Effective keywords for your Real Estate Website

Search Engines: Choosing Effective Keywords

Learn what keywords your potential clients are searching for

It's extremely important to choose and focus on the right keywords. Very few sites spend enough time analyzing what terms and phrases they should be focusing on. What terms do your customers search by to find your competitors? What keywords are your competitors using? Obviously, these are important things to know when choosing your own keywords.

What many people don't know is that choosing your keywords isn't all guesswork. There are ways to find out exactly what terms users are searching for.

A tool we highly recommend is Wordtracker. It allows you to find the top related keywords searched for (by your target clients) by simply submitting a phrase on Wordtracker. Wordtracker not only gives you the list of most popular search phrases, but also lets you know how many competing sites there are for those particular keywords. We'll explain why this is valuable next.

The most highly searched keywords aren't always the best -- Target a niche market

It isn't enough to just know what the most popular terms are. The best terms are those that are not only popular, but also specifically targeted to your market, and have the least competition.

In recent years, the real estate industry has become one of the most competitive online. Large corporate real estate sites dominate most of the top search engine rankings and it is nearly impossible for a new web site to get a top ranking for terms such as "New York real estate" or "New York realtor".

While most large real estate firms and portals are focusing on greater metropolitan areas and broader real estate search phrases, individual agents and small brokerages should be concentrating on a much more targeted market. Be as specific as possible about your target market with your keywords. It's a common misconception to think that including a highly used search phrase in your site will generate a proportionate number of visits. This is because the popular search phrases will also have the most competition.

For example, if 100 searches are done on the term "San Francisco real estate" every minute but there are 75,000 web sites targeting the keywords "San Francisco real estate", your chances for getting many visitors from that term are very low. On the other hand, let's say you target each smaller neighborhood such as "Richmond District homes" or "Sunset District properties" specifically. Even if there are only a few searches per minute for these, your actual clickthroughs will be much higher with only 10-20 sites competing for them.

Your visitors will also be better qualified for your services and your web site will better demonstrate to them that you specialize in what they need. See our article on Targeting a Niche Market.

Brainstorming for additional keywords

Keep in mind that some keywords will be extremely competitive and you may not be able to get into the top 10 listings for quite some time, even if you've narrowed down your focus. More established sites with higher traffic and link popularity will be able to muscle out the top rankings even if you do use the all the right keywords in all the right places.

Don't be discouraged as there are always other keywords and phrases that are overlooked. Be clever and think of other less-competitive phrases to start while you work on building your site's link popularity. There are more people searching for these overlooked keyword phrases than you think.

Write down all the possible keywords that someone might enter into a search engine to find your site. Try entering different word combinations in Wordtracker and see what else you come up with.

Do not target single keywords

One common mistake is to target single keywords. With a few rare exceptions, searches on single words will match millions of web pages in any search engine. Your potential clients quickly learn that if they perform a search on "homes" or "properties" that they'll get hundreds of thousands of listings for real estate from all over the world. They will most likely use a much more specific search phrase to eliminate the irrelevant matches before continuing. For example, the following list of keywords will not be very effective.

real	properties
estate	house
agent	single
broker	family
realtor	homes

These terms need to be combined to take on the correct context.

Use the longer version of a keyword phrase

If possible, choose a longer form of a keyword phrase that also contains the shorter version. For example, if you use "Brooklyn real estate agent", you are also covering the shorter phrase "Brooklyn real estate". This way you can use the shorter and more popular search phrase as many times as possible in your web site while still covering the less competitive longer phrase.

Source:http://www.blitzdevelopment.com/real-estate-marketing-09.php

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

One of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf

Dubai is the most populous and second largest emirate of the United Arab Emirates after. Dubai is distinct from other members of the UAE in that revenues from oil account for only 6% of its gross doemstic products. A majority of the emirate's revenues are from the Jebel Ali Freezone and increasingly from tourism.

The government's decision to diversify from a trade-based but oil-reliant economy to one that is service- and tourism-oriented has made real estate more valuable, resulting in the property boom from 2004-2006. Construction on a large scale has turned Dubai into one of the fastest growing cities in the world, equalled only by the large Chinese cities.

The property boom is largely driven by Mega-Projects -

Off-shore such as Palm Ilands and The World.

Inland such as Dubai Marina, The Burj Dubai Complex, Dubai Waterfront, Business Bay and Dubailand.

The aspirations of the ruling sheikh are reflected by the ultra-modern architecture of the city; home to iconic skyscrapers such as Emirates Towers, which are the 12th and 24th tallest buildings in the world, and the Burj al-Arab located on its very own island in the Persian Gulf and currently the tallest hotel in the world.

Emaar Properties is currently constructing what will become the world's tallest structure, the Burj Dubai. The final height of the skyscraper is a closely guarded secret - an indication of the developer's resolve to attain the title of the world's tallest building and its intention to hold on to it for as long as possible - but estimates so far point to a height upwards of 810m. Burj Dubai is expected to be completed in 2008. Burj Dubai's neighbour is another behemoth under construction: the world's largest shopping mall - the Dubai Mall.

Also under construction is what is planned to become Dubai's new Central Business District, named Business Bay. The project, when completed, will feature a phenomenal 500 skyscrapers built around an artificial extension of the existing Dubai Creek.

In February 2005, the construction of Dubai Waterfront was announced, it will be 2½ times the size of Washington D.C., roughly seven times the size of the island of Manhattan. Dubai Waterfront will be a mix of canals and islands full of hotels and residential areas that will add 800 km (500 miles) of man-made waterfront. It will also contain Al Burj, another one of the tallest buildings in the world.

Dubai has also launched Dubiotech. This is a new park to be targeted at Biotech companies working in pharma, medical fields, genetic research and even biodefense. The aim of this park is to foster the growth of this sector in Dubai and to utilize the region's talent in addressing this rapidly growing sector.

One of Dubai's recent groundbreaking plans is for a 30-story, 200 apartment skyscraper that will slowly rotate at its base, making a 360 degree revolution once a week. The world's first rotating skyscraper is to be in the center of the Dubailand complex and should be completed by 2009.

The International Media Production Zone is a project targeted at creating a hub for printers, publishers, media production companies, and related industry segments. Launched in 2003, the project is scheduled to be completed in 2006.

A new project was announced on May 1, 2006 by the authorities. It is named Bawadi and will consist of a 27 billion US-dollar investment intended to increase Dubai's number of hotel rooms by 29,000, doubling it from the current figure offers now. The largest complex will be called Asia, Asia and will be the largest hotel in the world with more than 6,500 rooms.

The first villa freehold properties that were occupied by non-UAE nationals were The Meadows, The Springs, and The Lakes (high-end neighbourhoods designed by Emaar Properties, collectively called Emirates Hills).

Expatriates of various nationalities have been pouring capital into Dubai in the past several years, greatly contributing to the city's prosperity. Iranian expatriates alone are estimated to have invested up to US$200 Billion in Dubai.

Dubai interests have also purchased large amounts of real estate in foreign countries, in particular snapping up trophy properties in global centers like New York and London. Purchases in 2005 included New York's 230 Park Avenue (formerly known as the New York Central Building or the Helmsley Building) and Essex House on Central Park South.

See the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing's list of developments in Real Estate Dubai for more information.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai