Don’t expect this to be a well formed and written post. This is going to be more of a log for an experiment I am running.

I have been doing some experimenting with a couple of niche sites and testing traffic and revenue obtained from Google vs Facebook. Keep in mind these were brand new niche sites and brand new domains. I want to see:

1.) How long it takes me to get these ranked in Google and the cost and time for that.

2.) How long it takes me to build up a decent fan base on a Facebook fan page and the cost and time for that.

3.) Which bring in more clicks and revenue.

I will post monthly status updates for at least the next 3 months and after that I will post the full results from this experiment including all costs and time spent. I will not share what the domains are until the very end of my experiment because I don’t want  external sources messing with things.

Update as of Feb 25th 2012

So far Facebook wins. One of the sites (very niche) which is now 3 months old is making on average $700 per month from Facebook, has a fan base of almost 24,000 and receives over 20,000 visits per month from Facebook. All from spending about 5 minutes per day posting status updates on the Facebook page. I am spending about $175 per month to obtain new targeted fans to the Facebook page. If you are a numbers geek running numbers through your head right now, you will know that so far Facebook is earning me about $210 per hour on time I am spending.

5 mins per day * 30 days = 150 mins per month/60 = 2.5 hours per month spent updating the Facebook page. $700 revenue per month – $175 ad costs = $525 net /2.5 hours = $210 per hour.

From Google organic traffic, it makes about $100 per month and gets about 7000 visits. Backlink building time and costs so far have been more than cost and time in building up Facebook page fans. So far I am spending  about 5 hours of my time per month building external content and backlinks and am spending about $150 per month outsourcing a very small chunk of backlink building. Going off the same logic as above, so far I am losing money from time spent obtaining Google organic traffic.

I do know however that if I can get the site to rank better organically in Google that the traffic will bypass what is being received from Facebook. It sure is harder now days though to get and keep organic rankings in Google.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next couple of months. If I can obtain better organic rankings, Google will by far bypass Facebook. But at what cost and time involved?

So far from these tests it is making me re-think some of our marketing strategies and where to put our time and dollars especially when launching a new site or product.

Rather than writing a lengthy post explaining why putting the time and money into creating a mobile-friendly website is worth the investment, we thought it would be better to provide you with data from one of our own websites instead and let the facts speak for themselves.

We recently made the investment to create a mobile-friendly version of our RentShout.com rental search directory and were surprised and pleased with the results. Below are the results, by device, that the rental directory is receiving after the mobile version has been put in place. Keep in mind that these numbers are only taking into account traffic coming from mobile devices.

Unique Visits = How many unique visitors accessed the site
Page Views = How many pages on your site your visitors view
Avg Time On Site = How long do your visitors stay on your site
Bounce Rate = How many of your visitors leave your site without going to another page on your site or performing an action

As you can see from these results, visits, views, and time on site have all increased and bounce rates have improved significantly. Our unique visits from mobile devices have increased by 120%, we have fewer visitors leaving our site and those visitors are staying longer and viewing more pages. All of this has been achieved only 30 days after creating the mobile-friendly version.

Having a mobile-friendly website was absolutely worth the investment for us, and we believe it can be worth it for you, too. If you are not able to invest right away on a mobile website version, we suggest creating mobile ads for your products and services so you can benefit by capturing consumers who are using mobile devices.

So, you have killer content and you have optimized that content for search engines and what users would search. (And by “optimized”, I mean your titles and meta tags are search friendly and you have done your keyword research to determine the best key phrases to target).  So now what?  Well, the old adage “content is king” doesn’t just work magically on its own. Content is not king unless you distribute and syndicate it. You can have tons of the greatest content in the world, but that won’t get you very far if you are not distributing it.  Writing, creating, and optimizing content won’t do you any good if you don’t find ways to get that content in front of users and search engines.

Following are a few ways to get your content in front of search engines:

1. Bookmarking - submit your new posts or pages to bookmark sites.  Don’t spam the bookmark sites with only pages to your site or you may get blocked.
2. Sitemaps – create a sitemap page on your site that includes a link to all your internal pages.  This will help search engines crawl and find your pages quicker.
   
3. Google XML site maps – create a Google XML sitemap that includes all your pages and submit it through Google Webmaster Tools.
4. Backlinks – work on getting other relevant sites, blogs, etc. to link to you and your pages.
5. Submit to feed directories - create an RSS feed that includes your latest pages/posts and submit the feed to feed directories.

Ways to get in front of users:

1. Social networks – join social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and share your latest posts, news, etc. in your Twitter stream or your Facebook page.  You don’t want to flood your followers with only your stuff because they may run away.  Share other relevant useful information too.  And only follow or friend people that you feel will be interested in what you are sharing.
2. Post ads on classified sites - if you sell products or offer services, posting ads to classified sites can be a great way to place your product and services in front of thousands of web users.
3. Tell people – if you have great content that can be useful or beneficial, don’t be afraid to talk to people about it.  If the opportunity comes up and you can pitch your site naturally in a conversation, do it.

So, if you have great content, that’s a good start. Remember, though, that your content won’t be “king” unless you distribute it around the web for others to find!

Is 2009 really coming to an end already? It’s hard to believe that the year has gone by so fast, especially with all that has happened here at Go Smart Solutions! We have been able to grow our member base, even throughout these tough economic times. And while we know this is due to the value and results that our services deliver, we know that it is also due to our loyal customers. We are so very thankful.

We are excited about 2010, as we have no plans of slowing down! We will be launching even more valuable services soon, but here’s a quick look at a few notable milestones from 2009:

• EmailFlyerAds has grown to 21,600 members. Over 17,000 email flyers have been sent totaling 45,307,716 real estate emails!
• ClassifiedFlyerAds now has 23,800 members who sent out 120,000 ads in 2009!
• RentShout was launched in June this year, and since then has grown to 1,300 members who have sent out over 1,500 ads!
• RealShout is our latest reveal, launching earlier this month. This service will use Geo-targeted technology and proven Go Smart marketing systems to deliver leads to real estate brokers, MLS’s, and mortgage brokers.
• TwitBacks was a fun side project that took on a life of its own in 2009. With more than 152,000 members and 166,700 Twitter backgrounds created, TwitBacks was a fun success!

We hope your year has been as great as ours, and wish everyone the very best for 2010!

Read our newsletter for a more in-depth look at 2009.

Photo credit: Optical Illusion

For the past few years, many have watched the landscape of the Real Estate business change drastically.  It has been transforming from a closed data system that only those with access to the MLS had the keys to unlock, to an open system where most listings can be found just about anywhere by anyone.  Buyers can now find listings on sites such such as Trulia, Zillow, and yes, Google Maps, without having to unlock those doors to the MLS data.  I have felt for a long time now that Google had the data and many of the pieces in place to be a huge player in the Real Estate space.  Some recent announcements this year point even more towards that.

Improving Real Estate Search On Google Maps

On July 6th, 2009, Google announced that real estate listings would now display within a map with a one-box that would take you to real estate listings when users search for property related queries.

Google Retires The “One at a Time” Feature

On July 30th, 2009, Google announced that they would no longer allow manually entered single listings.  Maybe I read into it wrong, but at the time of the announcement I translated that into Google wanting to target the large data providers.

Place Pages for Google Maps

In September, 2009, Google launched Place Pages.  There are Place Pages for businesses, points of interest, transit stations, neighborhoods, landmarks, and cities all over the world.

More Real Estate in Google Maps

On October 29th, Google announced some changes to Google Maps that would make it easier for you to find listings. “First of all, we’ve made it easier to find real estate listings. Now, you can simply select “Real Estate” from the ‘More’ button on the top right of any Google Map to discover listings.”

Integration of real estate listings with Place Pages

On November 19th, Google mentioned the integration of real estate listings with Place Pages, saying “Now clicking the “more info” link next to a listing takes you to a faster, easier-to-read page that gives you all of the information we have about a listing: photos, inspection times, videos, details, a Street View preview and nearby public transit information if available, allowing you to quickly find the listing you want and click through to the sources of the listing.”

Google to Acquire Yelp?

On December 17th, 2009, rumors were flying around that Google was in discussions to acquire Yelp.  Acquiring Yelp, in my opinion, would allow Google to enhance its real estate portal with ratings and other localized information.

Google to Acquire Trulia?

On December 18th, 2009, rumors surfaced that Google is in discussions to acquire Trulia.  “According to sources close to the situation, along with its pending bid for Yelp, Google has been in on-again, off-again acquisition talks with Trulia”.

Is it just me here or does this look like a pattern? I personally feel that if Google purchases Yelp and Trulia, this will be another game changer in the Real Estate space.  What will this do to the MLS?  Will the many MLS’s be as important or will Google eventually be the main source for real estate search and data?  After all, the MLS’s don’t have all the listing data.  They don’t have FSBO listings, foreclosures, or other listings from Agents that don’t belong to the MLS.

With the recent changes Google implemented that shows tweets directly within the search results, it is more important than ever that you think about what you tweet. Your tweets now have a chance of showing up when someone searches for your brand, name, product, service, etc., and these tweets show up at the very top of search results. This means they will most likely get clicked and viewed before your web pages and other content.  Following are some key points you should consider when tweeting:

Are basic conversations you have on Twitter going to take away from your conversion?

A basic @reply tweet like, “Hey thanks for drinks tonight”, or something similar, may show up in a Google search when potential clients are searching for your brand.  Does your brand, service or product have anything to do with going out for drinks?  If not, what will your clients and customers think? Is this really the first impression you want to leave them with?

Are links you post sending your potential clients AWAY from you?

Now this is a big one, and one that I am trying to evaluate for myself as well.  I post links all the time on Twitter to other resources/websites.  These tweets with links now have the potential to show up in the top of Google when searching for your brand/name.  Think of what could possibly happen if a user, searching for your brand, see’s your tweets at the top of the search results and clicks on the link you tweeted.  You just may lose that client because they now clicked on a link that is associated with your name but actually takes them to a page that has nothing to do with your company.

Are your non-business tweets hurting you?

Again, another one I struggle with, since I tweet both about business related stuff and non-business related stuff.  While the non-business related stuff is always clean and friendly, it is not targeted to my brand and I am pretty sure if a potential client searches Google for my brand and sees these types of tweets at the top of the results, they will be completely confused.

Following is a screen shot of a search on one of our brand names that illustrates some of these concerns.

Tweets showing up in Google

While I have no concerns of my conversation with Kathy and I think she has built a solid Twitter presence for herself, I have to think about how a potential client would respond when seeing this in Google search results for my business.  Will they click Kathy’s name and be taken to her Twitter account?  That would be great for Kathy, but could the potential client misunderstand that Kathy’s Twitter account is the Go Smart account?  Now imagine if a conversation you have with someone who doesn’t have a solid or professional Twitter profile shows up in Google for your brand.  Imagine if the potential client clicks on that person’s name and see’s some not-so-appealing stuff.

Now let’s look at the second example.  Again, a tweet that I have no concerns of and one that actually links to a very valuable blog post.  BUT again, as a business owner, I have to consider how this may confuse a potential client or send them AWAY from our company and services.  A potential client will most likely click on this link and be taken to a page that has nothing to do with Go Smart Solutions or our services.  Can we say “confusion”?

You have to remember that you and I and whoever else is reading this is probably aware of and understand these latest changes, but your everyday person (clients, consumers) are in a completely different world and have no idea about this stuff.  All they know is, all of a sudden, these scrolling results are now sometimes showing at the top of their searches.

See my other posts about similar topics

• Is Real Time Search REALLY a Good Idea?
• Are You Ready For Google Search Changes
• Google Search Sidebar
• Twitter is Important For SEO
• This is for all of those long-tail SEO skeptics
• Have you seen Google’s new search options?