If you can't beat 'em, it's time to join 'em. The Internet is fast moving into the field of real estate. And you can take advantage of it beyond the scope of the ordinary agent via different twists with search engines.

Consider the Industry Standard, one of the most widely-read places to learn about the Internet economy. Recently they published an article entitled "Open House - Realtors Learn To Love The Internet." This article described in detail how both the real estate companies and also real estate megasites are fast becoming highly visible on the Internet.

Most ordinary agents who are aware of the Internet will list at Realtor.com and other megasites, and that's it.

While that's all very well and good (and can generate a lot of leads!), you can do so much more.

Consider search engines. Yes, yes, yes, I've heard it all before - it's impossible to get into the top ten, every search engine differs from one another, why even bother?

I can tell you why! Go to Infoseek at http://infoseek.go.com and search for real estate

You'll see a listing for The Real Estate Pro's Internet Edge on the top ten! It took six months to do it, but my book is now getting the exposure I want at Infoseek.

In other words, rankings change all the time. It's not a one-shot process - a page of your site could be buried for weeks on end and then all of a sudden pop up when you least expect it.

The best way to optimize your search engine rankings is to create as many targeted pages as possible on your site like so:

• Draw a 2-column table on a sheet of paper.
• List all the pages on your site. This could include your "About me" page, your main page, your "Listings" page etc. Write them down in the first column.
• Next, choose four or five keywords that you feel important. It might be "MA realtors,Holmdel realtors,Monmouth County homes" etc. Do this for all pages.
• For each page you've listed, write down those keywords in the second column.
• When you've completed this exercise, you'll see a methodical listing of keywords for each page in front of you.
• Using your page editing software, edit each page and add those keywords into the Keywords metatag. On some pages, repeat them three times. Others four. Because some search engines don't even index the Keywords metatag, you might choose a page or two and delete that line.
• Upload your pages, and reindex them in search engines (NOTE!!!! This is assuming you don't already appear in search engines. If you already have a topten listing (which you can see by perusing your logs), DO NOT REINDEX! It might send you back to invisibility land again if the search indexing algorithms have changed).

By approaching your web site in this methodical fashion, you greatly improve your chances at increased visibility. If you have some specific search engine questions, check out The Search Engine Forums - you'll find individual discussion groups for every important search engine there is.

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Published: June 17, 1999

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