Link Exchanges Part 2 - 08/30/06 04:54 PM
Gena, this one is for you. So, you have started a link exchange campaign and have started to exchange links for several months. As I have stated before, as your site becomes higher ranked and more well known, you will start to develop a reputation on the web. Whether its good or bad will be up to you. Link exchanges are based totally on trust. The trust part comes into when you have completed the exchange and verified your link has been posted correctly. After that, you will be trusting link partners to leave your link on their site as you … (0 comments)
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Copyright reminder - 08/30/06 03:39 PM
It seems that the infringement issue is on the right track (or things are being posted from really obscure sources). Although I still see some old posts that should be removed by the poster, most of the blogs being put up are original content. There is something else I have noticed. Quite a few people are putting up pictures in their blog posts. I'm all for it, as long as they have the right to use the photo. Posting someone else's graphic, photo or clip art that has not been released into the public domain is copyright infringement.
Graphics released under … (10 comments)
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Katrina Footage - 08/29/06 05:17 PM
I'm sure we'll being hearing about Katrina a lot because of the anniversary. Dateline did a show on it last night. One thing I didn't know was that the media was allowed to stay inside the Superdome, or at least one journalist with a camera crew. They showed 27 minutes of footage they took as the storm was happening inside the dome and after. The amount of suffering and helplessness they caught on tape was truly horrifying. This is AMERICA. Things like that AREN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. It took FIVE days before the government showed up with food and water. The … (2 comments)
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Shame on State Farm - 08/26/06 01:35 AM
For those of you that missed 20/20 tonight, ABC is doing a week long series on Katrina for the anniversary. The story on 20/20 centered on State Farm, you know, like a good neighbor State Farm is there? Or are they? There have been several allegations (since last year) that they had been dragging their feet and not paying claims. What I found interesting is that their policies don't cover water damage, only wind. 20/20 spoke to several people who claimed that State Farm denied their claim for compensation under false pretenses. One of the people they talked to was an … (7 comments)
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eBay Scam - 08/24/06 03:50 AM
For those of you that buy stuff on ebay, I thought I would share this. My dad had been looking at this Fuji Camera acution for the last couple weeks http://search.ebay.com/fuji-finepix-s3_W0QQsofocusZbsQQsbrftogZ1QQcatrefZC6QQfromZR10QQcatrefZC6QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQfsopZ1QQfsooZ1 for fake eBay auctions for S3 camera. They are easy to spot because the auctions start for under $50 dollars. When you look at these auctions you will find a email address to contact them before bidding on the auction. This is a scam to have you send them money by Western Union to an address outside the US. If you send them $900 right away they will give you two lenses or something like … (4 comments)
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Active Rain Connections - 08/23/06 11:19 PM
Caleb had posted a blog request for member's thoughts on what they are getting out of Active Rain. Well, for starters, lack of sleep, loss of productivity on other projects, writer's cramp... But seriously, I have made some connections with other like minded individuals of integrity. Its given me another forum to express my views, share information with others as well as learn new things. I've been contacted by two realtors from different parts of the country for a referral because of this site and my profile on it. So being here has also helped my business grow.
However, if I … (4 comments)
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Stopping Spam - 08/22/06 05:39 PM
For those of you that actively comment (or blog a lot), you will have noticed a new requirement when leaving a comment----the SPAM STOPPER! Basically its a security measure designed to stop bots (scripts that spammers and hackers use to scan websites and insert various things) from filling out comments on our blogs. I'm sure you've all experienced it in your guestbook or contact forms. Requests for link exchanges with pharmacy or adult sites, praise for your website with a small note to visit our site at the live link of xxx. com.
If you are getting a lot of spam through your … (9 comments)
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Talking House - 08/21/06 08:39 PM
Is anyone using them? Talking house is kind of the precursor to podcasting. For those of you that aren't familiar with the product, its been around for years. How it works, is pretty simple. You get a short range radio transmitter(am) that you place inside a listed property. You record a message about the property (just like a podcast) for the transmitter. You put the provided sign out from giving prospects the channel to tune into on their car radio to hear about the property. Their website also offers sample message scripts and promotion techniques. With everything going on the real estate … (12 comments)
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Is your site a true real estate resource? - 08/20/06 03:51 PM
With more and more potential home buyers starting their real estate search on the internet, even the dinosaurs are starting to get websites. Probably 99% of all agent websites will never be promoted properly and will never generate any type of business. Its been said that content is king. That statement is probably more true than ever at this point. So how do you promote your site so it becomes a recognized resource or brand if you will?
The key is offering more in depth information that your competitors. Once you start doing that, you will start to be contacted by … (0 comments)
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Search Engine Rankings - 08/20/06 02:38 PM
I thought I would delve into search engine rankings a bit. What prompted this post was the obvious distress by one of the members for losing her ranking on Yahoo. First, let me specify that I am going to stating some things in a generic terms, because each engine does look for specific things in their ranking algos. Can't you have good rankings on all three? Of course you can. It just doesn't happen all that often!
Of the big three engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN, Google is probably the most stable as far as results are concerned. If you manage to … (7 comments)
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Understanding web traffic - 08/18/06 03:03 PM
For those you that are relatively new to the workings of a website, there are lot of terms you may be unfamiliar with. One of the questions raised in the comments on my Active Rain traffic post, was what is a session. In practical terms, a session is a visit from a web surfer that actual spends time on your website. Web traffic is divided up into hits, sessions, returning users and unique or first time visitors.
So first lets break it down. You will see advertising on web portals claiming x number of hits per month or day, blah blah … (5 comments)
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Traffic from Active Rain - 08/18/06 04:22 AM
I was looking through my weblogs earlier today. As I suspected, quite a large chunk of my web traffic is coming from google for out main keyword phrase, Las Vegas Real Estate. Search engines deliver roughly 90% of the traffic to our site, with the remaining 10% divided up among a variety of other sites. As far as directories go, very few provide any traffic at all. We have been listed in yahoo's directory for years and have received minimal traffic at best. For those of you thinking about plunking down $300 per year, think again.
I was however, pleasantly surprised … (9 comments)
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Is your website sticky? - 08/16/06 11:31 PM
So after months and months of promoting your website, you are finally getting traffic. But the amount of leads being generated hasn't gone up. Visitors are finding your site but aren't sticking around. In other words, your website isn't sticky!
This concept has been around for a while in the seo world. Its revolves around the amount and quality of information found on a site, the age of the information (is it current) and the variety. Ideally, the longer you keep a visitor on your site, the more likely they are to contact you and request your services.
Some key factors are keeping … (6 comments)
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The Early bird gets the client - 08/15/06 05:39 PM
This morning as I was reading through my morning emails I started returning some phone calls. A potential client had left a message stating he wanted to move into a new house in the next 30 days and he had already secured his financing. I immediately called him back and spoke to him for about 30 minutes. Apparently he is under a little bit of a time crunch and wants to move quickly. He also told me he had tried contacting a total of 4 agents and I'm the only one that bothered to call him back!!
Now if the market was overflowing … (2 comments)
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The Price isn't right - 08/14/06 02:58 PM
One of my team members has been showing a client condos for the past few days. They found several that they liked and decided to settle on one and made an offer. The condo was originally listed at 285k and was dropped to 239k. All of this was volunteered by the selling agent, who seemed very eager to move the property.
The comps in the neighborhood had a slightly larger condo that sold for 235k. They put in an offer for 230 with all the costs each party is responsible for to be paid by that party. The offer was countered … (10 comments)
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Attention to details - 08/14/06 04:06 AM
One of the things that I think quite a few agents fall into is routine. Using the same thing over and over again and never updating. You've met these people. They're your fellow agent who thinks that internet clients are a fad. Its not a serious marketing tool. They cling to the marketing ways of the past with almost religious fervor. You scoff at the idea that could possibly have anything in common with them. But I'm willing to bet that you do. I willing to bet like those agents that don't change (or like change), you haven't either. Except that … (6 comments)
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Real Estate SEO: Supplemental Results - 08/12/06 06:39 PM
This morning a friend of mine called me because a ton of his pages were now showing up as supplemental results when he did a google site search. You may be asking yourself why is that bad? Well, in this case they were the first pages showing up in a search. Again, you may be asking yourself so what? The supplemental results were created for a new, separate index that google will search if it fails to find a match in the main index. The fact that any of his pages were showing up there meant that google felt that some … (3 comments)
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Real Estate SEO: Link Exchanges - 08/11/06 11:57 PM
I hadn't planned on getting into link exchanges and their part in real estate seo, but surfing through the forums changed my mind. There has been a lot of debate among SEO experts as to whether recip linking was dead. There is valid evidence to support both camps. Matt Cutts (google employee) posted in his blog about 2 months ago some statements to support that. He had pointed out that perhaps unrelated recip links could hurt a site's ranking. Personally, I think its a bad idea for anyone to base their ranking on just recip linking. While I don't think its outdated, … (1 comments)
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Free Online Tools - 08/10/06 10:40 PM
As part of my SEO tutorial, I thought I would put up some of my favorite sites for free SEO tools. This list is by no means complete; I've picked out my top five sites because quite a few offer the same or similar tools:
widexl the link is the meta tag analyzer. They also have a nice backlink checker as well.
webconfs this tool allows you to see how a search engine sees your website. They also have a TON of other cool stuff.
nichebot allows you to track/check any keywords you want.
seochat this tool will auto generator meta tags for you. Even though google ignores them, … (4 comments)
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Real Estate SEO - 08/10/06 05:13 PM
Is your website "fresh"? With the proliferation of agent sites on the web, competition is tougher than ever. The number of consumer starting their search for real estate on the web has been steadily rising the last few years. One of the biggest complaints by consumers is out of date information, whether its expired listings, old pricing, etc. I was surfing today and came across a brand new agent site that is advertising a property that was canceled in January of this year. I found another that had was advertising a property canceled last summer.
Consumers want two things when they surf … (4 comments)
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Real Estate and SEO - 08/09/06 07:22 PM
I've been getting a lot of email from Active Rain members asking about why our site ranks so well. So I thought I would start with some basics. One of the easiest things you can do to improve your rankings is to make sure you have only one address on the internet. I'll give you an example. If you type http://lvrealty.net/ in your address bar, you end up at http://www.lvrealty.net/ Right now if you tried the same thing with Active Rain, when adding the www to the address it defaults to http://activerain.com When the site was up originally, it wasn't the … (1 comments)
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How credit is getting ugly - 08/09/06 04:21 PM
Some of you may already be aware of this. The bankruptcy and credit laws have changed. While the system did need an overhaul, I think that it needs to be redone again. My lender's son recently got a notice for a supposed hospital bill from over 10 years ago. Under the new law, companies are buying up old debt, attaching their own ludicrous fees to them and are going after anyone with any assets. Keep in mind, this is a bill that hasn't shown up on any credit report in the last decade and wasn't on his recent report either. They never received … (1 comments)
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The big deal about duplicate content - 08/07/06 10:11 PM
If you have been an active forum reader for the past few weeks, you would have noticed a lot of posts (and resulting changes) about copyright infringement. Putting aside all of the legal ramifications, there is another good reason why you should never copy and paste material found elsewhere on the web.
The major search engines are always looking to streamline their index. With trillions and trillons of pages indexed, the cost to run and upkeep the big three is staggering. As consumers, we never give it a thought. One of the ways that these companies can reduce that number while … (1 comments)
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Your safety - 08/05/06 06:05 PM
There have been a few posts regarding safety (or sometimes lack thereof) in the blogs lately: danger, squatters, protect your car and a few others that I remember reading but can't find (too many posts). Few consumers seem to realize that a realtor's job can be a little dangerous. After all, a lot of the time you are meeting a perfect stranger. So I've compiled a list of the do's and don'ts:
Never:
Meet a client by yourself that you don't know at a secluded location. I.E. I'm at your VACANT listing and want to see it, meet me there. Always have them meet you at … (2 comments)
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Stop Bad Ware - 08/04/06 07:20 PM
I stumbled across this site, Stopbadware.org. The site is dedicated to preventing web surfers from going to sites that may install malicious code or steal your private information, etc. Its been kind of lurking in the shadows until Google announced that it is partnering with them and will display a warning on any site that they have tagged as 'bad'.
My question is that once these sites have been identified as malicious, why doesn't google simply remove them from their index?
-Charles
… (1 comments)
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Ajax coding and Web tools - 08/04/06 06:59 PM
Most of you reading this are wondering what the heck is Ajax coding and Web tools?! It is technology used on such populars sites as myspace.com, google maps and the coming msn windows live that makes them more interactive. Why should you be concerned? Ajax is becoming the standard for interactive websites. The topic was discussed at the Las Vegas Black Hat cybersecurity conference. There have been virus and malware attacks already, including the harvesting of e-mail addresses to installing adware (malware!) on individual pcs. One attack spammed myspace user's friends list to include the spammer, thus gaining him popularity on the … (0 comments)
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The worse Nigeria scam - 08/04/06 06:22 PM
I was reading Bryant's post on Nigeria scams. I haven't recieved a scam email through Active Rain (yet) but I do get plenty through my website. There are several different various scams that they use. I think the worse one is from a "barrister" in Nigeria, contacting you because a long lost relative that shares your last name had passed away......and left a lot of money in an account there. Of course they'll be costs involved recovering the funds, etc.
There used to be a website devoted to exposing these parasites. They actually corresponded with one gentleman, arranged to meet him in Europe, near … (3 comments)
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Squatters - 08/03/06 10:18 PM
I took a listing for an out of state client. He had a rental property that he decided to sell. The prior tenant had trashed the place a bit, so he had hired a general contractor to come in and fix the place up. About a week after the sign went up, I was showing the place and came face to face with an intruder. Apparently, they had broken in through a back window and were "living" there.
Thankfully, they both ran as I whipped out my phone and called the police. Luckily, it turned out to be some young people, kids really, … (3 comments)
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Stop to smell the Roses - 08/03/06 07:51 PM
Sometimes, we as professionals, forget the things that are really important---family and friends. You get busy with dealing with the thousands of details and before you know it, your day has been consumed.
Today I had to put down my Corgi, Edward. I got him from a Humane Society auction in 1996. He was a sweet and loyal companion for the last ten years. It wasn't sudden, so I had some time to prepare but that didn't make it any easier. Time has a habit of getting away you, especially when things are hectitc. So now that you are thinking about things, take a … (4 comments)
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Top Producer - 08/03/06 05:56 PM
When I first started in real estate, I was told that I needed certain things. A laptop, cell phone, website and top producer among other things. Today the only thing I agree with on the list is the cell phone and website! I used Top Producer (6 series) and wasn't too impressed with it. Despite the many patches, it was a bit buggy and crashed my pc sometimes (at very inopportune moments). It did generate very nice CMAs, but once we upgraded our MLS program it became obselete. I've gotten several emails to upgrade to version 7, but am a little hesitant. Does … (16 comments)
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Is Energy Star becoming the standard? - 08/01/06 07:16 PM
As little as three years ago, only a handful of home builders in Las Vegas built 100% energy star certified homes. Another couple builders had it as an option if the customer wanted it. Today, almost every new home and condo community is Energy Star certified. For those that are environmentally or cost conscious, its a welcome change. The US Department of Energy released figures several years ago that on average, energy star homes saved home owners an estimated $6 billion in energy costs. With the rising price of power, I'm sure that number is significantly higher today. Has anyone else … (0 comments)
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