Common Sense   It really all gets down to common sense. If you live in a tiny town in the midwest, you can never expect the same Web site traffic you'd receive if you live in a resort area in the sunbelt!

The first step in any Real Estate Search Engine Optimization Campaign is Keyword Research. Most professional SEO companies use wordtracker.com as their source for that research. Wordtracker reveals the keyword phrases people actually use to find Web sites in search engines. The real value in keyword research comes from sorting and analyzing the statistical data to determine how the information can help in setting realistic expectations for Web site success.

We conducted keyword research for the 6 cities in the table below - 3 Midwestern and 3 Western/Southern cities. We added population statistics (not supplied by Wordtracker). The table is sorted into descending population size as measured by metro markets according to http://www.cityrating.com.

**Explanation of Table Columns

• Count: The number of times people have entered this keyword from 341,900,136 search queries. These have been taken from the various MetaCrawlers and wordtracker.com surveys.
• 24Hrs: Using information taken from Websnapshot, wordtracker.com has estimated the number of queries this keyword might receive in the current 24 hour period for Google.
• Competing: The number of competing web pages in Google.

A Different Look at the Numbers

After looking at the cities by size, we re-sorted the information in our table into descending predicted query order (24Hrs column). By ordering the data differently, it becomes quite apparent that a simple calculation of query per population means nothing when applied across different cities.

If not population, what other issues are in play? To try to determine what may be important, we made city-to-city comparisons.

Indianapolis, Indiana vs. Denver, Colorado

The population of Indianapolis is a little less than two thirds the size of the population of Denver. However, "Indianapolis real estate" yields only 16% of the searches that "Denver real estate" yields. If the search numbers were in proportion to the populations, one would expect the Count for Indianapolis to be 218 and the 24Hrs number to be 72 (or Denver to have a Count of 77 and a 24Hrs number of 26).

Why the disparity? Denver is a city that is experiencing population growth. Indianapolis is located in an area of the country where population growth is slow or even negative. When the market is geographically desirable and growing, the possibility of exponentially higher site traffic from search engines is a possibility.

How many times have you heard someone at a national convention or seminar say "I made hundreds of thousands of dollars from my Web site last year"? If you earned nowhere near that amount despite an established, informational site, it could well be that you live in an area where you can never achieve high dollar volume because there aren't enough search queries to support that level of business.

Dayton, Ohio vs. Tucson, Arizona

Tucson’s population is about 89% of Dayton’s, but the percentage of Google real estate searches in Dayton is only 2% of the number of searches in Tucson!  That’s a strong indicator of why we heard so often during the 2004  presidential election campaign about voter dissatisfaction with the condition of the economy in Ohio. Not only is Tucson a sought-after location for full-time residents and retirees, it’s a popular spot for vacation homes and investment property. All these factors contribute to the very high search volume for Tucson.

Additionally, when people are looking for out-of-town investment property and/or vacation homes, it’s natural for them to hop on the Web to locate property and to find a REALTOR® to assist them. When homebuyers search for property in the town where they already live, they are less likely to use the Web and more likely to call a REALTOR® they know or make contact from a classified ad or a yard sign.

A further contributing factor to local Web use is the demographic composition of the area. In high tech concentrations like Seattle, Silicon Valley, and the North Carolina Research Triangle, there is strong local Web search usage. Techies are addicted. The age of the population is also a consideration. Young adults turn to the Web far more than their parents do.

Melbourne, Florida vs. Rockford, Illinois

Rockford is about 78% the size of Melbourne when you measure population. The number of real estate searches in Rockford is quite proportional to the population differential at 76% of the searches for real estate in Melbourne. Since Melbourne is in Florida it offers good weather, palm trees and Atlantic Beaches. Why then would the search numbers be fairly equivalent to Rockford, Illinois when we saw such vast differences in the numbers for Dayton vs. Tucson?

Melbourne was near ground zero for two of the 4 hurricanes that hit Florida in the few months prior to conducting the research. Consequently, real estate there was damaged and not as desirable as it was prior to the storms. Fewer people were looking for vacation properties in that location. It’s tough to be a REALTOR® in parts of Florida when hurricanes are a consideration!

Additionally, the statistics for “Melbourne real estate” are skewed because of  Melbourne, Australia. In other words, when people search for “Melbourne real estate” some will be searching for Florida and some for Australia.

Notice the difference when we add "Florida" to the Melbourne search:

While there are almost as many searches and predicted queries, the number of competing Web sites in Google is reduced dramatically!

When you do your keyword research for a location that is not uniquely named, you should drill down to a search term that is uniquely named (e.g., Melbourne Florida or Melbourne FL). This drill-down eliminates the normal statistical contamination caused by the existence of the other location.

Competing Sites vs. Predicted Queries

Using the 'new' numbers for Melbourne Florida real estate instead of the "old" numbers for Melbourne real estate, we sorted again into ascending Competing Sites order.

With this view, it is far more desirable to be a Web REALTOR® in Melbourne, Florida despite the hurricanes than it is to be a Web REALTOR® in Dayton, Ohio (many fewer predicted queries for equivalent competition) or to be a Web REALTOR® in Indianapolis, Indiana (far more competition for equivalent predicted queries).

The predicted queries in Tucson and Denver are very high, but it's a significant task to deal with the heavy competition. One thing is certain, it’s a more labor-intensive, difficult and lengthy process to rise to the top when you have hundreds of thousands of competing Web sites.

Conclusion: every geographic area presents its own challenges. Only you can determine your acceptable ROI.

Questions To Ask Yourself About Your Search Engine Traffic Expectations

What’s the population base of your metro market? Theoretically, the larger the potential market, the more traffic it will generate. However, there may be mitigating circumstances.

• Is your area population growing or shrinking?
• Is there a lot of new construction and therefore a constantly increasing pool of housing units available to sell?
• Are there “other” factors involved – faltering economy and accompanying loss of jobs, a recent severe weather event, a booming market in vacation homes, good or bad stock market conditions?
• Are the residents of your area techno-literate and therefore likely to effectively search for real estate on the Web? Does your area have a large population of young adults?
• How many competing real estate Web sites are there in your market? Generally speaking, the more ‘popular’ your area is, the more difficult it is to achieve good search engine positioning because there are so many REALTOR® sites on the Web.

Do your keyword research and then look at the complete picture to set realistic Web site expectations. Site visitors don't magically appear, contact you, and buy properties.  Your site must be created to be search engine friendly and then optimized to help the spiders find and index your valuable information.