Real Estate SEO | Marketing and SEO Tips for Realtors

From Now On, I Record Every Conversation

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:14:49 -0700

I actually feel pretty silly that I didn't think of recording conversations before. After all, every time I call my bank or my hosting company I am told that the call may be recorded for "quality assurance" or something of the sort. Yet, I've never put it in the context of my own quality assurance.

That's because I've never actually had an angry client. I know that sounds like nonsense, but I never have. If someone is dissatisfied with me; I'll make it right. I also choose my clients carefully. Fortunately, the person I made upset was not a client.

I spoke with someone a couple weeks ago and provided a quote and some information. They called me back today and, not only did they misunderstand something I said, but they wildly misunderstood. To be totally honest, I don't know if they are simply lying-- which some people think is a negotiation tactic-- or if they genuinely believe I verbally provided them an outlandish proposal.

I can remember faces I've seen briefly, years later. I can remember exact words from conversations I've had a year ago and can recite the conversations verbatim. I always thought I was meant to be an attorney... Women who have dated me have suffered greatly in their negotiations. Now there are two of us that remember "exactly what you said three months ago!"

But I digress.

I'm positive that I didn't tell this guy that I would "make him number one in Google, guaranteed," as he claims. I know I didn't say that because I would never say that to anybody. I do guarantee my SEO services, but not over-the-telephone and never without doing a complete SEO audit first. I have never seen this guy's website. Not to this moment, in fact.

But I'm recording all inbound calls from this point forward so that if anyone ever claims I said something I didn't, I'm going straight to the tape.

Record Your Conversations With Google Voice (Free!)

I set up a free Google voice account a while ago, but just haven't used it.

It's (602) 888-GURU; which I think is pretty cool. Of course, I will publish my number as (602) 888-4878 with the "GURU" version in small print below- instead of the other way around. Why do so many businesses promote the letter version more prominently?

It's a single number that rings through to you anywhere.
Your voicemails are stored online
Did I mention that it's free?
You can record your conversations to protect both you and your clients in the case of misunderstandings.

Anyway, you can get your Google voice number for free, right here.

Right now, you can only record inbound conversations, but I can work with that. I try to do everything by email anyway, but now I will be more open to speaking on the telephone. I just have to make sure I say, at the beginning of the conversation, "I just need to let you know that this call is being recorded for quality purposes."

It's sounds silly as heck, but I want everyone to be happy. I hate misunderstandings.

Thanks to Google voice, I've eliminated the only area in which I could be misunderstood. All communications I have will be in writing or recorded.

I honestly believe it's better for both parties that way.

Here are instructions to record your calls using Google voice.

Great (Inexpensive) Closing Gifts for Realtors

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:51:07 -0700

Okay, in truth, I started doing this years ago at a time that I was very broke. I wanted to give everyone I knew a super-terrific Christmas present, but I had a very limited budget-- so I decided to give everyone something homemade. I learned how to can stuff.

I just finished canning a large batch of my *world famous* Bloody Mary mix this past weekend and-- realizing I haven't posted a blog in the 'Rain for a while, I thought to myself... "hmmmm, this would make an excellent closing gift."

And writer's block has been temporarily defeated!

Homemade Gifts for Home Buyers

It seems like an appropriate gift to me. The label could say, "From my home, to your new home." But I'm sure you can come up with something better than that. But I do think it's a real "homey" gift and thus, it seems like a really cool gift for your new homebuyers...at least, to me.

First of all: canning isn't hard and requires no special equipment if you are canning acidic things (like Bloody Mary mix). You need a pressure cooker to can green beans, but who wants green beans as a present?!? You just need a pot deep enough to cover your submerged jars and a good recipe.

Make sure the can itself is beautiful from the inside. Take a look at the Bloody Mary I canned this weekend; I apologize for the camera-phone photo.

Do you see the iime wedge? The bunch of dill? There are also two pickle halves in there and some garlic cloves, but you can't see them in this shot. When they open the jar, they get the added bonus of super-spicy pickles to eat.

Labels: You can have mason jar labels printed with your picture, your logo-- anything you want. Of course, if you're going to give away a basket of homemade stuff as a closing gift, I think you should invest in really nice labels.

My friend Melanie Drouhard is a graphic designer, with (professional) label-making experience. She's working on a new label design for my Bloody Mary's now; I'll post it once I have them.

Or, you can download these really nice labels I found right here for free: http://limeshot.com/2012/free-printable-mason-jar-labels

They are free and "printable", but I just found those for this post, so I don't have any experience printing them out or how that works. Please let me know if you try it!

The Super, Top-Secret Bloody Mary Recipe: I make this in large batches, so I did my best to break it down into the smallest unit: a 32 oz. mason jar.

1. Clean and sanitize your mason jars. That means washing them well with soap and then I like to rinse them with lightly bleached water- which amounts to a couple of capfuls in your hot rinse water.

2. For one 32 oz. jar pour in:

23 oz. V-8 vegetable juice
The juice from one lime, then drop the lime halves in the jar
The juice from half of one lemon, discard the lemon
A nice clump of dill (as much or as little as you want). I don't believe you can ever have too much dill.
4 peeled garlic gloves
Two heaping tablespoons of grated, prepared horseradish (but you can always add more)
2 oz. worchestchire sauce
2 tablespoons hot sauce, your choice
3 oz. pickle juice
1 oz. olive juice
1 heaping tablespoon celery salt
1 teaspoon of FRESH ground pepper
1/2 tablespoon salt
Cut a pickle in half and drop the two halves in last

The thing is, depending on how big the pickle is, it may displace too much of the liquid. You need room in the can for air expansion. So if your jar is filled too high (above the fill line) you'll need to pour a little out.

3. Wipe the rim dry and clean. There can't be any drops of liquid or food on the threads before you tighten the lid.

4. Get a pot that's deep enough to submerge your jars in and fill it with very hot tap water. Put your jars in and make sure they have about an inch of water over the top.

Turn the heat up to a medium-boil and boil the jars for 25 minutes.

When you take them out, set them on a cooling rack. (I just put mine in the cold oven below.)

5. The next morning, add your labels and stock away your jars for quick gifts when you need them!

I hope you enjoyed the post. It's easy to can just about anything and I think this makes for a really neat gift.

Good luck!

WordPress Sites Easily Hacked: If You Use WordPress, Read This!

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 17:51:23 -0800

WordPress sites can be hacked and all of your Google rankings destroyed, all without you knowing about it. That's right, somebody who reads this article, who currently uses Wordpress has already been hacked and doesn't even know it.

First of all, I love WordPress. It's not that WordPress sites, in and of themselves, are particularly easy to hack, but if the user isn't active in maintaining his or her site, you will get hacked. Any site can get hacked. If you want to check your site (any website), right now, go here: http://sucuri.net and use the free tool.

If it tells you are clean, great! But you aren't done. If you don't want to read this post, skip straight to the video below. It will take you 7 minutes to watch and another 5 minutes to do and your website will be safer.

You Won't Know Why You're Rankings Are Dropping, but They Are...

A couple of years ago, I sold the domain, azwm.com. When I sold it, the domain did very well in Google for all kinds of Arizona mortgage related search phrases. It was once great for Arizona VA loans, but, lately, just dropped out of site. Like, not even the first ten pages for the stuff they used to be on page 1 for.

By performing a search that was guaranteed to show me azwm.com, I saw this in the search results, page 6:

Oh no!

I looked a little closer and it had hidden links to Viagra websites, a couple of porn links... All hidden from view. On top of that, as you can see, Google is aware the site has been hacked. Even worse, it's been infected for a couple of months. Dropping further and further in the rankings because the malware was spreading through their website.

1. If you manage your own WordPress site, like many of you do, be sure you login often (preferably every day) and check to see if there is anything that needs to be updated. Backup your site and then update.

2. Install BulletProof security, which can be found here, but I would just install it through my WP dashboard.

3. Scan your site for hacks all of the time; many people are hacked without knowing it for months. In the video below, I recommend a plugin for doing it.

4. Use Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics and monitor your site closely.

ActiveRain Cookbook is Piping Hot!

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 16:17:04 -0800

I love to eat and I love Habitat for Humanity. I once went down to Mexico to build houses (or, a "house" I should say)- and it was really a great time and a great charity. We helped a very nice family that was living in a tiny trailer.

What an appropriate charity for ActiveRain to contribute to! I love it.

Via Kerrie Greenhalgh (ActiveRain, Community Manager):

It's here, it's here!! Ladies and Gentlemen, the very 1st, extra special, secret sauce Cookbook is ready!!!

Gene Mundt birthed the AR Cookbook idea and I quickly jumped into action. We know what a wonderful community we have and we all eat so why not come together and bring your best recipe to the table.

You can download your ActiveRain Cookbook ebook today for $5. Lulu.com takes a small percentage but the remainder of the money automatically goes to Habitat for Humanity. Yes that's right Rainers, not only will your kitchen be stocked with new ideas from your AR family but you're donating to charity at the same time! It's a win-win!

Thank you to all who submitted a recipe, and Gene Mundt and his wonderful wife Marilyn who helped so much in producing the finishing project. Lots of time and love went into this baby.

I am honored to be amongst such wonderful people who unite to create something that will make a difference. Many members have already talked about downloading the book for holiday presents for their clients and friends. What a fantastic idea!!

Please share this link with your friends and family via Facebook, email or Twitter. Let them know you're a part of the biggest real estate community who is giving back.

Download your ActiveRain Cookbook and whip up some homemade oatmeal raisin cookies or serve up some ActiveRain ribs at your next get together.

Forget SEO: Convert Visitors into Real Estate Buyers

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:49:54 -0800

All of the real estate SEO in the world will not help you if your website does not convert visitors into clients. So, instead of focusing on SEO for Realtors (my usual stuff), I am going to write about website "conversions" and turning those visitors to your website into genuine clients.

Actually, I'm not going to write about it, because I made a video.

But here's the summary: I helped an ActiveRainer, Terri Poehler, rise dramatically in her Google rankings over the past couple of months. However, Terri's telephone wasn't ringing.

Nobody was calling her for "Coral Springs Real Estate Agent" searchs- even though she is #2 in Google, right below Zillow. (At the time I write this article.)

Real Estate Agents Could Care Less About SEO

Right?

I mean, really-- what agents really want is more clients. I don't think it matters where they come from. If 99% of your business came from the church newsletter and 1% came from SEO or website-related stuff, the fact is, no real estate agent on Earth would care about SEO.

When Terri Poehler contacted me, I told her I didn't have time to take another client. But she really needed help, so I helped her...but only a little.

I brought her website to page one, but I never consulted with her about actually getting clients.

And I was able to tell Terrii-- "See? I did what I told you I'd do."

While she was somewhat impressed, the fact is, Terri could care less about my SEO skills. She just wants to have clients. She just wants her phone to ring. I could SEO her stuff, or I could drop clients from the sky in parachutes- I don't think she cares.

Getting your site to page one of Google is pretty useless if people don't actually hire you and Terri knows it.

So Saturday, I sat down at my computer and turned her site into something that will generate leads. The video below will show you what I did.

Remember, SEO is only 50% of the equation. The other 50% is all about good design. If you want to compete, especially if you want to compete with my clients, you'll have to be dialed-in pretty good on both counts.

By the way: Terri is currently writing the content for the calls-to-action. So if you visit her site, and the "Find Out How Much Your Home Is Worth" button is not working yet-- I am aware.

How To Hire a Real SEO Consultant

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 10:39:33 -0800

I work as an SEO consultant in Phoenix, AZ and I can prove it. I have consulting references (on request only); I can show anyone sites that I currently own and that are ranked highly in Google; and finally, I went to school for Management Information Systems, with a concentration in web development.

That's a quick resume of my SEO background, if somebody wants more detail, I will show them a client list after they sign a letter of confidentiality.

I know this sounds like bragging, but it's not. I'm trying to make a point.

At this time, I cannot take on a single new client for SEO consulting in Phoenix, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. I have five clients right now and I work 50-60 hours per week on them, plus whatever time I can find to work on my own site, which is still not finished after five months.

But if I'm not available (at this time), and you want to hire somebody to help you, please let me give you a couple tips. There are way more con-artists calling themselves "SEO" then there are experienced web developers.

The irony is that the really good developers don't have a lot of time to take new clients. Right now, I am starting a waiting list.

How To Hire An SEO Consultant: Three Easy Steps

You've probably all received SPAM from so-called real estate SEO companies. If your number is not on the "Do Not Call" list, you may even receive telephone calls.

Even as a paid SEO consultant, if another consultant calls or emails me, I will always listen to the pitch. It's hard enough making cold calls, but when people hang up on you, it's just demeaning. Of course, they don't call me knowing that I am a full time SEO myself, but they usually call me on one of my other sites. (I own and operate over a dozen myself, and only one of them is about the topic of search engine optimization.)

So I listen to the pitch and then I ask these questions:

1. Where do you (or your company) rank in the search engines?

Admittedly, the conversation usually stops here. I mean, if you are an SEO expert, you certainly rate number one in Google for something, anything... Just tell me what that thing is. Please!

"Well sir, we don't actually optimize our own site..."

Then I ask to be removed from the list and after they say "okay" I just hang up on them. I no longer care if I demean them. Now I'm ticked off that they made me listen to a pitch about how they were going to make me the best omelette in the world, but they themselves have never made an omelette.

2. Do you have a client blacklist?

I'm not sure blacklist is the correct term. But I won't take a client who competes with another client for at least one year after I stop doing business with client #1. I have a list of people that I will not work with- that I cannot work with. This includes mortgage brokers in five states, Realtors in a few scattered cities across the country, and attorneys throughout Arizona and Michigan.

If someone tells you that they are going to make you number one for "Your City Name - Realtor", what do they tell the next Realtor they call in Phoenix?

The same thing right?

There are many speciality SEO companies out there. For attorneys, for example, the biggest law firm online marketing company- FindLaw- makes 80% of the attorney websites on the net. (That number is a guess; it could be higher.)

FindLaw will promise you the world with SEO, right before your sales rep asks if you have any referrals for him or her.

Huh?

You can't tell two different people, in the same business, in the same city, that you are going to help them be number one in Google. You are lying to one of those people. I'm not saying all "specialty SEO" companies operate like this, but many certainly do.

Ask your SEO company or SEO consultant if they will help other Realtors in your area. A tricky way to do this is to say:

"I have a friend who is also a Realtor in this city; can you help her too?"

When they leap at the chance for a referral, you've found a bad SEO company. It's your first date and they already want to cheat on you.

3. How much does it cost?

SEO is a lot of work. Trust me. It's Friday morning and I've put in fifty hours this week. I'll stop working at 4:00PM today, putting me at 54 hours.

Tomorrow, I have to work at least six hours- putting me at 60 or more for the week.

This is because I very carefully optimize every client's site. I don't build fake links, but I try to earn them. I work meticulously and thoughtfully. There are no short cuts.

Yet, if you search for "cheap SEO" in Google, you will find companies advertising that very thing. If it's cheap...well, it's cheap. Much like you wouldn't buy a rusted-out used Ford Pinto just because it was $300, you shouldn't pay for SEO that is "cheap" either.

If someone tells you the price of their SEO service and you gasp at the expense, you might be talking to a real pro. (See numbers 1 & 2)

One Way To Get Rid Of Your SEO Competition: Report Them

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:35:10 -0800

One very effective way of getting your site to "Google page one" is to eliminate the people who are above you. I actively report my competition to Google as SPAM.

Not because I'm a jerk and I don't like competition, but because my competition- a lot of them- are spammers.

There is a mortgage company here in Phoenix that I was competing with for a while- with my domain AZWM.com. The spammers are actually a mortgage bank in Mesa, AZ and when it comes to SEO, this is what they did:

1. Offered to buy domains from everyone that was getting out of the business a couple of years ago (they also offered to buy mine, but I wouldn't sell at the time.)

Now, all of a sudden, this mortgage company had a dozen domains and they littered the front page of Google. If you searched for "AZ FHA loans" they had five of ten positions on page one. (Now they have one.)

"AZ jumbo loans"-- My [old] site was always number one for this and it remains number one. Panda? Pengin? Those updates helped my old site. Those updates helped tremendously.

So why does everyone freak out when there is an algorithm change? Probably because a lot of people cheat. (black hat SEO)

I reported them with Google right here.

2. Built all kinds of bogus links. Taking the lazy way to SEO always works for a while. Paying for links by the thousands is stupid. My old site had about 80 inbound links at the top of it's game. But I was still number one in Google for "Arizona Mortgage" and just about anything else you can think of. Why?

Because Page Rank is not as important as people would have you believe.

I found all of their bogus links and I reported them to Google. Not sure why a mortgage company in Phoenix would have 10,000 links from blogs in the Phillipines, but they did. And I let Google know about them.

I was number one with 80 inbound links and they were taking just about every other position with thousands of links. They built about 50,000 bogus links, following their own Pied Piper to ruin. They have an "SEO guy" but he clearly doesn't read my blog. All they wanted to do was pass me, and they almost did...

3. They keyword-stuffed.

They stuffed pages with keywords, in a desperate attempt to get my positions for jumbo, FHA, and VA.

And for a while, they succeeded!

But between the Pengin update and my SPAM complaints, almost all of their sites have been penalized heavily.

Now, this mortgage company that used to make me lose sleep at night is no longer even relevant.

Bottom line:

If you keyword-stuff; or buy every mortgage URL in town; or if you pay for links-- or if you do anything that violates Google Webmaster guidelines-- either you will get caught by the algorithm or your competition will report you.

As an SEO consultant, the first thing I do is examine the competition for my client. If the competition is cheating, I will fill out SPAM reports every single day until Google takes notice.

Peralta Hills Real Estate Marketing: An Experiment

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 09:18:41 -0800

This post actually has nothing to do with Peralta Hills real estate listings, but I wanted to use the geographic area as an example because it works perfectly for this real estate marketing tip.

(By the way, if you are a Realtor who sells in the Peralta Hills area, I own PeraltaHills.com and I am interested in working something out that would benefit us both. Please contact me if you work in that area of Orange County or would like to.)

For this tip, it helps if you know a little bit about HTML. Just the basics- nothing too fancy. However, even if you don't know HTML at all, you could write your post somewhere else (in WYSIWYG), and then copy the raw HTML.

Then-- delete that post! In other words, don't post duplicate content anywhere, ever.

The video below shows you how to create a powerful, additional website for your business for about $1.50 per year. It works and if you follow my advice you can even go right to page one, result one.

Key tips to remember after you watch the video:

1. Make sure the content you create is 100% original. When I say 100%, I mean, rename the file names for your photos and the whole deal.

2. Make sure the first sentence of your content is 150 characters. The opening sentence is your page description! Very important. I want to get a little "Peralta Hills" action on this post, so I wrote a good opening sentence.

3. Use images, and make sure they have alt tags. If you want, I can point you to a graphic designer who could make you a template- if you don't know HTML.

Enjoy!

Edit: In the video below I say that you can't enter HTML in Craig's List. I know that's not true. You can enter HTML in Craig's List, but it's restricted. They allow very few tags. Backpage, however, doesn't have those restrictions.

** image courtesy of The Donald Krotee Partnership **

Real Estate SEO: Fast and Furious to Page One

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 12:11:56 -0700

Real estate SEO is not the primary type of SEO work that I do. In fact, when it comes to internet marketing for Realtors, I've done it mostly for friends and I've done it mostly by writing articles on ActiveRain.

This is a little ironic, because the people I do SEO for most of the time are attorneys. And, believe it or not, attorneys do not like for me to use their name. They put nothing in writing; and they hate giving testimonials. How will they sue me next year if they write something good about me?

So I grow my SEO business with word-of-mouth among attorneys, primarily. My own website is only 1/5 finished.

But about two months ago, Terri Poehler, a Realtor in Coral Springs, asked me to help her.

At first, I didn't want to. Really, I just didn't want to take on the project. Her site was in shambles.

But then I found out that Terri and I both attended the same university. And that we had a bunch of other things in common. Kindred spirits, so to speak.

First, somebody who calls themselves the SEO Diva (beware of Pied Pipers), told Terri to buy the domain name http://terripoehlercoralspringsrealestate.com

Honest to God! That was the domain name.

I told Terri she would have to get a new domain name and I would not bend on the issue. She did it without any hesitation. (Thank you Lord, for clients who take my advice without objection.)

I found her an old domain name that had expired: http://coralspringsblog.com.

How great is that? She could run into somebody in the mall and tell them her website and they'll remember. Not so sure about that first one.

I used the phrase "coral springs real estate agent" and "coral springs realtor" as benchmarks.

Because, after all, that's what Terri is. She was number 81 (page 8) for "coral springs real estate agent" and page 10 for "coral springs realtor"

The previous SEO person she spoke to was pulling an old "SEO" trick on Terri. By having her register that incredibly awful and long domain name, she would most definitely come up number one if you searched for Terri Poehler (if you knew how to spell it). But that domain is junk and if you have a six-word domain, it's probably junk too.

Terri is Now on Page One of Google for Coral Springs Real Estate Agent!

A more popular phrase is "real estate agent in coral springs" and she's on page one for that too.

She's the first result on page one with a photo. You can see her pretty picture on page one of Google, and if I was looking for a Realtor in Coral Springs, my eye would go right to that result.

How did I do it?

Just go back and read my posts. Or subscribe and keep reading. Everything I do is out in the open. If you want to get your hands dirty with your real estate SEO efforts, follow me and I promise won't lead you into the sea.

I will write more about Terri in the upcoming weeks. I'll tell you, my fellow ActiveRainers, each step that I took to get Terri to land on page one.

Step 1: Get a better domain name and redirect every single post from the old domain to the new domain.

If you ever decide to get a better domain name, you can redirect every post from your old site, to your new site, do a "change of address" in Google analytics and you won't lose any juice.

Lance Armstrong Stripped Of Titles: The Part That Really Makes Me Mad

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 11:54:40 -0700

So when I read that Lance Armstrong was stripped of his titles last week, it didn't make me angry or make me want to stand on a soapbox and talk about "cheating."

I was thinking about my wife, who- while going through cancer herself- read both of Lance's books and declared that he was her personal hero. And that if Lance Armstrong could beat brain cancer, then she surely could beat breast cancer.

Really, Lance Armstrong was her inspiration.

Now, I know what my wife would say if she were here: She would be in denial. She might even know she was in denial, but she would have still proclaimed his innocence and you know why?

Because he still beat cancer. He started LiveStrong. Just like folks who love their politicians, and don't believe that their gay-hating Senator would ever actually be gay, Karen would be in full-blown denial about Lance.

She would say, "Michael, he still beat cancer and won seven Tours; leave me alone and go eat your cereal."

And that's okay too. There are plenty of reasons to believe that Lance Armstrong is innocent. He has his side of the story, and there are a lot of people who take great pleasure in seeing great men fall. Innocent or guilty, there is something very sick about our society. We love to see people take tremendous falls and I have no idea why that's so fun for people.

I wish Lance Armstrong didn't take this fall. If he's innocent, I especially feel bad, but if he's guilty, this causes a lot of damage to a lot of people in our society.

1. Cancer patients, like my wife, who were truly inspired by Lance Armstrong may lose him as a source of hope. That's horrible. If Lance is responsible for ripping the hope away from all of those he's inspired (all while writing books about his innocence), he did something truly evil. Did he really do this? It's so hard to grasp.

2. If he's innocent; then petty, spiteful people who harbor great jealousy for the guy are responsible for ripping the hope away from cancer patients all over the world.

But the worst thing, the thing that really, really makes me angry about this Lance Armstrong thing-- nobody has mentioned. I haven't read about this and maybe I'm silly for thinking it.

3. If Lance Armstrong beat unbeatable odds, using a mixture of hormones and exercise to knock fully metastasized testicular cancer out of his body, why did he not share that with my wife and millions of other cancer patients? I'm not a doctor or a scientist, but I do know this. If I had advanced stage cancer, and through a series of blood transfusions and performance enhancing drugs, a "miracle" occured- I would step forward and tell the world that there might be a correlation and I would release all of my secret medical records.

We know he didn't use medical marijuana, because he didn't start eating a lot of Doritos or anything.

Mr. Armstrong, if you followed a certain regimen-- no matter how embarassing that regimen was-- and you somehow beat advanced cancer that travelled to your brain: Please do the right thing and tell the world. There may not be any correlation at all, but if there is, and you aren't telling anyone, you are committing a terrible sin.

I could give a crap about the Tours. I want to know what you did to make all of that cancer go away. I don't care if you drank cat urine- you need to tell us.

Some SEO Advice: I Love Pickled Mackerel and Peanut Butter

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 12:34:53 -0700

I see this a lot on ActiveRain blogs and-- embarassingly enough-- on people's actual business pages. If you are somebody that thinks "SEO" means repeating keywords (keyword stuffing) and/or putting those keywords in bold, please let me try and talk you out of it.

Before I continue though, allow me tell you about my favorite food combination. I love pickled mackerel and peanut butter. I really like the combination of the salty fish mixed with peanut butter. That's why I love pickled mackerel and peanut butter. It's just so delicious, I don't know how to put it into words...but I will: I love pickled mackerel and peanut butter. Furthermore, it's great for dinner parties...

Now, about an hour after I write this post, I will come up number one in Google for the search phrase: "I love pickled mackerel and peanut butter."

So what does that prove?

Nothing. It proves absolutely nothing. It does not mean that I am some kind of SEO super-genius, as I have actually seen some people blog about after they hit number one for a ridiculous phrase using this technique.

Writing a search phrase over and over and putting it in bold is wrong for so many reasons; but here are the three biggest:

#1.) It doesn't really work..

Sure, if you are trying to be on page one for something very unique, like "pink condos on Miami Beach that allow dogs"- and you do it from a powerful blog like ActiveRain- it will probably work. Just like it will work for this blog. But how many people search for that each month in Google? Zero, right? So, what good does it do to be number one for a phrase that nobody searches for?

"Oh but Mike-- I am number one in Google for a silly phrase, and I got there using that exact same technique!"

Correlation does not equal causation! Remember that. It's a good thing to remember, with life in general, and especially when you are getting SEO advice.

For example, you can say that people who smoke a lot of marijuana also eat a lot of Doritos. But if you go around saying that "eating Doritos causes drug addiction", you may have trouble proving that theory.

There is a correlation between Doritos and marijuana usage, but there is no causation.

If you are number one in Google because you wrote the same search phrase over and over and in bold type: It is because yours was just the best choice available. Just like this page will be the best choice available for my peanut butter and mackerel combo.

It does not mean that putting everything in bold and repeating it fifteen times makes me "know SEO." There are still people actively doing this, writing about it, and even claiming to be SEO consultants and giving this as advice- and because of causation- others are following the Pied Pipers. If you think this works, and you are currently doing it or your SEO person is doing it, let me issue a challenge: Write a post about Mitt Romney or President Obama and repeat words over and over and over again, and see if you can make it to page one with your ActiveRain blog.

You won't. And why not?

Because there are thousands of decent articles that Google would rather give then a keyword-stuffed one!

#2) It makes for a very unappealing landing page.

One of my competitors for Google positioning repeats search phrases over and over and over again. They are right up there with me in Google, but not because they repeat words. It has to do with their inbound links and domain age. They could remove all that crap and still be on page one.

They are also confused about correlation and causation... I hope they never fix it though. Their page is boring and insulting and they just keep repeating the same thing over and over and over again. It's actually unreadable.

#3) Repeating keywords over and over is considered SPAM by Google and could get you penalized for spamdexing.

If I wanted to, I could report my aforementioned competition for doing this. Actually, I report search engine spammers now and again...

Read about repeating keywords over and over right here. (The article is titled "How To Get Your Website Banned From Google.")

However, I will not report my competitors for this particular violation; because when clients land on their poorly designed and unreadable webpage, they will hit the back-button and return to Google anyway.

What good is top ranking in Google if your landing page doesn't convert leads into clients?

Get Five Gold Stars in Your Google Results! (If You Deserve Five)

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:51:30 -0700

How would you like your Google search engine rankings to look like this?

Pretty good, right?

In the video below, I will show you how to add review stars to your own website- very easily.

Yes, you can have your picture and gold stars in your Google search results, based on reviews your clients provide you. You could have a simple form on your website that asks clients to review you and choose a rating from 1 to 5. Or, you could send your clients an email and ask that they review your services. Then, you could post the email on a testimonials page, after you mark it up for Google to understand.

I actually had it working here in ActiveRain, which would be awesome, but AR recently changed something on the backend that removes the code that you would need to show your reviews on your AR profile. I don't think the folks at ActiveRain did that intentionally, but they probably have to limit how much people (like me) hack the HTML.

But maybe AR will implement something like this one day?

If people could leave testimonials on our profile page, we could have gold stars on our AR profile. Of course, if this is abused, it won't do any of us any good.

We should have a strict rule that only clients can leave testimonials. AR could check IP addresses and only accept reviews from IP's in your area, and from unique IPs for each review. Or, if we have to post the client reviews ourselves, we could only post reviews that are already posted elsewhere- like Google.

Which is another great reason to get your clients to write reviews!

If this is abused by anyone, it will be called black hat SEO and that's bad. We only want white-hat SEO.

Tread lightly my friends. I strongly encourage you to use this for the power of good, and not evil.

The video below will show you how you can easily do it to your own website.

And here's an easy link to the code creator that I refer to in the video. Don't be intimidated; it's simple.

SEO Tip: No More Broken Links on Your Site, Fast and Easy

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:34:31 -0700

If you read my last post, you (hopefully), realize the importance of optimizing your pages in Wordpress, using strong keyword-rich URLs.

In this post, I will discuss how you can edit your posts for better SEO, and redirect all of your old pages juice to a new page. When I say "discuss," I mean that literally, because I created a step-by-step video. It should be very easy to follow.

Editing and redirecting is important for four reasons, the first three of which are SEO related:

1. Google indexes everything and saves it. If you change a page's URL and you don't tell Google the old one is gone, then you just created duplicate content. That's bad SEO.

2. If your old page had any power in the organic rankings, you will retain and likely improve that power. For example, if you have a URL like this: http://example.com/miami-beach/ and it ranks on Page 2 for a search for Miami Beach condos-- you will retain your rankings, at minimum.

If you do it right, you'll move to page one. For example, you change your URL to the more descriptive: http://example.com/miami-beach-condos/

3. Google indexes 404 (page not found) errors. It is the belief of many professional SEO consultants (including myself), that when Google finds a domain that has a ton of broken links and 404 errors, that site is harmed in the rankings. Makes sense right? Why should Google give you top position when you can't maintain your stuff?

4. It doesn't annoy your potential new clients. If I find more than one 404 error on a site, I just leave. I don't have the patience. Oh, and I love when the 404 page asks how you arrived! Oh sure, you've already wasted my time, let me just take a few moments to explain why your site is broken.

No way.

Enjoy the video. I do everything in one take, so... Well that's my disclaimer.

But if you have been following along in my posts, and you have a Wordpress website, and you want to improve your SEO rankings, this is something you'll want to implement right away.

If you want to see how many broken links you have, right now, use the tool here:

http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/google-sitemap-generator/

Breadcrumbs for SEO: If You Use Wordpress, You Need This

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 15:33:50 -0700

Do you use breadcrumbs for SEO? If you have a Wordpress website, or any website for that matter, you should organize your content using breadcrumbs.

Okay, So What Are Breadcrumbs?

ActiveRain uses breadcrumbs brilliantly. It's one of the many reasons that ActiveRain does so well in the search engine. (Great content from a lot of great people is the second reason.) I'm looking at breadcrumbs at the top of this post as I write this.

These are breadcrumbs:

It's a way of organizing content, for your users and for Google. Right at the top of every page, you'll see that the ActiveRain home page is the first, then, from the home page, we are in the Phoenix SEO Consultant's page (my info page), and one level deeper, we are in my blog. Even further- because I am in edit mode- we can see that we are in the Blog Admin page and even deeper than that, I am editing a blog post.

SEO people used to frown on breadcrumbs. Including me. It was believed that the "deeper" you went into a site, the less important the pages became. It is a known fact that Google PageRank drops for every level deep that you go into a website. For example:

ActiveRain.com has a Google PageRank of 5.

ActiveRain.com/bloghome has a Google PR of 4.

ActiveRain.com/blogs/ladystager16 has a PR of 3.

You can check your pagerank with the tool here (but I don't think it matters; keep reading).

So for the longest time, SEO's preached to keep everything as close to the "root" domain as possible. In other words, every page on your website should be no deeper than http://yourdomain.com/seo-guru/ because the deeper you went, the less page rank you had. Therefore, who needs breadcrumbs?

Well, because so many people have used bad linking techniques for so long, Pagerank does not matter as much anymore. The "depth" of your site has become less important. Some people say Google PageRank doesn't matter at all. (PagePage rank is based on the number of people that link to you.)

Google wants your content to be organized. It only makes sense. In the video below, I'll show you how to install breadcrumbs into your Wordpress blog and how to properly nest categories to optimize your web site for Google.

IMPORTANT: In this video, at the end, I make mention of changing your "category" base in Wordpress. If you understand how to do a 301 redirect, you will probably want to do that.. If you don't know how to write a 301 redirect, then ignore that part of the video (changing "category" to "real-estate") and I'll write a post tomorrow about redirecting your pages, so that you have no dead links.

If You're A Stay At Home Mom, You're A Leech!

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:08:07 -0700

So you clicked on my post, huh? Just goes to show that a snappy title gets 'em every time.

But I saw some marketing in Phoenix today that I thought was really slick. Baiting people works for signage- because I flipped a u-turn to take this photograph- and it works for blog posts, because you are reading this right now. Aren't you?

This is obviously a political sign. Full disclosure: I didn't know who Kyrsten Sinema before today and I am not endorsing or condeming her. But her enemy's campaign manager is a genius.

And the sign just doesn't give me enough information, does it? It just teases me with this text about stay at home moms being "leeches"- which shocks me- and so I felt compelled to use my smartphone to scan the QR code.

It took me to a website, of course.

I think this is especially awesome marketing. Although I'd never heard of this person, I still had to find out why she allegedly thinks stay-at-home moms are leeches. I just had to. If it would have been blue, I would have known it was a Democrat. If it was red, I would have known she was a Republican. This sign, amongst all the other signs on the corner, stood out more than any of the brightly colored red, white and blues.

When we do this with blog posts, it's called "link baiting." Sometimes, I write posts with titles that are so absurd, that I get thousands of hits. One time, I wrote a blog here on ActiveRain and it made one ActiveRainer so angry, he sent me a nasty email without reading my post. That made me smile. I had done my job, although a bit too well in that one circumstance.

If you can make someone angry, before they read your post (and get a big ol' smile on their face once they land on it), you did good. Or, if you have more tact than I, you could make someone laugh to get them to click on your post. But you have to evoke emotion with your titles.

Once somebody clicks on my compelling title, they might like the actual content enough to "like" it or "share" it, which creates natural, inbound links for me. If they really like it, they might blog about it or reblog and create an even better link to my post, with even more juice.

Link baiting on the Internet, or here in The Rain is not a new revelation. Smart bloggers have always used it. I've written about it before.

But this is link baiting in real life! Out on the street! How the heck did this person get me to go to a website while I was out in the sunshine?

I love it.

Imagine an ad that tells you nothing, but compels you to learn more.

"Homes Exploding all over Phoenix: You Need To Read This"-- with a QR code and that's it.

Now imagine that same sign or magazine ad, with lots of information, and an agent's website on the bottom. Are you going to go to that website?

I don't think so.

Who cares?

But with the QR code, I don't know what's in store for me, so I have to go.

I have to be honest, if I saw an ad that said, "If you live in Phoenix, You'd Better See This!", I would scan that code and check it out. I would get sucked right in. And then, I either land on an awesome webpage that achieves it's purpose or I land on crap and I click away. But at least I went there. At least they have a chance of impressing me.

"Your Mortgage Broker is Lying To You: Proof Here!" Black text on a white background with a QR code taking up most of the sign's or magazine ad space is, in my opinion, pure awesome sauce.

If this little sign had a link, I wouldn't have written the link down, and I definitely wouldn't have typed any URL's into my little iPhone Safari browser. I wouldn't have looked twice at it, in fact. But this made me flip a u-turn. Come on! Leeching mamas?

Whether it's in "real life" or blogging, baiting people to visit your site or post is important.

The second most important part is making sure they land on something compelling.

Then you got 'em.

Warning: Google Doesn't Like Your Footer Links

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:27:33 -0700

While doing some research for a new client yesterday, I came across something that I see all of the time-- footer links-- but this time it was just a tiny bit more insidious than usual.

Check out the spammy SEO links at the bottom of this page. Again, this is an attorney we are talking about. When it comes to reputation, that's all an attorney has.

So, you hire somebody to market your law firm, real estate company, or anything-- and then they stick all kinds of spammy links to their website on the bottom of your site? How much did they pay you to allow that on your site?

Do you have a website in which you send "juice" to your designer?

Now don't get me wrong, I don't think it's wrong for a website company to put something at the bottom of the page, with your permission, that says something like this (which is in the screenshot above):

But if your designer or SEO person is filling your footer with anchor text / keyword links- especially like the example in my screenshot- you need to have them taken down. It's for your own good. It's also for their own good. If you like your designer or SEO person, and you want to give them credit- go right ahead, but don't let them add spammy crap to the bottom of your website.

What if the footer links all point internally, to my own site?

Using spammy footer links is something that Penguin came down on. If you have a site with a million spammy footer links, you might have been nailed by Penguin. Or, best case scenario, Google is just ignoring your footer links. But why would you want to single something out on your page, just so it can be ignored?

But Google made it very clear how "it" feels with it's latest Penguin update. Or, if you believe "corporations are people":

Google let us know how he or she feels about overused footer links with it's most recent algorithm updates.

Matt Cutts recently stated that:

“We’ve done a good job of ignoring boilerplate, site wide links. In the last few months, we’ve been trying to make the point that not only is link buying like that not doing any good, we’re turning the dial up to let people know that certain link spam techniques are a waste of money.”

So, in the above example, in which the SEO company links to itself, from the attorney's website- the SEO company is probably harming itself, according to Matt Cutts.

On top of that, this company is taking juice from their client and putting unrelated spammy links on their client's page, as defined by Matt Cutts himself.

Am I being affected by Pengin?

I'm not sure. Does your website have a footer that looks like this?

Again, Matt Cutts said: "We’ve done a good job of ignoring boilerplate, site wide links." In other words, Google is just ignoring that stuff.

And as far as I'm concerned, if it's not helping you with your SEO, then it's harming you. You know, like, "if you're not five minutes early, then you are five minutes late."

So how should I link to my content? I really do service clients in 10 different cities!

Great! I'm glad you asked.

Instead of doing "boilerplate footer links" that Google ignores, I would highly recommend that you write a few sentences about each city you service on the front page of your website. Something like this:

------

Chandler (use a heading tag here, ideally)

Although my office is centrally located in the Valley of the Sun, I serve clients in Chandler, AZ. In fact, I grew up in Chandler and lived there from the time I was born, until just very recently, when I moved to Phoenix. However, I am very familiar with the area and if you are looking to buy or sell a home in Chandler, please visit my Chandler page here. You can see home listings (for sale) and read about how I can market your home.

------

Before you get nailed- take a look at your site. Are you repeating the same crap over and over? On every single page?

I wouldn't do it if I were you. There is a better way. A way that makes more sense to your users and to Google. And if you know anything about Google, that's exactly what they want. A better experience for the Googlebot and your users.

Real Estate SEO and Pinterest: Like Birds of a Feather

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 10:24:27 -0700

A few months ago, the First Lady opened a Pinterest account and interest in the website has picked up more than ever.

Pinterest is a unique social networking site, or more precisely, an image sharing site-- and it is the special uniqueness of the website that has made it a popular tool in the SEO game. To understand how Pinterest could help your SEO efforts, one would have to understand the basics of Pinterest, SEO and how they collectively gel to yield the desired results.

First, you should know that Google and other major search engines have started to display Pinterest profiles, pinboards and specific content from Pinterest on the first pages of the search results.

So... If you have a Pinterest profile and someone searches for your name or your profile name (see more on this at the end of this post), it can easily get displayed right on the first page. Your profile name can be anything you want it to be, unless it's already taken.

If you run a bakery-- for example-- and have uploaded images of your cakes, pastries and baked products on a "pinboard" within Pinterest-- when someone searches for the specific terms you are targeting, there is a decent chance of that pinboard getting better search results than your primary site!

Google considers the overall power of certain sites. ActiveRain is a great example of this and so is Pinterest. I'll bet, for many ActiveRainers, your AR blog posts show up before your main site does. Or maybe your AR profile shows up before your main website. (This will be mostly true for those that have newer "main" websites.) Often, when I search for a name, a Facebook page comes up first. This is another good example of "name branding" of keywords.

How One Coral Springs Real Estate agent is Using Pinterest...or soon will be!

First, create a Pinterest profile and keep your content specific to your expertise. If you are a Realtor in Coral Springs, you should post pictures of Coral Springs and especially, pictures of your Coral Springs home listings. Then, you should link your Pinterest with Facebook, Twitter and other popular sites to have a complete SEO strategy. (Sign up for Pinterest, and then they will guide you through linking FB and Twitter.)

I just set up this brand new profile for my friend and fellow ActiveRainer, Terri Poehler. Take special note of her user/profile name (coralspringsFL) because it appears in the URL and the "boards" I set up-- if you click here, you can see how her username is in her URL-- which is huge. You need a username that has your keywords in it. With Pinterest, you have 14 characters. Figure out how to get your keywords in 14 characters, or just settle.

What Pinterest does is create a mini network of relevant content, links, clicks, referral clicks, shares and everything which would then be considered by search engines for higher rankings.

The best part? It's easy! There is a Pinterest app of course, so as a Realtor, you could go around snapping pictures of your beautiful city or listings and uploading them right through your smart phone.

That's SEO on-the-go and I love that. Nobody can say they are too busy to do that, right?

Now go start pinning things to those boards! And grab a good user name-- think KEYWORDS-- before someone else does. CoralSpringsFL is now gone forever. Get yours before someone else does...like me.

But before you go, won't you please leave a comment, or give this post "plus" a or "like"? It is always very appreciated.

Good luck out there!

Google Places SEO: How to Dominate Your Local Search (Maps)

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:41:48 -0700

Google's Local Search is becoming more and more prominent, and smart business owners know that a good SEO strategy includes having good "local" placement.

But Google Places are a mystery for a lot of people. It can be tough to show up there, even if you do everything right. Well, one of my clients cares more about Google Places / Local Search than anything else. As long as he can get in the local, he is very happy.

For this particular client, he wants it because if someone is searching from a mobile phone, the places results can be dialed directly from Google's search page. So if I was in a Phoenix neighborhood and I searched for a Realtor, the first seven results I could dial without ever visiting the web page.

So I think it's important for Realtors.

Mastering Google Places

Google Places seems to have a more complex algorithm than the organic results. It leads to much frustation among business owners and fly-by-night SEO companies. That's because it doesn't respond to traditional so-called "SEO." It's based on the reality of your local business. The biggest thing Google fights in local are "mail drops" and phony addresses. So you need to convince them that you are real. That's what this post is about- convincing Google that your local business is real and legitimate.

Here are five tips to help you rank highly in Google Places:

1. Citations, Citations, Citations: Your business has to have lots of address references around the internet. Google crawls the net and finds your address and when it finds your address in reputable places (i.e. Yellow Pages, Yelp, MerchantCircle), it "validates" the strength of your local listing.

For my clients, and for me, there is only one way to do this: It's called Yext.com

If you get set up with Yext, you get listed in about 40 reputable places and you can manage them all from one place. You just login to Yext and you can change all of your listings-- everywhere from MerchantCircle to MapQuest-- from one dashboard.

Yext.com is the most valuable tool you can use to strengthen your local presence. It's $720 per year, but if you go through me, I can set it up for $600. (I get a special price because I've signed up a bunch of clients.) It's worth so much more than that. In addition, if I set it up, I will optimize your listings for strength.

If you'd rather not pay for a service, then just make sure you have listings with all the sites that Yext helps you with. It will be time consuming, but here is the list of places, if you want to do it manually: http://www.yext.com/packages-complete.html

2. Specifically ask your clients to write reviews. You need to get genuine reviews from genuine clients. Gone are the days when you could pay a stranger to write a "fake review" for you. Many of those reviews have disappeared altogether. Google's algorithm is very, very sensitive to fake reviews-- so don't do it.

A great way to do this is to create a Word document and walk your clients through signing up with Google and leaving you a Google review-- and send that document along with your closing gift.

You are better off with one genuine review from one genuine client then you are with 10 phony reviews. It wasn't always that way, but it is now.

3. Always Respond to Reviews, especially bad ones: This came directly from a Google employee. If someone leaves you a bad review, and you login as the owner and engage the person, offer to make things right-- or just respond with an apology-- Google will love you. The internet is a living breathing thing. Show Google that you are living and breathing and you will do better. Google wants owners who engage. If someone leaves you a comment, reply to it.

4. When you claim or register your local Google Place, I recommend linking to your contact page. In other words, let's say you wanted to be number one for Phoenix Real Estate agent, because you are in Phoenix, of course.

Most people, when Google asks for the web address, give the main URL of their website, www.example.com

I highly recommend that you use something more like this: www.example.com/contact-us.html

When logged in to your Google Maps and your Google+ page, link directly to a page that has your telephone number and address. If you already have a location in Maps (even if it's not doing well in the search), use the address that Google gave your business, instead of the way you want to write it.

If Google says your address is "777 W Main St, #5, Phoenix, AZ 85003" --

Then don't you dare put "777 West Main Street, Suite 5" on your site! I don't care if it looks prettier. Just match your address to the address that Google has.

To see if Google has an address for you, go here and search for your business name and address: http://maps.google.com/

When you find your location pin, see if it identically matches the address on your website. No? You'd better change your website then. It's a lot easier than the alternative. Change it on ActiveRain too. Change it everywhere.

Take the address that Google gives you and just be happy with it- please trust me on this.

Find your business on maps here: http://maps.google.com/

Edit your business information here: http://www.google.com/places/

5. Check in!

Everytime you visit your physical address, use Facebook to "check in." Even better, if you follow my advice and list your business with the "local" social networks-- check in with FourSquare, check in with Yelp. I love FourSquare for Google places SEO. If you get nothing else from this post, at least go set up your business location, for free, at FourSquare.com.

This tells Google-- "Hey, this place exists! It's a business and there are people here. There is action going on here!"

You need to be physically near a place to check in with FourSquare and Yelp. This is the type of SEO that you can't fake. You can't pay a hundred guys in a foreign country to give you fake check-ins. I can't think of a more pure way to show Google that people "like" your business than for people to check in when they are physically close, based on a GPS signal.

This is where SEO is going: Stuff that can't be faked. No more fake reviews. No fake check-ins.

Good luck out there!

Wells Fargo Stole my Home From Me; And Now They're Doing It Again

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 10:17:14 -0700

I have told this story before, but I received an email this morning from somebody in an identical situation.

And somehow, even though Wells Fargo did the very same thing to me, it made me a lot angrier once I heard that they are doing it to somebody else.

Four years ago, on August 23rd, 2008-- my wife of seven years and best friend of fourteen years-- died of breast cancer. Karen was thirty-three years old.

Now, losing a spouse is bad enough. There is a lot you have to deal with. And, don't ask me why- because this was really, very stupid of me- but I had a big life insurance policy for Karen. That is, if something happened to me, she would get a little over one million dollars. Accidental death or disease.

But I never bought life insurance for her. I would wait until she turned 50 or something, because if anybody was going to die young, it would be her beer-drinking, rock-climbing, motorcycle-riding husband.

Anyway, it didn't work out that way. Karen died and after she did, Wells Fargo ended up taking my house away.

Karen and I owned three homes. Two investment properties and our primary residence. The investment properties were purchased in my name and the primary was in Karen's name.

During her illness, our insurance company decided to drop us. After all, Karen had cancer, and insurance companies don't make money if they pay on every legitimate claim.

So they dropped us and I started liquidating assets when Karen was alive, to pay for her treatment. I sold our investment homes, and kept our primary residence, in which the mortgage was in Karen's name only. (I "owned" the investment property homes.)

Wells Fargo decided that losing my wife wasn't quite enough punishment, so they took my primary residence after my wife died.

Wells Fargo refused to speak to me about my mortgage. They wouldn't take my payments. I begged them to take my money and allow me to stay in the home. I just wanted to pay.

They were alerted to her demise because her credit report was alerted. So once they found out that Karen was dead, they changed the mortgage from her name to "The Estate of Karen George" and then said they couldn't speak to anyone about that change, but Karen.

Yes. Karen, my dearly departed-- the one who no longer gets mail. Customer service mockingly told me that if they couldn't speak to her, then they couldn't speak to anyone. (They knew she was dead; the customer service guy was having a laugh with the grieving widower.)

I won't write the whole story here, but I'll just paste Well's Fargo's latest "good deed" because the story below is almost identical to mine.

Now they are doing it to another family of a cancer victim.

Bank executives and lawyers-- my two favorite types of people in the world. Please sign the petition and help Gail.

------------------

When Marjorie Gibson passed away from cancer, she left her house to her daughter, Gail, to raise her children and grandchildren. At 65, Gail works full-time to support her family, and can afford to make her monthly mortgage payments.

But Wells Fargo won't let Gail make her payments, because they say the house belongs to Marjorie, even though Marjorie is dead. Now Wells Fargo is trying to foreclose on the home Gail's family has owned for two generations.

When Wells Fargo sent Gail notice of foreclosure shortly after her mother’s death, she was shocked. Gail says she tried to explain to Wells Fargo that she now owns the home and wants to pay the mortgage, but Wells Fargo just says they'll look into it and never gives her any information.

Gail started a petition on Change.org asking Wells Fargo to stop the unfair foreclosure on her mother’s home. Click here to the sign the petition and stand with Gail.

Gail says Wells Fargo claims to have spoken with her mother about the home as she lay stricken with cancer, but Gail cared for her ailing mother to the end and says Marjorie was too weak to speak to anyone. Gail has contacted Wells Fargo for six months to get more information on the payments needed to keep the house, and says they continue to refuse to speak to her while moving ever closer to foreclosure. She even sent the bank a check for $5,000 and says it was returned.

Wells Fargo has already shown that it is responsive to public opinion. Just two months ago another family stopped foreclosure from the same bank after they got close to 180,000 signatures on Change.org. Gail is confident that if enough people sign her petition, she can get Wells Fargo to listen, too.

Never Get Hacked-- Chances Are, You Need to Read This!

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 08:19:55 -0700

Sometimes, people on AR email me and ask me for simple help. I don't mind helping people out, and if I can take a look at their Google+ page or maybe adjust something on their ActiveRain account, I usually do it.

People send me their passwords, which is fine, but I just ask that they change it as soon as I am done.

But folks, many of the passwords I get-- no, most of the passwords I get-- are pretty bad. This is no lie, and I'm not going to embarass anyone of course, but one very prominent ActiveRain blogger that I've known for years sent me his password and guess what it was?

PASSWORD

Yep. His password was "PASSWORD"-- and this was for his main site. I asked him if he made that for me, and he'd change it back, but he said "nope, that's my password."

Sure, he put it in all caps, which is a little tricky, but not quite tricky enough, if I may say so.

If you're laughing at this particular gentleman, you might want to stop laughing, because you might be next!

I hear people tell me all the time: "My email was hacked" or "My Facebook was hacked" or whatever. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but we aren't big enough targets to be "hacked" by anybody using real hacking tools. There are ways to hack a password using what's called a brute force attack, but it's highly unlikely that anyone reading this article is important enough to warrant that kind of attack- so I'm going to explain how you, or your friends, or anyone who has ever told you that they've been "hacked" has been hacked.

1. This is huge; if you follow this one, you will probably never be hacked: Don't use the same password on more than one site or for that matter, one "thing", ever.

Let's say I set up a website and I offer something free. And it's a really nice website too- a total first class job. I offer you free downloads and all kinds of fantastic stuff if you sign up for a free membership. Just like ActiveRain for example. Or Vimeo-- pick a site.

And you give me, or my coworker, or maybe my staff-of-a-thousand the same password that you use for your bank. Or something so similar, someone could figure it out. You use Vanilla8346 for AR, but vanilla8346 for your bank. Oooh, tricky!

Never, ever use the same password from site to site. Not ever. If you follow this rule, you probably won't ever be hacked. But let's continue on the less likely.

2. Just about 20 minutes ago, somebody here on ActiveRain asked me to login to their Google plus profile to take a look around. This particular Realtor had taken the extra (and very smart) precaution of giving Google her telephone number for "2 step verification". You can read about that here.

Google asked me, "Is that really you RealtorName? Please verify your telephone number."

I was trying to work fast, and I didn't want to wait for the Realtor to email me back, so I went to their public ActiveRain profile, saw her cell phone number, gave it to Google, and I was in. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. So much for 2-step verification. It doesn't work if you give Google a cell phone number that everyone has.

3. This is the least dangerous, but it's still dangerous: You do use different passwords, but you make them all "easy to remember."

If someone was paying me to hack into your account, which of course, I would never do...this is how it's done. This is a ridiculous scenario for someone who is not a politician or a public figure, but it could be used on a Realtor or a mortgage broker too, I suppose.

The first thing I'd want to do is find out as much about you as I can.

I'm going to go to Facebook and get your birthdate. You don't display the year? Keep it, there are only a small amount of years that you could be born in-- I'll just try them all. I'll also go to LinkedIn and see where you graduated; I need all and any information I can get.

I'm going to get your kid's names, and your spouse's name. I'm going to get their birthdays too. I'm going to take note of your favorite bands, hobbies and anything else that you make public. I might have a wealth of information (because maybe you are an open book on the internet), or I might just get a little information.

I take that information and feed it into a "brute force" type password hacking tool and then I go to sleep. The program will start with those keywords. If you use your husbands birthday and some random word-- like peanuts040971-- and there is no connection to peanuts in your life-- that's good, but it's still an English word and the program will eventually guess it, long before it moves on to straight random characters.

A brute force hacking attempt always guesses real words first.

I recommend a password storage system and random characters. All of my passwords, including ActiveRain, look something like this: aHs34-!-5F&#t5g

I just mash my hands into the keys and then store the password on my computer, which is backed up locally. I couldn't tell you what my ActiveRain password is if you threatened me with torture. I just copy and paste when I login. Sure, I'm over-cautious, but I don't want to be hacked.

I can't vouch for it, but I heard RoboForm for the PC is good. But again, I've never used it.

On my Mac, I use DataVault Password Manager, located in the app store.

But I've probably already told you way too much...

Roanoke Terrace Apartments, Phoenix, AZ

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:04:07 -0700

For the past 7.5 months, I have lived at Roanoke Terrace apartments, in Phoenix. I chose this apartment because it's only about 3 blocks away from the law firm that I do most of my consulting for. However, it is my opinion that my apartment is a health hazard, and my landlord (George Matter of Seattle, Washington)-- does not want to resolve it like a gentleman. Instead, he is attempting to have me evicted.

Roanoke Terrace Apartments

My landlord, the genius that he is, would rather evict me than fix my plumbing. He thinks he is making the less expensive choice. But Mr. George Matter, you are making a far more costly choice.

In the age of the internet, what business owner is foolish enough to blatantly swindle somebody? Heck, even if you're not a swindler, you still need to be a little more cautious about your reputation in today's age of information.

Warning, this get's a little gross:

Human feces and condoms have bubbled up from my tub many times. In the first two - three weeks I lived there, it happened every single day. I had to move in with a friend for a very legitimate fear of hepatitis.

I did not have air conditioning in my apartment for the past three months. They made one half-assed attempt to fix it and then declared it was as cold as it was going to get. The landlord-tenant act in Arizona strongly favors the landlord and many of them like to push around tenants. If you are poor, you can't hire a lawyer, and you don't get one appointed in court. Tough luck tenants.

If your landlord does terrible disgusting things, there is often very little relief that you can get. However, I am going to fight this guy in court and online. He's going to think twice the next time he disregards the health and safety of his tenants. Most tenants never show up and the landlord just gets a judgment and calls the constable three days later.

Not me.

When I showed up for court the other day, his attorney was probably shocked. About 99 out of 100 people don't show up and the judge enters a default judgment.

So why am I being evicted? It is in retaliation for me daring to ask for working plumbing. What is this? The slums of Mexico? I just want plumbing that works.

Rather than settle with me, bearing in mind that I paid rent for weeks of non-occupancy, he would rather evict me and find another sucker.

George Matter just messed with the wrong guy. I will make sure any searches for "Roanoke Terrace apartments" in Phoenix are dominated by me. I'm also going to find other complexes he may own and make sure all of his tenants are aware of the way he conducts business. I will knock on doors if I have to. I am starting a tenant's association website, just for his tenants at RoanokeTerrace.com

On August 21st, I will go to court to fight my eviction.

In the meanwhile, I am going to set up a Google maps location for him, so other tenants can leave honest reviews of his property.

Please "like" and "share" this post so that it can remain on top in Google- at least until I get my new tenant association website up.

If you don't see the video on this page (below), just click refresh.

Online Reputation Management: An ActiveRain Case Study

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:30:07 -0700

Yesterday, I wrote that linking to your site and keyword stuffing fall short in Google, when comparing those SEO...um..."techniques" to simply being a good internet citizen. (Netizen)

My article pointed out that the most important thing for SEO is to be an honest person, write honest content, and let Google know exactly who you are, using your Google+ profile.

Well, today, I can actually prove what I wrote yesterday is true and valid.

(So if you were one of the 600 people that read the post, but did not comment because you thought it was ridiculous, here is your second chance!)

The name of the post was "Sometimes the Best SEO is No SEO." And you can find it here. (Quick sidebar: for those of you wondering why I don't use anchor text in my links...more on that later.)

The point of yesterday's article was that one of the reasons I have so much success with SEO, is because Google trusts me. I've been around ActiveRain for a long time and my ActiveRain account is attached to my Google+ account.

I also write in other places, answer questions for people on Answers.com, write Google restaurant reviews, I "plus" and "share" things that I think are useful, and do many more things to scratch the back of Google. If I am searching for something, and the best article is result #6, I plus that article and let Google know it's in the wrong position. Google knows all of this and thanks me for "the help" with good rankings for sites I am tied into.

But you have to see this:

Click this link to see my attempt at finding my post in Google this morning. (The link will open in a new window.)

Is my post number one in Google?

Nope. Not sure where it's at. Maybe page 50.

But, somebody that Google trusts even more-- somebody who has written more content in the Rain than I have-- reblogged my post.

Debbie Gartner is also in over 900 Google circles. Me? So far, I am only in about 100, I think.

So who wins? The guy that wrote the original content, or Debbie?

She now is number one in Google for the article that I wrote.

Am I upset? Heck no. It totally proves my point.

Debbie didn't do anything wrong. It's not her fault that Google trusts her more than Google trusts me. You know who's fault that is?

Mine.

Now, it's time to get into more Google circles! Right now, I will set a goal of 916. (wink, wink Debbie)

You know how people sometimes say, "this isn't a popularity contest?" Well, with the new search engine rules, that's exactly what this is: a popularity contest.

Sometimes the Best SEO is "No SEO": 6 Tips You Can Use Right Now

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:09:23 -0700

I've written before about the importance of Google+ and tying your Google profile with ActiveRain, your own website, and really-- anywhere that you blog.

I recently realized something about optimizing websites for Google and the affects were so amazing, that I hesistate to even share... But I will.

It turns out, I'm not as good with SEO as I thought.

Oh don't get me wrong- I'm good. :-)

But a lot of what I've done has to do with the way I've built trust with Google over time.

If you Hire an SEO person, Make Sure He or She has a Good Reputation with Google

One day, while I was checking rankings on a client's individual posts, (as opposed to the home page), to my horror- I saw my face in the search results for this client's brand new website. I know how it happened, and it was my mistake, but Google thought I, Michael George, was the author of this particular blog post...which I am not.

Like I said, it was an accident, but I know how it happened and it was easy to fix.

So for about three days, I kept checking his rankings until my face disappeared. Well, one day, my face wasn't the only thing that disappeared-- his site disappeared.

Oh no!

I start looking through the results and he had dropped from page 2 to page 5 for his desired phrase. He went from #13 to #56 in a couple of days. I'm not saying I killed his site, he was far lower than #56 when I started. I helped him a lot, but I did not realize how much that help hinged on my relationship with Google.

The only thing I had done was remove my name... Hmmm... So I started experimenting with different Google "authors" with various levels of content and skill, on different websites, and I realized that the author himself or herself can add greatly to your SEO efforts.

I was also proud to see that my trust with Google was the highest among the authors I tested. Google likes me and knows I've been around a long time. I'm not a spammer.

Here is another example: Search Google for "AZ SEO Guru". At the bottom of page one, in result number nine, you should see my website: GuruEffect.com (Google results are getting personalized, so if you don't see it, you'll just have to trust me. For most people, my website is number 9.)

That so-called website is blank. What happened to "content is king"? Well, that site has no content and it never has. It is a brand new website and I haven't done a thing with it. Content is still king-- but my content is scattered all over the web. And my main website is reaping the benefit of my good deeds, because Google is keeping track of me...through Google+.

Google knows that GuruEffect is my website and Google trusts me. I'm not a pornographer or a spammer and I always write my own content from scratch.

There is no other reason that I would rank so well in Google. No reason at all. My URL doesn't contain the word Phoenix or Arizona; there is no content on my site; and nobody links to me (except me, from ActiveRain and Google+).

Most SEO experts would claim that is a recipe for failure and I would normally be one of those people.

But that SEO expert would be wrong.

If you want Google to like you, as Google likes me, you have to help Google. Scratch the Googlebot's back and it will scratch yours. Here is a list of things you can do to help your own website rankings, without touching your own website:

1. Make sure you have a Google+ profile and make sure you list every single place you contribute to. Right off the bat, you should have ActiveRain and your own website. Blog someplace regularly. If you can write a good blog in ActiveRain everyday, God will bless you and so will the Googlebot.

2. Be active in Google. Login every day. Add lots of people to your Google+ "circles." Have you ever noticed that, in the Google results, they show how many circles the author is in? Check out this search for Coral Springs Real Estate Agent. (It will open in a new window.) How would you like to have a listing like Terri Poehler? It's as if Google is saying: "Look! Terri has Google friends!"

Terri is helping them advertise their social network, to her own benefit.

3. "Plus" and share things to show Google that you are participating in it's new "democratic" search engine formula. In fact, if you like this post, plus it right now! (I sure would appreciate it.)

4. Write reviews for local businesses. Good or bad, it doesn't matter. Be a participant in the system. I reviewed a crappy pizza place today. I even uploaded a photo of the limp, greasy fried green beans they served me. I am actually contributing content to Google, helping searchers learn about local restaurants, and personally doing my part to raise their stock price. It's a very public "bribe." And I'm doing it all, while logged into Google...the information gatherers. (slightly creepy)

5. Sign up for an account at Answers.com and link it with your Google+ account. (Sign up with Answers, be logged into Google when you do, and they will automate the process for you.) Go to the real estate section and answer questions for people. Everytime you answer a question, you will be creating content and Google will know you are a good citizen and active in the internet community.

6. Don't ever plagiarize or "spin" articles. If you choose to ignore my advice on this, then please take this advice: Don't associate your spammy or spun articles with your Google profile. If your article isn't 100% original: you shouldn't bother. Google knows. And, if your article isn't original (you aren't a "news breaking" reporter; then you need to cite the original article.) Doesn't this just make sense to people?!? Really, it should be common sense.

Be consistent, follow those six steps as many days per week as you can, and show Google what a great netizen you are. They will reward you.

SEO Tip of the Week: Write Like an Eighth-Grader

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 10:08:50 -0700

We all know that good content is crucial to SEO or search engine optimization.

Well, I recently ran into a very unique problem. I have a client who is an attorney and has a website with about 600 articles, all original, and all rich with great keywords and usable information.

"Okay, this is an easy SEO job," I thought.

With that much content, I figured that once I rewrote all of the titles and descriptions, organized the categories properly, set up Facebook and Twitter, etc.-- I would be good to go. I would look like a hero. Because, if you've been paying attention, we all know that "content is king."

But even after I made a bunch of changes, the site didn't rocket to page one, as I expected it to. It turns out there was a problem with the content that I never anticipated.

Write for the General Public, Write Like an Eighth Grader

Ponder this for a moment: When you do a search for something to do with "constitutional law"- as one example- if Google really wanted to provide the best information, the top ten results should include the Harvard Law Review, maybe an official government site, and tons of scholarly articles.

But Google doesn't really give us "the best" information, do they?

No, what they give us is the most readable and usable information to the most amount of people.

Unfortunately, the average American reads on about a 7th or 8th grade reading level.

So if you own Google (stock), and you want to reach the largest group of people (making your stock price more valuable), are you going to serve scholarly articles or are you going to mix it up a bit? For any business, you always want to hit the top of the Bell Curve.

The Flesch Reading Test

It turns out that Google calculates "readablity" when ranking your site. That means my attorney's website was too sophisticated. The articles were written on a level that only an attorney could understand-- or at least-- a college educated person.

So, I started making the articles easier to read. This does not mean that I dumbed them down.

Not at all.

This means that I made shorter sentences and did not use crazy-long words. Attorneys can be very verbose; so I took a thirty word sentence and said the same thing in 12 words.

If you use the Yoast SEO Plugin for Wordpress, it automatically checks your article's readability. I will post a video on that in my third installment of using the Yoast SEO plugin. You can find parts 1 and parts 2 here.

If you are blogging here on ActiveRain, you can check your article's grade level by pasting the whole thing into this tool:

http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

By the way, I plugged this article into the test and it's at an 8th grade level-- perfect!

You can see my results below.

Being able to write informational content, and have it understandable to the most amount of people is one major key to good SEO. Forget keyword stuffing. Cater to the bell curve and you will rank better.

That's what Google wants.

Your Face In Google Results- Wordpress Authorship Instructions

AZ SEO Expert: Phoenix SEO Consultant — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:00:07 -0700

Many of you saw the post I wrote about getting your face to appear in the Google results using your ActiveRain profile.

However, I have received a bunch of emails asking about how this can be done in Wordpress.

With Wordpress, it's super easy. I actually wrote a post on that before too, but there was no video, and perhaps my instructions were not clear enough.

So I made another video.

After this, I am not going to write another word about getting your face in the Google results! (But feel free to contact me with questions.)

Again, I do these things without a script and without editing, so I apologize if I stutter and stammer.

Disclaimer: I am not the guy or girl who developed the Better Author Bio plugin. I have no reason to promote it and it's free anyway. There are dozens of ways to get your face in Google results with Wordpress, including using HTML and zero plugins.

The reason I use this plugin, is because I am working on a law firm's site right now and they have 1500 pages in their website and a dozen different authors. This plugin worked for what I needed it to do. You may find that you like another plugin better.

But if you want the fast and easy way, watch this seven minute video.

First, login to your self-hosted Wordpress blog and then, do this: