The winner of the competition will win a trip to Las Vegas. As unbelievable as it may seem, I could care less about the prize. The prize is just an added bonus. What I am really looking forward to is the education I am going to receive. Not only is it a competition, it is going to be a learning experience. Luckily I will be learning from one of the Most Experenced Internet Marketers Online. If you’ve never visited his site, I highly recommend it.

My entry web site will be about The Real Estate Agent Online. I plan on really setting the record straight on how the real estate industry, and all agents involved are really missing a big opportunity in the real estate industry. This is going to require me to really sound off an piss off some real estate people. Oh well, the truth is the truth.

There are thousands of web sites on the internet. What all these web sites have in common would be the typical web site. Below I will list the characteristics of typical web sites.

Web Pages

The typical web site is made up of web pages. A web page is a file that is stored on a web server. It’s like any other file, it is made up of characters and images. A web page is usually read from a users computer using a browser over a internet feed. Web Pages are read and indexed by Search Engines. Users use search engines to find web pages.

Web Site Address

A web page has an internet address. The address for a web site is usually thehomepage of the web site, called the index page. An example of a web site address would be http://www.localref.com. The address for a web site is called its’ domain. The domain for the last example is www.localref.com. Just remember the domain address usually points to the web page called index. Domains are bought and sold.

Web Sites are Hosted

Web sites are hosted on the internet by web servers. If I wanted to start a web site I would load my web pages on a host server. You could own your own host server, but the typical web site is hosted by a company that specializes in serving web pages for the internet.

Web Site Design

Web site design has to do with creating web pages. This of course is how your web site will look. Some sites are large enough to have a team of web site designers. The smaller web sites usually pay for web designers to create their web site. Designing web pages so they are better indexed by search engines is called search engine optimization. Just like designers, either the web site is large and you have a team of search engine optimization people, or you are a small web site and use a search engine optimization consultant. I see an awful lot of large web sites on the internet that have great content, but are not read correctly by search engines. This is nothing more than wasted efforts. If your going to take the time to provide great information, please don’t forget to make sure everyone can read it.

Web Sites have a Webmaster

A webmaster is the one person in charge of the entire web site. One of the main jobs of the webmaster is to market the web site. This is called Internet Marketing. This is the one aspect of the internet that business owners do not do. And of course, the same business owners that tell you the web doesn’t really bring in that much in sales! Another important job of the webmaster is links. How the pages of a web site are linked together is very important. Here is a link to my Web Site Design Company.

What is a local web site?

A local web site would be a web site that contains web pages all about a location. The location could be a city, county, or state. Here is a sample of a local web site designed for Drexel Hill, Pa.

Search Help: Search is very complex these days. To get more accurate results, we have made specific search pages for the following words in this article:
Web Site, Web Page, Web Server, Internet Browsers, Buy a Domain Name, Website Hosting, Website Design, Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing.

Example Web Page with a long address.

Here is our example:

http://www.drexelhill.pa.ismylocationonline.com/blog/

Thats too long if you ask me. Can you imagine someone asking me how to get to that web page? YIKES! Not only is it long and improbable to type correctly, it’s very hard to remember. I want to be able to say to someone, if you type in this, you will get my page. And, whatever I tell them should be easy to remember.

Search Engines to the rescue, do a web search, kinda

By using:

• The strength of search engines
• The strength of my web site, and
• My search engine optimization skills.

I am able to say to anyone in my community, if you want to go to my web site for our community just go to Google and type in

“red red drexel hill pa”

Go ahead and try it. I’ll wait till you get back.

How does this work?

Just two little steps:

• Think up great shortcut group of words to use
• Using search engine optimization skills, make up article about those words.

Make up great shortcut group of words.

In my example, I knew the person asking is going to be from the area, so I am going to add the city name to the group of words. In this example the city name is Drexel Hill, Pa. This is very easy for anyone to remember, especially if they live here!

I will next think of a word or group of words that are easy to remember, but have zero chance of showing up in a web page on the internet. I chose to use a color. Now, a color has a very high probability to be on someones web page. All I did was double it. I used

“red red drexel hill, pa.”

I always recommend using the quotes, but I think it still works without them. You have to admit, that is pretty easy to remember, and I don’t see how anyone would use it on a web page. I was thinking of other words to use, like “red banana”. It’s actually hard to think of combos that you usually don’t normally put together.

Use Search Engine Optimization skills on a web page

I am of course the expert in Search Engine Optimization Techniques. Here is the article I made up for those words. Notice how the words are in the title and heading of the article. There’s more to what’s going on, but that’s the basics.

Conclusion

Now when someone says hey what’s your sites address, i just say Google red red drexel hill pa. and it’s very easy for them to remember the next time they are in front of a computer. The search engine of course points them to the article, and the article is on my site. I could have also used a misspelling of the city name. This is also a great way to get someone to go to your page when you are not allowed to publish links. Write your info, at the end write “Google: red red drexel hill, pa” and they will easily find your page.

Federal Government and Business

Here are a couple of convenient links to the US Government web sites.

• All US Government
• US Government Small Business Administration
• US Government - Business
• US Government - Business Online

State Government and Business

You really start to get into more helpful information when you start searching by State.I suggest putting quotation marks around the states with two words in their name. Example would be “New Jersey”. By doing this you eliminate all web pages that just contain”New”.

• New Jersey Search
• New Jersey - Business
• New Jersey Business Online

City Government and Business

• Jersey City, New Jersey
• Jersey City, New Jersey - Business
• Jersey City, New Jersey - Business Online

How I got notified about the real estate video

I have google alerts set for various cities that I deal with. One city name I have a google alert set for is “Havertown, Pa.” The real estate video we are using as an example has the heading of “35 Evans Lane, Haverford, Pa. 19041 $1,450,000″ showed up in Havertown, Pa. alert because of “Haver and Pa.” I will assume if I had an alert set for Haverford, Pa. it would also show up. Google alerts are great for business owners, but I don’t think you’ll find many customers using them. Fact is, If Randy Myer has an alert set on her name, like she should, she would know I am doing a case study on her house for sale video.

Your customer looks for information using a search

When marketing real estate over the internet, you have to think about what the customer is doing a search on. What is that customer going to type into that search box to get the information they need? Sometimes this takes a little thought. In this house for sale example I came up with two big possibilities. There are more possibilities. I think the customer would search “Real Estate, Haverford, Pa.” and/or “House for sale, Haverford, Pa.” In addition, you might want to consider the same searches for every town around Haverford, Pa. I think they are also your possible customer. Randy’s video did not show up in my Radnor, Pa. Google Alert. Going back to Randys video, the heading is completely out of touch with what the customer is going to search. My heading would have been “Real Estate, house for sale, Haverford, Pa.”

The keywords: Real Estate, House for Sale, Haverford, Pa.

In everything thing you do to market this house for sale you should use those keywords. Nobody will search “35 Evans Lane”. Nobody will search “19041″. Not to find a house for sale anyways. Nobody will search “$1,450,000″.

I made up my own article or web page to find the customer

I didn’t make up a video. I made up a house for sale article that makes a reference to the video. I made up an article that will sell that house for Randy and the customer. My article showed up in the google search results in three minutes. That alone is a big accomplishment. Heres what my house for sale article looked like in the search results. Heres what Randys house for sale article looked like. I hope you can see the difference.

I made it look easy

It is far from easy. I still needed to own the keywords. Or use someone who does own the keywords. Using the Drexel Hill, Pa. Real Estate BLOG as my location for the article really helped a lot. This is not the only way, but it was very effective for me. Is there other ways? I’m sure there is. I could have listed the house for sale in Ardmore, Pa., Havertown, Pa., Lansdowne, Pa., Conshohocken, Pa., Radnor, Pa., Springfield, Pa., Yeadon, Pa., Broomall, Pa. or Glenolden, Pa. which are all cities that are close to Haverford, Pa.

Still other aspects of this real estate marketing to be looked at

Two other web sites are going to look at the marketing of this house for sale and use it as a Case Study. One is “IsMyLocationOnline.com“. The article is “How to market a house for sale….”. The other is LaMach Search Engine Optimization Consultant in Havertown, Pa. LaMach is the designer and programmer for all web sites involved, and he will evaluate the search engine optimization that is being used. The Search Engine optimization of a house for sale is here.

Just remember two things. The government probably is putting out information that goes to the lowest bidder, Ha Ha! And if its like any other site the government runs, the info will not change much.

Good info on starting a business in each state.

Oprah has grasped the internet and how to use it more than anyone else on TV.

Be clever. Figure out how you can use the internet to your advantage. My first thought is that the seminar can be run over and over again. Just keep it up to date. OH OH! the wheels are turning.

The blog is weighted in the favor of search engine optimization thanks to Courtney Tuttle of Courtney’s Internet Marketing School.

To download this WordPress Theme called K Sniper.

The theme is heavily altered by Paul Lamach of LaMach Web Site Design.

The problem with having her locked in the closet, is that no one gets to enjoy her great smile. No one gets to respond to this beauty. And what does this have to do with the small local business online? I’m getting to it! Another story.

When I owned a printing company, the industry was hurt pretty bad when desktop publishing came out. Boy did that computer thing take over. Everyone had a printer and computer. And most business people had to justify the purchase. Man, did I see some ugly flyers produced. That was interesting, but, what I want to tell you about is the beautiful flyers I produced. They were perfect. They would fly off my printer and look so good sitting there in a pile. But, guess what?

Flyers, web sites, and beauty queens locked in your closet all have the same thing in common. If the public is not aware they exist, they are worthless! Now we get to the local business online.

How many of you have web sites and can’t figure out why you get no traffic? That web site sitting there locked in your server, has to be brought to the attention of the public. What good is a beautiful web site that has everything if no one sees it? Do not think a beautiful web site will draw attention. Thats like thinking the beauty queen in the closet is going to attract attention.

You need to make your potential customers aware of the web site. You must market the web site. I’ve got to run. I have to unlock all my closets.