Keyword research matters. As an agent, you have to stay connected to the buying side if you want to use the web to locate listings. Believe me, people are checking things out on the web long before they take the relatively tenuous step of actually contacting an agent.

If you don’t hire an SEO expert, make sure you do as much as you can to become one on your own behalf before undertaking a keyword campaign that isn’t doing you much good.

By contrast, sometimes you can discover a niche keyword, a long-tail keyword that nets close to 100% paying customers for your business. In real estate it could be something very specific such as a search term I recently saw that brought a person to one of my client’s websites. The term was simple and to the point with no competition but definitely found someone looking for a specific kind of agent to work with. What was that term? It was, “realtors in that spend time with you.” My client has made a point of letting customers know that they’ll get the face time they need and it shows in their web pages and blogs.

The Google Keyword screenshot below illustrates the importance of keyword research as described in this article. Be an SEO Expert on your own behalf and give plenty of thought to your keywords for both long term and short term SEO strategies in Orange County and anywhere you are marketing.

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Web strategies on a local level, Orange County SEO for small business, is my focus and it’s your advantage wherever you may be geographically located. SEO for large companies and SEO for small business have much in common but also differ in very important ways:

• SEO for small business can capture local market share
  Large companies have to dominate the web globally. This may be possible for a niche product or service but it becomes increasingly difficult to impossible for small business to compete with large SEO campaigns. Conversely, a specific product or geographic target, such as La Cresta Custom homes, can land you on page one and in position one for a Google search: proof- La Cresta Custom Homes – check for my photography back-link at the bottom of the first website. Also, this client owns the first several results- not just the first one. If someone is looking for nearly any search term on La Cresta Custom homes, or even La Cresta homes for sale, they will find this target home on page one of Google. They will be exposed to the message about this home ahead of many thousands of competing web pages.
• SEO for small business can enjoy faster results
  Since competition is smaller, effective analysis and keyword research (see my article: Orange County SEO Expert | Finding the Right Keywords) can mean faster access to high rankings in Google. My example of La Cresta homes was achieved in about six weeks, with page one results appearing within three weeks. Dominance- multiple showings in high positions is possible depending on competing SEO efforts and site traffic.
• SEO for small business can be inexpensive. If you’re a do-it-yourself type, you can learn from studying and applying basic SEO techniques and for the cost of web hosting (Bluehost offers the best cheap web hosting plans from $6.95/month) and the time spent setting up and posting to a WordPress blog, a small business can make a quick impact on search engines and place high in search results with little other work.
• Small businesses know their target and it can be more easily reached.
  This is even true for individuals. Example: My wife and I collected several Thomas Kinkade prints- but after two moves, we have one that doesn’t fit our decor- the one that my wife always liked least. It’s the Clocktower Cottage print. I’m selling it, but the demand is low for Kinkade is low. I created a WordPress post for this painting and titled it, Private Sale: Thomas Kinkade Painting – Clocktower Cottage Streams of Time $779 Kinkade Paintings. This post always shows up on page one when the title is mentioned in a search, and in position one when “for sale” is mentioned in the search too. I get little traffic for this term, perhaps three or four hits a week. What I’m assured of is that, when someone wants to buy this painting-print and looks online, they will see my offering. It’s over-priced a bit so it hasn’t moved. That’s fine because it gives me the advantage of this illustration. There are countless methods of capturing the buyer that only a small business owner that knows their audience can leverage. Local people start typing locally oriented phrases into Google when they’re closer to buying.
• Geographic specificity is your biggest advantage.
  A large business, like Canon, for example has to take a completely different strategy toward brand building. Even a page one result means little more than the sense that they might be a bigger name than Pentax. A small business that serves a locale has tremendous advantage by being on page one. There is a greater sense of relevance and authority for that business. Often, the first link with a good call to action, direct or inferred, in the title or even the description will get the first click. The title, Orange County SEO small business advantage that I used here immediately communicated, “there’s something in it for you” to those who are reading this post.

Always remember that SEO should always be SEM, Search Engine Marketing. You’re not just trying to get on page one. You’re marketing a product, a serviced and a brand. That is why the keyword research and analysis I mentioned earlier is vitally important.