Google AdWords is a great way to drive targeted traffic, but it’s getting more expensive every day. What are the alternatives?

1. Local Online Newspapers

After 30 seconds, I discovered these examples: Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun, Chicago Sun Times, etc.

Sure, it’s not the sexy new-age media that’s all the rage right now, but it still works (and makes some people a lot of money). Make sure your banner ad appears in the real estate section, is vibrant and eye catching. Consider including a flash animation of your Google Maps-based MLS search.

2. Facebook

Facebook is still relatively new to the online advertising world, but with the right approach, can be very effective. Here’s an article that shows our experience with Facebook advertising. To avoid a major drop-off in click-throughs, make sure you advertisements are fresh and new. Re-tune the text every week, or two.

3. Other Search Engines

Here’s a list of the web’s search engine market share: Bing.com,  Yahoo.com, Ask.com, etc.

So, “why should anyone use a search engine with such little market share?” The answer is: because other people don’t. Every day, billions of searches are performed. Search engines with 1% market share are still worth more than $1 billion, and are sometimes far more competitively priced than Google.

4. AdBrite

Check out their website. They have tens of thousands of partner sites with relevant content ready for you to take advantage of. They are generally much cheaper than Google AdWords, but be CAREFUL. They are cheaper because the click-throughs are generally of lower quality than those you’ll get from Google.

To improve click-through quality, be sure to target your ads correctly. If your ads are too general, you will drive poorly targeted traffic to your website, defeating the purpose.

5. Clicksor

Similar to AdBrite and AdSense, Clicksor displays your ads on relevant sites in their vast advertising network. The ads are contextual, meaning that you can target your ads to be displayed in articles that are relevant to your website.

There are lots of alternatives to Google Adwords out there. Despite the fact that most require a little tweaking to get them working for you, these alternatives offer a great way to target advertising in ways that many of your competitors aren’t even aware of.

So, you’ve got yourself a great-looking website for your real estate business and now want to get some traffic. Everyone’s talking about SEO, so that must be what you need to do, right? Not so fast…

Before you read any of the following, get used to the idea that you’ll be writing content. Content, content, content. SEO is great, but without good content, you’re sunk.

So, while you’re writing said great-and-focused content, here are the top 10 most common SEO mistakes to watch out for:

1. Keyword Dilution
If you choose too many keywords to optimize for, especially words that are unrelated, this will reduce the effectiveness of all of them. It is best to select a set of keywords (5-10) that best matches your business, and focus your website’s content on topics related to them.

2. Keyword Spamming
Don’t overuse your keywords. Search engines are smart enough to recognize when your content uses words too frequently. Punishments range from reduced ranking to banning from search results. The key is to keep your content focused and on-topic, and valuable to readers rather than a stream of repeated related words.

3. Link Spamming
If you have too many links to/from the same sites, even if it is not an intentional cross-linking scheme, search engines may penalize you for link-spamming. The best way to avoid this is to create compelling content that people will naturally link to. To get the word out, search for “real estate blogs” or “real estate forums” on Google. Post some comments and link back to your site. If your content is compelling, you’ll start seeing organic growth immediately.

4. Linking to Bad Sites
Outbound links to bad sites is extremely harmful to your ranking. If you make sure you link to sites with content relevant to your topic, you can mitigate this. Links to illegal download sites, or other sites deemed questionable by search engines, can drown you.

5. Circular Linking
Site A links to site B. Site B links to site C. Site C links back to site A. This is circular linking and, even when disguised, is penalized by search engines. Good quality content on your site will attract the right types of links over time, so don’t try to fool the search engines by cutting corners - it won’t work.

5. Duplicate Content
Search engines will penalize you for duplicating content on different pages throughout your site. Again, the “Content is King” rule applies here - there is nothing better than on-topic, updated and useful content.

6. Invisible Text
Ever wonder why you don’t see this bad habit much anymore? It’s because search engines penalize it tremendously. Keyword-spamming white-background sites with white text was all the rage back in the early 2000s until search engines started levying heavy penalties.

7. Poor Page Coding
Some sites look great, but they are coded terribly badly. As a human, this is hard to see, but from a search engine’s point of view, pooly coded sites are very hard to read. If you don’t code your site yourself, make sure your designer has a good reputation for SEO and site design before you drop big bucks into a good looking flop.

8. A Flash Intro/Homepage
Search engines can’t read flash pages, so stay away from these monstrosities at all cost. In general, flash movies/images won’t further your SEO cause at all unless they have good alternative text descriptions in the page’s code.

10. Movies without Transcriptions
Are a waste of time. Unless you’ve included all the text from the movie in the page, these will contribute to your site’s search engine ranking at all.

The message is pretty clear: content, content, content. If your site is flush with good quality content centering on some well-chosen keywords, you’re in good shape.

The top websites in the world are (you can find these on www.alexa.com):

#1 - www.google.com
#2 - www.yahoo.com
#3 - www.facebook.com

Why is that? The answer is simple - these websites are experts in their respective fields.

You go to Google because it’s the expert at searching the internet. Yahoo.com is the biggest information portal in the world because it’s the expert at syndicating news, finance, photos, and other information. Facebook is the most popular social media website in the world, and comes in third.

These websites do what so many do not - they provide expert value to visitors.

The first of the month is a big day in the real estate website world - it’s the day that almost everyone with a blog plagiarizes the latest real estate figures from the major news sources. There’s a good chance you’ve already posted this month’s official release from NAR or your local MLS on your real estate website blog, right?

The fact is that posting market statistics is easy and will contribute to the value of your website; but there’s a huge opportunity that 9/10 Realtors® are missing - being THE local expert. Why not invest a tiny bit more time and add something to your post that your customers and prospective customers can’t live without. Here’s what I mean:

Let’s take Calgary. Here’s a quote from April’s news release from the Calgary Real Estate Board:

“MLS® sales activity of single family Calgary metro homes was 1,290 in the month of April 2009, showing an increase of 19 per cent from 1,086 sales in March 2009, according to  figures released by the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB®). This was a decrease of 5 per cent from April 2008, when single family home sales were 1,363.  The number of condominium sales for the month of April 2009 was 579, an increase of 30 per cent from the 446 condominium transactions recorded in March 2009, and a decrease of 0.3 per cent from April 2008, when 581 condominiums changed hands. “

Great - now you’ve got what hundreds of other Realtors® will have on their blogs - hopefully your customers are only checking your website, right? Not good enough. It’s time to become the local expert:

Downtown West Side Calgary Real Estate Statistics: April, 2009

“With specific reference to the Downtown West Side, the picture is even more optimistic. Check out this graph of pricing for the last two months:“

Downtown Calgary Westside

“The last month is showing a recovery from the flat-lining we saw towards the end of 2008 and early 2009. More encouraging still is the healthy distribution of listing aging:“

Downtown Calgary Westside

“Remember - you can access statistics like this for every neighborhood and area in Calgary through my website.“

This will accomplish several things:

• Provide more insight than the real estate board and everyone else plagiarizing the same article
• Showcase some of the features of your website (if your website doesn’t provide trending like this, then contact us)
• Achieve better ranking in search engines for certain sub-markets in your city
• Answer your customer’s #1 question, WIIFM (you’re giving them something that’s not available anywhere else)

Becoming the local expert is the BEST way to offer something unique and special to people visiting your real estate website. It’ll mean more returning visitors to your site, better search engine ranking, increased credibility, and more MONEY in your pocket.

Ever since we released RPM3, our customers have asked me, “what should I blog about?” - it’s a great question. The answer depends on what you will be using your blog for; here are just some things I think blogs are great for:

1. Keeping in constant contact with customers
2. Providing a reason for people to keep coming back to your website
3. Lending credibility to yourself by demonstrating your knowledge of your industry
4. Creating a historical record of your content
5. Adding more subject-specific content to your website for Google to use in rankings

The biggest mistake many website owners make is using their blog to blatantly promote their product or service. This cheapens the whole approach and gives visitors absolutely no reason to return to your website.

So what should you blog about? Well, what do you know that other people would find interesting? Here are some suggestions off the top of my head:

• Local real estate numbers - but not the stuff taken straight from the official news releases

- Statistics for specific neighborhoods you prospect in
- Statistics for a specific type of property you specialize in
- Statistical anomalies, or things that buck the trend (everyone loves these)
- Your opinion on what the statistics mean
- Comparison with past statistics

• Neighborhood information

- Information on interesting real estate that’s for sale in neighborhoods you prospect
- Neighborhood events/community league information/etc.
- Interesting facts/history about specific neighborhoods

• Real Estate News

- Little known news about things that will affect real estate prices in certain areas
- How public transit improvements typically affect real estate values
- How city council decisions will affect real estate in your neighborhood/city

• Customer News Letters

- Rather than preparing that PDF every month for your customers, why not send them a link to your blog? I bet you’ll save so much time you’ll be doing it semi-monthly.

Also consider this: you have the opportunity to Build Brand with your blog. If you think of something cool that gives people a reason to keep coming back, and are consistent about posting, then you’ll carve out a nice little expert niche for yourself. For example, what about posting and advertising, “the best deal of the day,” on your website. That’s what www.woot.com does.

Bottom line - make it interesting, worth reading, and industry-specific.