Real Estate Marketing Blog on ActiveRain

The Ultimate (& Practical) Guide To Optimizing Your RSS Feed (Part 1)

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:02:59 -0500

RSS is such an interesting technology. It has truly spearheaded a complete mind shift in the way people design, look at, and interact with the internet.

When I first read an e-book in 2003 about this new RSS technology that was becoming more mainstream, I have to admit, it was a little fuzzy. The only RSS readers available were software programs you had to download and install. Only a few sites even published RSS feeds, and the few popular blogs that existed only had a handful of subscribers. But even in my ignorance, I ran out to get a blog realizing at the time, that it was one of the fastest and cheapest ways to publish your own RSS feed.

Now look at where we are today! Most sites that publish content on a regular basis have an RSS feed. All blogs have one, or multiple feeds. We have over a dozen very high quality web based RSS readers that keep getting better, and subscription options are more plentiful than ever.

Awareness of RSS is still growing, and it has really begun to pick up steam in the last 2 years. Even for people that aren't very technically saavy... it's easier than ever to get them plugged in as an RSS subscriber through new easy to use tools.

Still Unclear About RSS? Here are some resources and a video that will help:

Great Video Explaining RSS:

If you are just getting started, I highly recommend the new version of bloglines, which can be found at: http://beta.bloglines.com or Goolge Reader. Both offer easy ways to subscribe to new feeds, and are realy easy to manage. I particularly like Bloglines because it has a great folder organizing option, and automatically checks off articles you've already read.

Quick Steps to Getting Started as an RSS User/Reader/Subscriber

Really quick... if you are still unclear about how to sign up to an RSS feed, I'll make it really easy for you:

Step 1: Make sure you have Firefox 3.0, or Internet Explorer 7 or 8 installed.

Step 2: Navigate to a website you want to subscribe to.

Step 3: Find the Orange RSS Icon in the browser bar and click on it. (some sites don't have an RSS feed)

Step 4: Choose Your feed reader

Step 5: Visit your RSS reader to make sure you subscribed (optional)

~ Homework~ Go sign up for an RSS reader and subscribe to 10 blogs or websites. This will get you familiar with the RSS technology, and prepare you for what we are going to cover next.

Do You Publish An RSS Feed? If You Have a Blog, Then The Answer Is YES!!

In this 2 post series, I want to review not only what it means to be an RSS user/reader/subscriber, but what it means to be an RSS publisher! If you're reading this, I can safely assume that you're an ActiveRain member that has an account. If that is true, then you have your very own RSS feed! I want to show you how to use it to it's full potential.

*** This section will explain how to find your ActiveRain RSS Feed. If you need help finding your feed on an outside blog, please comment and I will help you. (Keep in mind, some blogs have multiple RSS feeds!)

First, let's find your RSS feed. Navigate to your ActiveRain blog, and scroll down until you see the RSS chiclet in the right sidebar. Or simply type in "rss" after your blog URL, like this: http://activerain.com/blog/YourARusername/rss

This RSS feed is important, it's your lifeline to your readers. One of your primary goals as a blogger is to get as many people as possible to subscribe to your feed. The beautiful thing about RSS is that your content will be pushed to your subscribers. You won't have to trust that people will come back to your blog every time they want to read your articles (which isn't likely to happen).

Your Activerain RSS feed is a great tool, but it has it's shortcomings....

What is Feedburner, and Why Should You Care?

Feedburner is a Google owned company (as of recently), that is in the business of RSS delivery. In a nutshell, they will take your plain old RSS feed, and will provide a number of services including: more browser flexibility, more subscription options, subscriber statistics, RSS email delivery, and alot more... Feedburner is your RSS feed on steroids.

If you are serious about getting RSS subscribers, giving your readers more flexibilty, viewing subsriber stats, and delivering your feed via email, then I HIGHLY suggest you sign up for feedburner.

Getting Your RSS Feed Set Up With Feedburner:

Step 1: Sign up for an account at Feedburner.com

Step 2: "Burn" your RSS feed. (tell Feedburner to start managing your RSS feed)

Step 3: You're done.... wasn't that easy? Now you simply need to promote your feed.

~Homework~ Find your RSS feed, and get signed up for Feedburner. Then, make sure to subscribe to this blog so you can read the second part of this RSS Series.

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Feedburner is an essential tool in any blogger's arsenal. My post next week will cover advanced tactics to optimize feedburner.

Learn How to:

Set up Feedburner email subscription options.
How to add an email subscription box to blog posts and sidebars.
How to replace your email newsletter list with your Feedburner feed.
How to add social bookmarking options into your Feedburner feed.
Tips on increasing email subscribers and RSS Reader Subscribers.

Hope to see you there!

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Please comment if you have any questions!!

How to Maximize Your ActiveRain Blog's Search Engine Ranking

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:21:03 -0500

This post was stirred out of the overwhelming number of questions I get about how to optimize an ActiveRain blog and profile for the search engines. I realize that many of you have outside blogs, and only use ActiveRain as a supplemental blog, but that is ok! Your AR blog is still a very powerful tool, and one that should be optimized properly so it can be successful not only within the AR network and Localism, but on search engines too!

Here is a Basic SEO Quiz For You…

“What is the number one thing search engines look at when deciding to rank your site in the search engines?’

1. Page Content

2. URL’s

3. Title Tags

4. Incoming Links

Any ideas?? Well, if you answered #3, you answered correctly. Title tags, or Meta Titles are the most important factor in search engine ranking. Of course all the above are important, and #4 is a close second, but Titles have consistently shown to be the most important attribute to search engines. And don’t take my word for it, take a look at this study that polled the top SEO experts in the country on what the top factors were.

What is a Title Tag???

Let’s start with the basics. For those of you that aren’t really saavy to website architecture, this may be helpful.

“A Title Tag, or Meta Title Tag is an HTML element placed on webpages to help identify the page”

It’s commonly used by search engines to determine what a page is about, and thus help rank that page for keywords included in the Title Tag.

Where Can You Find a Title Tag?

Most pages on the internet have a Title tag. You just need to know where to look. Here are 2 places you will probably see Title Tags most often:

The easiest way to determine what the Title Tag is for any given page, is to look at the top part of your browser when looking at a page:

The other place where you can find titles commonly is in the search engines themselves.

So… with the understanding that title tags are the most important part of search engine ranking. What can YOU do about it? A few things…

Title Tag on Your Activerain Profile Page

Many people on ActiveRain have utilized this feature already, but for you newbies out there, and others that may not have realized why this was important, take note…

When you type in a first and last name for profile, it automatically becomes the meta tag title of your profile page, and is used on may places of the site to identify you. So make sure to tell people who you are, AND the areas you serve (including keywords that will help you rank better for your profile page).

Want proof that this can help your ranking? Take a look at this:

Title Tag on Your Activerain Blog

The Title Tag on your blog works much the same way as your profile page. Whatever you insert as the Blog Title becomes the Title Tag of your blog home page. My blog home page is at: http://activerain.com/blogs/hismove notice that the title tag is the same as the title of the blog. In other words… I want to use the keywords that I want to rank for the most as the title of my blog.

I don’t suggest creating a blog title that simply reads: “Las Vegas Real Estate”… Use something that separates you from the pack. Something Catchy, memorable, etc. But DO include some relevant keywords in the title… that is the point of this whole post. Showing you how to customize these titles so you can rank better.

Title Tag on Activerain Blog Posts

Ok, so this part may be basic for some, but I’ve found that so many people simply don’t understand this concept.

When you post a blog post, the title of that blog post automatically becomes the Meta Tag Title of that page. This is also true for many other types of blogging platforms: wordpress, blogger, and Typepad all use a similar system which is one of the reasons blogs rank so well in the search engines.

So, what is the significance to understanding that blog post titles become Meta Tag Titles? Hopefully, you’ll think alot harder when it comes time to writing your blog post titles!!!

Not only do post titles need to describe what you’re writing about, but they need to include keywords that can help that post rank higher in the search engines. If you don’t include strong keywords in that title, don’t expect to see that post ranking well.

I hope this short tutorial was helpful for you in understanding why Title Tags are important, and how you can maximize them in the search engines.

Please comment if you have any questions!!

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Is Your Real Estate Website Eating Itself???

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:40:57 -0500

Keyword cannibalization is an important topic with any website. It typically becomes a problem when over zealous website owners and designers decide they want to choose 1 primary search term that they want to rank for.

Definition of Keyword Cannibalization:

“The act of placing the same keywords or phrases on multiple pages of a website in titles and content in order improve ranking in the search engines… leading to confusion with search engines on which page to rank in the results.”

This is extremely important to the general health of websites. I see people so often trying to rank well for certain keyword phrases using this technique. But unfortunately, their efforts are misguided. Placing the same keyword in every title, every page, and every piece of content you create is a very bad idea. The common misguided notion goes something like this:

“Well… I really want to rank well for the keyword “Las Vegas Real Estate”, so I’m going to place that phrase in every title and every piece of content I create. After all, Google loves keywords, and the more I use it, the better chance I’ll have of ranking.”

Let’s explore why this doesn’t work:

Google ranks each page of a website independently of each other

You may have a home page, and 10 articles that all include the same keyword phrase in the title and body… but guess what? Only one (possibly 2) of those pages are ever going to rank in the search engines for that specific keyword phrase.

Using the same keyword doesn’t help gain extra relevance

Creating multiple pages with the exact same keyword phrase in the title and content does not force the search engine spider to interpret the site as being more relevant for that same keyword phrase. All it does is force the spider to choose which page is the best. One page will rank, and the others won’t show up at all.

The quality of your content will suffer

If you are using the keyword “Las Vegas Real Estate” in every title of every article, what are you readers going to think? Need I say more???

You are severely limiting your search engine traffic potential

Many of you probably understand the concept of the long tail by now. It works. Don’t get me wrong, “Las Vegas Real Estate” is a great keyword. But do you really want to put all your eggs in one basket when there are literally thousands of variations of that phrase that could do just as good or better? Why waste your time trying to get every page of your site ranking for the same term when there are so many others out there waiting to be ranked for? Think about it.

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Meta tag titles are typically the biggest problem with keyword cannibalization. Not only on the home page, but on sub pages and article pages as well. Each page needs to have it’s own unique title. This will give you the most likelihood of ranking for many different keywords and give you the most traffic potential.

Probably the most common place for keyword cannibalization is in blogs. People will create blog post titles that are often very similar to each other, and this becomes a problem because most blogs are set up by default to make the article title the meta tag title. Thus creating the keyword cannibalization effect with multiple articles.

Tips on Avoiding Cannibalization

Write unique Meta tag titles for your home page and sub pages. Use specific words that describe that page. If you can’t think of anything besides “Las Vegas Real Estate”… seek professional help. Or try this keyword suggestion tool.
If you have a blog, make sure your article titles are unique to what you are writing about. Using variations of a keyword are fine: “Las Vegas Condos”, “Las Vegas Real Estate Agent”, but don’t over do it. Try to appeal to your readers first, and to the search engines second!
Choose which pages are the best candidates for certain keywords, and send internal links with the anchor text of those keywords to that page.
Start broad on your links, and build out. Your home page and top level pages probably have the most potential for ranking with more competitive broader terms. Make sure you target those tougher terms on your top level pages (shallow pages), and work on the more specific long tail keywords with articles, and blog posts (deep pages).

~ Secret Tip ~

If you are really struggling with how to title pages, and can’t think of any more good keyword phrases to use, try using a good keyword research tool. Google Keyword Suggestions, SEO Book’s Keyword Research Tool, or even Wordtracker or Nichebot. Start by searching for a broad term, and use the results to find the most relevant, and the most popular keywords for your page. You may just find that the keyword you wanted to use in the first place doesn’t get as many searches as you thought… and that there was a related phrase you should have been using all along. Hint: I do this every time I write a new article…

So go get to work! Remove all those duplicate Meta tag titles. Do some keyword research. I think you’ll find that with a little work, you’ll see a much bigger return on your investment with broader search traffic.

Original Article:

Is Your Website Eating Itself Through Keyword Cannibalization?

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Related Articles:

Long Tail Keywords vs. Short Tail Keywords

Is Your Market Saturated with Other Bloggers?

The Top 10 Most Common SEO Mistakes

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Branding a Real Estate Business on the Search Engines

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:06:33 -0500

The opportunities for Internet business branding on search engines has really come as a revelation to me in the last couple of years. It’s such a simple concept, but one that many SEO practitioners and companies don’t understand. This concept of branding has brought me so much enlightenment in the area of search engine marketing, and helped me to understand my overall purpose as an internet marketer.

Here are a couple of brief definitions of branding just for reference:

“in marketing, the sum total of a company’s value, including products, services, people, advertising, positioning, and culture”

“in marketing, the use of logos, symbols, or product design to promote consumer awareness of goods and services”

We all know the classic branding examples: Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Etc…

But what about branding online? To some extent, we see the same branding efforts online from many of the big companies. This usually comes in the form of banners, text ads, video sponsorships, etc. That’s all fine and good. I don’t question the supreme wisdom of Madison Avenue in this regard. But what are companies doing to brand on the search engines?

This is obviously an important question as search engines command such a huge amount of traffic and eyeballs. It would seem like such an obvious place to build brand awareness through higher visibility in search results. But sadly, so many marketers skip this step and go straight towards the “SEO drug” that so many people are hooked on these days: higher ranking.

I’m full aware of the temptation of purely going after higher rankings, it looks good, it boosts your ego, it’s impressive to show to clients… but it doesn’t always translate into more success in the long run. SEO is so much more than simply achieving higher rankings. And I want to point out some of the reasons why that is the case.

Search Engine Branding With Meta Tags

This is talked about quite often in the SEO space, but it is hugely important, and I want to spend some time covering it. Meta titles and descriptions are very important here. When you include company names and even tag lines in your Meta tags, you are maximizing your branding potential because that is what people see on the search engines.

Here’s an example for a “Car Insurance” search on Google:

What’s wrong with this picture? Everyone on the page has branded properly in their meta titles and descriptions except for autoinsuranceremedy.com Have you ever heard of them? I haven’t. But I have heard of all the other companies on the page. Coincidence?… or just poor branding?

Let’s take another example for a local real estate search:

Imagine this as a scenario: a first time home buyer is considering a purchase 6 months down the road. They have no idea what to do, and they have been researching for properties in their price range, good real estate agents, and information about the local area. They happen to use Google on a regular basis, and are doing multiple real estate related searches. This is where branding can make all the difference in the world. Take a look at the above results. Who is branding and who isn’t… Just because a title says La Jolla Real Estate, (which was the search term) doesn’t mean people are going to click it… and even if they do are they ever going to remember who you are? Of course, you may get lucky, and they might like your site and bookmark it for later. But the more likely scenario is that they will go right back to Google the next time, and the sites that displayed their brands in the results through meta tags will gain the mind/brand share.

Meta tags play a huge role in this online branding process because that is what people see in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages).

So what did we learn here? Place your name, company name, or site name in your titles and descriptions. Here are a couple of examples of good use:

You can see that placement tends to be different based on preference. I personally prefer to have the brand in the front of the title tags on my top level pages and money pages. And move it to the back on deeper level pages like articles, and product pages. The point is that you are building brand awareness with every search result that you appear in by placing the brand in the titles and descriptions.

Not Convinced Yet? Ok, here are a couple studies that prove my point:

A report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Nielsen NetRatings suggest that “27 percent (of survey respondents) were more likely to name a specific brand if it was in the top spot of the search results page.” (Sponsored Listings Effectiveness Study, July, 2004).

And again, a report by the Dieringer Resource Group, which surveyed 3,000 respondents regarding their online purchasing habits, found that 60% of the respondents’ brand opinions were changed or enhanced as a result of online research (American Interactive Consumer Survey, June, 2004).

The problem that I’ve found with many SEO consultants is that they don’t come from a marketing background, but from a technical background. Thus, they can fall into the trap of trying purely to acheive that higher ranking, but not pay as much attention to effective search marketing in terms of results.

I admit that I am still learning how to be a good marketer first, and an SEO second… but understanding how to brand in the search engines has definitely opened my eyes to see a deeper purpose in my SEO efforts.

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This article was originally published on my Searching Solutions blog:

Ultimate Guide to Internet Business Branding on Search Engines

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How to (Mis)-Manage Internet Real Estate Leads

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 09:50:09 -0500

If you’ve never checked out Chris Pollinger’s blog, you need to. His insights always impress me, and I’m a regular reader. One of his most recent posts is about why he is frustrated with the real estate industry, and it really hit home for me.

In case you didn’t know, the Christian Real Estate Network is a lead generation service. When you strip everything else away, that is what it really boils down to. We generate real estate buyers and sellers around the country that want to connect with a real estate agent. We then send out these leads to one of our members which totals around 1,600 currently.

I share Chris’ frustration when he isn’t able to get agents to follow up on leads. It is truly maddening to get a followup email 2 days later from the client saying that they were tired of waiting, and made an offer with another agent.

Why is that?? In such a tough market, I would think that agents would jump over their own mother’s to get leads, but it just isn’t the case. In his post, Chris talked about agents becoming jaded with lead generation companies, but I’m becoming jaded about the general service of real estate agents! I’ve grown up my whole life around the real estate industry, and I’ve seen enough to know that some agents simply get it done, and the other 90% just sit around and wait for deals to fall into their laps. It’s unfortunate that the 90% even exist, because they simply give the other 10% a bad name.

Here are some basic tips for the 90% of agents that don’t know how to manage real estate leads. (translation: common sense for the rest of us)

1. Pick up the phone, look at your fax machine, and check your email

Pretty incredible insight huh? Isn’t it the most amazing advice you’ve ever heard? I should tour the country as a motivational speaker or something. Of course I’m being facetious… or am I?

It is seriously shocking how hard it is to get in touch with some real estate agents. When we send leads out to our agents, we call, fax, and email the information just to cover all bases. But it never ceases to amaze me how many clients aren’t contacted.

2. Email and call the client immediately

Again… I should win a pulitzer for this stuff. I have a personal theory that 80% of internet based real estate leads are lost in the first 12 hours. And that is probably a huge understatement. People on the internet want instant satisfaction. They don’t want to have to register for something, they don’t want to fill out long complicated forms, and when they are requesting information, they want it now. Don’t make them wait, or you will probably miss out on the lead.

3. Be persistent, but don’t harass

Your average person is unlike your average real estate agent. They will actually return your call if they want to talk to you. If they don’t want to talk to you, they won’t call back. Calling them everyday for 2 weeks is not going to help. Be nice, be persistent, but know when to “take a hint”.

4. Put buyers into the loop immediately

Don’t wait until after you’ve had the chance to visit with the lead in person. You need to put them on a listing drip campaign immediately. This means you will need to get their basic criteria during the first phone call or email. That way, they will be getting active listings emailed to them right after you first talk which will gain their trust, and may even get you an easy sale if they see something they like. There is nothing worse then showing 50 properties with gas prices these days.

5. Long term clients still deserve the same level of service

This is one of my pet peeves. Just because you get a lead that isn’t ready to do something for 6 months doesn’t mean you should kick them to the curb. It’s just bad service. The best agents recognize that they can’t live paycheck to paycheck and will have solid effective ways to stay in touch with people over the long term. A simple email or phone call every couple months is sometimes all it takes to stay on someone’s radar screen. I can always tell a good agent… they are the ones that send us a referral fee from someone we sent them 3 years prior.

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If you are one of the 90% (you know who you are), please clean up your act. The simple courtesy of returning phone calls would be a good start.

Ok… my rant for Chris and myself is over.

To read the original article, click here:

How to (Mis)-Manage Internet Real Estate Leads

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5 Reasons Why You Don't Need More Domain Names

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:19 -0500

In the classes I teach, this is a topic that comes up quite frequently. A company will already have a website that does pretty well in the search engines and is generating business. But the company gets an idea in their head (I’m not sure from where) that more domain names will equal more business.

There are some problems with this mentality…

1. New Domain Names = More Time & Money to Develop

Just because you have a new domain name, doesn’t mean you automatically have a website. This is obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many people simply don’t understand this. You are going to have to put something on that new domain name and that is going to take time and money. Why do this when you already have a perfectly good website?

Some people buy domains only to have them redirected to the original website. What is the point of this? Why would you market a new domain name only to have it point back to a different site? Branding comes into play with domain names like I talk about in reason 4. Just because you have more domain names doesn’t mean you’re going to get more traffic to the original site.

2. Multiple Domain Names Waters Down Your Search Engine Ranking Effectiveness

This is an important point. Assuming you purchase multiple domains with the plan of marketing them individually… this is really going to water down your potential to build incoming links. As you may or may not know, the number of incoming links to a domain is one of the most important factors in search engine ranking. When you set up multiple domain names, and market them separately, those links are being spread too thin. All that hard work you spent building 1,000 links spread over 10 different domain names should have been focused on building 1,000 for 1 domain name giving that one domain maximum effectiveness in the search engines.

3. Multiple Domain Names Water Down Your Brand

To continue reading this article, Click Below:

5 Reasons Why Your Company Doesn’t Need More Domain Names

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New Advertising Opportunity for the Real Estate & Christian Communities

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:48:43 -0500

The Christian Real Estate Network has been around for over 6 1/2 years now… But during that time we never opened up our websites or customer base for Christian advertising. That is now changing with our release of a new advertising product for businesses looking to market to an extremely niche group of people: Christian consumers, and real estate professionals.

We will have many traditional ad methods to advertise on the site including banner ads and text link ads, but will also include some unique opportunities like advertisements on our member website, special article advertisements to our large email list and blog, and ads on our highly targeted niche websites like christianappraisers.com & christianpropertymanagers.com

You can view our full Rate Card, and get more information here: CREN Advertising Rate Card

Marketing to a Christian Audience

Banner ads on Hismove.com
Text link ads on Hismove.com
Targeted email sponsorships or articles to our 6,700 opt-in subscribers

Marketing to a Real Estate Audience

Text link ads on the CREN member website
Email newsletter email sponsorships or articles to our 1,600 opt-in members

Marketing to Niche Audiences

The CREN Christian business directory
Ads on special niche sites for appraisers, property managers, and home inspectors
Banner and text link ads on the CREN Blog
Article sponsorships and guest article opportunities delivered to over 500 opt-in subscribers.

You can view our full Rate Card, and get more information here: CREN Marketing Rate Card

This was originally posted on the CREN blog here:

Christian Advertising & Real Estate Advertising

How to Build Solid Incoming Links to a Real Estate Website/Blog

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:19:39 -0500

It seems like there has been alot of talk about link building lately… maybe it’s just me, but most SEO’s know that quality link building is a pretty important part of offsite optimization.

So, I thought I’d share something that has helped me quite a bit. There is a great seo link building tool put out by SoloSEO (of which I’m a happy customer). It was built a while back based on a post by my hero: Rand Fishkin.

I highly suggest you try it out if you are looking for some link building help. I’ll also post some of the queries that it uses here for your reference. Just take any of these examples to Google, and it should really help you to find some good quality links.

Thanks again SoloSEO for a great tool!!!

Add/Submit

your keyword “add url”
your keyword “add site”
your keyword “add website”
your keyword “add your site”
your keyword “add a url”
your keyword “add * url”
your keyword “add * site”
your keyword “add * website”
your keyword “submit url”
your keyword “submit site”
your keyword “submit website”
your keyword “submit your site”
your keyword “submit a url”
your keyword “submit * url”
your keyword “submit * site”
your keyword “submit * website”
your keyword “suggest url”
your keyword “suggest site”
your keyword “suggest website”
your keyword “suggest your site”
your keyword “suggest a url”
your keyword “suggest * url”
your keyword “suggest * site”
your keyword “suggest * website”

Advanced

allintitle:your keyword
allinanchor:your keyword
allinurl:your keyword
allintext:your keyword

Directories

your keyword directory
your keyword * directory
directory * your keyword
intitle:directory “your keyword”
inurl:directory “your keyword”
“list of your keyword sites”
“list * your keyword sites”
“list * your keyword * sites”
“recommended links” your keyword”
“recommended sites” your keyword”
“favorite links” your keyword”
“favorite sites” your keyword”

Blogs & Forums

your keyword forum
“your keyword forum”
intitle:your keyword forum
inurl:your keyword forum
your keyword blog
“your keyword blog”
intitle:your keyword blog
inurl:your keyword blog
“add comment” your keyword
“post comment” your keyword
your keyword members
your keyword join
your keyword tag
intitle:tag your keyword
intitle:post your keyword

I’ll also add a couple of my own to this list:

site:.edu inurl:your keyword

site:.edu inurl:blog “your keyword”

site:.edu inurl:forum “your keyword”

site:.edu intitle:blog “post a comment”

You can also replace “.edu” with “.gov” to find those types of links, or replace “inurl:”, with “intitle:”

Have fun. Let me know if there are any other special operators that you use to find links!

Read the Original Post Here: How to Build Links to a Real Estate Blog

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Interesting Blogging & Search Engine Statistics

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:02:37 -0500

Here are some fun search engine and blogging statistics I pulled up. I like doing this about once a year to see what is going on in the search space to see if there are any trends I’m missing. Plus, it’s just really interesting data to look at. Most comes from comscore, hitwise, and technorati. enjoy…

Blogging Statistics

* 28% of all visits to blogs in 2007 resulted in some kind of action (email signup, contact form, etc.)

* There are currently about 15.5 million active blogs (blogs updated within 90 days)

* Total blogs tracked by technorati: 74 million

* There are 120,000 new blogs being created every day

* 3,000-7,000 new spam blogs (splogs) created per day

* Total blog posts created per day: 1.5 million

* 36% of those blog posts were written in English

* The Japanese language now boasts more blogs than another language (37%)

Search Engine Statistics

* 75% of Americans use search engines on a regular basis

* 56% of Americans use Search Engines every day

* 40% of all search engine searches are for local businesses and services

* 54% of Americans regularly use the internet instead of the phone book to find local services

* 56% of Google users click the 1st organic result after a search query

* 25% of all search engine queries are unique (never been searched before)

* 92% of all local searches will eventually convert into a sale

* Roughly 10 billion search queries made per day

* Google’s share of search queries: 59.2%

* Yahoo’s share of search queries: 22.2%

Taken from my blog at SearchingSolutions.com: Blogging & Search Engine Statistics

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Long Tail Keywords vs. Short Tail Keywords on Your Real Estate Blog

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:19:38 -0500

Mary McKnight wrote an interesting post on why she believes that the long tail does not work well for real estate bloggers. I found it to be an interesting read… but like so many of the “how to” real estate marketing blogs out there, I found it to be too one sided and unbalanced. It reminds me of the argument that has become classic in the real estate blogosphere: should you write for the search engines or write for readers? The answer is BOTH!!

By the way, Mary: you know I love ya, and I’m not trying to start an argument here, just wanted to share my opinion on the subject.

I strongly believe in the concept of the long tail. It is a sound principal, and it works for many different industries including real estate. By the way, if you don’t know what the long tail is, try this link. Does this mean that everyone should be going after the long tail keywords? Not necessarily… let me explain:

The Problem With Targeting Long Tail Keywords

An example of a long tail keyword for a real estate blog would be something like this: “Seven Meadows community pool hours Katy Texas”. As you can see, it’s very long and specific, and it is probably only searched for a handful of times per month (if at all). I’ve seen many people that will write posts like this thinking somehow that they will really get some great targeted traffic from it. That may be… but there are a few simple problems with that idea. First of all, there are very few people searching for this phrase on the search engines. Even if you get top positioning, you may only get 1-2 visitors per month. Secondly, is this search phrase related to real estate? The answer is no, which means that chances are extremely slim that any traffic coming to the site will convert. I’ve seen many well intentioned RE bloggers try to target phrases like this, and I’m sorry to break it to them, but they will probably never convert into a customer. There is nothing wrong with posting helpful community information, but with the relatively low number of search queries for that phrase you will likely never see anything out of it.

The Problem With Targeting Short Tail Keywords

Targeting the short tail keywords is what Mary is suggesting as the best way to target customers with your real estate blog. As I see it, there are a couple problems with that view. An example of a short tail keyword would be something like: “Katy Texas real estate“. The first problem is that everyone and their mother in the Katy market is trying to target this same keyword phrase. The competition is fierce, and you need to have an authoritative well written, and well optimized site to rank well. It’s not necessarily a problem if you know how to get a site to rank well and have the time to spend on it, but many people have a difficult time achieving this.

The 2nd problem is that the phrase: “Katy Texas Real Estate” is extremely generic. Just because it receives many search queries per month does not necessarily mean that everyone searching for that phrase is looking to buy/sell real estate. Many studies have shown that the short tail phrases do not provide the best ROI (Return On Investment). This is because of the fact that many of them are too broad and do not convert well.

Thirdly, as a blogger, it’s simply not practical to keep targeting the same 5-10 keyword phrases over and over and over… Can you imagine if you used one of your top 5-10 keyword phrases in the title of every single blog post? You’d be arrested by the spam police! LOL (that may not happen, but it will really turn your readers off, and it won’t help your ranking)

So, as you can see, there is a problem with both views. Which is why I present the third view…

The Money Tail

Ok, I know it’s a corny name, but it was better than “medium tail”. Here’s why you should be targeting the “Money Tail”:

These would be keywords like: “katy texas condos for sale” or “real estate listings in Katy Texas”. The benefit of targeting keywords like these is that they are searched fairly often, but are specific enough to not have a high level of competition.

The side benefit of targeting the Money Tail is that the keywords usually have a very high ROI. They are specific phrases targeting real real estate consumers, and they convert extremely well. “real estate listings in Katy Texas”, will always convert better than “katy real estate”. The Money Tail Keywords aren’t too generic like our short tale example, and they aren’t too obscure like our long tale example.

So, in my opinion… a balance must be struck. Target those money tail keywords, and you will see a higher ROI, better rankings, and a higher conversion rate.

Read the original article Here:

Long Tail Keywords vs. Short Tail Keywords

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Spam?? - Greatest Real Estate Agent In The World

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:16:26 -0600

Many of you may have seen this seo “competition” started by REW. I’m officially dropping out. It was short lived.

I’m just really sick of people giving me a hard time and claiming that I’m using spamming to get the results I’m getting.

One of my so called “spam” techniques was to include the keyword: “greatest real estate agent in the world” in some anchor text on comments I left at a few blogs. I immediately got an ear full from other commenters that I was spamming. But the ironic thing is that 24 hours later, I started seeing about 10 other competitors doing the exact same thing. It just cracks me up… I even saw 2 people in particular that did it after telling me it was spam!

Sometimes these competitions just bring out the worst in people… so, instead of creating a bad name for myself because of people’s misconceptions, I’m simply going to bow out of this one.

I went ahead and removed many of the incoming links to this post, and made significant changes to the page itself… so I assume that my ranking will drop in the next 24 hours. It’s just not worth it to me to tarnish my reputation simply because some people have an extremely loose definition of spam. I have been open and honest about the techniques I use, and the people that know me know that I only use and teach white hat seo. The people that are crying spam and black hat have simply never been exposed to what REAL black hat seo is.

The whole contest is really kind of silly anyway. Once I thought it over, I should have realized the kind of techniques that would be brought out. With such a short time frame, you almost have to use some short term “run and gun” seo in order to get ahead. I highly doubt that we’re going to see any revolutionary new seo methods being used by the participants anyway. One of the purposes of the contest was to share ideas, but I have a really hard time believing that is going to happen. My prediction is that it’s going to turn into a “spam fest” and only lend further to the growing opinion in the real estate blogosphere that all seo is spam. This could have been a really great contest… but I just can’t see it benefiting the real estate community. It is however a great link bait idea (wish I would have thought of it), even if that wasn’t the original intention.

This is what I propose for a future contest:

Lengthen the time frame (at least 3-6 months). This will weed out the competitors that aren’t serious, and give people time to use some regular long term seo techniques. This will also make it more fair to the website that doesn’t already carry a high trust rank.
Don’t just choose 1 keyword to compete on, but 5-10. This makes it more realistic if you’re trying to use the contest as a teaching tool for other agents trying to get better rankings.
Create a more comprehensive rule list. What is, and isn’t allowed?
Document the success of the leaders on a regular basis (once a month), and reverse engineer their techniques and publish at the end of the contest in order to help other real estate agents learn about real life successful seo techniques.

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To continue reading the rest of the post, click below...

Greatest Real Estate Agent In The World

8 Ways to Use Google Alerts To Find New Leads

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:38:27 -0600

If you do have Google Alerts already set up, don’t tune me out yet! There may be a few ideas in here that you haven’t tried yet…

To set up an alert, go to www.google.com/alerts

The most common searches most bloggers enter in are:

Their URL(s)
Their full name (usually in quotes)
A keyword they are targeting

Those are all great alerts that every blogger should have set up… but let me suggest to you a few more ideas that may help:

How to Set Up Unique Google Alerts

Tip #1

Treat the “Search Terms” setup on the alerts like it’s a real Google search box. It can include modifiers that will help you find specific things you might be looking for. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, try this page on Google Search Operators. An example would be an alert like: [keyword site:www.wikipedia.org] this alert would notify you every time a specific keyword was found on wikipedia. Play around with some of the different modifiers… you may get some interesting results.

Tip #4

Search for customers. This one is the most undervalued of them all! What are your potential customers looking for? Are they asking specific questions online about your market? Take some time and think through this… then set up a few test alerts. Here are some examples: [”how do i find foreclosure properties in port orange”], [”how much is my port orange house worth”], [”where can I find port orange homes for sale”], [”looking for new home incentives in port orange”]… In case you haven’t noticed, buyers and sellers are online. And they are actively asking questions about real estate in their area. The hard part is how to find them… that is where Google alerts comes in. It will do the hard work for you. Once you find someone that is asking a question, or needs help, simply go to the page and respond to their inquiry. Sometimes this might be a question on a Yahoo Group, or a question on Trulia Voices, or maybe even a question about a specific property on Zillow.com. Don’t be afraid to set up 50+ alerts for specific search phrases. These are real leads, and because of the specific nature of the query, you probably won’t get more than a couple alerts per week.

Above are a few excerpts from an article I wrote about Google Alerts. To continue reading the article in full, follow this link:

8 Unique Ways to Use Google Alerts To Capture New Customers

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Look Out For the MEME Monster...

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:18:26 -0600

Just got Meme'd by Margaret Woda.

Here are a few things you may have not known about me... and I'm including some pics at the bottom of this post too.

I am 27, and have a beautiful wife named Lori. I have two girls: Caley: 22 mos. & Abby: 6 mos.
I am a full time worship leader at my church. I play guitar and attempt to sing...
My favorite hobby is surfing, but since I live in Colorado now... that has become... difficult
My dirty little secret: I coach real estate agents on how to blog and market themselves, and I run a national real estate referral network with over 1,400 members, but am not personally licensed.

In order to keep this going, I'm going to tag another 3 people...

Here we go, I'm tagging:

Scott Saghirian – TheTopTechAgent.com

Sarah Bandy – TylerTalkAlot.com

Chad Lariscy – ChadLariscy.com

My wife and I...

My Daughters...

Homes for Sale in Castle Rock Colorado

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:27:11 -0600

There aren't many great tools out there that let you actually search active MLS listings for all the homes for sale inCastle Rock Colorado . But we have built a site that lets you do just that. Simply fill in the criteria on the type of home you are interested in, and it pulls active MLS listings.

All this is free without any obligation or contact information to provide. Get active listings on your terms! Visit ColoradoListings.net

This free tool will not only let you search Castle Rock Homes for sale, but any listings in most of Colorado!

Castle Pines to Become a Douglas County Town

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:00:15 -0600

According to the Denver Post:

"Castle Pines North took a big lead Wednesday in the race to become the newest municipality in one of the metro region's wealthiest and fastest-growing areas. Douglas County District Judge Vincent R. White approved the incorporation petition for Castle Pines North, the last legal hurdle for a vote in the community of 10,000 residents. Neighboring Castle Pines Village must redraft its incorporation paperwork to accommodate a tax-sharing deal it reached with Castle Pines North last month, then return to the courts for approval."

This is an interesting development in the Douglas County area. It just shows how rapidly Douglas County is growing. Lone Tree became an incorporated municipality in 1995, and now Castle Pines North. The judge approved it, now they just have to vote it in, which will probably be a piece of cake.

Castle Pines is currently a sub division (if you can call it that) of Castle Rock, CO. It happens to be one of the nicest areas in all of Colorado to live. Home to some of the ritziest mansions, golf courses, and living found anywhere, you'll find many famous people including players from the Broncos, Avalanche, and Rockies who live in the area.

I don't imagine the town of Castle Rock is too pleased with the decision as it probably is a huge source of tax revenue... that is just a guess on my part. I'm no pro at local gov't, but I'll bet the town of Castle Rock will take a hit in some form or another if the vote goes through.

Stay tuned for more news on the subject...

Crazy Myth: Posting listings to a blog is too hard, time consuming & pointless

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:34:31 -0600

Here is an excerpt from my blog on how to post listings on your blog effectively...

============

Crazy Myth #4: Posting listings on my blog will water down the rest of my content

This myth actually isn’t so crazy. It’s a real concern that many real estate bloggers have, and I don’t recommend that anyone write a post about an individual listing and include it with their regular blog content.

So, here is how you get around that… The solution I’m sharing can be done on any platform, but I’m going to show you how with wordpress.

The best solution for this problem is to create a specialized category just for your listings. Then, you want to tell wordpress (or your platform of choice) not to include that category on the home page. You are essentially just excluding that particular category.

You will want to place this code in your index.php file to tell your home page not to include the category you choose.

Here is the code: <?php query_posts(’cat=-13′); ?>

You will need to change the category number to make it work (where it says: “13″). To find the category number, go to >Manage>Categories, then view the category number you want to exclude. For more detailed instructions on this try this wordpress tutorial.

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To read the article in full, check out my Real Estate Marketing Tools Blog.

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How I Sold My ActiveRain Profile for $6,750.00

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:01:37 -0600

This will be my last post as Justin Smith of the Real Estate Tomato under this profile. It was fun... but look for me to come back under a different profile real soon.

================

You heard it here folks. Damion Foxworthy is now the proud new owner of my ActiveRain profile. The story behind the sale follows...

I'm sure many of you have heard the controversy about the sale of MMORPG characters and goods. It is quite an industry actually, complete with overseas sweatshops where workers will spend hours mining for gold in World of Warcraft, or building up an Everquest Character for resale. You can even buy 50,000 "Linden" dollars on ebay for only $199.99, in the popular online universe known as second life. I even wrote a post about it a while back that discussed the implications of a lady that became the first millionaire from selling virtual goods.

It's an interesting topic... and it got me thinking. If people can sell virtual goods and money, why not ActiveRain points? ActiveRain isn't a game or an online virtual world, but it does deal with a potential commodity called: points.

In the early days of ActiveRain, it was pretty common to see people gaming the system for points. Writing 10 junk posts a day, or commenting 50 times a day just to build their points. But as AR has evolved there have been measures put in to make sure that in order for people to get ahead, they have to actually work at it. Which makes the points that much more valuable.

Let's discuss the value of points for a moment... As most of you know, points can help you get ahead of your competition in any given market. You can see here that I am currently listed in Colorado. Ranked 7th in Colorado, 2nd in Douglas County, and 1st in the town of Castle Rock. Not Bad!

But, lets say I decided to sell my profile to a real estate agent in Virginia... it's a hugely populated state, and represents a huge real estate market segment. But, there is very little competition for points. Meaning if I were to switch my profile to Virginia...

I suddenly catapult to the number 2 position in Virginia, 1st in Arlington County, and 1st in Arlington. Pretty amazing!

Not only does the profile now catapult me to the top of the Virginia members, but it also gets me to the home page of activerain for all the people from Virginia viewing the site!

It struck me like a ton of bricks the other day that my AR profile is valuable!!! And somebody might pay some serious dough to get an instant high placement in the state they work in. So, I went ahead and sold it to the highest bidder. I considered the fact that many of the AR member would be angry, frustrated, or even hostile. And if you happen to have read this far into the paragraph you'll be happy to know that none of this is actually true. I haven't sold my profile, I just wanted to see what kind of reaction it would get from the AR community. What if tomorrow you woke up and saw a profile selling for $6,000 on ebay? Would you be mad, upset, surprised, frustrated? What? Points are important to alot of people... whether you are trying to beat your competitor to the home page or AR, or trying to get to that coveted first spot on localsim. Points on AR are the underlying thing that drive the community.

The other issue to selling an AR profile is the content. What do you do with it? Let the person have it for free? Place a CC license on it so they can't duplicate it? You have to ask yourself, are you willing to let all that content slip away... how valuable is it to you?

Points rule activerain... and I plan to make a fortune from selling AR profiles. Who's with me???

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The Real Estate Blog Balancing Act

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:43:23 -0500

This post was stirred on by a post from Joel Burslem over at RealEstateMarketingSecrets.com. He was writing about the death of the multi author blog, and it really got me thinking about local real estate blogs.

Joel pointed out that he is often overwhelmed by the multi author blogs simply because of the large amount of content. And to some extent I agree with him. One of the reasons I’m not a frequent visitor to the RainCityGuide and the BloodHoundBlog is because there is simply too much to read… it’s information overload. Sure it’s fun to visit every once in a while, but I would never consider putting either site in my RSS reader. Just way too much!

But, on the other hand, you have to consider the fact that most new readers to blogs come from search engines. And what is the best way to drive more traffic to a blog from search engines? Lots of keyword rich content.

A balance must be struck — between writing a consistent amount of posts in order to attract search engines, and also being careful not to turn off your current subscribers with too much content.

I tend to agree with Joel that the large group blogs won’t have the staying power of individual writers… but for all intensive purposes, we are still in the adolescent stage when it comes to real estate blogs. It still remains to be seen which will be more successful in the long term.

Danger #1 – Focusing too much on search engine placement. I see this with many bloggers. They unnaturally stuff keywords into every title and every post possible. They are obsessed with search engine ranking, and completely ignore the subscribers they do have. Sheer volume of content is not always the best thing when it costs you subscribers. Be careful...

Danger #2 .....

To Continue Reading: "Your Blog is a Balancing Act" Visit my blog at: Searching Solutions

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How to Spice up Your Email Signature by Using Your Blog Feed

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:44:32 -0500

Syndicating your content is pretty important these days. My students often get overwhelmed when I tell them all the places they need to submit their blog to including social bookmarking sites, activerain, carnivals… the list goes on and on.

Things can get more complicated when you try to market your blog on and offline, and you can quickly get burned out with manually adding your blog to hundreds of different places.

Well, here’s an easy way to get your blog out to everyone that you converse with on a day to day basis through email. A banner in your email signature that shows people your most recent posts, and provides them with a link to the blog itself.

First, you should have a feedburner account. If you don’t, get one.

Second, login and navigate to Publicize, then Headline Animator

To Continue Reading: "How to add a Feedburner Feed Into Your Email", Visit my Blog at: Searching Solutions

Join My Online Marketing Group!

How to Avoid Suffering From Blogging & Social Media Overload

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 11:07:57 -0500

As we enter into the golden age of blogging, and the maturity of social media websites like Facebook, Linkedin, ActiveRain, and others. I’ve begun to see a trend emerging among real estate professionals. Many of them simply don’t care about social networking, reading other blogs, participating in a community, or contributing in any way. Does anyone else see that?

In some respects I even see that happening in my own online experience. The hundreds of feeds in my Bloglines reader just don’t do it for me like they used to. I broke my addiction to points on ActiveRain, and I’m totally bored with websites like myspace.

Maybe it’s just me… but there seems to be a similar sentiment with other bloggers that I talk to out there. The focus has shifted more towards lead generation, and monetization. Gone are my 2004 blogging days where I was simply excited just to receive 1 comment.

As we usher in a new generation of hungry bloggers, what will we see? Will they spend alot of their time in social media or jump straight for the money and bypass all the time wasting sites out there?

Maybe I’m just growing weary of the number of options. Who is able to manage 50 different profiles anyway? The People I’ve seen that do it effectively are the full time guys that make a living from it based on advertising or some other model… That’s great for them, but what about the real estate agent that only has 2 hours per week to develop an online presence?

Waste 30 minutes on facebook customizing your profile, take 15 minutes on Activerain to make a couple of comments, take another 15 to invite 2 friends to Linkedin, take 30 minutes browsing your rss reader, another 15 minutes reading top stories on digg… and what does that leave you? 15 minutes to actually spend time writing a blog post.

As I see it, there are a few solutions to this problem…

Define Your Goal:

How will you achieve your goal?

Here are some strategies, assuming you want to generate leads through blogging.....

Continue reading the rest of this post over on my blog: Searching Solutions

Is Your Market Over Saturated With Other Bloggers?

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:07:02 -0500

I’ve heard some talk lately from discouraged real estate bloggers that can’t seem to rank well in the search engines. They try blogging for a few weeks and then give up often times assuming that there are simply too many competing blogs and websites in their market area. In most markets, this is simply not the case!

Yes, it is true that there are a few places around the country that have fierce competition. Those would be in places like: Seattle, Phoenix, San Francisco, Florida, and a few others…

But for the most part, there are very few markets that are saturated with multiple blogs. In many cases, there are some fairly large markets that aren’t even represented.

What does this mean for you, the beginner blogger?? There is hope!!

To Continue Reading this post visit my blog:

Is Your Market Saturated with Other Bloggers?

Congrats to AR's Jon Washburn & Matt Heaton for Making Inman's Top 100 List

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:21:59 -0500

Yesterday afternoon, Inman news posted their annual list:

100 Most Influential Real Estate Leaders: 2007

The list this year included many of the people you'd expect to see, but also had a few new faces from the online RE world including: Lockhart Steele from Curbed, Glenn Kellman from Redfin, and Pete Flint from Trulia.

I was pleasantly surprised at the bottom of the list when I noticed that Jonathan Washburn & Matt Heaton (the founders of Active Rain) made the notables list. I was a little disappointed that they didn't make the technology and online real estate category, because they have arguably had more impact in that category than anyone else in 2007. But I have a feeling that we will start to see alot more familiar faces from the RE.net in next year's list.

Stop Complaining About ActiveRain, and Start Using the Greatest Referral Network of all time!

Justin Smith - Blogging Coach {Blogging, SEO, SEM, SMO} (Real Estate Tomato) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:44:21 -0500

Ok, I’m getting kind of sick of the critics of ActiveRain that complain that it doesn’t provide enough buyer/seller leads for the amount of time invested in blogging on the site. I know I just wrote about this, but I still have some frustration to get out.

First of all, according to the results of my questions to ActiveRain members in the last post, nearly all of them had received a direct buyer/seller lead from ActiveRain… but I want to point out something else. I personally feel that the members of AR that aren’t getting any leads are either extremely new, don’t participate enough, or just flat out don’t know how to use it properly.

I realize that it’s a community website, and that many members aren’t there to generate business, but to build relationships, and add to the water cooler conversation. And that’s great! More power to you… But to those of us that have chosen AR as a means to generate business, I think it’s important that we all know how to us AR to it’s full potential.

How can the average agent on ActiveRain generate consistent business for themselves besides the obvious (Localism)? *** REFERRALS ***

ActiveRain has got to be the single best place to make and receive agent to agent referrals anywhere on the web. I look at it like a year round 24/7 real estate convention where you can meet new people, network, build friendships, and build a referral network!

Have agents forgotten about referrals? There was a debate recently between the benefits of using Activerain and RealTown. The argument was based around which could produce a better customer response (leads). One of the factors left out of the mix was agent to agent referrals. In my opinion, there is no better place on the internet where real estate agents can meet and create networking opportunities than activerain. There is so much life and activity happening.

Who cares if there aren’t alot of consumers actually viewing the site! Can you even imagine how many customers are represented by the 45,000 members of ActiveRain??? Those are the customers I want!

There are plenty of opportunities for the person that can get creative. The way I look at AR is as the largest networking opportunity for real estate agents of all time. It’s a goldmine for agents, loan officers, & vendors, and if you play your cards right, it can be a fantastic place for referrals. The skeptic might say: “well I have 100,000 points, and haven’t received any referrals from other AR members. Well… are you actively looking for referrals? Or are you just part of the banter? It’s networking 101. Is there someone that comments on your blog often? Pick up the phone!!! Relationships are the heart of any referral business.

Keep a look out. Your next new customer may be sitting right under your nose…

Justin Smith

Coach, Real Estate Tomato

President, Christian Real Estate Network

Real Estate Marketing Secrets Blog

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Real Estate Marketing Blog on ActiveRain

The Ultimate (& Practical) Guide To Optimizing Your RSS Feed (Part 1)

Still Unclear About RSS? Here are some resources and a video that will help:

Quick Steps to Getting Started as an RSS User/Reader/Subscriber

Do You Publish An RSS Feed? If You Have a Blog, Then The Answer Is YES!!

What is Feedburner, and Why Should You Care?

Getting Your RSS Feed Set Up With Feedburner:

Learn How to:

Please comment if you have any questions!!

How to Maximize Your ActiveRain Blog's Search Engine Ranking

Here is a Basic SEO Quiz For You…

What is a Title Tag???

Where Can You Find a Title Tag?

Title Tag on Your Activerain Profile Page

Title Tag on Your Activerain Blog

Title Tag on Activerain Blog Posts

Please comment if you have any questions!!

Is Your Real Estate Website Eating Itself???

Definition of Keyword Cannibalization:

Google ranks each page of a website independently of each other

Using the same keyword doesn’t help gain extra relevance

The quality of your content will suffer

You are severely limiting your search engine traffic potential

Tips on Avoiding Cannibalization

Branding a Real Estate Business on the Search Engines

Search Engine Branding With Meta Tags

How to (Mis)-Manage Internet Real Estate Leads

1. Pick up the phone, look at your fax machine, and check your email

2. Email and call the client immediately

3. Be persistent, but don’t harass

4. Put buyers into the loop immediately

5. Long term clients still deserve the same level of service

5 Reasons Why You Don't Need More Domain Names

1. New Domain Names = More Time & Money to Develop

2. Multiple Domain Names Waters Down Your Search Engine Ranking Effectiveness

3. Multiple Domain Names Water Down Your Brand

New Advertising Opportunity for the Real Estate & Christian Communities

Marketing to a Christian Audience

Marketing to a Real Estate Audience

Marketing to Niche Audiences

How to Build Solid Incoming Links to a Real Estate Website/Blog

Add/Submit

Advanced

Directories

Blogs & Forums

Interesting Blogging & Search Engine Statistics

Long Tail Keywords vs. Short Tail Keywords on Your Real Estate Blog

The Problem With Targeting Long Tail Keywords

The Problem With Targeting Short Tail Keywords

The Money Tail

Spam?? - Greatest Real Estate Agent In The World

8 Ways to Use Google Alerts To Find New Leads

How to Set Up Unique Google Alerts

Look Out For the MEME Monster...

Scott Saghirian – TheTopTechAgent.com Sarah Bandy – TylerTalkAlot.com Chad Lariscy – ChadLariscy.com My wife and I... My Daughters...

Homes for Sale in Castle Rock Colorado

Castle Pines to Become a Douglas County Town

Crazy Myth: Posting listings to a blog is too hard, time consuming & pointless

Crazy Myth #4: Posting listings on my blog will water down the rest of my content

How I Sold My ActiveRain Profile for $6,750.00

The Real Estate Blog Balancing Act

How to Spice up Your Email Signature by Using Your Blog Feed

How to Avoid Suffering From Blogging & Social Media Overload

Is Your Market Over Saturated With Other Bloggers?

Congrats to AR's Jon Washburn & Matt Heaton for Making Inman's Top 100 List

Stop Complaining About ActiveRain, and Start Using the Greatest Referral Network of all time!

Scott Saghirian – TheTopTechAgent.com

Sarah Bandy – TylerTalkAlot.com

Chad Lariscy – ChadLariscy.com

My wife and I...

My Daughters...