Free link at FavouriteBlogs.com December 30, 2005
John Vanhara
Do you have real estate blog? Then register blog in this directory of Favourite Blogs. Another tip for free link to your website. More link means better chance to be in the top of the search engines, which means more buyers and sellers coming to your website!
Too late for MillionDollarHomepage.com
John Vanhara
Today I came across article about REALTORs who purchased ad on famous MillionDollarHomepage.com. I just couldn’t help, but had to write my few opinions…
It is too late!
There will be nearly ZERO traffic very soon coming from the MillionDollarHomepage.com. The purpose of any link going to your website should be getting traffic. And traffic means unique visitors (buyers, sellers) who will come to your website.
The traffic from MillionDollarHomepage is decreasing. There was a very interesting case study showing how MilllionDollarHomepage works and how much traffic it can bring. It is not linked from homepage, but you can still find it here: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/casestudy.php
The text on case study shows this:
I’ve also got some impressive images for you. Here is a graph taken directly from the Sponge website stats server showing what happened when their ad went online. The first spike in the graph is the day their 100-pixel ad went live on The Million Dollar Homepage:
Here is the same stats from today:
You can actually still access live stats here.
Instead of 22,333 unique visitors in October, there is only 5,101 unique visitors in December. And it will go down and down. Spongenb.com (company form case study) is still the winner in this case. They were one of the first clients who signed up and paid for being listed on MillionDollarHomepage.com. They got a lot of attention and click when they were one of the few companies listed there. But people who paid recently will not get even close benefit like Spongenb.com.
MillionDollarHomepage.com was a great idea! But reading the article how real estate professionals are spending on pay-per-pixel advertising got me thinking how many agents are missing the point in the real estate marketing. There is too much influence and too many people making more money on agents (selling them stuff). I think there is more money to be made on agents than made by agents in real estate transactions. Actually someone working for REALTOR.com once told me that such it was even confirmed by some research.
Another example from the article about REALTORs spending for pixel ads…
Lauer said the $100 ad at Tew’s site is her first foray into Internet advertising. She has received calls on occasion from companies that offer services relating to Google AdWords, though she hasn’t acted on the offers yet.
So far, she hasn’t received any solid leads from her ad, but it is definitely driving traffic to her Web site, Lauer said. She received about 700 more hits at her Web site in December than in the previous month.
Here is again the confusion of hits with unique people. 700 hits might be about 10-30 people coming to the website. It is nothing. You can write one blog entry, which will take you 5 minutes and you can easily get 10-30 people to make you 700 hits! Blog software is free, website hosting can cost you $5 per month, and all you have to spend is 5 minutes of your time!
What I check on my web stats
John Vanhara
Here is what I do on weekly basis with Webalizer stats. First I check unique visits per day.
That gives me idea how is the website doing. Going up or down?
The second step is to check the TOP Entry pages and Top Exit pages. Top Entry pages gives me idea what pages are people finding in the search engines. I usually focus on such pages and try to add more content.
Then I check Top Exit pages. That tells me where users leave the web. On these pages I try to changes to give users reason to stay. Usually I add some links which might interested users coming to the pages.
Then I look at top referrers. This shows me who is bringing me most of the traffic. Is it Google, Yahoo, MSN or anyone else? Did someone linked to me from their blogs? This is the place I see what is happening.
The last thing I check is the most popular keywords people are using to get to the website.
Webalizer is very simple statistics system. It is provided free with our inexpensive hosting, but from the SEO viewpoint it gives me enough information to make the most important decisions about SEO. Based on daily visits I see if the website is going well, based on top entry pages I know what pages people are finding as interesting in search engines, top exit pages gives me idea where to improve, referrers and keywords gives me idea who is bringing the traffic and what keywords are bringing the most traffic. If you want hosting for only $5 per month and use the same tools as we do please order here. We specialize in real estate websites.
What is important unique visitors or hits?
John Vanhara
The one important tool when you run your website are statistics. You will want to check often to see how you doing. Webalizer Stats are free and provided with our $5/month hosting.
The main view will give you idea how many unique visits you are getting per day or per month. Another important information is the Page Views, which tells you how many pages your visitors browsed. Forget about HITS. From time to time I still hear someone saying how many hits they got on their website. Hit is not a good statistical measure. Why? Because every page can have from 1 to tens of hits. If you put hundred of small pictures on website than one visit can have hundred of hits from just one visitor. So when you hear next time someone talking about hits ask them about unique visitors per day or per month (or page views).
Show recent articles on your Wordpress blog
John Vanhara
First I have to say that I am not programmer. And I am not going to learn now:-) If something is simple enough then I do it if it is too complicated I let programmers do it. Sometimes I get really amazed how something is very simple. It happened with Wordpress lately when I tried to do different modifications and found out how simply the information can be found and the change made.
I have installed nice theme on Las Vegas Commercial Real Estate website using Wordpress blog. What I couldn’t figure out how to make RECENT POSTS appear on the right sidebar.
The solution is very simple. Recent links is considered as Archive. I had the Archive links in the sidebar organized by month (November, December).
It looks like this:
-
< ?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>
Let’s say you want to list the last 15 posts you’ve written by their title. Replace the type=monthly as follows:
< ?php wp_get_archives('type=postbypost&limit=15'); ?>
And it works! The total time about 5 minutes together with searching for the information. If you need help with small modifications of your Wordpress log do not hesitate to contact us.
