The first ingredient in the formula is the web site itself. The ins and outs of web site design could fill volumes, but a few of the essentials are that the site must first and foremost be informative, easy to navigate, interactive, and friendly. Agents committed to succeeding on the net soon begin their quest for a new web site. The second ingredient is a commitment to having the web site positioned in the major search engines. The search engines are constantly shuffling the deck and sites frequently get dropped and have to be resubmitted.
Search engines change their ranking criteria about once a year as well.
Your site should show up in the first 2 or 3 pages of responses in at least a couple of the major search engines. Your search engine positioning is an ongoing process - not a one time event. If you do not want to personally take the time to ensure this happens, then make sure you have a webmaster who will do this for you. This means you will have to pay a monthly maintenance fee in addition to your original setup fee for your site. If you are currently paying a monthly maintenance fee for your site, I would recommend checking to make sure that monthly search engine monitoring and resubmission is included.