"Web Bites" and SEO - Getting the Click Lower on the Page

Yesterday, I did a post about consumers, and the future selection of real estate professionals based on their "virtual footprint" or their "web bites." I believe that I'm already seeing evidence of this fact in my own research into how visitors come to my real estate site.

Most of you will be familiar with the term "long tail" as it relates to search engine optimization. One way of explaining it is the lengthening of search phrases with more specific words...such as a search for "YourTown real estate home sale statistics" instead of the much more competitive "YourTown real estate" phrase. The long tail can be just about anything that relates to real estate on your site, and just writing a lot of original content will reward you with top positions in long tail searches.

But, I'm also seeing something else related to long tail and "web bites." I consider web bites the equivalent of a "sound bite" on radio or TV. They're short phrases that you've written about, placed on your web site, written in a comment on someone's blog, or blogged about yourself. An example might be going to a major blog site and commenting on a post about current real estate trends. You might say something like "In collecting MyTown real estate statistics for sold properties, I'm finding a trend toward..."

Now, you've left that comment on a high traffic site with great search engine clout. You were also allowed to leave a link to your site. Your chances of a visit to your site from someone searching for real estate statistics for your area just increased. You're far more likely to be seen in a search result that turns up that site with your "web bite" in the text of the search result. Your name and site link will be there when they click to the site from the search result page. There is a good chance that they'll click one more time to see what else you have to say on the subject.

But your web bites are also your yard signs on the Internet. The more web bites you have out there with your name and site link, the more visibility you get. The cumulative effect of a consumer seeing your name in multiple searches, with commentary on their topics of interest, is going to be the super yard sign of the future. And, back to the title line of this post, you'll get traffic directly from position 8 in a search before those listed above you.

When I check my analytics and site statistics, I find visitors coming from search phrases where I was down near the bottom of the first page, or even on the second page at times. This is because my "web bite" was bolded in the search listing text, and probably because the content of the text around it made that search result listing look more relevant to their needs than the others above it.