosure help.” On the left side of the screen there are “organic search results.” Organic means natural – these companies are not paying Google anything to appear here. They’re organically appearing because the site is optimized. It’s something that I’ll refer to going forward as “Organic Optimization.”

Wouldn’t you love to be the number one site that comes up when someone types in “foreclosure help”? Making that happen is a little bit complicated and it has to do with something called an algorithm. An algorithm is a highly complex mathematical equation, filled with a ton of different variables. Every search engine comes up with its own algorithm and they use it to determine what sites are most relevant, most important, and most valuable for whichever search term. Each company’s algorithm is not publicly shared but the variables that they look at are.

First thing you’ve probably heard of is something called a “Meta-Tag.” A “Meta-Tag” is just a line of keyword in the code of a webpage layout that helps people find your site.

They look at the number of incoming links to your site and its pages. If a lot of people are linking back and forth to your site, then the search engine will assign it a higher value and recommend it more often.

The relevance of your domain name is a secondary factor. If your website is called foreclosurehelpsolutions.com, that’s gonna give you more weight in the algorithm than if your site is just called bobsgreathouses. ? When a motivated seller searches “foreclosure help”, they consider your site content rich. That’s the fourth element. Content rich means your site has a lot of content and pages with the keyword term “foreclosure help.”

The fifth factor is fresh content. In order to get ranked well by any of the major search engines, you need new content Updated on a regular basis. Don’t just set up a lot of content and then leave it there.

The sixth major factor is also that search engines love web 2.0 components. A forum or a blog holds a lot of weight with a search engine. So websites that have that get ranked better. Also every search engine has its own algorithm, so what it takes to be well optimized for Google is different than what it takes to be well optimized for Yahoo. Again you have incoming links, domain name, meta-tags, new content, keyword rich content, and web 2.0 components.

The other thing the results are geographically specific and will be really important later on. So when a motivated seller types in “foreclosure help” even if they live in Greenville, AL they’re gonna get all these nationally advertised sites. when it comes to organic searches, the search engines don’t. Check the searchers IP address. An IP address is what’s called an internet provider address. It’s where the signal’s actually coming from. However, organic search results don’t check. The only way geographically specific content shows up is if the search term is geographically specific. But people don’t search that way. Cons. Plus you’re still gonna have the same national companies come up.

THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY

The firsts pro of organic optimization is it does get national exposure. It also gets more powerful over time. Obviously the longer that your site is around, the more powerful these things become and the more likely you are to get very high ratings in the organic optimization, and the more likely it is motivated sellers will find you. Another pro is that it can be very cost effective once you get it right.

More importantly we need to talk about some of the cons. First it can take a very long time to get results. Depending on the search engine, a search engine operation {SEO} expert will tell you that it takes anywhere from 6 to 12 months to get indexed. Indexed just means that the search engine recognizes you. You’re not even on the first page. In some cases you may never be able to compete with the giants. Those guys are throwing tons of money at their website. They have a ton of links; a ton of content. They’ve been ranked for years.

The results are uncertain. Only the search engines know exactly what the algorithms are. They’re changing all the time because SEO experts try to beat them. Sites that are on the first page of Google can be on the 50th page overnight, which is a pretty scary thing.

The next con is the lack of control. Because the algorithms are different for every search engine, they’re changing, and you don’t know exactly what’s gonna yield results. When it comes to growing a Real Estate investing business, there’s nothing worse than not having control over the results you’re gonna achieve.

Also it requires constant upkeep. Search engines value new content and web 2.0 components. You have to be adding things on a regular basis.

The last Con I’m gonna talk about is huge: You need an expert and a major upfront investment. Even for our own business we looked into it and you’re talking thousands upfront, as well as regular upkeep in order to get it accomplished.

So that’s organic optimization. Those are the pros and those are the cons. And as you can already see, I’m not gonna pull my punches here. Now I’m sure as you’re already seeing why I don’t advocate organic optimization as the best way to get traffic on the internet and advertise your investing business.

The question we’ll have to answer next time, is if you want to find motivated sellers on the net with your investor website and Meta-Tags aren’t the answer, then what is?