So what does all of this mean to you and how do you use these relationships to your benefit? If you bid on keywords/phrases with GoTo and are listed in one of top three positions, your site will also show up on above engines when someone performs a search for one of your keyphrases. For example: Suppose you've snatched up "London vacations" as a keyphrase in one of GoTo's top three positions. If an AltaVista user types phrase "London vacations" in search box, results page will have your site listed at very top. You'll have similar results at other search engines that are powered with GoTo listings. A nice way to get a top listing, don't you think?

According to GoTo, top three bids -- which they call "Premium Listings" --get more than twice number of searches as a regular listing. Let's take a look at just where your site will appear on various search engines /directories when you secure a premium listing.

AltaVista: To show up on AltaVista's search results page you need to be in top six bid positions at GoTo. These bids will appearing as "partner listings" on AltaVista's search results page, with top three bids showing up at top of listings and an additional three appearing at very bottom of search results page.

America Online: American Online boasts over 2.3 million members. To show up here you'll need to have one of top three bid positions at GoTo. The links are labeled as "Sponsored Links" at top of their results page before other search options are listed.

Many Realtors are realizing that just having a web site is not a panacea to generating sales. Through a very small informal survey, (that I personally conducted with fifty San Diego REALTORS) I've concluded that average Realtor's web site generates less than 50 unique hits per month. Unique hits are single page views from one URL within a 24hr. period. This is very important because many people confuse hits with unique hits. The problem is that simplistic tracking tools may only track hits. A hit, within this context, usually includes individual visitors and total number of graphics that load when that page is visited. So, one visit could show as six hits if page visited has five graphics!

Worse, vast majority of agents have not generated any actual sales from their sites in over a year.

However, just having a web presence, will in most cases not pay for your site hosting fees. I have outlined five tips that could improve your web traffic and client generating potential below.

#1. Name your site to be found. Select a URL that incorporates some of your keywords. Consumers search by key words, such as city or neighborhood they want to live in. Which site do you think would generate more search engine hits: www.bobschwartz.com or www.rancho-santa-fe-real-estate.com? (Interested in owning this Optimized Rancho Santa Fe URL? Now about one for La Jolla or Coronado? . . . send an email to sofia@websitetrafficbuilders.com )