LoopNet Commercial Real Estate Blog

New Way to Edit Your LoopNet Listings

2009-12-02T10:47:00.000-08:00

The next time you edit your listing, you will notice some changes. We have revamped the edit listing functionality to make it easy to use. Before, it used to take multiple clicks to reach the edit listing page. Now, once you click Edit Listing, we take you directly there. You'll notice tabs going across the top allowing you to edit different aspects of your listing.

Click the Location Map tab to double-check the location of your listing on a map.

Click the Contacts tab to add contacts on your listing.

Click the Attachments & Links tab to add photos, documents, and links to your listing.

Click the Exposure Options tab to find out everything you can do with your listing like Showcase it on LoopNet, embed it on other web sites, email it out, and more.

That’s it for now. We hope you like it. Go to My Listings today and check it out. If you have any feedback, give us a call at (888) 567-7442.

Football Team Looking for a Home – 80,000 Fans Await.

2009-11-11T13:56:00.000-08:00

The Pontiac Michigan Silverdome is on the block and is accepting sealed bids for purchase. This 80,300 seat stadium comes with a number of notable milestones including the largest NFL arena, when opened in 1975, and countless Thanksgiving day games.

The opportunity is now yours to own this landmark stadium and host your own turkey bowl games.

http://Listing.LoopNet.com/16421265

The auction is being conducted by Williams & Williams in partnership with CB Richard Ellis on behalf of the City of Pontiac. Sealed bids are due tomorrow (November 12th) by 4pm Eastern.

MIT's Commercial Real Estate Index is Up For The First Time in Over a Year

2009-11-03T07:59:00.000-08:00

Transaction prices of commercial property sold by major institutional investors rose by more than 4 percent in the third quarter of 2009, according to an index developed and published by the MIT Center for Real Estate (MIT/CRE). The 4.4 percent increase in the transactions-based index (TBI) for the third quarter is the first positive price change in the index in over a year. “The big news this quarter is not just that the price index increased, but that transaction volume substantially increased for the second quarter in a row, reflecting the first increase in market sentiment in two years,” said Professor David Geltner, director of research at MIT/CRE. “One quarter does not a trend make, and we are still well below normal trading volume,” Geltner cautioned. “Nevertheless, this is the strongest sign of a bottom that we’ve had in two years,” he added.

View all the charts:

Read the full press release:

SNAP food stamp challenge

2009-11-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

This past week 13 LoopNet employees and some of their families helped to raise $605 for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. The pledge was to budget only $20 per person for 5 days worth of meals. In return, LoopNet would make a donation to the food bank in their honor. It was a tough task that took discipline and determination. There was a ton of creativity both with how people spent their budget as well as how they prepared their food. By the close of the week we had all learned to appreciate those takeout meals we take for granted as well as the lifestyle we are accustomed to.

Q4 Poll Results: When will the Market Recover?

2009-10-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

More than 1,000 LoopNet members completed our October 2009 poll on the Q4 commercial real estate market. Based on our findings, in the last three months respondents have grown slightly more pessimistic about the timing of recovery in transaction volumes; expect that prices will continue to fall relative to current levels; and believe that access to affordable debt financing is the largest barrier to a recovery. See the PowerPoint below for more details.

Timing
In our last survey, run in July 2009, a solid majority (66%) expected the volume of commercial real estate transactions to rebound in 2010 or earlier, while only 1/3 expected the recovery to wait until 2011 or later. In the Q4 survey, that number has decreased to just over 50%, while there has been a sharp increase (to 46%) in those expecting the recovery to wait until 2011 or later. Nearly 1 in 5 are expecting to wait until 2012 to see a recovery.

When cut by role, investors are slightly more pessimistic, with a median expectation of recovery timing that is approximately one quarter later than that of brokers or owners.

Pricing
Despite the declines in pricing seen over the past quarter, respondents’ expectations for future pricing declines remain almost unchanged from the last survey. At the beginning of Q3, 52% of respondents expected to see future declines of 11% or more. At the beginning of Q4, that number is 53%. This suggests that future expectations of cash flow and value have continued to deteriorate, preventing pricing from stabilizing even after the declines in Q3.

All three groups surveyed—investors, brokers and owners—expect pricing to drop. Owners are the most optimistic, with nearly 20% saying prices have already bottomed. While this may suggest some continuing issues with the bid-ask spread, the average expected price declines are within a few percentage points across all three groups.

Obstacles
All three groups cited access to debt financing as the most significant obstacle to completing transactions, but this reason was weighted significantly more heavily by brokers and owners than it was by investors. Investors, by contrast, were relatively more likely to pin the blame on asking prices being too high and uncertainty about future cash flows.

What are your impressions? Does this data match with your expectations? What are you seeing in your local markets? Please comment and let us know.

LoopNet Commericial Real Estate Survey -

Top LoopNet Trends in Los Angeles

2009-10-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

The average asking price per unit for multifamily property on LoopNet in Los Angeles County had a slight uptick in the third quarter. The 0.89% increase, marked the first time in four quarters that prices did not decline.

Last month, an article in The Wall Street Journal Online reported the sale of The Gallery at NoHo Commons, a 438-unit apartment complex in North Hollywood, for $96 million indicating that deals are available in the multifamily sector. To be fair, the article also highlighted several risks related to investing in multifamily, namely the drop in transaction volume nationwide and the potential that apartment vacancies continue to decline if the economy doesn’t rebound.

But the article goes on to say that:

Opportunities for such higher returns in apartments have begun to attract some investors who previously retreated to other perceived safer investments such as Treasury bonds after the recession hit. … Apartment buildings are clearly producing higher returns than they used to. In 2007, the so-called capitalization rates of apartment buildings, derived by dividing a building's net operating income by the price paid, were 5.8%. Today they have risen to 7.1%, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York real-estate research firm.

But some people think a recovery for apartments is likely in 2011. If the job market stabilizes in 2010, younger workers are likely to be the first to be hired back because they are cheaper to employ, the theory goes. Since many of those people are renters, that is going to drive the apartment recovery, says Victor Calanog, director of research for Reis. (Read the Full Article )

So what do you think? Does this signal the end of the price decline or was it just an anomaly? Share your thoughts.

"Last month I set a company goal of 100% Advisor adoption of social media." - Kevin Maggiacomo, CEO of Sperry Van Ness

2009-10-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

Read the entire interview from Real Property Alpha. Have you adopted social media?

The Exponential Growth of Social Media - In Real Time

2009-10-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

From Gary Hayes, creator of this widget:

More about the Count - I quickly built and coded the app based on data culled from a range of social media sources & sites at the end of Sept 2009. The design will be finessed and I will be adding extra functionality (such as week, month & year lookahead/backs plus dynamic data input).

The social web has exploded in the last year and below are some of the key data points that the ‘Gary’s Social Media Count’ is based on (many will be updated!).

20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09)
Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)
Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets sent daily (source TechCrunch Apr 09)
iPolicy UK – SMS messaging has a bright future (Aug 09)
900 000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)
YouTube daily, 96 million videos watched, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06 !)
UPDATE: YouTube 1Billion watched per day SMH (2009)- counter updated!
Second Life 250k virtual goods made daily, text messages 1250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)
Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)
Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)
Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 mill annually (source Informa PDF)
SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (sourceEverysingleoneofus sms statistics)

LoopNet Trends in Los Angeles

2009-10-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

Q3 2009 LoopLocal Insight Reports were recently released for 39 markets nationwide, showing sales trends for each of the five major property types. Today we checked out asking prices for industrial listings in Los Angeles County on LoopNet and noticed a decline of 12.4% since Q3 2008 and 3.6% since Q2 2009.

According to the Institute for Supply Management's most recent national Report on Business "Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in September for the second consecutive month, and the overall economy grew for the fifth consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business®."

When will these early indicators start to impact industrial property values, rents and deal volume in LA? What about other markets? Is the industrial property market different from 6 months ago? If so, how?

The Institute for Supply Management's full national Report on Business can be found here:
http://www.ism.ws/ismreport/mfgrob.cfm
http://www.ism.ws/files/ISMReport/ROB102009.pdf

New "Distressed Assets Investor" Newsletter From GlobeSt.com

2009-10-13T16:36:00.001-07:00

This new monthly digital newsletter from GlobeSt.com is devoted solely to the distressed assets marketplace providing field-level guidance on the acquisition and disposition of distressed assets in all regions, all sectors and all values.

Check it out if you haven't seen it yet. Lots of good articles.

Read the Oct 2009 Premier Issue (Adobe Flash required)

LoopNet Makes Its Search Faster

2009-10-09T03:21:00.000-07:00

The next time you run a search, you should notice a significant improvement in speed.

Updating LoopNet Tonight

2009-10-08T19:06:00.001-07:00

It's that time again when we stay late at the office to roll out some new enhancements to LoopNet.

We're super excited about tonight's release. More about it in a few hours.

It's going to be a long night but we've stocked up on what looks like every energy-boosting-but-extremely-unhealthy snack we could think of to get us through it.

Anyone ever try Easy Cheese on a Twinkie?

New Submarkets For Lease Listings

2009-10-08T18:40:00.000-07:00

After a bunch of research and conversations with brokers across the country, we're pleased to introduce new submarket, market and region classifications for LoopNet lease listings.

Run an advanced search for lease, to search for properties by the new submarkets.

If you're currently marketing a property for lease on LoopNet, we've reclassified it into the new submarkets. Edit your listing to see what submarket it is in. You can also change it to a nearby one if you find a better match.

Our Research team has been working with local brokers across the country to come up with these the new submarkets, markets, and regions. But we realize that you may disagree with the classifications. If you have any feedback, please let us know. We intend to keep updating this information until we get it perfect.

Video: LoopNet Marketplace Real-Time Activity Stream

2009-10-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

Thousands of people search LoopNet.com every day for commercial real estate for sale or lease. If you visit our offices, you'll see a large LCD screen on the wall that visualizes 1) where people are searching from, 2) where they are searching, and 3) where they are viewing listings... all in real-time! This video only captures 1 minute of activity on a Thursday afternoon from the 920,000 visitors to LoopNet every month. Kind of mesmerizing, isn't it?

Has YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, or a blog strengthened your business? Tell CIRE magazine

2009-10-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Has YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, or a blog strengthened your business? Tell CIRE magazine
Commercial Investment Real Estate magazine is looking for CCIMs who are active on YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and other social media platforms to provide feedback for an upcoming feature article. Has your blog or Facebook page helped you connect with a client? Have you used YouTube or Flickr to spark a deal-making opportunity? If you’re reaping the professional benefits of these tools — or if you remain skeptical about their effectiveness — we’d like to hear from you. Please send a brief but detailed reply to rrosfelder@cciminstitute.com.

The Road to Recovery: Commercial Real Estate

2009-09-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

The commercial real estate industry is now expected to linger in recession through 2011, with recovery beginning in 2012, according to a recent survey released by Price Waterhouse Cooper. Rather than affecting all asset classes at once, the recovery will take hold in different segments at varying times. This most likely relates to the level of distress within each segment, as more distressed assets will take longer to recover.

First through the gate is predicted to be the multifamily property sector, which will begin to see recovery in 2010, with progress continuing through 2012. Next, the industrial and office real estate sectors will see recovery emerge in 2011 but not truly take hold until 2012. Finally, retail properties, dragging its feet through the door, will observe “slight recovery” in 2012. These predictions are precisely what one would expect to see in the market. As people regain their footing, shelter will undoubtedly be first priority, followed by office space as more people go back to work and finally retail as people begin to spend again.

Interestingly enough, 2012, the year commercial real estate is forecasted to see an industry wide recovery, is also the year $153 billion of CMBS loans come due. This creates a seemingly unlikely coincidence, as defaults are projected to be prevalent amongst those maturing loans. In-fact, according to Deutsche Bank, $100 billion of those loans (around 65%) will default, creating a crisis.

How a recovery and crisis can simultaneously exist within the same industry is a little hard to fathom but there is a chance the market will see this as an opportunity rather than a threat. If the industry truly is on stable footing by 2012, perhaps the appetites of buyers will be large enough to absorb those defaulted properties. If not, the year earmarked for recovery could be marred by a financial tempest.

____________________

Guest Blogger: Calkain Companies
Calkain Companies, Inc. is a national, boutique commercial real estate firm, focusing on net lease investments, that provides brokerage and consulting services for both private and institutional clientele.

Marshmallow Hole in One!

2009-09-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

Last week LoopNet attended the ASVB (Association of Silicon Valley Brokers) annual golf tournament at the Cinnabar Hills Golf Club in San Jose, CA.

Over 200 local commercial real estate professionals came together to participate in the 18 hole tournament!

As a hole sponsor, we had the opportunity to mingle with local brokers and other professionals while they teed off in our marshmallow contest. Although having fun seemed to be the theme of the day, several brokers were successful in hitting a marshmallow hole in one! Not only was it great opportunity for brokers to network in their local market, but they were also golfing for a charitable cause. Overall it was a great day on the course!

2009-09-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

On September 16th LoopNet employees sprinted to the finish line to help support the YMCA of San Francisco's Kids to Camp Program. Over 20 LoopNet employees joined about 300 other Bay Area companies to take on a 3.5 mile course which ran throughout Chrissy Field to complete the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge .

The JP Morgan Chase Foundation made a donation for each entry that was ear-marked specifically for Camp Jones Gulch, situated on 930 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

ICSC Western Division Conference

2009-09-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

Last week LoopNet exhibited at the ICSC Western Division Conference in San Diego, CA. Over 2,900 commercial real estate professionals attended the conference.

As LoopNet Premium Members visited our booth, we helped them activate their Enhanced Listing Web Sites. Here is a San Diego retail property with one activated. If you haven’t already read about this free Premium Membership feature, make sure to check it out!

What is our favorite way to use an Enhanced Listing Web Site? Add the link to your marketing materials and it will look like you spent a fortune on a flash-based web developer to feature your listing.

Here’s how:

Step 1: Log in to http://www.loopnet.com/. In “My LoopNet”, click the “My Listings” tab.

Step 2: Locate the listing for which you would like to create a web site and click "Create Web Site".

Step 3: Choose one of the six templates and click “Create Site”.

Do you have an active Enhanced Listing Web Site? Post the link in our comments to share it!

3 Advantages to Using Twitter for the Commercial Real Estate Broker

2009-09-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

What are you doing? The question millions of people answer daily in 140 characters or less on Twitter. But the real question is why do people take time out of their day to not only answer this question, but also read how other people in their network are answering this question? A poll taken by Smartbrief showed the majority of followers use Twitter to stay on top of breaking news and trends.

While there is much debate over the effectiveness and sustainability of Twitter, here are 3 advantages of taking time out of your day to answer the infamous question, “what are you doing?”

1. Declare Expertise – Post insightful knowledge about your expertise or market. You will gain respect and trust among your commercial real estate network and in return be privy to their breaking news and market information.

2. Promote Listings –Instantly broadcast your commercial real estate listings or other broker’s listings of interest from the LoopNet property profile. Be respectful of your network and only tweet a listing once unless there is a significant change with the listing.

3. Announce Wants/Needs –Inform your commercial real estate network of specific properties you or your clients are in the market to lease or purchase.

Do you have a Twitter tip to share? Post a comment below or tweet us at twitter.com/LoopNet.

Search Engine Optimization Tips for Commercial Real Estate Professionals (Part 2)

2009-08-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

>> View Part 1 of this series: Choosing keywords and adding them to your site

In part two of our series of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips for commercial real estate professionals we will explore additional tips for optimizing your web site for the search engines and increasing your web site’s traffic. If you have not yet read part one of this series, you can view it here.

Tip #1: Include targeted keywords in your link anchor text
One additional place to add targeted keywords to your web site is in the anchor text of any links that point to other pages of your site. The link anchor text is the actual words that are hyperlinked within the text. For example, in this sentence “LoopNet is #1 in online commercial real estate”, the words “online commercial real estate” are the anchor text. The search engines use the keywords in a link’s anchor text to help them determine the content of the linked page and use this text as a factor when ranking sites in the search results.

Tip #2: Regularly update your web site with unique content
Search engines love new content. So, it is important to keep the content on your site fresh and updated. By consistently adding new content to your web site, you are giving the search engines a reason to return and index your site, as well as adding additional pages that can appear in the search engine results. When adding new content, is important to make sure that it is relevant to the targeted keywords you are going after. For example, a San Francisco commercial brokerage may want to create a page that gives data on the local commercial real estate market.

Be sure to include links within this content (where it makes sense) to other pages in your site using your keywords. Also, avoid posting the same content in two different places on your web site. Search engines tend to penalize for duplicate content, and you will see the most benefit if the content is unique.

Tip #3: Add a site map
Adding a site map to your web site will help the search engines to find and index your most important web pages. A site map is a basic web page which contains text links to the important pages on your site and creates a central place where search engines can find these pages. Click here to view an example of LoopNet’s site map. Be sure to make all links text and to include your targeted keywords in each link’s anchor text.

Tip #4: Get links from other relevant web sites
One of the major elements of Google’s search engine algorithm is the number of links that a site receives from other web sites. It is important that these links come from relevant web sites (for example, a commercial real estate brokerage would not benefit from a link from a travel web site) and that the links direct to relevant pages that contain targeted keywords in the anchor text.

Link building can be a very long and tedious process, as many web masters are reluctant to link out to other sites. To get started, add your site to relevant directories (Yahoo directory, DMOZ, etc.). Make sure when adding your site to these directories that they are reputable and not link farms (define). You may also approach various web site owners and ask them to link to you, but be prepared that you need to offer a compelling reason as to why they should do this.

Tip #5: Don’t abuse Search Engine Optimization tactics
Search engines have become very good at spotting sites that abuse the various techniques we have mentioned. When optimizing your site, make sure that any changes you make are useful to the user as well as the search engines. After all, if users do not find your site helpful, then any traffic you gain from applying these techniques is wasted. When adding keywords to your site, only do so when it make sense, and avoid keyword stuffing, or adding the same keywords into a web page multiple times so that the text no longer makes sense. By keeping in mind both the needs of the search engines and those of your site visitors you will be able to create an optimized site that is relevant to both.

Lastly, when implementing any new SEO techniques, make sure to do your research to ensure you are not harming your site. For example, adding hidden text on your website using the same font color as the background so that search engines can see it, but visitors can not, may seem like a good way to add additional keywords to your website. But, search engines consider this spam and will penalize your site. You can research any new SEO techniques you come across by running a Google search or by visiting the sites below, which are all well known resources of Search Engine Optimization knowledge:

The High Rankings Forum: http://www.highrankings.com/forum/
ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com/
Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/
Webmasterworld.com: http://www.webmasterworld.com/

These tips should give you a good base in order to begin optimizing your web site. We hope that you found them useful. Please post and comments/questions that you have below, and we will be happy to respond.

Free Tool to Increase Exposure for Your Listings

2009-08-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

ListingsLink is a personalized web page that highlights your active listings on LoopNet. Use it to turn all your communications into a marketing opportunity.

Maximize the effectiveness of your communications by adding your ListingsLink to your email signature, social media profiles, and marketing materials.

Here’s how:

Step 1: Log in to http://www.loopnet.com/. In “My LoopNet”,
click the “My Listings” tab.

Step 2: Next to "Share your listings with this link",
copy the link and paste it into your desired location.

Note: Your ListingsLink page automatically updates as you edit your LoopNet listings.

ICSC Florida Conference Recap

2009-08-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

LoopNet exhibited at the ICSC Florida conference, in Kissimmee, Fl last week. Over 3,300 commercial real estate professionals attended the conference.

Even with the current economy, we found attendees are remaining optimistic. Many commented that one of the biggest challenges for potential buyers is the lack of available financing. A few brokers did note that they are relying more heavily on LoopNet to market their commercial properties, which is allowing them to locate active buyers in the market.

One common question we heard from LoopNet members was: “Can I market all of my listings on LoopNet if I have reached my plan's capacity?”

Our answer: YES. You can add an unlimited number of basic listings for FREE. The number of commercial properties you can list as Premium depends on your membership listing plan. Once you add a listing above your plan’s premium limit you may do one of the following:

Upgrade your membership to include more premium listings
Upgrade one listing to a single premium listing
Continue with your basic listing - FREE
Swap your basic listing with a premium listing

Learn how to swap listings

Will the Stimulus Bill Help Retail?

2009-08-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

The ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) commonly known as the stimulus bill, was signed into law on February 17, 2009. It retailed for a cool $787 billion and was supposed to ignite economic recovery. An integral indicator and part of that recovery is retail, as it is the primary outlet for our famed “consumerism”. Today, nearly half a year later, the future remains cloudy.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau: “The retail availability rate rose to 12%, a 50-bps increase from the previous quarter. However, the rate of increase slowed from Q1 2009 when retail availability rose 80-bps”. This seems consistent with retail sales numbers, indicating a trend whereby conditions are worsening, but at a slower rate than before.

Note: Availability is a space that is actively being marketed and available for tenant build-out within twelve months.

What can we take away from all of this? On the surface things are worse than 2008 and conditions have declined from Q1 to Q2. However the rate of decline has been leveling out, indicating that we may be close to hitting “bottom”, just how close we are, remains unknown. So we leave off with a cliffhanger, the question is: Will people be buying TV’s to see the ending? Let us know your thoughts.

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Search Engine Optimization Tips for Commercial Real Estate Professionals

2009-08-21T14:22:00.000-07:00

Online marketing, particularly Search Engine Optimization (SEO), has been a hot topic of conversation in recent years. As one of the most cost effective marketing strategies, SEO can be a particularly effective way for commercial real estate professionals to drive traffic to their web sites.

Search Engine Optimization involves improving the amount of “free” traffic to a web site from the organic, or natural, search engine results. These results appear in the main, left hand column of the search engine results page (see screen shot at right).

Web sites that appear in the search results are ordered based on what the search engines deem to be the most relevant to the keywords that a user typed in when searching. Each search engine has its own specific algorithm to determine relevancy. These algorithms are notoriously black box in that their methods are not openly known, but a few factors that are known include using keywords in web site text, links to the web site, the frequency of web site updates, etc.

While SEO does not involve any direct marketing costs, it does take time to optimize your web site to appear for relevant results. In the first of this two part series, we will give you some basic tips for how you can get started optimizing your web site to drive targeted traffic to your business and property listings.

Tip #1: Choose the right keywords
The first step to a successful SEO strategy is to choose the right keywords to target. The trick to this is to focus on the keywords that your target audience is using when searching for the products and services you offer. For example, a commercial real estate brokerage in San Francisco would want to target keywords such as “commercial broker,” “san francisco commercial broker”, and “california commercial broker".

First, start by building a list of keywords that you think are the most relevant for your business. After all, no one knows your business better then you. Then, plug these words into one of the various keyword suggestion tools, such as the Google Keyword Tool. This will help you build out your list even more.

When creating your list, remember to only pick the keywords most relevant for your business. Also, be sure to include targeted keywords that contain the names of markets you would like to focus on (i.e. “san francisco commercial broker”).

Tip #2: Avoid targeting too many words per page
While it may be tempting to target all the keywords for your site on one page, search engines need clear direction on what each page is about and which keywords the page should appear for. Before you begin optimizing your web site, it is important to determine which keywords you will be targeting for each page. Make each page as targeted as possible and limit it to a small, targeted list of keywords.

Tip #3: Add targeted keywords to your web site text
Once you have decided what terms to focus on for each page, the next step is to add those words to your web site. One of the main elements that search engines look at is the actual text on your web site. Look at the targeted keyword list that you created and sprinkle these words throughout your text to tell the search engines what your site focuses on. Remember, search engines can’t read images so it is important these words are put into the actual text.

Tip #4: Write optimized & catchy titles for each page
When your site appears in search results, the text used for the link at the top of your result is pulled from the “page title tag” of the specific page it is linking to. This title appears at the top of your browser when you are viewing a web page(see example). When writing these title tags, it is important to use your most relevant, targeted keywords and to remember that this text is what entices people to click on your link. Make sure it is catchy and “clickable” copy.

It’s also important to make sure that you write different title tags for each page, depending on each page’s content. If you are not familiar with where to find this code in your page’s HTML, here is an example of what it should look like.

Tip #5: Write an optimized and catchy description for each page
Below the link in your search engine result is the description for your web page. This is pulled from the “meta description tag” in your page HTML (click here for an example of what this tag looks like). Search engines pull the text that you put in your meta description tag and use it for the description shown in search results. This means that you need to make sure that this text contains your targeted keywords and is also made up of enticing copy that will make searchers want to click on your link.

These tips should give you a good base to use when optimizing your site for the search engines. Next Friday, we will be exploring some more tips on how to use SEO to improve your traffic for search engines. Look for our next post on Friday to learn more.