I think I am out of the Sandbox?

howard11792 · 09-20-2007, 11:28 AM

I have had my REW site for roughly 6 months. I am only getting 5 - 10 hits per day as per Google Analytics. It doesn't seem like much but I am in a small resort community of Park City, UT. Not sure...

Most importantly, I am not getting many inquiries or prospects from the site.

Does anyone see any red flags or reasons why my site is not generating leads?

I am open to any suggestions or comments.

Thanks...

Lydia · 02:19 PM

The site looks good. You might want to try forced registration for the mls search.

The traffic issue is a little strange. You show up for me on several google searches, and it seems that 'park city utah real estate' is a pretty competitive keyword. I see 2.6 million results for that term, which is pretty high in my experience.

Every area has their own set of keywords that work best for traffic. You might want to see if maybe there is another search term to optimize for, that might bring a little more traffic.

Another suggestion...You might want to hire Ronnie, or set up your AdWords campaign, to get your site up near the top of the search results until you can grow some more traffic (?)

Oh, and 6 months and the front page of Google is pretty good! Keep building content, as much as you can, and give yourself some time for the site to mature. You really need some domain 'age' to rank well in Google.

keto · 09-20-2007, 06:03 PM

Issues to resolve:
- Duplicate content problems all over the place.
- Site is not properly indexed.
- Clean up index using 301 redirects in place from prior site.
- Block the photogallery from being indexed using the robots.txt file.
- Get more links. G only shows 4 and Y shows known.

keto · 09-20-2007, 06:07 PM

Also, there is no such thing as a Sandbox, SEO myth. The sandbox is simply a result of not enough link equity. Which is part of the reason it is important to 301 redirect old pages to new if you change URLs.

Clean up your main page first. 301 redirect non-www to www, and 301 redirect /home to www. Never refer to your home page in code as anything other that www.domain.com

ericbadgley · 09-20-2007, 06:17 PM

That is strange. Maybe your pages need to be optimized for long tail search terms I have had my site since april. I get around 100-150 day most of which are longtail search terms. I only get 5 or so from bellingham real estate. Thats probably what the issue is.

howard11792 · 09-20-2007, 10:51 PM

That's good feedback. I appreciate the assistance. I am relatively new to this and need the help. A few questions based on your comments...

1. What is an example of a long tail search term?

2. How do I determine old pages that need 301 redirect? How do I do a 301 redirect? Is that what you mean by indexing?

3. I have many more links than I am getting credit for. In fact, I have 48 contextual links to my home page plus backlinks in 4 or 5 articles. Any reason why G only shows 4 and Y shows none?

4. How do I block the photogallery from being indexed using the robots.txt file? I have not done anything with the robots.txt Why don't you want a photogallery to be indexed? Also, I think the photogallery is on my vacation rental website, not my REW site but I will fix that as well.

Thank you so much.

ericbadgley · 09-20-2007, 11:48 PM

there is a condo project in bellingham called morse square condos. Not a popular term I rank top three for the word. It probably only gets 3 visitors a month. Since I made the page a few months ago I have had a showing and a few good leads. check the page out www dot bellingham-realestate.net/Condo.php look to the right I have created a page for every condo site in bellingham.

You can also add key phrases into content like mabe a neighborhood or park. Maybe you have a small trailer park in the are I dunno. Usually its words that not many searchers search for but it is worth the time becuase you usually rank well for it.

ericbadgley · 09-20-2007, 11:50 PM

click here http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...homes+for+sale look at the fourth result.

all I did here was put one time on the birch bay real estate page. "Mobile Homes for sale" the page now ranks for birch bay mobile homes.