Do you know what it means to Target Your Market on the Internet? And if so, have you taken the steps necessary to drive the right traffic to your site? Here are four steps to get you started.

1. Realize most of your site traffic will come from buyers -- which means you need to provide ample inventory on your site and take great pains in using this inventory to drive these potential buyers to your site. This also means taking a close, hard look at "how" your inventory is being presented.

2. Understand the difference between dynamic web pages and static web pages. Sites like realtor.com and cyberhomes.com deliver your listings on what is alled a dynamically generated page, meaning the web page the visitor sees is "created" right then, right there. It wasn't there... it didn't exist... prior to their search. The downside to this type of presentation is your listing cannot help you drive potential buyers to your site because the "page" doesn't really exist!

Static pages are real HTML pages with an actual URL address. This means each of your listings are presented on their own page; each page which can be submitted to the search engines, indexed, and used to drive targeted buyers to your site.

3. Realize that most people are not looking for YOU online -- meaning you need to take a close, hard look at the "title" of your web pages and the "meta" tag descriptions which tell the search engines how to index and make your site available to be found. (title tags and meta tags are part of the behind the scenes HTML coding which makes up you web pages.)

If this is all Greek to you, that's fine. Simply print out a copy of this section and get it to your webmaster or techie! Studies have shown that most people who use the Internet to search for real estate will use specific search criteria to produce result for a particular AREA... not a particular agent, broker, or brokerage. This means that most people will search for:

Atlanta GA real estate, or
Homes in Atlanta Georgia, or
Horse properties is Atlanta GA

before they would ever type in the search... "John Jones, Atlanta's finest agent." So structure your pages to target your market. Dump the image and go for traffic.

4.Targeting for sellers means building a "community" site -- which means providing TONS of useful, local content which is valuable enough to keep local visitors coming back, and back, and back until they are ready to do business.

You will want to promote this site everywhere -- both locally, and on the Net. We'll talk much more about creating this type of site in a future issue. If you want a good example now, take a peek at Arizona REALTOR®'s Alice Held's site at: http://www.come2az.com

Alice has built a huge site which offers something for everybody and which keeps them coming back continuously -- the key to snagging more than your fair share of your local market.

Alice has managed to pull off 102 deals in less than two years from her site, by the way!

Another way to make your Web marketing more successful is to incorporate it with your current marketing efforts:

• Refine the content and appearance of your Web site and make it consistent with your personal brochures and other marketing materials.
• Add interactive content such as a newsletter and relocation request form.
• Set up an agreement with New Home Search Systems for a new home database.
• Frame in the MLS Internet sites where the local MLS data is available online.
• Tracking the visitors and purchasing a program to test the effectiveness of keywords and site content in search engines.
• Offer Web site visitors an option to call your direct 800 number."

Remember, marketing on the Web is all about content and value-added services and connectivity. Be sure to follow through with requests within 24 hours or less, and be on the lookout for other Web sites to which you can have your site linked.

Published: November 26, 1999

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