A quick search engine optimization (SEO) tip to share today...

Check out this excellent blog post  by Greg Fleischaker in Louisville, KY - "Homes For Sale Louisville: Home Prices Drop Back Down To April Levels."  Here's why the post is really good:

• It's succinct - very easy for the reader to grab and read the info that Greg is sharing
• He's talking about relevant market information - answering the "How's the market?" question that EVERYONE has.
• There's an image included - in this case, he's using an AltosChart to show the reader the trends that he's discussing.
• Greg's included his own analysis to show his readers his local market expertise.

As I was reading Greg's blog, there was one place that I noticed he could improve - and it's not even in the blog post itself - it's in the URL of the blog post.

Here's the blog post URL:

http://www.louisvillekyrealestateblog.com/?p=526

The p=526 is the way that his blogging software indexes the article - it automatically assigns a number to the blog post.  However, one of Google's SEO variables is key words in the URL.   When Google sends out it's search engine crawlers to see what is on a web page (or a blog post in this case), one of the biggest variables is the URL. If the URL contains key words, that will dramatically help with page ranking in Google.

For example, from a recent post on the Altos Research blog:

http://blog.altosresearch.com/us-housing-reports-releases-september-2009/

Notice how the title of the post is in the URL?  This will help on Google when people search on Google for "US Housing Reports," Google sees that search term in the blog post URL and then says - "Here's a webpage that has what the searcher is looking for" and thus helps page ranking for individual posts.

Most blogging software programs such as WordPress should have a tool that allows you to change the "p=526" to match the title of your post.  

That's my quick tip of the week.  (And don't worry - I asked Greg if it was okay to feature his blog in this post.  He does excellent work blogging and on Twitter!)

Just a couple of books I've come across that I recommend reading, and then IMPLEMENTING the ideas they are presenting:

"Landing Page Optimization" by Tim Ash - Goes through the ins and outs of web page conversation.  Lots of great examples from successful and unsuccessful websites including screen shots of what to do and what not to do.  Discuss ROI for your landing pages as well. Excellent read and a very clear "how-to" guide.  

Here's a video with Tim Ash explaining some of his concepts.

"Always Be Testing" by Brian Eisenberg - Introduces you to Google's Website Optimizer (it's free) and how to use it.

Why is this important?  Have you ever really thought about how your website visitors see (or not see) the content on your website.  For example, did you know about some of the visual tests that have been run on website reading patterns? Or about the concept of "Landing Page Eye Tracking"?  You'll notice that these publications are a couple of years old, yet nearly every real estate agent website that I visit eschews these basic concepts.

Check them out or you might as well spend your time walking neighborhoods every Tuesday or sending recipe cards in the mail.  You'll get the same result.

Just a couple of quick follow-ups to this week's REBarcamp-Seattle.  Thank you to Zillow for putting together the event.  With the number of attendees well over 300, there was lots of enthusiasm and sharing to go around.

If you missed it, I hosted two sessions:

1. "How to REALLY Grab 'em" - We discussed specific strategies for internet and web marketing, reviewing agent and broker websites from across the country that have done a particularly nice job of successfully marketing on the web. 
2. "Beat the Headlines. Be the Local Market Expert." - This session was all about how to reach your buyers and sellers with local market stats to educate and inform.  Lots of times we hear the headlines to the real estate story, but those headlines don't apply your client.  Additionally, there are numerous market stats that you can use - it's more than just price to communicate effectively.  Some examples include looking at inventory trends, days-on-market by price zone, the price of new listings coming into the market, and more.

If you'd like to see the slides for our presentations, you can check them out here.  This link will redirect you to a custom page on AltosResearch.com to access and download the presentation:

If you're not in the Seattle area, be sure to find a REBarcamp close to you.  Yes, they are worth taking a day from your business even if you have to drive a couple of hours!  We've been huge supporters of the movement, attending as many as possible.  It's a great concept that the real estate industry has needed.

And finally, if you're not familiar with us here at Altos Research, well, you should be!  We help agents answer that question you get every day - "How's the market?"  Our subscriptions and solutions for real estate agents are designed to help you keep your prospects, leads, and clients up-to-date with the latest market data with:

• Real-time, automated data on your website
• Automatic lead generation and lead capture tools for your website
• Personally-branded market reports for your meetings and drip marketing

(Yes, it's cool stuff!)

Just a quick note to let you know that our fearless leader and CEO here at Altos Research has the distinct honor of serving as this week's guest on the RETomato's Blog Talk Radio. 

The Details:

Topic: Mike's 3 Question Philosophy

1. What's for sale?
2. How much is the house worth?
3. How's the market?

• What makes a good blog post?
• What do real estate consumers need to know?
• How do people respond to and understand data?
• How do you use data for lead conversion?
• How effective are the PDF data reports?

___________________________

If you're not familiar with the RETomato's Blog Talk Radio, here's some background:

Jim Cronin and Jason Benesch of the well loved Real Estate Tomato, team up to discuss anything and everything to do with Real Estate Marketing Online. Together they have helped thousands of Realtors develop a superior internet presence. The RET focus is on personal training, the embrace of social media, and the development of beautiful and powerful blogsites.

We owned the distinct honor of hosting this week's Carnival of Real Estate on our Altos Research blog.  This was personally my first effort, so I hope you find my take educational and entertaining.  

Check out this week's posts here. 

Just fresh in my inbox and straight to Active Rain!  I'm a big fan of O'Reilly Media, and while some of there webcasts and sessions can get super-techie, others are excellent at stretching the brain and thinking outside of just "real estate." 

Here's an upcoming webcast that I just learned about that you might think about attending.  While this is intended with organizations in mind, not individuals, I'm sure there will be some excellent takeaways for those running a team, brokerage, or just like to think of their business practice and themselves in different ways:

Creating Your Social Media Policy (click here to sign up)
Presented by Joshua-Michéle Ross of O'Reilly Radar

Social media such as blogs, microblogs (e.g. Twitter) and social networks blur the boundaries between company roles (who speaks for the company on a blog, Twitter or Facebook?) and the border between the company and the outside world.

The Social Web is about communities, collaboration, peer production and user-generated content. It is a place where business reputations are defined by customer opinions and ratings, where press is delivered by independent bloggers, and product development and insight is driven by customers. As digital natives—those who have grown up with the Internet—flood the workplace, your employees will expect to be part of the Social Web and they'll have a lot to contribute.

Big corporations are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to harness the benefits of increased employee participation and customer engagement while mitigating the risks.

This webcast will review guidelines for corporations considering how to responsibly integrate social media in the workplace. After delivering the framework, Joshua will open the webcast to a Q&A discussion.

Who should attend: Any professional or executive thinking of using social media in the workplace.

If you have any specific questions you would like answered during the webcast—please send email to webcast@oreilly.com.

An important component of your Internet marketing strategy is "search engine optimization" (a.k.a. "SEO").  This is a fancy term that just means - "What do search engines like Google see when they look at your website."

Among the factors that Google uses to rank you website and it's webpages are keyword terms and how those search terms are structured.  If you want to "see" what Google sees when they visit a page on your website, check out this free online tool:

This is one of the simplest tools that you'll find to help you with your website and webpage development.  On this site, you just enter the webpage that you would like to analyze, and click "Parse URL." Immediately, you'll be able to see how Google views your page when it sends out it's little robots to find key words across the Internet.

As an illustration, here's an image of a page from BlogbytheBay.com (Ginger Wilcox in Marin, CA):

Now, when I run this page on seo-browser.com, here's what Google sees:

Notice how Google only sees the text, not the images?  If the key words on your website are embedded in images or in Flash animations, Google can't see them!  Also, your key words should be in the headings - the bold print in the output that seo-browser.com provides.   (This webpage I'm using to illustrate on Ginger's website was built using the Altos Research "MyWebpage Builder" tool on her account.  These pages are pre-built and already "SEO-optimized" for some of the key terms for each area such as "Kentfield Real Estate Market.")

You can use seo-browser.com for any individual webpage on your website, or even for specific blog posts.  It's a great way to see if your blog post is hitting the "long tail" key words that you're hoping to focus on.  (And if you don't know what "long tail" means, check out this article on Wired Magazine from a few years ago.)

Play around with a few of your webpages throughout your website to see how each page varies.  This will give you a set of "to-dos" that you can quickly fix to help with SEO.  Keep in mind that optimizing your website for search engine key terms is not the only factor that Google examines, but this certainly will help you incrementally.

Give me a call or email if you want to discuss strategy!

I've been fortunate enough to attend a number of the REBarcamps over the past year - (San Francisco, New York City, Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake City).  At EVERY event, attendees and organizers ask a fundamental question -

How do we keep the momentum that we've built at the REBarcamp? - exchanging ideas, learning new technologies, staying motivated.  Well, Richardo Bueno, organizer of the REBarcamp-Los Angeles has figured it out:

Hey Gang,

I'm happy to say that we're having a Realtor/Blogger Meetup & Tweetup this Thursday at Aroma Coffee & Tea from 11:00am - 1:00pm. if you're a blogger, techie, and social media wannabe, then this is the place to be!

Most of the group is the same crowd that you saw at REBarCamp Los Angeles so there should be some great energy in the room and a lot of great discussions circulating around. Also, we'll be talking about a little mastermind group that we've been thinking of hosting...

(More details on that can be found at www.lamastermind.com). For now, here are the details on the meetup: Thursday Meetup @ Aroma Coffe & Tea If you can make it, be sure to RSVP via the event page so we can call ahead an reserve enough table space.

See ya there!

Ricardo Bueno

The lesson here - REBarcamp is not a one-time event. It's a movement that you have to ride every week, every month in your local area.  Take advantage of your new network and contacts.  Create a group on MeetUp.com - continue the positive energy by getting together with your new friends and colleagues.

(And Ricardo - you are the man! Nice work!)

I usually like to focus on marketing ideas and events here on Active Rain, but seeing that I work with a real-time real estate data company (Altos Research if you didn't know...), an occasional post with lots of data beckons from time to time.

Mike Simonsen passed along a link to this presentation that I'd thought I share here.  If you like numbers, this is your kind of presentation.

T2 Partners is a financial investment company that posted this presentation and accumulated research about the current mortgage market.  Enjoy!

REBarcamp-Salt Lake City is TOMORROW! (Friday, June 5), so this is my last push to reach out to the Real Estate Professionals in the Salt Lake City area...

Be there!  Or be just another real estate agent!

Here's the email sent by Rob Aubrey, one of the event's main organizers - all of the reasons that you should schedule time on Friday to build your knowledge, your practice, and most importantly, your service to your clients.  Make sure you register TODAY ---