Google Sells Search Engine Optimization side of Performics

Since Google acquired Performics, many SEO guru's have been concerned about the ethics involved with Google acquiring the company’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) division.  Google has just announced that while they intend to keep the affiliate marketing division, they have decided to sell the Search Engine Optimization side of Performics. 

For more information, read Google’s blog post about it

This is good news - to the "little guys" like me!  Plus with Google's claim early on that "search engine rankings can't be guaranteed" this would really have been a conflicting, dare I say unethical, division to add to their fold.

SearchFeature.com provides a giggle about Google with Simpleton's main concern about the acquisition being: 
Forget about the backlash from thousands of search engine optimizers, can you imagine Google trying to manage the annual Christmas party fights between their optimization team and their web spam team? 

SEO vs. PPC

An associate of mine contacted me a few weeks ago asking me to handle a PPC campaign for her and I refused.  I don't do PPC!  PPC is a temporary (and expensive) fix to having your site found in the search engines - and more often than not, your ROI is rarely recouped. 

I told her if her client wants to throw away her money like that, just send ME a check for doing absolutely nothing instead of sending it to the PPC companies who are already making tons of cash off of people/companies.  While a PPC company returns virtually nothing in the form of real leads I will at the least send a thank you card!

A lot of readers might disagree with this statement, and that's fine, different strategies work with different people, but my personal experience in managing PPC campaigns for agents is that zero (yes NONE) of those clients were (a) happy with their ROI (b) happy with me after spending hundreds sometimes thousands of dollars on PPC campaigns that netted them a big fat goose egg.

So - I don't offer PPC services any longer, haven't in a few years.  It's a waste of money.  I always recommend that an agent spend that money on search engine optimization services so that their sites are naturally ranked higher in the search engines.

My theory is this, let's say you have a budget of $500 a month to spend on marketing and you choose to spend it on a PPC campaign...I can tell you in advance that you'd be lucky to score one client/sale off of that campaign...so let's say 8 months down the road, after spending $4,000 on fruitless marketing efforts you're financially strapped and can no longer afford the $500 month budget for marketing.  Where are you now?  You're without a marketing budget and just as low in the search engine rankings as you were when you started.

So what have you accomplished?  Absolutely nothing! 

Find an SEO expert and work on your rankings!!  Quit throwing your money away because most home buyers who Google online do NOT click on the paid advertisements...and here's a little secret - the ones who ARE clicking on your paid advertisements are probably your competitors!

New visual search engine: SearchMe

I’m not sure how many of you have seen this new search engine that is in beta testing right now – but it looks freakin’ amazing.

http://www.searchme.com/

The importance of a good design is going to be an essential part of marketing your site in the future.  Now that SearchMe is coming out, I see this as making a huge impact on the way people literally *view* your web site and decide whether or not to visit.

Originally when I started designing sites, I was heavy on the flash and graphics, but started drifting away from that when I started studying Search Engine Optimization.  I relied more on search engine rankings and the description of the site that appeared on Google.

With SearchMe, it’s going to be a delicate balancing act of good SEO and amazing design.

Time are a changing…

SEO: Is the word "and" a "stop word" for titles?

An important thing to remember in search engine optimization is that using the word "and" in a page title means you should have two different pages as opposed to combining two phrases on one page.

What does this mean?

If you're an agent who supports many cities in a particular area/county, you (or your webmaster) may have combined city names (or counties) in your page title.  For instance your page title may read:

"North Dallas and Collin County homes for sale"

This is not the right way to market your page.  

The search engines when crawling your page will delete the "and" from your page title.  So what you're really optimizing your page for is:  North Dallas Collin County homes for sale.  Not many people will search Google for this phrase.

Your best approach would be to drop the "and" and split the page into 2 different pages.  One page being "North Dallas homes for sale" and the other being "Collin County homes for sale" 

Always remember to use one page for one subject.  Don't combine terms or subjects and you'll find yourself ranking higher in the search engines.

Google now offers SEO services

Google has acquired DoubleClick Performics (http://www.performics.com).  So what does this mean?  There's no sure-fire way to tell at this point, however I have heard both good, bad and indifferent comments regarding the acquisition.

Amongst talk groups, I've seen comment such as "who said a search engine optimization company couldn't guarantee rankings?" and "...the era where someone can rank a site strategically without Google financially benefitting from it is going to come to an end."

Others don't see it as anything to be worried about "...it seems to be one very minor part of the company, and very basic at that."  

One thing is for sure that a lot of SEO experts deem this to be somewhat of a conflict of interest...the question is, will Google consider it a conflict of interest?  If not, they should.  For a company such as Google to own a company that provides SEO services, no matter how small a part of the total operation of the business they acquired -  it would be highly unlikely that they would choose to continue with that path of the business.

While SEO is a small part of DoubleClick's offerings, we simply can not predict today what Google's intentions are with the company. 

But we will wait, and watch.

Settlement Room was Sold?

I must of missed something somewhere.  I just heard that SettlementRoom was sold about a month ago. Has anyone heard anything about this?  We think it was sold to Emphasystems but I can't find anything on the actual sale to verify that.  Has anyone else heard about this or have any additional information?

Craig's List Scam

A post by one of our IREAA members has certainly caught our attention, it reads:

Recently, I was encountered by a situation relating to one of my client's "For Sale" listings, that I had posted
on Craig's list. It's a long story, but I'll try to sum it up.

Someone had taken the post that I created and changed the text to read that this was a rental property with a very low rent, changed the "Reply To" email address slightly so that it still resembled my client's email address (they used a Yahoo Email) and reposted this ad in the Rental Homes section. People began to respond to the ad.

One woman, who thought the reply she received looked a bit fishy, decided to dig further and found my clients real ad and email address. She forwarded us the response she received from the con artisit to her "request for more info". The message was designed to look as if it was coming from a legitimat real estate agent, my client, and spoke about how "her client", the person renting out the home, was a Roman Catholic Priest and away in Nigeria on a mission. It stated that she was left in charge of renting the property out to a "nice person like yourself" and the rent was so low because he wanted to make sure he got good tenants.

As I was in the process of investigating this with Craig's List, about a half hour later my client called back to tell me someone was at the door of the property (her listing client's home) looking to move in. They had paid someone an amount of money, equal to the rent, for immediate occupancy in the home.

Now I know you'll say, "what kind of idiot would just give a stranger money for a home they never saw", just like I said. That's not the point really, we don't know the circumstances. People go to desperate measures and take chances when they are in certain situations, especially if it comes to putting a roof over their families head.

My client was extremely concerned about her name and reputation being tarnished. We decided against taking all listings out of Craig's list since this could have happened on any of the internet listing sites, even the public MLS. I now check the listings daily on these sites and have set up Google Alerts for all the properties. If I had a Google Alert set up for that one I, most likely, would have seen the rental ad when it was posted.
 

Webographers Certification

Have you heard of the Real Estate Webographer certification?
REW offers three different certifications for Agents, Brokers and Virtual Assistants.

This Real Estate Technology Certification program has come highly recommended to me by another member of IREAA.

I've personally started this certification for the Virtual Assistant course as a part of my continuing education for 2008. If this certification is something that would be of interest to you.

I have now been contacted by Scott Lau, VP of Marketing with a discount code good for the next 5 people who sign up for the certification course.

Each course normally costs $199 but you can get your certification for only $149.

You can save 25% by using the coupon code: WPP08AB
Click here to sign-up

I hope that you enjoy the 25% discount. If you are not interested in this certification but know someone who is, feel free to pass this information along!

IREAA Group

IREAA is the organization for virtual assistants and in-house assistants that support real estate professionals.  IREAA has just created an IREAA Group here at ActiveRain.  If you're a Virtual Assistant or a real estate professional with an in-house assistant that can use a organization for training and ideas to help you in your business, consider membership at IREAA and joining our ActiveRain Group.

The Year in Review

2007 was an exceptional year for the Real Estate Virtual Assistant industry.  Rather than do my own run down of the year, check out the REVA industries Year in Review, written by none other than the fabulous Laura Monroe!  My self-created tagline for Laura - "those in the know, know Laura Monroe!"

I'm flattered and thrilled to be mentioned in Laura's review.  Thanks Laura!

Here's wishing you all a safe, happy and PRO$PEROU$ 2008!