Web site musts

[Todd Hutcheson]

Here are a few things I think are important when setting up a web site.

1. Always put your phone number on first line of your description tag. Many, many people us the internet as a phone lookup service. So make it easy for them to contact you by placing a phone number and hopefully an 800 prominently above the fold.

2. Register your domain for the full ten years.

3. When getting a domain, always buy the home and house version. For instance, if you like JoeBuysHomes, do not buy unless you can get JoeBuysHouses.com as well. Then point the homes site to the houses site. More people search for the word house than home.

4. Make your web site at least 5 pages.

5. Make it easy to read, use good fonts like Verdana. Don't do a reverse unless it is really big font.

6. Concentrate most of your efforts on getting good links to your site. Don't use a link like ibuyhomes.com. Very few people are looking for ibuyhomes.com so use Phrases like Sell home fast Orlando as your link words.

7. Change some copy on your site at least once a month.

8. Don't buy a gurus web site. None of them rank worth a hoot since they all have the same copy and get penalized. They also don't give a way to communicate with you other than filling out the form.

9. Check out the competition regularly to see who is moving up or down in the search engine rankings. I have a google alert set up with unique phrases on my site to tell me when someone has copied my site. I have had to threaten two local people who came to my class and then went home and copied my site.

10. Participate in forums such as this to learn new tricks. You may just may meet a mentor, a partner or someone to sell to.