Great ideas - thanks!

Good advice.

You mention links on a page help make you page sticky for users and that is very true. Another positive aspect of including contextual links on your page is the fact that they should be used as a way to take advantage of anchor text. This is one of the few ways that you can control anchor text for your links, which will help your site's do well in the SERPS. When you are adding those in text links make sure you are using terms that are relevant and that you want to rank well on. Most site owners overlook the power of internal links and anchor text when it comes to link building but it is an important aspect of building links and should be an integral part of any link building campaigns.

Really good tips Jim.  Making sure you provide relevant information is the key.

This is great information Jim. Do you use a particular pay-per-click medium that works well for you, and what are the costs for the service?

These are great tips.  The longer someone stays on your website, the better chance you have of gaining their trust and their business.

Thanks for the comment Mark.  Yes, having appropriate anchor text for the links within the page certainly does help in the SERPS.  It's definitely an area that is often over looked and can help the search engine find pages that they might not have otherwise.

Thanks for it. We have seen it work well on our blogs as well.

Thanks for the advice, James.  I appreciate it.   Have you done a pay per click campaign?

Seth, yes we actually do pay per click campaigns on both Yahoo and Google.  We did MIVA for awhile, but didn't end up getting the CTR that we have on Yahoo and Google.

Thanks for the tips...

We could always use any marketing info we can get.

Ive used google's ppc campaign. Unfortunately we all can set up a campaign and see how it works for us. We arent experts and we are more prone to making expensive mistakes. So I have since turned it over to a marketing proessional and my roi is much higher now.

Great Post... except PPC can be expensive and unproductive for the novice.

It is a common knowledge to all webmasters all that you outlined in your blog... But is good to refresh our memory specially when you have a webside that changes the info. every other week or so.

We don't want people to be afraid of using Google PPC, a book that we have found very helpful so you can get maximum results from Google PPC and save money is the book Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords by Perry Marshall. Whether it is your first time using Google Ads or you have been trying them for awhile it can really help you save money and get more visitors for less.  I hope you find it as useful as we have.

Nice post! However, I am going to disagree about having audio. You wrote, "Great products, like Instant Audio, allow you to put sound on your website for Testimonials or just explaining about your area." Think about it... do you really want to hear some agent talking to you from their web site? I really doubt it. Most people would like to avoid real estate agents altogether... since you might "sell" them something. Ha!

Keep in mind that many people who may be surfing the Web just may be at their work... taking a break. All of a sudden, they click on your web site where they hear, "HI! Welcome to my web site!" in some booming voice. (Try the Instant Audio web site to see what I mean.) Now they are quickly scurrying to find a way to turn their speakers off before their boss hears you talking. "Fred, what are you doing over there? Get back to work!" You may have just blown their cover because they weren't really suppose to be using "company" time to be surfing to begin with.

Take your cue from major corporate web sites instead who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop them. They could have had audio on them in a heartbeat. When you hear Bill Gates greeting you at Microsoft.com or hear the founders of Google talking to you, then perhaps I will change my mind. But until then, this really seems to be technology looking for a market... not consumers who are demanding to hear you talk to them.

I have 2 websites - a branded and unbranded site; visitors spend much more time on unbranded site and feel less intimadated there...they can browse thru reports, look at info and when they register, I have their follow up info and then contact them.

Win, first thanks for the great feedback! I would agree that if the audio comes on instantly like the Instant Audio site that that would be an immediate deterent for people staying on the website, but you can allow the user to control if they play the sound or not.  We have been testing it for some time on different pages within our websites and found it to increase interaction on pages.  On a page about an individual listing we had 10% of the visitors to that page (133 people) click and play the audio about the listing.  It improved the overal contact rate for that type of page (a listing) by 4% so it can help.

Win I have to diasgree with you. I have created parts of our website where we describe our listings using instant audio. Have multimedia in the new world of the Internet is critical. It mut be played on demand though as if a user does not have the control they will turn away. It has increased the contact rate out of pages that don't have it. Even the part where I introduce myself has been played. It is worth it. Google will be indexing more video because of their purchase of YouTube and audio\visual will be the next phase of the web.

This is a good post.  I'm glad I found it.  I am going to look at my website again.  I don't think I have links on each page.  That was a really good point.  I also need to change up some of my calls to action to make sure they are getting the response I want.

I've been trying to figure out what I was going to do with my website on its next redesign.  Thank you for some new ideas.

i cant figure out my website. period.

But thanks for some GREAT info!

Great post, especially for those of us who are working like crazy to get with the e-commerce program. I'm ahead of Sarah -- No Offense Sarah -- but you have to put in a lot of time to get there.

Sarah, I can feel your pain, we put up some more tips at www.OnlineRealEstateSuccess.com to help fellow realtors succeed online.

Thanks for the tips...

So many great tips in one great place...AR!  Thanks everyone for sharing the real world tips I need to grow my business!

Thanks for the information, anything that helps potential clients stick around longer is a good thing.  I will implement your suggestions on my own website.

I really like the idea of internal links helping users to learn more and see that we are experts. Great reminder that PPC should take the user to specific content within the site, not just the home page. Thanks for the tips!

I agree 100%. Making sure you provide value to the customer/client is essential to capturing quality leads.

Thanks for the tips. I agree we should try to increase the time they spend on our site.

Another great post!  You are a wealth of knowledge, thanks for the willingness to share.

Ben,

I am glad you enjoyed it.  Boise Idaho is a wonderful place (my grandma lives in Caldwell, Idaho).  Feel free to check out our blog at www.internetrealestatesuccess.com as well as we put more posts up there to help as well

NAs especially in the PPC world, you need to deliver what you are advertising or you are paying for non-sticky clicks and that can kill an Internet marketing budget quickly and leave you with no decent leads!  OUCH!  In Keller Williams, we call that playing "red light, green light" or "holding your marketing dollars accountable".  These are really important concepts in the Internet marketing area in my humble opinion!  My $0.02, Steve

Steve, I would say that providing quality content is surely applicable for PPC.  We are with Keller Williams as well so we certainly understand holding marketing dollars accountable.  Especially for PPC you want to have focused ads land on focused landing pages to maximize your PPC campaign.  Following the guidelines in this post though you will help you to succeed with your internet marketing efforts.