seo: The real value of social networking - 03/12/08 01:15 PM
This will be a loaded question, since a vast majority of you reading this are members of this site and thus, are participating in social networking. Search engines giants have been snapping up social networking sites because they are becoming a source of competition for them....and another place for them to place their advertising clients. I'm curious how many of you use some of the more popular social networking sites out there to broaden your reader base. Here is a short list of just a few:
DiggReal Estate VoicesMixxPuurplePropellorUnfortunately, you can't add a digg button here because of the scripting.  A nice … (1 comments)

seo: Spam rears its ugly head again - 06/26/07 12:42 PM
It seems these things come in cycles. You open your email up and watch as all of your contacts for today start appearing. Ho, what's this?  Contacts from AR. Potential clients? Investors wanting to spend millions in your market?  Confused, scared home buyers needing expert guidance and assistance?
Ah, no....ads for a motorforum and cheap pills.... 
That was case this morning. However, I have to give kudos to AR for taking swift action. By the time I was ready to delete and report the offending posts, they were already taken care of.  Considering the size of this site now, its very … (6 comments)

seo: Blogs Ogog - 06/20/07 03:08 PM
I'm always looking for places to promote my site and blog. I came across one that I hadn't heard of before, ogog.org. Its run by a non-profit organization, which in itself makes it unique. It looks like its brand new, without a lot of users (yet).
You have to have an openid account to sign up. So it will take you a little bit of time to sign up, but both sites are FREE. So, of course, I signed up at both places: http://lasvegasrealestate.myopenid.com/  here is my OgOg profile. I don't know if the site will make it, but I have found … (4 comments)

seo: Tool Bar PR Update - 04/30/07 09:20 PM
That's right. The magic green bar is updating again. Doing a random check it seems the page rank update was fairly generous with Active rain and localism. It seems most agent profiles there on localism are showing a pr of 3 and AR profiles a pr of 4. Of course, the tool bar is the last thing to be "updated".
Some of you back east may not be seeing the changes yet (at least Ken Smith hasn't yet). Will it make a difference?  Not really, although pr will show you just how trusted your site is to Google. So take it … (21 comments)

seo: Mybloglog SOLD - 01/14/07 12:03 PM
MyBlogLog has some pretty big buzz going for it. The popularity of the site has skyrocketed (sound familiar?) lately.  I had put up a post about mybloglog the day after Christmas. Since then, my friends, contact, family and fans have grown to over 50. 
Since the page rank update from google, all of my community pages have went to a page rank of 3. Not bad considering the profile is just a few months old.  The index page now has a page rank of 7 and google is showing 60,700 pages indexed as of the date of this post. So its no … (3 comments)

seo: Watchr - 01/14/07 11:38 AM
Social networking is here to stay. It seems every other day I stumble on yet another site is involved in social networking. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Today's world is about speed and getting what  you want. Its everywhere in our culture. Back in the 70's McDonalds did a study on how fast their food was delivered and what the average consumer thought was a quick time. Back then, the "fast" time was about 5 minutes. Today, fast is considered by the "average" consumer to be under a minute. Its no wonder that sites that can be … (1 comments)

seo: Upcoming.org - 01/07/07 06:17 AM
I stumbled on this site while I was making my mybloglog profile account. The concept behind the site is a news feeder service that allows you to publize events in your area to other users. At first look it doesn't seem that exciting, but allow me to elaborate a little.
What makes this site cool is that it allows you to set up a very specific feed that you can use a myriad of ways. For my events, you can view my Las Vegas profile. You can subscribe to different feeds to keep you informed of events in certain geographic areas.  Or … (3 comments)

seo: My Blog Log - 12/26/06 10:24 AM
As I was sitting in the after glow of yet another very, Merry Christmas, I was checking on my various profile pages on different networks. One of my favorite sites (besides this one of course) is mybloglog.com. Think of it as a myspace for bloggers. I added my profile here, under Jade456. (For those of you wondering, Jade is my Electus Parrot). Quite a few Active Rain members are already there, but several of you are missing!
Basically the site helps you expand your readership, add your various different blogs and websites. The site has some cool widgets to add to your … (5 comments)

seo: Have you claimed your ID? - 12/24/06 09:28 AM
The internet truly does have a website on every subject. I was checking on my various profile pages on Squidoo, when I saw a lens that caught my eye.   Following the links it listed I ended up on a site called claimid. The premise behind it is to "claim" your name on the internet.  This poses a huge problem for those people that have a common name, like John Smith for example. When I google Charles Richey I get a natural healing expert and a federal judge (no relation I think).  The site allows you to put  up a biography, photo … (10 comments)

seo: Link Exchanges: Are you faithful? - 12/04/06 05:24 PM
Link exchanges, their benefits, whether they are still "alive", dead or just indifferent is a topic that has been coming up over and over again.  Several posts about link exchanges have been posted here as well as on other blogs and forums. I think link exchanges still have merit, in a very limited way. Exchanging with sites that are in areas that quite a few of your buyers may move from makes sense.
With the amount of competition out there, the less ethical webmasters are constantly finding ways to "cheat" the system.   Sometimes links will be placed on "orphan" pages, pages … (12 comments)

seo: PubCon - 11/18/06 02:05 PM
This past week I've been absent for the most part because of the Las Vegas seo conference.  One of the big things that kept coming up as a reoccurring theme was information accessibility. Making a site accessable by everyone, regardless of browser, os, etc. During one of the sessions, there was a website owner from San Diego that wanted to have the best Chiropratic website on the web.   He told us about how one of his customers found him and gave him the best compliment he ever got. The customer was blind and was able to find his business because the … (4 comments)

seo: Pubcon - Keynote Address - 11/15/06 01:29 AM
I'm sneaking this in before I pickup Ken on my way to Pubcon. Yesterday was the first day of conferences at Pubcon. The keynote speaker was Guy Kawaski, former software evangelist for Apple computer (mac) back in the late 80's. For those of you that aren't familiar with the term, Guy's job was basically getting software companies to write programs for Apple users.
Guy is now a venture capitalist. In his speech he told a story about his job offer to run Yahoo when it was just a start up. He ulitimately refused the job, much to his later chagrin. The … (6 comments)

seo: Understanding web traffic part 2 - 10/09/06 08:08 PM
Back in August I did a post on basically a beginner's guide to understanding web traffic.  I think it turned out to be my first featured post and even though not many people commmented on it, I got a lot of positive feedback from the network via email.  I always meant to put up a follow up post going into a little more detail, so here it is.
In my prior post, understanding web traffic I discussed the difference between hits and sessions to your web site. That is an integral part of your web traffic, but lets break it down even … (13 comments)

seo: Niche Marketing or Main Stream - 10/09/06 10:27 AM
With the decline of home sales over the past year, it may be time to re-think your marketing strategy.  Are you marketing to a main stream audience or targeting a specific niche, like baby boomers or second homes?  How are you attracting your clients?  Its the million dollar question, one that every member wonders when looking over someone else's website or profile.   There have been several posts about marketing on AR, ranging from home staging to using media sites like Craig's list or uploading your listings to Zillow or Google Base. For some it seems one or all of these things work … (1 comments)

seo: MSN traffic loss is not what you think - 10/08/06 12:19 PM
Quite a few website owner's have expressed concern over the recent update of MSN's search to MSN LIVE. The old msn search engine failed to live up to the hype after its release, so MSN replaced it entirely with the "Live" version.  After the replacement last month, the forums have been active with people asking if anyone else noticed a loss of traffic after Live.   Most people who did rely on MSN to deliver visitors stated that they had....but actually they didn't.
Because of the change over to LIVE, quite a few backend tracking programs aren't working correctly any more. The way … (4 comments)

seo: Are Press Releases outdated? - 10/07/06 01:52 PM
A long time ago (2004) as far as SEO purposes, a well written press release could be a ranking gold mine. The most popular press release site, prweb.com was the place to put out a press release that could almost guarantee you traffic and having a top ten ranking spot for a less competitive term. During that time, your release would be picked up by hundreds of websites as well.
Fast forward to 2006.  The topic of press releases for seo is now minimal according to Matt Cutts (in a recent blog post). But, are they still a good source of actual … (6 comments)

seo: Real Estate SEO: Link exchanges you should avoid. - 10/05/06 01:33 PM
Most real estate professionals end up promoting their sites themselves. While it can be done successful, its definitely not for everyone. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, here are some things you should what out for when exchanging links for seo purposes.  Unethical webmasters will go to huge lengths to trick or cheat you in an exchange. Some webmasters are just ignorant of what they are doing doesn't make a good exchange. There are several things to watch for, to ensure that you are getting a fair trade. Here is a short list of some of the most common tricks used:
Sites using … (3 comments)

seo: What do your pictures say about your site - 10/01/06 07:04 AM
One of the challenges you face as a website owner is putting up good quality content on your website.  The better and more accurate that content is, the more likely it will draw new visitors and keep regulars coming back for more.  Its said that a picture is worth a thousand words and on the internet, that couldn't be more true. A great picture or pictures on your website will make a huge impact on any visitors you may get, not to mention how professional (or not) it makes your site appear and I haven't even got into listings yet!  A … (6 comments)

seo: Website navigation - 09/30/06 11:26 PM
Lots of real estate professionals that promote their own sites usually focus on two things: content and exchanging links.  Quite often they are successful using that strategy and over look an important component for both ranking and use: internal links.  Internal links can be as important to a website as outside links. They help direct both a visitor and search engine to other pages in your site.  A site will a lot of external links and poor internal linking structure will suffer in rankings as well as repeat visitors.   Pages that aren't linked properly will take longer to get cached by … (4 comments)

seo: Page Rank: The Trust Factor - 09/29/06 10:09 AM
Today it seems is the day to post about search engines, page rank and backlinks.  Matt put up a post about the Google page rank update and I had put up some posts about MSN Live and Google Backlinks as well. For those of you wondering what the big deal is about a page rank update, here is the reason why. Page rank is google's way of rating a page on its importance regarding the topic its about. PR is still updating, so you may get several different values, depending on which data center you hit. Good page rank doesn't necessarily equal high … (2 comments)