IT'S OFFICIAL ! ! !
- ActiveRain.com will indeed send visitors to your web site.
- I just checked my web logs for yesterday and there it is:
ActiveRain.com ranked # 179 of 3948 with 73 "hits". Hits don't mean much if there are very many images or other things that would cause a "hit". But, this is significant. Raraly does another web site/blog/forum/ etc. other than search engines, directories or internal links show this high in the Referrer Logs. For ActiveRain folks who are often looking for back links to your web sites, don't forget to add TEXT LINKS in your blog posts linking to your web sites.
I'M NO EXPERT, BUT. . . . .
Building incoming links is important. However, I don't participate in reciprocal linking schemes and that is what I believe reciprocal links are - a scheme. The rule is, if the site or page is linking to you because the page provides information valued by viewers, it's a good link. If the site or page is linked to your page in return for a link from your page, unles it is a PR 4-5 linking to a PR 0-3, there is no benefit to you. I realize that some, perhaps many will dispute this theory, but it's my opinion. PR has value. It's not the beginning and end of a site's value, but it is some indication of the value that is placed on that site by the Google Gods. Folks that know SEO are not likely to link from a PR 4-6 to a PR 0-3. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.
I attended an SEO symposium in August and came home and spent 2 days rewriting all of my Title tags. I went into a meta tag fugue and didn't move until I had rewritten all of the title tags on http://www.homefinders.com/. Worked like a dog and finished it and tags on about 6 other sites too. Since then, I've been rewriting meta tags and content to match. I've also been working on internal page linking and have increased my links on http://www.homefinders.com/ from 66 to 117, DEPENDING ON WHICH GOOGLE DATA-CENTER YOU HIT, of course. Want to scream?? Google is in the process of updating back links to http://www.homefinders.com/ and nothing happens quickly with Google.
Yahoo shows about 2400 back links to http://www.homefinders.com/. But, so what??? 60% of my business has come from Google since 1999. I'm a believer. MSN and Yahoo make me feel very good when I check stats, but Google gives me more actual visitors and that's all I need to know.
| 3 | 38822 | 8.39% | http://www.homefinders.com/search_listings.php |
| 4 | 33993 | 7.34% | http://www.homefinders.com/home-prices-md-va.php |
| 5 | 7458 | 1.61% | http://www.google.com/search |
| 6 | 6221 | 1.34% | http://www.homefinders.com/frameset.htm |
| 7 | 5727 | 1.24% | http://www.homefinders.com/waterfront_buyers.php |
| 8 | 5355 | 1.16% | http://www.homefinders.com/map_facts.php |
ABOUT KEY WORDS - UNDERSTANDING KEYWORDS WILL HELP YOUR WEB SITE RANK HIGHER IN SERP
Since I'm in a sharing mood, lets talk about KEYWORDS. No, let's talk about KEY WORD PHRASES. So often I see real estate web sites where the site owner or design entity talks about the key words. NEWS FLASH folks. Neither Google, Yahoo nor MSN will produce much of anything in a search result for most keywords. Sure, you'll get a lot of sites returned, but what will they be?? . You can optimize your site all day long for "real estate", but with 419,000,000 sites returned, where do you think your site will be?? I know that http://www.homefinders.com/ will be so far down the list it will never be seen. However, search for "real estate maryland virginia" and WOW! ! there it is #3 in organic search results. Search for "maryland real estate" and there it is #7 in organic search results and the only sites higher are lead companies including Realtor.com and newspapers.
SEARCH "MARYLAND VIRGINIA REAL ESTATE"
Search "maryland virginia real estate" and there is Homefinders.com #1. Why do I optimize for those terms, because they are often used by relocating home buyers. I love relocating home buyers and have been designing web sites for that audience since 1995. I have local sites for counties and cities in my market area, but Homefinders.com brings in the relocation buyers. Folks employed or who are going to be employed in Washington, D.C., which includes some high ticket home buyers; attorneys, corporate execs, SES government employees, military officer staff, high ranking embassy staff, and other luxury home buyers don't always know whether they will live in MD or VA. http://www.homefinders.com/ brings those buyers to me and either I or one of our agents or one of my wonderful referral agents will help them buy a home.
| Web | Results 1 - 10 of about 31,500,000 for maryland virginia real estate. (0.12 seconds) |
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SEARCH LISTINGS FOR HOMES FOR SALE IN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA REAL ESTATE. Enjoy the power of the Internet and search homes for sale on HOMESDATABASE. RANKED #1 OUT OF 31,500,000. NOT BAD. |
WORK TOWARDS ORGANIC SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS. For one thing, this doesn't cost anything. Follow the Google Guidelines. They work. Keep it simple and keep it up to date. I have so much content on Homefinders.com I am hard pressed to keep the info current. But, it's important to refresh the content. Google will visit more often if they see new content. Tweek content, Tweek key word phrases. Tweek Title tag and Meta Description. Yes, I tweek Meta Keywords too. It takes 3 minutes. Tweek your navigation. Make sure that you have a site map. Watch those outgoing links. Unless you're getting something VERY valuable in return for an outgoing link, all you're doing is filling up space.
WRITE SOME ORIGINAL CONTENT
Unless you managed to take a lot of writing courses in college, you're probably going to have to work on this skill. But, WRITING IS AN ACQUIRED SKILL. A half page of original content will help your site/page rank better than a page full of outgoing links. So, practice, practice. Add an entry to your ActiveRain blog. Yeah.
That's it folks. Disclaimer: Anything offered by me for SEO is my OPINION and my OPINION only. I am not a web master. I am not an SEO person. I am not a virtual assistant. I am not an Internet specialist. I'm a real estate broker feeding about 20 agents with business from the Internet. If I can do it, so can you.
Lenn Harley, Homefinders.com, http://www.homefinders.com/
Serving home buyers in Maryland and Virginia
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