search engine optimization: SEMRush - What is the Value of your Traffic? - 12/02/08 09:00 PM
I went to one of my favorite sites earlier today http://www.seodigger.com/ and the site wasn't providing results. I ran it in Chrome, Firefox and Explorer before I finally took the time to read the page. It turns out that SEODigger was a beta site which ultimately became SEMRush.com. Well I decided to goto SEMRush to check it out. The first site I put in was for Bellingham Real Estate or realestate.bellingham.net to see what would come up. It was interesting because after putting in the domain it came up with an SE Traffic Price of $28.6k per month. I was a … (13 comments)
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search engine optimization: SEO Coaching... What are you looking for? - 06/30/08 03:10 PM
I'm posting this to Coaching / Personal Development Group in addition to blogging generally on the subject. I have started an SEO Coaching Division of our Real Estate SEO Company. We have a number of subjects that we plan to coach to, however in writing our year long coaching program it would probably make sense to including items that a majority of those looking for SEO coaching would be looking for.
If you have some ideas as to what you would be interested in with regard to website positioning, keyword selection, keyword density, linking strategies, social networking, or actual SEO tools … (2 comments)
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search engine optimization: Is ActiveRain dominating Search Engines for your Name? - 06/29/08 05:41 PM
Now that I've been blogging a bit on ActiveRain I'm noticing that when I search for myself online I'm starting to see my AR posts filtering toward the top for me. Now it hasn't overtaken my personal blog yet, but I can see a time that I may need to do some additional SEO on my own blog to make sure that continues to rank higher then my AR rankings for my name.
As most people in the Real Estate SEO community are aware ActiveRain is like some of the other portals (Trulia, Homes.com, Yahoo, and REALTOR.com to name a few) … (6 comments)
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search engine optimization: Why SEO is critical to your business and your survival? - 06/29/08 04:29 PM
If you have read much in the way of posts relating to SEO and search online in your marketplace it is likely that your perception of competing online is that you've already lost, so why even try. This is both fortunate and unfortunate. It's fortunate for you if you take your website seriously because in reality most every other agent in your market place feels the same way. Again competing in as many markets as I do its amazing how low the competition bar is set relative to website positioning.
I think a lot of this stems from the fact that … (4 comments)
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search engine optimization: Real Estate SEO - Major Metro or Sub-Market - 06/24/08 10:53 PM
Having done SEO for Real estate since getting into the real estate business six years ago, it's still a bit of an adrenalin rush to think about dominating a major search term like "Seattle Real Estate" vs a smaller market like "Bellingham WA Real Estate". Having dominated both terms for about five years I can tell you that as a REALTOR being dominant for Bellingham Washington is a much more fulfilling experience then dominating Seattle. The simple reason is that as an agent and now company owner it's hard to get motivated to drive an hour or more to preview and/or … (5 comments)
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search engine optimization: Google Sandbox Effect - Why your new site won't rank right away. - 06/24/08 12:08 AM
Since around March 2004 Google has placed newly hosted "real estate" websites in what is commonly referred to as a Sandbox. Essentially if your keywords include a significant number of references to real estate including your title tags and description tags it is likely that your site will not rank for a few months via Google. This is one of the reasons why when you do trade links with other sites you may rank on MSN and Yahoo however it seems that for a significant number of months you aren't even searchable on Google.
So how do you plan for such … (3 comments)
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search engine optimization: CMS for Real Estate... Blog for Opinions... - 06/23/08 04:18 PM
CMS - Content Management System vs. Blogging for Real EstateOkay... I'll let you in a little secret... It's much easier to blog on SEO then it is to blog on Real Estate. First of all blogging is about having an opinion, making an argument and backing it up with content. It's hard to take a controversial position on real estate. I know. I've tried. Now that's not to say there aren't agents who have a particular bent and can find something worthwhile to blog about in real estate however generally speaking when you blog about about a home you don't want … (0 comments)
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search engine optimization: Update - ActiveRain vs Blogger - 06/22/08 11:08 AM
If you read my last post on AR vs Blogger you may have noted that I mentioned that AR articles are not getting cached while posts via my Real Estate SEO blog were. This was based on some research that I had done a few days ago and the research still holds true in terms of the way it was done.
Blogger's blog posts will tend to get cached by Google in relatively short order with the actual posts being part of the active Google cache which is accessible via the Google Toolbar PageRank pull down (Pull down to Cached Snapshot … (9 comments)
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search engine optimization: Blogger vs ActiveRain for SEM - 06/22/08 01:19 AM
Note: I have an updated comment located at: http://www.activerain.com/blogsview/561442/Update-ActiveRain-vs-Blogger
Having worked with a number of blogging platforms over the years including Wordpress for my own website http://www.GlennSanford.com/, ActiveRain (for Real Estate Blogging), and Blogger which is the back end for the blog on Working The Magic I am blown away at the difference between using Blogger vs. Other Platforms in terms of SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Now ActiveRain is awesome for the amount of actual readership and commentary on posts in relatively short order so as a social network its very powerful and very targeted, but in terms of the blog … (5 comments)
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search engine optimization: Real Estate SEO Myths - 06/22/08 12:10 AM
Myth #1
It's impossible to rank high for highly competitive search terms. Even though this isn't true for every competitive search term, it turns out if you are competing for a term like "City State" followed by "Real Estate" or "Homes for Sale" that many "experts" will tell you that it is difficult to rank for those terms. What they are really telling you is that it would be hard for you to rank for those terms using what they know about SEO.
Myth #2
Reciprocal Linking Doesn't work - This holds true if you are trading links with sites that … (10 comments)
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search engine optimization: ROI of SEO vs PPC - 06/19/08 11:10 AM
At some point on my SEO for Real Estate Blog I'm sure I'll talk about PPC strategies however I wanted to contrast SEO vs PPC. PPC means Pay-per-click. All the main search engines provide some sort of Pay-per-click system. These result in text based content showing up on the search engines themselves and if you choose also as text based ads on other websites where the websites have decided to subscribe to the text ads as in the Google Adsense program.First of all as a professional on the internet my personal opinion is that you should be doing both SEO and … (3 comments)
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search engine optimization: Keyword Density and SEO - 06/18/08 08:19 PM
One of the first things I did when I first started to work on my own sites was to look at the sites that ranked at the top of the search engines for terms that I thought made the most sense. By using the Google Toolbar I was able to do a search for a term. Look at the result and click on the highlighter button on the toolbar and I would see how many times the search term showed up on the site that I was looking at. What I found is that the typical real estate site would have … (9 comments)
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search engine optimization: Black Hat vs White Hat SEO - 06/18/08 08:04 AM
For the last couple of days I've been reviewing ActiveRain a bit and reading many of the SEO related blogs there. It seems that most of the SEO commentary is relating to blogging as the primary vehicle for generating traffic to a website. I did read a bit of a blog from Mary McKnight who definitely does a bit of blogging on ActiveRain as well as I'm sure other places as well and she had a post on Black Hat SEO. Anyway I thought I would post a bit on Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO.First of all I wouldn't term … (7 comments)
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search engine optimization: Proof! - Sites at #1 on Google - 06/17/08 07:41 PM
Today I had a couple of people ask about sites that our SEO team has been involved in positioning. I've picked a couple of sites for this post however we also have the number 1 sites on Google for Scottsdale Real Estate, Phoenix AZ Real Estate, Nashville Real Estate and a number of smaller communities in different markets.Below you will find a couple of screen shots of Google (today - June 17, 2008) of a couple of sites that we have optimized. Certainly feel free to visit the sites or try to search Google yourself for these sites with the same search terms to … (20 comments)
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search engine optimization: If you do SEO then Think Big! - 06/16/08 06:16 PM
20 years ago I remember reading a book, "The Magic of Thinking Big!" Doing SEO for your real estate business is an exercise in thinking big.
For most real estate agents, compared to where they are now they would likely be satisfied with a few leads a week. In fact if worked properly they should be able to convert 3 - 5 new leads per week in to 2+ closing per month if worked properly. Of course that is also a question of how to work the leads properly, however that's not the subject of this post.Ultimately if you are doing … (3 comments)
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search engine optimization: ROI of SEO vs. Traditional Marketing - 06/16/08 10:28 AM
As mentioned in my Real Estate SEO Blog, last year in October I had the opportunity to attend a Hobbs Herder Mega-Managing Convention down in Irvine California. First off my hat is off to Hobbs Herder. They dominate the agent advertising and branding space with some of the highest quality materials custom designed for the agents that they work with. What was interesting sitting in the room with a number of owners of real estate firms is that virtually without exception the agents and the owners were hurting and they were hoping that this conference would give them the tools and … (3 comments)
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search engine optimization: Reviewing Real Estate SEO Companies that show up on Google - 06/16/08 01:14 AM
When starting a new enterprise it usually a good idea to review the competition which I have now started to do... As some of you know I've launched an SEO Company based on what has given us success in the real estate market and the markets that my company competes generating 95% of that business from organic web positioning. I'm doing a bit of blogging on Active Rain and then also on our Real Estate SEO Blog on my own site.
Maybe I'm just a high achiever, however it looks like the Real Estate SEO bar has been set very low. … (2 comments)
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search engine optimization: Template vs. Custom for SEO - 06/15/08 12:41 PM
A few years ago I was invited to be part of the Internet Mastermind in Austin Texas hosted by Gary Keller and Keller Williams International as well as subsequently being one of the three agent members of the Agent Technology Council providing input to Keller Williams on the technology initiatives being rolled out under the eAgency initiatives. One of the big debates that was going on at the time was relating to providing an infrastructure whereby agents would be able to generate a reasonable amount of business via their KW provided template websites. Essentially as a company Keller Williams is mandated … (2 comments)
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search engine optimization: How to Rate an SEO Proposal - 06/15/08 10:40 AM
In my other life I am a real estate professional running BuyerTours Realty, LLC a six city real estate company generating virtually 100% of our business from the web. This year in 2008 our goal is to close $100 million in residential sales up from about $70 million in 2007 and $60 million in 2006. These are individual clients purchasing typically one property per individual client in the $300,000 - $600,000 price range. As a result of managing a number of real estate websites I receive emails on an almost daily basis and phone calls probably once every week or two … (5 comments)
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search engine optimization: Launching a New Real Estate based Enterprise - 06/14/08 04:34 PM
In May some of my staff at BuyerTours and I got together to look at how to take business to the next level and looking at where the low hanging fruit is in our real estate business. Ultimately the real estate business is doing well and our agents are continuing to have more clients then they can work with while writing more deals then most other agents in the markets we compete, however growing a real estate company is sometimes like an exercise in herding cats...
That being said we decided to launch our new company Working The Magic LLC which … (2 comments)
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