Chris Frerecks' Blog

If Paid As An Endorser, The Federal Trade Commission Has Revised Its' Guidelines To Include Blogs

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:08:07 -0600

In it's ongoing effort to protect consumers, The Federal Trade Commission has revised its' guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising... to include bloggers. They have specifically added that "material connections" between an advertiser and an endorser, via payment of any kind and that consumers might not expect, must be disclosed.

These revised guidelines go on to include bloggers and "word-of-mouth" marketers, saying that any payment to this sort of an endorser is included AND must be disclosed.

For more detail see FTC.gov

Chris Frerecks
Kinetic Knowlege

"Google Juice"

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:54:42 -0500

I saw something written up on how AR generates "Google Juice" and wanted to throw some caution because Google juice or search engine optimization is never simple. Google certainly understands what a network of blogs is so, if you're seeing "Google Juice" it's likely because *you* created good content!

For some depth on the subject, try this: Confused By Search Engine Optimization? Try This ‘Laypersons Guide To Understanding SEO'

Google's algorithm is known to compare pages or sources of information [i.e. Kalamazoo real estate] in over 200 different ways [via heuristics or signals]. Signals liike choice from the SERPs, RSS Subscriptions, bookmarks and 'time on site' and many others are becoming ever more important. Signals are also changed and/or re- weighted almost weekly due [mostly] to gaming tactics. Linking, for instance, is the most obvious and abused gaming tactic. Links, while still important, have lessened in terms of their overall weight toward actual 'google juice'.

Google has an interest in serving up the best answers to a search. If they do, it's likely that person will search again and again and 1 / 10 will click on an add/ PPC. Other words, it's the reliable organic search results that drives search loyalty; loyalty drives or equals Google PPC revenue. So, it's in their best interest to serve up 'the best organic results' possible... never just those that have the most links or that come from a blog network.

Ultimately, create good content!

Chris
Kinetic Knowledge

Duplicate Content and Google

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 08:56:23 -0500

I'm seeing a lot about duplicate content here in Active Rain today so I thought to pass along what I've been mentioning to folks blogging at Star Power ...

Regards duplicate content and your blog posts, if they are duplicate to a page somewhere else on the web you should edit them to be different or you could eventually hurt yourself [or SP] in the indexes.

Please know that I don't want to be an alarmist, just to share that Google doesn't want duplicate pages in its index. For anyone interested, I can show an instance where over 4,100 blogs have the same exact pages and only one gets indexed. Google is not looking to police duplication, just to eliminate it.

If any of your pages are eliminated from the index the negative effects may include:

1) you may waste a spider crawl / waste any indexing of good key phrases from those pages,

2) you may have lost some ‘findability'

3) you may have thrown out any back links to that page otherwise favorable to your overall page rank.

4) It's also believed by some that duplicate pages are a bad behavior signal and that it may eventually have some kind of trust penalty.

5) And then finally on the topic, it's believed by some that Google's filters detect 50% + duplication on a page or post and drop it. Is it 50% in succession? Probably, but ...?

Bottom line, I never underestimate the folks at Google who have a business to serve and protect.

Realted Post on Duplicate Content AND Blogs

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

At Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TMwe believe in adding tremendous value. Clients come first - we can't succeed unless you do!

Galveston TX Real Estate Blog Shifts Focus to Live Hurricane Ike Recovery Resource

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:24:52 -0500

Update: "There was a lot of damage, but Galveston is down and certainly not out. We have recovered from worse and will do so again. The city leaders are working hard to make the island livable again... " James Selig

Who better to report on the recovery of local property and community than life long native and 22 year Galveston TX Real Estate Broker James Selig? So please, tune in to his effort to leverage blogging as a Galveston TX community recovery resource.

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

At Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TMwe believe in adding tremendous value. Clients come first - we can't succeed unless you do!

To bogged down to Real Estate Blog? Consider Ghost Blog- writing service!

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 16:10:14 -0500

I saw a neat conversation going on about ghost blogging over here, commented and then thought to write up what might be some useful information on a good Ghost Blog Writing Service.

With an advertorial blog, being visible in the search engines is possible for any Real Estate business. In fact you should be transferring what you see, hear and know about local Real Estate to the web.

Consider the search engine's interest in organizing all the webs information for their search traffic and you'll see why *spiders are tuned to visit active / topic focused sites more than inactive sites.*

However, many Realtors just don't feel comfortable writing. Blogging isn't for everyone, but *online marketing is!* Some may argue you get from advertorial blogging what you put into it. We don't disagree with this at all and one way or another you should influence the content being created, but is there any reason why carefully directing someone else to Ghost Blog can't work?

After all, before the web, search engines and blogs offered us a great opportunity did we all do the creative for our ads ourselves? Sometimes experience can help, but I agree in that it should be client driven / directed so that there is an authenticity.

We provide experienced ghost blog- writing services so that you can convey a leading local knowledge and enthusiasm. After all, if home buyers research before they get in touch, it's very important to do your best to be there when they do!

Our Ghost blog- writing service offers to:

Follow Client direction carefully
Focus titles & content on targeted topics, key words and phrases
Enter posts on a planned time line
Use Minimum word counts per post
Add anchor text based links and images wherever possible
Manage meta tagging and categorization
Add ‘calls to action'
Spell check
No negative posts
Provide Month end posts review summary
and much much more.

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

At Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TMwe believe in adding tremendous value. Clients come first - we can't succeed unless you do!

Huge Real Estate Marketing Opportunity: cuts in traditional media... like the LA Times

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:13:33 -0500

It's been hinted to and disccused for awhile now, but Inman broke news today about the LA Times officially cutting its Real Estate section. Granted the LA Times is BIG media, but events of this nature should not come as a big surprise. News media revenues have been spiraling downward because of companies like Craigs List and, as a result, both large and small newspapers alike are finding it difficult to cover subjects locally.

According to Inman News, "Such major cuts at that paper and others have triggered questions about how the industry can properly inform readers about community news in the face of staff cuts, the article notes." It is an enormous opportunity to become the locally branded source of real estate media coverage.

And because of things like business blogs [which have reduced the cost of content creation and distribution to negligible lows], really simple syndication and search engines, there are no longer barriers to content creation or to content distribution. What costs that stood between your local real estate knowledge and those who want or need it have been eliminated!

Locally Branded Business Blogs empower the real estate business to step up and become the source of local real estate & community coverage! As a real estate marketer, do not miss this local advertorial blogging opportunity!

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

At Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TMwe believe in adding tremendous value. Clients come first - we can't succeed unless you do!

Better Blog Writing Techniques Post No. 7: Pictures, Alt Tags & Google

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:06:05 -0500

UNIVERSAL SEARCH

Were you aware that when you search in Google you [or more important, your future customers] are actually searching all forms of content? Known as Google ‘Universal Search' now, the results of search you perform may include website or blog text links and then also picture images, video and audio files. According to Google's Bailey, "The goal is to present balanced results based on the search term and move away from the heavy emphasis on only textual Web links that existed prior to the switch to universal search in May 2007."

It's important to mention here that the Google spider or crawler cannot read text contained on/ in an image; however, it will read the 'alt tags' you've added. To jog your memory 'alt tags' are only visible to the eye when you roll a cursor over an image, but with most alternative content [i.e. a picture] that is published to the web there is no visible [to spiders] description.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETER

Important heads' up: As a search engine marketer and/ or advertiser, you should be asking yourself one question and that is "am I doing my best to assist Google in understanding my business blog pictures?" If you can index where most competitors haven't, if Google wants to index all pictures and if your purpose is to develop search visibility/ findability then why not start tagging immediately? In fact, you should really go back into your blog and add text descriptions or ‘alt tags' to all its' pictures.

PICTURES, GOOGLE AND ALT TAGS

Typically referred to as ‘alt tags' or ‘alternative text tags', your pictures can be labeled easily for search engine indexing and, as a result, consumer findability. Again, Google can't see text on/ in an image; however, depending on the content editor you have, there should be an icon for uploading pictures. When clicked you should see a pop up window appear with tabs for 1) picture file upload, 2) add ‘alt tag' data entry [shown above], and 3) add link areas. Sometimes the ‘alt tag' data entry will be referred to as ‘alternative text', ‘image info' or ‘tool tips', but I'm certain you get the picture.

In all, if Google actually wants to understand, to index and to include your picture images in search result pages it should do nothing less than excite your sense of opportunity! Why? Because, if not already, all of your picture images offer the chance to get a leg up on your competition.

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

At Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TMwe believe in adding tremendous value. Clients come first - we can't succeed unless you do!

Better Blog Writing Techniques Post No. 6: Topic Targeting

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:52:39 -0500

Let's back up with this post a bit and think about what we all really stand for in real estate. Frankly, we've done 5 posts to date on Better Blog Writing Techniques and none take priority over this simple step. We mentioned it briefly in the very beginning, but lets revisit and re- emphasize your topic targeting.

For some this post may be incredibly obvious, yet I still see it so often. Folks real estate blog and they talk about the optimization of their real estate web presence with blogs, but they still lack proper real estate topic targeting discipline. They haven't sat down and made their list of target topics, key words and key phrases. The things they, as a business, want to be search engine relevant for.

You see, without the consistent use of your target topics, you're not going to impress the Google algorithm enough to generate the high rank that can bring traffic. So, for starters, stop and ask yourself these very important questions:

"What are the target topics that best represent my real estate business interests?
"What geographic area[s] do I conduct my business in?
"Has my Business Blog demonstrated a consistent focus for my target topics?
"Have I achieved search engine findability for my target topics?"

If not, open a spreadsheet right away and write the top keywords and phrases you'd like to be highly ranked for [i.e counties, towns, communities, developments, condominium complexes, schools, events, parks, and then real estate, homes, property, foreclosure, etc., etc.] Add geographic reference so that you're not competing with the whole world and so that you're attracting the leads you can actually serve. If, for instance, you are a Houston Realtor also focused on the sale of Sugar Land TX Real Estate, add it to your list!

Prepare to cast as wide a topic target net as you can serve! Don't limit yourself because breaking down the valuable knowledge you have will amount to many specific target topics... including the one that qualifies your next sale :-)

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

At Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TMwe believe in adding tremendous value. Clients come first - we can't succeed unless you do!

Real Estate Blog URLs as they relate to SEO

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 10:09:07 -0500

My partner Kristen Veraldi just wrote a terrific post Real Estate Blog URLs - Should I Use a Subdomain? on the different Blog URL / domain scenarios including 1) standalone, 2) subdomain and 3) then using a folder of an existing site. I highly recommend you give it a quick read.

It sheds light [especially] on how your URL may or may not effect SEO; however, she's careful NOT to say that one is better than another for search engine optimization because she knows it would be irresponsible to do so.

* She knows there are over 200 variables considered by Google's algorithm when ranking content.

* She knows what google says, "...surprisingly little is known about ranking at Google. This is entirely our fault, and it is by design. We are, to be honest, quite secretive about what we do. There are two reasons for it: competition and abuse..."

* And she also believes the only way to truly drive sustainable SEO is to 1) blog consistently, 2) to blog on topic, 3) to have what Google considers to be important links [including outbound and deep internal links] and 4) to have a good blog solution.

And then a few important points you may find useful to know:

* Even Google uses sub domains. See News [http://news.google.com/] is a subdomain of Google [http://www.google.com/] :-)

* Architecturally, a folder makes sense; however, there is no evidence that one URL/ domain strategy works better for SEO than another. How could one be better when so many variables [200+] are taken into consideration when ranking competitive content.

* An Acive Rain blog can offer the advantage of lots and lots of links. It is, in other words, partly or mostly a linked network of blogs. Careful, you'll notice some social networks like myspace and squidoo, which certainly lack the content focus of AR, offer little to their bloggers in the way of SEO. Google, in order to do its' job successfully and to make money, must be able to evaluate the value of content accurately. They get better and better at doing it by the day. The point: regardless of where you do it, blog well because there's no guarantee a network of blogs or a URL / domain strategy will enhance OR protect your SEO.

* QUOTE: "Prior to affiliating the blog with our primary domain we weren't having too much success in the Search Engines. 15th page of Google was pretty much the case. We didn't know how to develop an online brand cost-effectively. Since we integrated the Blog both our basis Santa Clarita Real Estate Website & blog have seen dramatic improvement rank-wise. For the topic indexing we target, you can pretty much find us on the 1st or 2nd page now." Connor MacIVOR Santa Clarita Real Estate Blog

* Depending on who you are speaking too, you can expect some good old fashioned bias. Here's some of our own: with our companies we offer 1) standalone and also 2) subdomain and we do NOT offfer 3) a folder of an existing site. We're biased toward 1) and 2) because that's what we have ... and because [our blogs and] our client blogs have worked fabulously [real estate bloggers].

Anyway, thanks for listening :-)

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

Better Blog Writing Techniques Post No. 5: Inviting Subscription to your Real Estate Blog

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:57:40 -0500

How much have you thought about direct subscription to your Real Estate Advertorial Media Blog?

Voluntary Direct Blog Subscription

Voluntary direct subscription by clients & prospects to your Real Estate Blog is a giant value to your business! Versus other forms of marketing and advertising, can you think of a more qualified opportunity to stay on a [warm to hot] buyers radar screen?

Search Findability & Online Brand

Sure, an active blog will support a real estate business in other important ways. If home buyers have the immediate ability to search, findability [or search marketing/ advertising] is an obvious benefit. Equally for those that do find you when searching, an enthusiastic knowledgeable and human online presence or approach to the blog should never be underestimated; however, if you could convert 50, 100 or even 1000 voluntarily connected subscribers *isn't it likely you'd have the closest connection to eventually serve your prospects with what they desire and with what they are eventually going to buy?* And remember, if they like you enough to volunteer a subscription it's a good bet many of them will recommend you to other who may like you too :-)

Pursue Direct Blog Subscription

We believe, you should preempt Real Estate Blog Subscription by inviting it. RSS is an immensely important sales channel with endless upside. If you're not confidant your market understands RSS you should be sure to have a blog that offers an email subscription option. Baja Sur Mexico Real Estate Blog owner Alfredo Cristo knows the value to his business of direct subscription: he actively *pursues it by sending his database of clients and prospects an email invitation to subscribe.* And rather than wait, his proactive effort has brought surprising direct subscription numbers to his Real Estate Blog.

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

Better Blog Writing Techniques Post No. 4: Demonstrate authority, trust and value add!

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:51:42 -0500

I'm going to step out of a focus on the search engines for a moment with this post and add something about your contents appeal to humans. They must be balanced. If the immediate opportunity to research a service and the appeal of a particular business exists, why wouldn't a home buyer or seller search [and/or subscribe] in advance of making contact?

For your Real Estate business, it's a challenge and an opportunity: a well- built, focused and consistent Real Estate Blog will grant you findability in the search engines, but you've also got to appeal to the folks that find you. Ask yourself, do I convey authoritative knowledge, trust[worthiness] and value add?

* What exactly is 'blogging authority'? - How about Real Estate Blogging to demonstrate an undeniable knowledge of the business in your area.

* What exactly is 'blogging trust'? - How about Real Estate Blogging to demonstrate an emotional connection to the business in your area. Home buyers and sellers will appreciate a human approach and a sincere interest in serving them.

* What exactly is 'blogging value add'? - How about reliability and accountability: Real Estate Blogging to demonstrate how you do things different and better than the rest!

As marketers, we're all selling... and folks are highly sensitive to it. Are you skeptical of the marketing messages pushed at you every day? It's why your Real Estate Blog is so important. Traditionally, time and space for an advertising message was limited. Currently, with search, RSS and Blogs there are no limits to how much we marketers can share of ourselves. Our message is there seven days a week and 24 hours a day. The Home buyers ability to do online research is only limited by how much [we the marketer] have actually put out there.

The most effective amongst us will demonstrate consideration, sincerity, enthusiasm, authority, trust and value add!

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

Better Blog Writing Techniques Post No. 3: Mastering Anchor Text Linking

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:23:33 -0500

It's well known the objective of a search engine is to identify and to index content so that they can provide searchers with the best search experience possible. Did you know that accurately linked anchor text can raise the odds your content will be highly ranked OR, better yet, a part of that user experience?

Now, for our purposes here, we're not going to review the process of building links back to ourselves. Those come from other people's sites or even from other sites we manage ourselves, like here at Active Rain. That strategy is also very important, but mostly out of our control.

In this post, lets place emphasis on the use of outbound links embedded in Anchor Text in our own content, but lets' discuss pointing to *pages and posts that lie deeper in our own content.*

Wikipedia defines Anchor Text as follows, "The anchor text or link label is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the Anchor text can determine the ranking that page will receive by search engines. Anchor text usually gives the user relevant descriptive or contextual information about the content of the link's destination."

"The words contained in the Anchor text can determine the ranking that page will receive by search engines." Hmmm, what they don't distinguish is whether or not we can benefit from the use of embedded links in Anchor Text we build into our own content pointing to more of our own content. Normally you can't influence how someone else will link back to you from their own site [given the opportunity be sure and ask they link to you from text accurately describing your pages or posts = anchor text], but we certainly can control our own links.

An outbound link is demonstrated above where we pointed a link outward [to Wikipedia's page defining ‘anchor text'] from the words "Wikipedia defines Anchor Text"; whereas, we can create those same contextual anchor text links pointing inward [AND NOT to a home page!] to our own pages and posts.

This opportunity exists for you, in theory, because search engines constantly crawl the web, content, pages, posts and particularly links in their never ending quest to identify the freshest and most relevant sources for information; therefor, the sources like you using links accurately -in Anchor Text- are rewarded. Again, if Anchor Text is relevant to the page it links, the page's visibility to a search engine algorithm will be heightened, possibly carrying better rank along with it. Now be careful because a common mistake is to bury a link, for instance, in the words ‘click here' rather than using relevant Anchor Text for that link. ‘Click here' is NOT Anchor Text!

In summary and whenever possible, embed links in the right contextual or descriptive key phrases pointing inward [inbound or deep internal] to your own important pages or posts!

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

WordPress: what you should know about it and your choices for using it

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:49:38 -0500

It's probably as good a time as any to discuss WordPress Blog software. This post aims to help with how WordPress works.

For starters, to manage your WordPress Real Estate Blog you probably have three choices:

1) do it yourself,

2) hire an independent programmer/ designer at an hourly rate or

3) hire a comprehensive Real Estate Blogging service offering a fixed/ affordable price.

What follows should help to give you context for WordPress and it's supporting Open Source Community:

Officially there are two versions of WordPress [WP and WPMU], but there are also a variety of open source variants and forks out there. The WordPress platform is managed by a core development team and supported by a massive international open source community of programmers & designers. The core team mostly manages software updates, while the open source community mostly builds [design] templates and plugin features.

Using the power of many is an incredible way to develop and evolve software! Some believe it is the future of development and it certainly creates an environment whereby there is rapid improvement and fine tuning; however, the more people contributing to code, the sloppier it can get. The point being, you have core WP code, periodic updates for that code, [design] themes, feature plugins and the random hack to meet a specific need or goal. Ultimately the open source community sees what is coming and they're encouraged to offer input, but the final say on core development and all updates is in the hands of the WordPress team. And by the way, WordPress software is their day job!; whereas with most of the open source community it's not. Open Source are talented independents who build themes & plugins, partly for the love of WordPress and partly because [if widely accepted] a theme or plugin can serve as marketing for their programming and/ or design services.

It's important to understand the difference because there is no formal [open source] design theme or feature plugin evaluation process. While it's NOT the rule and certainly the exception, there can be sloppy [or even insecure] theme or plugin code coming out of the open source community. Many are learning about WordPress as they go or they may not keep up with core software updates. With WP code, frequent WP code updates, [design] theme, feature plugins and the random hack there's a lot to keep up to date, so depending on how you manage that will determine how successful you can be. For instance, consider this recent scenario: "I'm not familiar with what the protocol is for these matters but...many WP users have installed themes by XYZ. She has stopped updating her themes and her former website is down. I have tried contacting her w/o success. I was wondering whether protocol permits a theme developer adopting her themes and updating them (making them widget-ready for example) for the thousands of WP users who have wonderful themes like A, B & C. Many of us hope these themes won't be abandoned."

The good news in the above scenario is that there is help and mostly the community polices itself, but you want to take note of these realities when it comes to your business. There's the honeymoon when you get going, but it can be horrible when something you've added breaks, doesn't jibe or it all comes a part... and it happens! Most people running a business are too busy to keep up with the development of software AND an entire supporting community. In the long run it really pays to have help.

Clients and prospects routinely tell us they're looking for an inexpensive, feature-rich, search optimized AND managed blog solution with some design and some ongoing service. We're not an elaborate design service, as we focus on building brand into a design, but we get you there. Features and configurations- wise we' deliver a great solution managed with a team of WP experts, including some of the original development team. Service- wise you'd be hard pressed to find folks more grateful for their client' business- we hustle. And we're continuing to invest so that we can deliver more, while keeping this all very affordable for folks. Based upon our experience with different Blog solutions over the past few years, we're convinced- if you have the right people managing it, WordPress is simply the most user and search engine friendly software out there. It can meet virtually any need and client feedback is routinely great.

By the way, serious companies like CNN and Dow Jones use WordPress... and they have good help. So, if affordability, highly proactive service, accountability, education and the management of you Blog software sounds good we may have something for you :-)

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

Better Blog Writing Techniques Post No. 2: Deep Internal Linking

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:14:34 -0500

For the 2nd post in our 'Better Blog Writing Techniques' series, let's look at how to improve findability for more of our content with Deep Internal Linking.

Before we do, consider something from bullet no. 4 of our 1st post, 'search engines are constantly crawling the web, content and especially links for newer and better sources of information; therefor, those consistently offering links in their content are often rewarded.' Note: this did not exclude links pointing deeper into our own content! Said Tim O' Keefe, "...search engines rank pages not websites. Each page that you own is an opportunity at traffic." I'd add to Tim's astute point, "... so point to them :-)"

Rather than inbound links [or backlinks] which are known to be important but mostly out of our control, are there [white hat] links we can create ourselves that are meaningful to Google's interest in identifying and ranking more content? Like traditional journalism, where effort is often made to introduce readers to a good supporting source of information, search engines bots are crawling for newer and better sources of information. Must the links all be from someone else? Udi Manber, VP Engineering Search Quality Google says, "The goal is always the same: improve the user experience. This is not the main goal, it is the only goal..." Hmmmm ;-)

Wikipedia says Deep Linking on the World Wide Web is creating a hyperlink that points to a page [other than that site's home page] on another site. Deep linking is known to be an important competitive page rank criteria; however, it comes from other sites so it is again [mostly] out of our control. Deep Internal Linking, on the other hand, is the creation of text links pointing from posts [or pages] to other posts within our own blog [or site.] It's worth mentioning the text you bury a Deep Internal [hyper] Link in, which points to others you've written, is very important. Often referred to as ‘anchor text' it tells search engines what you are linking too. We'll break anchor text down further in a future post of this series.

But again, search engine bots, particularly the Googlebot, are disciplined to follow all links. It's only logical to believe all accurate linking will support a search engine's interest in finding, indexing and appreciating good content. So, Deep Internal Linking is not only in our control, but a relatively simple Real Estate Blogging technique for helping search engines to identify our own good content more; thereby, the potential exists for improving the organic search visibility for more and more of our own blog post content.

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

Getting started with Better Blog Writing Techniques

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:20:05 -0500

I thought a series of posts on 'Better Blog Writing Techniques' to support better Search Engine Indexing might be useful for folks just getting started with Real Estate Blogging. I'll try and focus on the things you can readily control and while I don't ever discount a humans appreciation, lets stick to the fundamental Search Engine appreciation of content for this series.

For our 1st post, let's look at 6 basic 'Best Blogging Practices' for better Search Engine Indexing:

I. Identify Target Topics

Before you even get started, you must ask yourself the simple question, "What are the Real Estate Blogging Target Topics I want search findability for?" Develop a comprehensive list of towns, communities, neighborhoods, developments, community issues and/ or events. I suggest a long list for two obvious reasons: 1) It's going to take awhile to reach the top ten for SW FL Real Estate. 2) Many of the qualified prospective customers you'd like to attract are searching more specifically, like for SW FL Real Estate towns, communities, neighborhoods, developments.

II. Create Focused Post Titles

In technical speak, your blog post title is a header tag OR it's probably the first thing a search engine bot will crawl. Try to add the keywords/ key phrases you actually want to be relevant for [i.e. ...Santa Barbara Home with Ocean View...], even if it's only a part of the title. This way, the bot can identify you for your content indexing goals right off the bat.

III. Leverage Your Topic Focus

It's widely held, Search Bots tend to place emphasis toward the top of a post. In your first paragraph, give them a refresher of your titles' topic focus. It's likely a bot will recognize emphasis and it might just assure you a deeper crawl into your post's content.

IV. Link to Useful Resources

Search engines are constantly crawling the web, content and especially links for newer and better sources of information; therefor, those consistently offering accurate links in their content are often rewarded. Careful, links are only believed to be favorable to Search Engines if they're relevant to the post itself and to the words they're embedded in. We'll break this practice down more in future posts.

V. Tag

Tags can help Search Bots to identify and organize content. You should identify the 4 or 5 most important keywords and key phrases from you post and add them to tags, thereby summarizing the post. Careful, only use words actually in your post or you could be filtered for keyword stuffing.

VI. Categorize

Categories should be 1- 3 word key phrases that are going to be consistent themes in your content over time. As you create posts, add them to the appropriate category. A historic content reference of sorts, bots are known to identify, crawl and index your categories.

Developing discipline is never fun, but having it for 'Best Blogging Practices' will bring a much better return for your investment of time, effort & money. What's more and versus gaming or trickery, these strategies are within your reach. They will help Google to appreciate your content, which is probably the smart long term strategy :-)

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Business Blogs / Real Estate Blogs

Pay for a Blog?

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 18:12:23 -0500

We had a gentleman come onto Real Estate Blogsites and share his opinion about why no one should ever pay for a blog, via his comments )-: We certainly don't ever begrudge anyone for their opinion and we're certainly bias; however, there's often more going on than meets the eye. For the record, we're a provider of blog technology hosting, education, content and highly accountable service to real Estate Professionals all over North America, so I guess we should air our view?

Obviously, we're here and we readily acknowledge the great value that Active Rain offers for free, but we're steadfast in that there are also genuine reasons for having an independent blog presence. It really depends on each individual Real Estate business person's requirements. We're not for everyone, but we're convinced [and some of our clients are too :-)] that there's a very important place for a service like ours.

Namely, Kinetic Knowledge and Real Estate Blogsites is meant to be a comprehensive service. Our client may not only want an independent blog presence, but accountability, education and service too. They may not want to be a ‘do it your selfer' or maybe they're so busy selling homes it really helps. For $49 a month our clients not only see standard hosting, basic design, a mature, feature- rich, feature- responsible technology platform, but the economies most won't ever see in terms of having some of the actual [WP] development team on the job. Yes, we invest in having an agile platform that enables us to continue to evolve because the web and search engines always do. Yes, we invest in having as knowledgeable a team behind it as there is so that we can harness what is a giant multinational open source community of developers and programmers in our clients' favor. That's not all either, because our clients benefit from 4 tiers of continuous online marketing education. We do our absolute best to keep them current in terms of search engine optimization, how to write, how to link [in and out], how generate subscription and how leverage features like the various meta- tagging we embed. There is also the provision of some relevant content and then there is us: on several levels we're [years] experienced with the performance of a few different blogging platforms. We know feature add- ons, ancillary tools like Analytics technology and we keep an eye on what's coming down the pike. We've made mistakes, but we've also seen a lot. We bring useful knowledge of what does and what does not offer a genuine value proposition... and we do that all inexpensively.

Ultimately, we're comitted to adding value, but you don't have to take our word for it:

"I had been blogging for some time using GoDaddy, which was extraordinarily cheap - $8 bucks a year for the domain and $4 a month for the hosting. Virtually no success had come from those efforts, so although the product was cheap, it was virtually a waste of my time & effort. They were able to import all of my previous data and articles into the new site and they designed the best blog layout for me! Great appearance and integrated links to my real estate website. Although pricing isn't GoDaddy, the value brought forth by Kinetic far exceeds what you actually pay for. Traffic has dramatically increased, my skills and education have skyrocketed because of their education and leadership. Just like commissions, you get what you pay for. They will provide you with the professional appearance and knowledge to bring you successful results!" John Poltrock

Anyway, I thought it might be useful for anyone interested in understanding some of the differences. Also, that we appreciate free as much as the next person, but that there are also some good reasons for [and some great things going on in] the paid sector... and for a pretty painless price too :-)

Chris - Kinetic Knowledge LLC / Real Estate Blogsites^TM

Blog: http://kineticknowledge.com/ Blog: http://www.realestateblogsites.com

Real Estate Blogs are local Media!

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:12:50 -0500

Dictionary.com says ‘media is the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people.' Let's add a Real Estate Blog to that mix; because they can easily reach and influence people! Virtually all home buyers & sellers search and, thereby, they research or even interview their future Realtor prior to contacting them. If, rather than constantly hunting for new clients, a Realtor can simply make their practical knowledge of a specific subject [i.e. Santa Clarita CA Real Estate & Community] available to those already hunting for it online than there is a very large & efficient advertorial local real estate media opportunity with a Business Blog! .... Read on here for more about how this can & should evolve.

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

YouTube should be in your marketing mix!

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:39:43 -0500

Top 10 Reasons to add YouTube to your marketing mix:

1. To date, there is very little competition for your YouTube indexed content! For instance, Google has 3,310,000 indexed pages competing for the search - san diego real estate , whereas YouTube has 331 indexed videos competing for the same search - san diego real estate

2. YouTube is the 4th most popular site for total traffic online

3. In this chart Hitwise combined ... read on here

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

Who owns my Blog?

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:28:48 -0500

There seems to be much ado about blog ownership these days.

Do I own my blog platform infrastructure?
Do I own the content on my blog?
Do I own the search engine indexing I generate with my blog?
What does it mean to have a hosted blog or a free blog versus a custom blog that lives on my own server?
Is it in your best interest to own your blog platform infrastructure?
Read on....

Chris Frerecks

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

How do widgets help with my online audience?

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:11:44 -0500

Widgets or adding a widget [badge or snippet], in simple terms, is like inserting a window that will repeatedly pull information from a third party resource [such as current weather updates] to your blog. Every widget is a piece of code and the code is a set of instructions for where to go and retrieve current data so that it can live on your blog. While there are 100's of fantastic widgets and more emerging all the time, here are some great ideas for your Business Blog.....

Chris

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

New form of Comment Spam

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:34:06 -0500

Believe it or not, there is a battle being waged to prevent blog comment spam! Be on the lookout for a new form as we're beginning to see a number of semi- flattering comments that attempt to lull us Bloggers into hitting our Comment Moderation ‘OK' buttons. Here's an example of one that I missed ....

Chris

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

Deep Internal Linking supports your Search Engine Optimization

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:23:12 -0500

"With an internal linking strategy and the creation of a collection of text links to other pages within your site, you make it likely the Googlebot will become more and more interested in your Blog. The text you bury a hyperlink in, which points to other pages you've written, is very important. Often referred to as ‘anchor text' it tells Search Engines what you are linking too, so avoid burying links in generic copy and instead use highly relevant keywords & key phrases. Very much like with traditional journalism, where an effort is made to introduce a reader to good sources of information, search engines are crawling for newer and better sources of information. So, you should link to them..." including your own:-) - For more detail Read on here

Chris

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

Blogging leads to Sales in the Los Angeles Suburbs

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:25:10 -0500

" Since we got started blogging we actually have 15 new clients, 10 relocations from other states. Prior to affiliating the blog with our primary domain we weren't having too much success in the Search Engines. 15th page of Google was pretty much the case. We didn't know how to develop an online brand cost-effectively. Since we integrated the Blog both our basis domain & blog have seen dramatic improvement rank-wise. For the topic indexing we target, you can pretty much find us on the 1st or 2nd page now. My advice to others is to ...." read on here

Chris

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

Bryan Bomba Hinsdale IL interview with Howard Brinton

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:07:14 -0600

Bryan Bomba, in his interview with Howard Brinton, successfully demonstrates how he leverages his blog presence to gain valuable new business. For a review, have a quick read.

Chris

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites

How can a realtor convey trust online?

chris frerecks (Kinetic Knowledge/ Real Estate Blogsites) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:37:03 -0600

Connor Macivor is the is the definition of transparency and an incredibly creative Real Estate blogger! He demonstrates his qualities by blogging. We interviewed him and thought people might enjoy it.... read on here

Chris

Kinetic Knowledge / Real Estate Blogsites