Kay's Real Estate SEO Blog

Learn SEO from a Pro - DIY Search Engine Optimization

2010-05-21T16:12:23Z

If you want professional SEO help for an affordable price, you need to join the SEO Power Team. You'll get step by step guidelines on exactly how to:

1. Get a high ranking listing from Google Business

2. Optimize your website for Google for natural rankings for top keywords

3. Get hundreds or thousands of links to your site

An agency would charge you thousands of dollars. In fact, I would charge you thousands of dollars if I had to do it for you!

But your membership with SEO Power Team will enable you to do it yourself for the small investment of $47 a month for 3 months.

Each month you will receive a new guide showing you step-by-step, the next level to increasing your website rankings and getting more business.

This is a steal, and the price will go up. Now is the time to get in on the ground floor of my newest venture. Every bit of this information was written by me, the SEO Diva, using my expertise in helping many websites get on the first page of Google for top keyword phrases.

Those of you who know me on ActiveRain know that my SEO advice is always on target. So learn how to do it the right way, instead of trolling all over the Internet, trying to figure it out.

Remember this: if you don't do it, your competitors will.

TIP: No time to do it yourself? Hire a college student to do the work by following the easy to understand guides.

Monitoring Your Search Engine Rankings

2010-03-10T12:34:38Z

How do you know if your web site is doing well for a large number of keywords, both top tier and long tail?

How do you quantify the results of the huge amount of effort you’ve put forth? You gone to a lot of hard work to include quality content, optimize the site for both visitors and search engines, and develop a quantity of good quality links to it.

Has all your hard work paid off?

Advanced Web Ranking is a software application by Caphyon that I have used for 5 years to help measure how my clients’ (and my own) websites are doing in the SERPs. I will tell you right now I received recompense from my original blog article about this product, however I NEVER recommend anything that I don’t believe in.

Visual Results

My clients absolutely love the ranking reports I send them from the results I get from Advanced Web Ranking. It gives them a visual of how well our SEO efforts are doing, and it’s exciting to see how a specific keyword advances in the rankings from month to month.

As a keyword rises in search engine rankings, reports give it an awesome green + along with the number of places it has gone up, and that gets everyone really excited and happy. Conversely, if a keyword is dropping in rankings, it’s indicated with a red – sign, and although that can be a bummer, it’s also a call to action to work on that particular keyword phrase.

Below is a screenshot of one of the pages of an actual ranking report I ran for a client.

Reports can be exported in HTML, PDF, Excel (XLS), XML, TXT, and CSV formats.

Search Engine Friendly

I typically choose the Google search engine, of course, and a couple of others. I like it that if a website is located in another country I can check the rankings that show up within that country’s search results. There are over 1,000 search engines available to pull from, located all over the world, so it doesn’t matter if you’re in the USA or Guatemala or the South Pole. These are constantly updated by Caphyon to ensure that results are always correct (it seems like almost every time I use it there’s an update).

Because AWR uses human emulation technology, when a report is run the search engine requests are indistinguishable from a web browser. (Sometimes Google will demand that I complete a Captcha on my personal searches for the remainder of the day following a run, but it’s a small price to pay.) You can use multiple proxy servers to decrease the update time, which can take quite awhile if the list of keywords is extremely long. In addition, you can check the position of your keywords in Google through the Google AJAX API, and by using more than one Yahoo API key. (If you don't know what this last sentence means, don't worry about it.)

Keywords

Speaking of keywords, you can easily import a list of as many keywords as you want, from a website, a .txt file, Google Suggest or Wordtracker. I get quite a bit of use out of the automatic keyword suggestion tool that’s built right in. The keyword builder feature will help you create compound keywords, starting from the individual words you provide, which will save you a lot of time when you’re setting up your site’s keywords within its profile.

Check Out Your Competitors

Add your competitors’ URLs to the run and you can directly compare your rankings with theirs. Target the keywords you want, get to work, and over time you’ll (hopefully) be able to watch their rankings drop while yours increase. You can also get a visibility overview of your site compared to theirs:

I Could Go On and On…

But I won’t – there are so many features available with this software, and you can learn more about them from the product’s website, where they describe them better than I can.

But I’ll tell you this – once you’ve tried the 30 DAY FREE TRIAL you’ll be so impressed you’re gonna want it! Yep, a 30 day fully functional free trial – so here’s my suggestion: download the software, set up your profile, add your keywords and run the program (put your competitor's URLs in there too). Work on your site optimization and build some inbound links. 29 days later, run it again (set it up to run automatically so you don’t forget) and see if you’ve made progress.

It gets addictive when you start seeing your site get increasingly better search engine rankings, and with the program starting at $99, not too expensive even if you use it only for one site.

Bonus

When you download the free trial, you’ll also get a 30 day trial of Advanced Link Manager. I haven’t used this software yet, but with it you can find out who links to your site, what keywords they use, and track the status of your links. You can also easily discover where your competition is getting their links.

Got paid links, you bad boy or girl? If so, you can monitor them using this software, and get warning emails if a link is taken down. That alone could save you a bundle of money over time.

If you download the free trial and try out the program(s) I’d love to hear your opinion. Just leave a comment below.

Catch the Google Wave - Win an Invite

2009-12-17T19:01:59Z

I have several extra Google Wave invitations that I'm giving away.

If you'd like one, just sign up for my SEO newsletter. I'll randomly select 5 subscribers on Wednesday, December 23rd.

Google Wave will change the face of the Internet. The technology is astonishing! There's a video at the newsletter link (above) that shows some of what can be done with it. The guy who made the video is into programming, but it will be a wonderful tool for any business person.

Free Holiday Postcard Templates

2009-12-02T20:14:44Z

It's a bit late in the season, but I've got a couple of free holiday postcard templates available for download. I seemed to be in a blue mood when I made them...

Getting them printed at one of the online print shops is an easy matter, and they print and ship quickly.

Now I'm going to segue into online marketing...

If you decide to get these printed I recommend Overnight Prints. I've ordered a lot of postcards from them, and they do a nice job. They even reprinted an order for me once, when I made mistake.

How does this relate to online marketing? The above testimonial is an honest opinion, is the truth, can easily be duplicated by you as a consumer, and was not paid for. That's the FTC Guides in a nutshell :)

See You in Scottsdale

2009-09-01T18:45:49Z

I'll be at the Active Rain Workshop in Scottsdale tomorrow - if you're going to be there let me know and I'll look for you!

It should be interesting and fun and hope to see you there!

Kay

Secrets to Ranking in the Google Local 10 Pack

2009-07-16T22:00:07Z

Have you noticed that even if you rank on the first page of Google, you site has been moved down by the Google 10 pack? This is the A- J listings that show up either at the top of the organic listings or sometimes below the third organic listing. Sometimes it's just a 3 pack, but either way it can totally ruin your organic traffic, even if you're ranked #1.

This means you need to know how to rank in that 10 pack, preferable at the top of the list! There are ways to groom your listing so your site ranks well within it, and it's not something that SEO strategists talk about openly on the web.

I'm building my subscriber list on www.SEOdiva.net, and tips to ranking well in the Google 10 Pack will the featured article in my first newsletter, which I'll be sending out within the next couple of weeks. So if you'd like to receive it, be sure to hop on over to the Diva and sign up!

Don't know me? Google the keyword "hats" and find the Hat Club listing on the first page. That's the kind of SEO work I do, and yes, I'm bragging a little, but I'm pretty proud of that listing (it is typically #3 or #5, depending on which Google data center your browser pings).

Free Holiday Real Estate Postcard Template

2008-10-26T11:22:22Z

Choose from 3 free holiday templates -Happy Holidays from Best Real Estate Postcards!

It seems so early, yet that time is coming up fast, and you need to make your holiday marketing plans soon.

All you have to do is click to download the templates (one or all, be my guest) from the site.

Instructions for getting your postcards printed are included in the article.

I've also included a link to help you personalize the back of your postcard without having to use a graphics program. It's very easy to do. I think I messed that up on the Thanksgiving postcard.

I hope you enjoy using them!

Kay

SEO Diva

Paid Links - the Scoop

2008-10-14T18:08:29Z

Psst... Do paid links work? Will you go to hell if you buy links for your web site?

Take a quick peek over at my SEO Diva post Paid Link Marketing - Gasp! to find out.

After a year of silence on the subject, you may be surprised to learn what the SEO Diva really thinks of paid links.

Free Thanksgiving Real Estate Postcard Template

2008-09-21T11:12:22Z

If you're into direct mail marketing, like sending out marketing postcards, I have a free real estate postcard template for Thanksgiving available for download at Best Real Estate Postcards.

The front is ready to print - full bleed, 4 color CMYK...just upload it to an online print shop. You'll want to personalize the back of course, and there are directions on how to do that in various formats.

I plan to offer more templates in the future, so if you use this one please let me know how you like it.

P.S. The original article was incorrect on setting up the back of your postcard. I've incuded better instructions on the article Free Holiday Postcard Templates.

Stupid SEO Tricks

2008-09-10T12:55:54Z

Here's an easy way to win an 8gb iPod - all you have to do is send in a story about SEO stupidity you've encountered.

I know lots of you have those kinds of stories!

Click on the link at SEO Diva, hop on over to Scott's blog, and send him your most crazy SEO experience.

SEO Tips - Traffic and Rankings

2008-08-15T16:48:13Z

There are a couple of new posts on SEO Diva that will help you with increased traffic to your blog as well as a way to to have the Google SearchBot shine upon you.

For increased blog traffic and comments, read Choose EntreCard for Great Traffic

For increased site and blog rankings, read SEO Benefits of Video

Have a great weekend!

Kay

I Need Your Opinion on Best Real Estate Postcards

2008-08-10T15:27:31Z

I decided to change the focus from my real estate postcard printing site to one where I offer marketing advice, showcase companies that offer valuable services, explain how some of those marketing services work, and so on.

The site is something of a hybrid. It's a good example of a static WordPress site. However, I did enable comments and pingbacks.

Static WordPress sites are a relatively easy and inexpensive way to set up a web site, with or without a blog. I haven't decided whether I will also add blog posts to this site, but knowing myself, I probably will!

Please do me a huge favor and visit my new site, Best Real Estate Postcards. It would be a big help to me if you would:

1) Vote in the marketing poll

2) Leave a comment on one of the pages
[Note: at this time apparently that's not an option after all! I'll be working on this feature.]

Thanks for your help - I hope you enjoy the site! Suggestions are always welcome.

Creating Your Online Persona

2008-08-01T18:26:54Z

Do you know how to get extra SEO juice when you sign up for Knol, Squidoo, Zimbio, and other content syndication sites, or create a social media persona?

If you use your usual email, your real name, or even your online nickname when you sign up, you are missing out on some serious SEO benefits. For best SEO action just follow the guidelines below.

1. Sign up for a new gmail account using your business name or keywords. For example, if you’re a Realtor, make your first name “Phoenix Homes” and your last name “For Sale.” If you’re selling blue striped widgets, make your first name “Blue Striped” and your last name “Widgets.” If you want your business name to be used for branding purposes, the same technique applies.

When you sign up for Knol, your gmail ID is what is used as your name. So every time you write an article about your area of expertise, the credit will go to the author, whose name will be Phoenix Homes for Sale or Blue Striped Widgets. Capiche?

Tip: Use this gmail account for all your social media accounts - you’ll have it all in one place and won’t clutter up your personal inbox. This advice comes from the experience of one who currently has 3,000 unread emails in her inbox.

2. When you sign up for Squidoo and Zimbio, you’re asked for your desired username. This is when you don’t use your usual nickname of “amysgrandma2007″ but instead either a “keyword name” or business name.

3. The same advice above applies to your username for social media sites. Since they are more “social” you may want to use a somewhat friendlier appellation, like “phoenix realtor” or “blue widget” as your username.

From my blog: SEO Diva - White hat SEO advice and tips.

Download my SEO Resources and Tools toolbar to automatically have access to top SEO blogs and handpicked tools that will help you optimize your web site. No junk, no hidden programs - totally safe!

Take Advantage of Knol

2008-08-01T18:17:41Z

Google’s new service, Knol, is their version of Wikipedia - a repository of knowledge that people can create and add to. But that’s not all it is.

You can create a page, which is a standalone article, on any topic. Others can contribute to your page if you allow them to. Or not. Others can also comment on and rate your page.

How to Use Knol

Knol is totally simple to use. Click on the “Write a Knol” button, give your page a title (which of course contains relevant keywords), a subtitle if you wish (containing more keywords), and a summary; then place your content in the body section. You can add links and relevant images. Click “Publish” and you’re finished. You have several options you can choose, such as enabling Google Adsense, controlling the authors to your page, and inviting others to review your page.

More focus is placed on the author than in Wikipedia. You can complete a bio (there is a simple verification process via a PIN code through your cell phone, if you want to utilize it). Another difference between Knol and Wikipedia is that whereas Wikipedia is strictly factual, the author of a Knol page can express an opinion or point of view.

Another Squidoo?

Some are comparing Knol to Squidoo, but I don’t think that’s a valid comparison. Squidoo lenses tend to be light-hearted, with lots of pictures, polls, guestbooks and other fun modules. Where else can you write a page totally dedicated to your Blackberry Pearl cell phone? Knol pages tend to be more educational and formal.

SEO Benefits

Where this will go is anybody’s guess. Knol may be a huge success, or it may disappear in time. Nevertheless, as an SEO strategist, I recommend taking advantage of Knol. It’s one more way of getting info about your company or service and links to your site into the webosphere. You can add pages using relevant keywords as time permits, eventually building up a nice portfolio of articles.

Google promises Knol pages will be indexed and will appear in search results. So of course you want grab your business name. If you’re selling real estate, now is the time to snag your target city. If you’re selling a product, snap it up! If you’re late, you’ll lose - don’t let that happen.

Be sure to read my next post on Creating Your Online Persona and get the most SEO benefits out of your Knol articles.

From my blog at SEO Diva - SEO advice and tips

Free Domain Name

2008-07-23T22:11:17Z

Come one come all for your free domain name from GoDaddy!

Shoot on over to SEO Diva for the link - you can also get a 15% off coupon code for GoDaddy purchases.

It's a limited time offer; I don't know when it ends - so don't delay.

P.S. Yes, you do have to sign up for their email communications, but that's not for all eternity, if you catch my drift.

P.P.S: I am SO SO SORRY! The link to the offer was messed up, but it is working now.

Keyword Research Made Extra Easy for WordPress

2008-07-23T16:21:16Z

Semenvironment just came out with the very handy Keyword Research Wordpress Plugin.

I've borrowed a couple of screenshots from their site to show you how it changes your admin when you write a post.

As you can see below, it gives you links to 3 popular and free keyword tools right there...with one click you can open up a new window or tab to your favorite tool and check on the keywords you should use in your post content (don't forget to optimize your title too).

Links are also located in the sidebar of your admin's post page, saving you the effort of having to scroll back up to the top of the screen while in the middle of writing your blog post.

All you have to do is download the plugin, ftp it to your blog, and activate it. Easy peasy!

No more excuses when you're writing an article and aren't sure what keyword phrase is actually searched for, and which one is something you just made up (a fatal error).

From SEO Diva - White Hat SEO Advice and Tips

Cheap Domain Names Harder to Find Thanks to Yahoo

2008-07-20T14:36:29Z

Yahoo Domain Name Renewal Sky High!

Yahoo increased the renewal cost of domains to $34.95 effective July 1, 2008. This is a huge increase from the $8.95 to initially register a domain.

Considering the cheap price of domains elsewhere, you have to wonder why Yahoo would make such a move. This is one way fill the coffers quickly at the risk of losing a certain percentage of customers. There are many Mom and Pop businesses who are set up for automatic renewal, may not realize that is a sky high price, or don’t know how to transfer their domain to another registrar. Besides, for those who only have one domain name, it may not seem worth the effort to make the change.

Following up on a rumor that Register.com has raised their prices, I went to their web site and learned they are charging $35 for a new domain name. Back in the day I was a prisoner of Network Solutions when they charged $35 and made it extremely difficult to transfer away to a less expensive registrar. Their price is still no bargain at $34.95 for a one year registration.

I buy (and renew) my domains at GoDaddy for $9.99, using a Dealtaker coupon code which brings them down to $6.95. Since I have over 100 domains registered I need to keep the price as low as possible. GoDaddy also offers privacy, which means my name, address, phone number and email are not displayed in the WhoIs database for the entire world to see.

When looking for domain names, you may want to check out Bustaname and NameBoy. They both offer great tools for finding domain names, and offer good prices on registration through various domain registrars.

from SEO Diva - SEO Advice and Tips

My Top 25 Sites for WordPress Themes

2008-07-16T15:23:43Z

When you're looking for free WordPress themes you quickly discover there are thousands, if not millions, of them online!

Some are better than others - a lot are rehashes of common themes, but then there are some beautiful and unusual themes that are freely available.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you find a theme you really like, make sure you read the comments about it and look at the star rating if available. Some themes, although fantastic looking, don't work well or have bugs you need to be aware of. Also, make sure it will work with WordPress version 2.5+.

25 Sites with Free WordPress Themes is my personal list of the sites I peruse when looking for a WP theme. Almost all of them have several up to 100 themes onsite.

If you know of other web sites that offer fresh or unusual themes, please include the link in a comment on the Diva blog.

From SEO Diva

When Your Site Doesn’t Rank No Matter What

2008-07-14T19:28:25Z

You’ve done everything right, your site is still not showing up in Google searches after several months, and you can’t figure out why.

It could be your IP location - specifically the country in which the server that hosts your web site is located.

The problem is some USA companies have servers in other countries, specifically Canada. In fact, GoDaddy just opened up a Canadian facility.

For that matter, with the global nature of the Internet, you may not even be aware of what country your host company itself is actually located in.

To find out your IP location, go to Domain Tools and type in your URL. Down toward the middle of the page you’ll see this section:

Server Data

Server Type: Apache/2.0.61 (Unix) PHP/4.4.7 mod_ssl/2.0.61 OpenSSL/0.9.7e mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 DAV/2 SVN/1.4.2

IP Address: 123.45.9.78

IP Location United States - California - South Lake Tahoe - New Dream Network Llc

Response Code: 200

Blacklist Status: Clear

Domain Status: Registered And Active Website

This tells me my server is located in the USA, California specifically. But if it was located in Canada my site would not show up in USA Google searches.

I did a little checking for an Active Rain reader whose dynamic real estate site just wasn’t ranking, and discovered his site was hosted in Canada. His site may have ranked well in in that country, but that sure wasn’t helping him with the local searches he needed!

Addendum: Let me clarify that you want your site hosted in the country you are targeting. So if your site is about real estate in the United States, that is where you want your server to be located. However, if you're selling condos in Japan, then your site should be hosted in Japan. When a search engine returns results one of the factors it checks to know what country's results to serve up is where the server is located

Syndicatd from SEO Diva - White Hat SEO Advice and Tips

CommentLuv - Free Link Love

2008-07-10T14:19:01Z

CommentLuv has proved such a boon to my blog already! I just added it yesterday (Luv Luv Me Do), yet not only have I seen an immediate increase in readership and comments, I've been clicking on the links to my readers blogs and getting great ideas from them (and leaving comments too).

If you have the CommentLuv plugin enabled on your WordPress blog, leave a comment on my blog or fill out my contact form, and I'll add you to the list I'm compiling and will publish very soon.

Free links, free advertising - don't you luv it?

From SEO Diva - White Hat SEO Advice and Tips

Common Courtesy Counts Online Too

2008-07-10T14:11:40Z

Often web users forget all about common courtesy once they get online. They seem to forget that they are interacting with other people with feelings just like their own, not soulless computers.

It's important to make the effort to ensure you are coming across as polite online. Facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, and gestures convey what we're saying more than our words do in face to face communication. None of this can be seen in online communication, making it easy for others to take our digital words wrong, so we have to find other ways to express our intentions online.

I've noticed that we Americans seem to be among the most brusque and impolite Internet communicators. The nicest emails I receive are from the British. Perhaps we should remember the "ugly American" label we wear overseas and combat that globally via the Internet.

Here are a few reminders on Internet courtesy:

Email:

Respond to emails promptly
Use a greeting at the beginning
Make sure the tone is friendly, not brusque
Make use of emoticons if appropriate
Use spell check - it shows you care
Sign off in a friendly manner

Making Blog Comments

Leave a comment that is thoughtful and shows you read the po
If you disagree with the poster, express it politely; don't stoop to name calling or other nastiness
Don't take advantage of the blogger by using their comment section for free advertising

Responding to Blog Comments

Respond to every commenter- Blog Comment Tip: Respond to Comments or Risk Losing Subscribers
If the commenter criticizes you, be gracious about it - your readers are watching you

Forums

If you use an avatar, you'll be judged by it. Do you really want to be the humping dog?
You can get into a spirited discussion without being rude; in fact, you'll sound smarter if you're calm and courteous

Spending a little extra time and effort to treat others well online will garner good will, more business, and you'll live happily ever after. ;)

From SEO Diva - White Hat SEO Advice and Tips

Free PowerPoint to Flash Program - Today Only

2008-07-09T11:55:00Z

Giveaway of the Day is offering iSpring Pro, a program that converts PowerPoint Presentations to Flash. This program normally sells for $199 and is fully functional. You can only download and set it up free today, July 9, 2008.

If you’re reading this after the offer has ended, you may want to register with Giveaway of the Day and wait for it to be offered again. I’ve downloaded some nice programs and games from the site. Be sure to read the user ratings and reviews, because some programs are not as good as others - you can be the judge.

Obviously this is not SEO related but it’s such a great offer I wanted to pass it on to my readers. If you use the program please leave a comment - I’d love to hear your evaluation of iSpring Pro and how you’ll use it.

Syndicated from SEO Diva - White Hat SEO Advice and Tips

Get a Comment Link AND a Link to Your Blog

2008-07-09T11:40:27Z

One of my favorite WordPress plugins is Comment Luv, and I have finally been able to add it to my SEO Diva blog after a theme upgrade.

Comment Luv is a nice way to thank a visitor for leaving a comment on your blog by automatically listing the most recent blog post for their blog, with a link to the article.

Head on over to SEO Diva and try it it out - leave a comment and see your most recent blog post appear below it.

This won't won't work for blogs on AR itself, but should work fine on the AR outside blogs as well as any other type of blog. It's a way to get a free link to your blog, plus a little ad for your blog post.

Magic Marketing Words: Free Secret Green Cure - Lose Fat and Get Rich

2008-07-08T17:11:25Z

I had to try it - use the new magic marketing words Kathy blogged about in Beyond Niche Marketing.

Although I'm doing it for fun and may have slightly overdone the whole thing in my title, the fact is you can work trendy popular keywords into your marketing message if you get creative.

It's a fun exercise and will get you thinking outside the box. It can also bring more attention and traffic to your site.

Okay, I promised it and I will deliver - my FREE secret green cure to lose fat and get rich: stop eating so much, start getting some exercise by walking instead of driving, and put the money you save on food and gas into a savings account.

From SEO Diva blog - White Hat SEO tips and advice

Stop Hackers: Protect Your WordPress Blog

2008-07-03T11:46:00Z

You need some serious password protection if you have a WordPress blog.

Your wp-admin directory is not the only part of your blog that needs protection...plugins, scripts, includes and content can all be hacked.

I'm paying more attention to this now because one of my blogs got hacked last week. Hundreds of invisible links for body part enlargement products and porn were attached to one of my blog posts, and the only reason I discovered the hack was because there were so many lines of code they crashed the post. I was lucky that only one post was affected.

Research led me to the AskApache Password Protect plugin. This is a BIG gun - the author says "It's like being surrounded by a small army, a sniper can still get you, but you can forget about the ground troops." It's simple enough to use - choose a username and password and you're done.

I also recommend Replace WP Version. This plugin removes your blog version so virus and worm programs that rely on software versions are foiled.

Login LockDown will record the IP address and timestamp of failed WP login attempts, and will disable the login function if a certain number of failed attempts are made. This prevents brute force password recovery.

WP Security Scan scans your WP installation for security vulnerabilities and suggests corrective actions.

While researching this post I found even more information on safeguarding your blog from Mircea Goia's post Is your Wordpress blog hacked?Why not upgrade to the latest version?

It's a matter of when, not if. Take these precautions before your blog gets hacked.