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Goodbye to Google Ranking

The days of Googling your keywords to measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy are coming to an end. According to Bruce Clay of PubCon, there are big changes in ranking. In the name of Top Shelp Organic SEO, Google is tuning into the specific behaviors of individual users to serve up more customized results.

What this means to the end-user is better results and less spam.

What does this mean to SEO professionals?

Well, for the good ones it means more business. For those that have been concentrating on ranking without any reference to traffic, bounce rates and conversions it means a serious reality check.

At the end of the day, this is a change for the better. More individualized search results means higher conversion rates for companies that have a well built website. This does not mean that SEO is no longer important; it actually makes it more important! Tracking your marketing efforts will definitely require more diligence.

Q: What should you do?

A: Nothing that you should not have already been doing.

The most important part of a website is the ends result; attracting more leads and increasing business. To get there you have to attract website visitors, keep them interested in your website long enough to stay past the first page and finally get them to convert. By convert, I mean to get them to perform a specific action like sign up for a newsletter or request additional information. Conversions vary by website. A conversion for you may be a request for information about one of your listings while a conversion for amazon.com could be the sale of a bestselling novel.

I, for one, think this is a great lead by Google. It forces website owners and SEO professionals to take a closer look of what traffic is actually DOING when it gets to your website. It puts the emphasis on website content, navigation and functionality.

Sending people to your website and getting XXXXX visitors is one thing, conversion rates are a completely different (and more important) aspect. I mean, you can send all the traffic (paid or otherwise) in the world to a dilapidated home, but if they never get out of the car and go inside... it's not going to sell.

It's time to get your website to do what it's supposed to: SELL!

Go Google!

RTV Marketing
http://www.realtourvision.com/image

RTV offers full service national virtual tours

866-947-8687 Order a virtual tour today!

_____________________________________________________________

My comment...so you don't have to dig for it. ;)

Wow gang, so many comments and so little time to address all of them here. First off, I would like to say that this is a blog that my marketing department for http://www.realtourvision.com released at the end of last year. If you watch Bruce’s entire video he states that we will see these changes begin to take hold in the first six months of 2009 so this was a perfect time to push this out there again. This is indeed old news but it is happening right now I can assure you that. For the last ten years I have been actively working side by side with my SEO team to make sure both RTV and our national network of virtual tour photographers websites rank well.

To see this change firsthand, you can run a test on your own. It is quite simple to perform. For the next week google your business or real estate website using what I call you “Geo Key-Words” such as ‘Traverse City Real Estate’ or ‘Traverse City Virtual Tours’. If you continually run this search, and click on your site (not necessarily on the PPC ads you might be running) you will see that your results begin to change after a few days or so.

Your site will begin rising to the top of the SERPS. Is your site ranking better? The answer is yes and no. Yes, your site will be ranking better on YOUR computer and yours alone. You will quickly see that a clearing of your private data, cookies and temp files instantly returns your search to your actual google positioning. I try to clear out my temp files at least every day so I can run clean searches and view actual results. You should make habit of doing this too if you take an interest in your sites true google positioning.

At the end of the day, the people who don’t clear out their private data often, will certainly have unnatural search results. What can you do? Do what you have been doing all along and run a light PPC ad campaign, build strong back links to your site (this brings the spiders and the google juice), make sure that the architecture of your site is laid out properly, optimize EACH page of your site for a new keyword, and drive traffic and people to your site by blogging. Finally you should run tools on your site for fine tuning such as http://www.websitegrader.com.

Blog often on sites that give back link power. Active rain no loger does this unless you purchase a rain maker account. Take advantage of using social bookmarking sites. Big site linking to smaller site is good. Install the google toolbar if you don't already have it.

Google juice is now split by both traffic and spiders so you want BOTH coming to your site. The key with traffic is to get them to stay on your site and that is where the term bounce rate comes in. Your bounce rate increases when people come to your site and are not satisfied by their search results so the simply hit the back button. That is a bounce.

If you’re not already running google analytics on your site DO THIS NOW! This will show you your bounce rate and you can start working on it from there. The lower the number the better. My local RTV dealership for the Traverse City Market has a 50% bounce rate which I am pretty happy with. It does not sound good that 50% of my visitors are leaving but a lot of that comes from the thousands of back links that I have established out there. See what your bounce rate is and try to lower it by using some of Bruce’s subtle suggestions.

For example, at http://www.bluelavamedia.com we push nearly all of our virtual tour listings onto craigslist. I also include a small ad on this craigslist posting that goes to a special page on my site. This page educates the home shopper on the value of using online property marketing tools that work such as interactive virtual tours, single property websites, top notch photography and so on. You can’t get to this page unless you come in directly from one of these craigslist ads that I have posted. Here is a link to one of my pages off of craigslist:

http://www.bluelavamedia.com/traverse-virtual-tours.html

You can see that I have video on this page. I use the video to keep people on the page longer and get them to dive into my site more thus reducing bounce rate. Make sense? Finally, YES, content is still king but also you must make sure that the content is relevant to your website. Do you need to have videos all over your site? I don’t think, so but it does not hurt to have a few here and there. Video testimonials are great and so are power point presentations. You can turn all of your power points into video very easily using Tech Smith’s software found here: http://www.camtasia.com

Finally, at RTV we offer free photography, blogging, social networking, and social bookmarking training courses for both real estate professionals and full service virtual tour providers who use our virtual tour system. Check it out and we would love to talk to you more about your property marketing program. Thanks everyone!

Jason LaVanture

Vice President / Founder

RTV, INC

http://www.realtourvision.com

Posted by Jason LaVanture on 07/10/2009 12:13 PM

Comments (74)

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74 Comments on Goodbye to Google Ranking

JUL

2009

Unless one frequents a particular search engine, it seems to be difficult to assess the user's preferences.

Hi Jason ~ The video you linked to was very interesting and I ended up following trails from your post to various sites for the last hour. Great stuff - thanks!

Liz

JUL

2009

Hi Jason.

Tried to summarize a layperson's look at how that's all changing including signals that are loosing & gaining weight:

Confused By Search Engine Optimization? Try This ‘Laypersons Guide To Understanding SEO'

http://kineticknowledge.com/blog/blogging-seo/confused-by-search-engine-optimization-try-this-laypersons-guide-to-seo/

Graet post, and not too worried. I have been on page one of Google and many other search engines for well over 12 years now. Relevance matters, so do content and appeal to the viewer.

Completely off the subject. I learned to blog here on Active Rain and I learned from the best! If I had read this post 4 years ago I wouldn't have understood a word of it. We're come a long ways baby!

Loved the post learned a lot. I will be taking this information to my Broker for further research on his thoughts on what this is currently doing for our company website. Thanks again.

Damian M. Forrester

Associate Broker

Century21 Hometown Brokers

ePro

Billings, Montana

Cellular: 406.697.3282

Fax: 877.528.6868

MailTo:damian.forrester@century21.com

http://www.damianforrester.com

http://www.highsierralivin.com

http://www.bigskyvirtual.com

Learn how to get great "Smart Letter Head"

Understand Agency Relationships (Select the Link below for more information on Agency)

http://www.realtor.org/rmosales_and_marketing/handoutsforcustomers/handouts/seller15

Content is king. Long live the king!

I agree with you. These are welcome changes.

I use several tools to monitor and evaluate my traffic - hittail.com and 103bees.com to analyze search results and Google analytics to monitor page views, bounce rates, etc.

I hope these changes have the desired result of reducing results of quick fix SEO tricks and enforce the need for more relevant page content.

I went through many of your links...but case in point on back links. I started writing a blog a year ago through a Coaching class and we did use a lot of back links and I rank on page 1 consistently for my website and the blog that continues to provide great content. I started another blog for another local city that feeds my website. I can't get either the website or the blog for those keywords to rank anywhere close to page 1 in the same timeframe. Difference to me was back links. I may be missing something, but I think they are crucial.

Interesting... We will see how this all plays out. I guess I wonder how that impacts blog posts which are also indexed... any thoughts?

I've been trying to use links within my blogs more but sometimes it's hard. I have my campaigns managed, but I'll make sure my leads continue to come in.

IHMO - some factors that might have an impact is average time and average pages viewed per visitor.

Nice post, Here is a FREE check list for Google SEO i fond that may help someone... here is the link... Click Here

Good post with good information.

Web workis like a whole new part of marketing and I think it changes every three or four years.

It is nice to know what is coming next.

Google has been toying with this type of SERP for some time and they will once again find that it doesn't work. I believe the current situation with blended or universal search will prevail. Search related to traffic is just what you said... If you have a bad website, don't expect your traffic to stick around, however, if google bases rank on traffic patterns, that bad website will still prevail, at least for the short term.

I agree, no need to change anything if you are currently doing everything right. If however you need to read up and improve your SEO skills, have a look at fizzdigg.com/?app=search&search=seo&search_cat=*

Great insight on web presence. Let us not forget this is a people profession. Face to face contact important too. One cannot always take a passive approach. Being more proactive at times cannot be forgotten.

Great post. I am continually working on ensuring my content is relevant and up to date.

Jason,

This is important imformation. Perhaps putting the right efforts into your website will payoff with the new Google focus.

Please view my site and see if you think it would work in the new Google era.

Aaron

I try to keep updating my website with new content etc - but as very happy for Active Rain which really gives me a better position than I can hope to achieve on my own. My best efforts are still in my area face to face with the people.

Great info, thanks Jason. More and more SEO "tricks" keep going away. Just write good content.

Hi Jason,

Interesting stuff.

We are justing getting started with SEO in the last 6 weeks and it seems like we've been getting a fair bit of traffic, some conversions & calls. What would you consider to be "good" in terms of time-on-site, page-views and conversions-per-visitor?

I'm glad we're starting when Google is leveling the playing field!

Mark Donovan

Thanks Jason. This is right on target and relevant info. The link was great. Just what the doctor ordered!

I would think that the main issue is that every agent has a website and only 10 fit on the first gogogle results page and most of the sites listed here will be those of the large firms that have money to spend on SEO. Therefore even with relevant content and lots of links only few agent sites, if any, will cosnistently make it on the first page.

Also, many homebuyers go directly to the classifieds to search for listings. So, if you are a listing agent it is much more effective and significantly cheaper to use the classifieds to gain leads and exposure for your services by syndicating listings and including in each listing information about yourself, and embedding your property search in the listing as "Nearby Homes for Sale". This is very different than just adding a link to your website from the listing website, as those are usually ignored. A good example is this listing: www.58Northgate.com.

Gabe Gross, RealBird

Hi Jason

I very much enjoyed your blog.. I 'd like to think i have a good website with relevant info, I am not particulary interested in blogging daily as I find i have so many other things to be doing however, it seems that to move forward in business nowadays one must be all over these twitter, linkin activerain etc... I'm going to hire someone to help me with all of this. thanks for your blog.

I'm not sure you quite get what they are doing here.

they are proposing giving search results based on your past "surfing" tendancies.

this will favor the websites with large ad budgets like remax who attract traffic from TRADITIONAL advertising media like radio tv and print.

so if you began your home search by navigating DIRECTLY to REMAX.com because you saw thier tv ad then the next time when go to see what else is out there you try a Googel search, Google will interpret your "remax" visit as as a preference for remax...

in fact the "spam" they are trying to get out of their results are us... the little guys...

in the future it won't matter what your "MyLittleREco.com" content is... if it doesn't match up with what the surfer has seen in the past you won't show up... your future is now officailly out of your control... no matter what you do to YOUR site it won't count... it will only count what the "surfer" has done in the past.

Google search was always in the past the place to make first impressions...

now Google wants to use your past tendancies to deliver THE SAME IMPRESSION YOU HAD BEFORE?

CURIOUS? I always the the internet was to find NEW info... not the same old info????

Thanks Jason for all the relevant information. I am forever trying to keep up with the seo thing. I have lots to learn. thanks for sharing!

Jason, Your link was to an article from November 2008. Hasn't Google already implemented this? I don't know how slow or fast they implement changes, but you mention getting ready for the change, so I assume Google hasn't implemented any of this yet according to your sources?

Great post! You put it perfectly when you said "Sending people to your website and getting XXXXX visitors is one thing, conversion rates are a completely different (and more important) aspect".

We have already seen Google return different results based on what location you are searching from and if you are logged into Google. Being logged into Google returns different results then if you are logged out. Being in Sacramento displays different results then if you are searching located in San Diego.

Google Analytics is great for tracking bounce rates, conversions, etc.

Thanks for the post. The more internet help to AR members on what actually works and what is fluff is great. Even outside conversion, page dominance is one of the best branding tools available.

Cheers

Interesting information here. I need to get back to my content generation. I have been very fortunate to have internet success. But you do have to stay on top of it. I have used Google Analytics but bounce rate is something I haven't looked into much.

Mostly, I pay attention to traffic patterns, hit-tail, etc. Anyone have a clean definition of bounce rate for me?

Thanks for the article as it made me want to dive back in!

Appreciate the Google update since they are still kings of search. The talk has always been that real estate is local. This confirms that online searches are on their way to the same conclusion.

I usually do searches for my keywords on another computer at work - I suppose that the search results will be influenced by whoever else searched on that computer?

Jason LaVanture

I am learning new things everyday but, I am sure what I am learning from your post is one of the best.

Thank you,

Carlos A. Soares

Realtor Associate

Century21 Central Realty Newark, NJ

Member: Top Producer, GSMLS, NJMLS, NAR

Member: Inner Elite Club

Serving Counties: Hudson, Essex and Union

Cell: (201)306-5361

E-Mail: carlos.soares@century21.com

Website: www.carlossoares.com

Jason,

Thanks for sharing this information. Still getting a handle on SEO.

Good information - thank you. For the past 5 years I've been using websites to originate reverse mortgages, and most the websites are ranked in the 1st position with Google. They converted well until recently (the past 8 months) and I think it's because consumers are migrating to blogs, because they're interactive. So the past 4 months I've been researching blogs (lots of "for dummies" books) and now I feel I'm ready to convert all the websites to blogs.

That video and stuff from Bruce Clay is from November of last year. Much of what he mentions is prediction...and some of it came true. He said it would be implemented the first six months of this year, and it's already the seventh month. So it kind of doesn't apply now.

From what I've seen and read from Matt Cutts, the personalization thing is going to be "offered" more than forced. You often see suggestions now when you search for something that can mean several different things...so you can choose which one you mean. They may eventually be more able to tell...with REPEAT seaches certainly.

But many of the changes are implemented, and the rankings changed on many searches last month when they updated. Matt did say that "branding" would be a bigger factor. But even when people see a tv commercial for Remax, I don't think that many particularly search for Remax Atlanta as much as they do "Atlanta Real Estate". What I could see changing would be getting away from that main term and more searches for "homes for sale/city" or "MLS listings/city". Already where I am in Myrtle Beach, the majority of the year the searches are for "condos", not real estate generically.

Of course this is just opinion too. Nobody knows what the future will bring with search engines...including the famous ones like Bruce Clay. Personally, I'd be more apt to believe someone like Danny Sullivan instead of the public "figure-heads" who make their livings by doing seminars and speaches. But that's just me.

Also, it doesn't have to be a big name all the time. If you have a company or agency that is very popular for your area and people search for the company name, like Ebby Halliday in Texas, or even our Condolux in Myrtle Beach, that will give you a big step up in the rankings too. Branding can be done in a lot of ways...although the major brands probably will do a little bit better.

Pardon me...that would be "SPEECHES". Geez, my brain is fried lately...:-(

Jason ... Thanks for this post. Agree that this move by Google is probably OK, forcing website owners and SEO professionals to get busier with what traffic is doing, with emphasis on "content, navigation and functionality". Good post.

Jason, makes sense that we should keep doing the good activities, and do them correctly to obtain the best results at the end of the day. I'm glad that Google keeps improving their product -- and the resulting traffic to our on-line stores. John

Jan is right, this article was written back in November. Matt Cutts blog is a great resource for new info on Google. I think the main thing is to keep improving your content.

Roianne Cox Coldwell Banker BSSP www.clarkcounty4sale.net

Jason,

This is a great post! I enjoyed reading it and viewing the video. Thanks!

Gerry's AR signature

Jason,

Thanks for the heads-up! This is vital info!

Kathy Opatka

Jason - I guess one thing we can all agree on is that change will come. There is nothing about SEO that will stay stagnant, and those who accept change and move forward will be the winners.

Change is always scaring even when it might be good. I am thinking this will help me more than hurt me.

For any search keyword there is a limited amount of traffic. When building and promoting your website and webpages you should consider exactly what question, or more specifically, what search terms or keywords your page\website provides accurate and detailed content about. The better your page is at providing easy to understand, accurate and concise answers to the questions the visitor has as soon as they land on the page, the better chance you have of inmproving your search rank. I spend time building out specific pages on my website that cover the topics I feel are most likely to generate traffic relevant to my core business of helping buyers find homes in Lawrence, KS. Some examples of this would be my pages about Lawrence, KS Homes for Sale , Lawrence, KS Utility Providers or Lawrence, KS Rentals.

As you will see, each page immediately provides the user access to information in a well formatted and easy to understand layout and is specific to the keywords that are used to locate the page. They are also well positioned on Google for the same search terms.

Additionally, one place that can help you decode what Google is doing is SEMRush.com It can provide useful information for locating what users are looking for and help you decide what search words are driving the most traffic and help you build out content on your site that people are actually interested in reading.

Tanya Kulaga
Realtor® CRS, ABR, GRI
Realty Executives, Hedges Real Estate
(785)550-2585
www.SearchLawrence.com

Search Lawrence, KS Real Estate listings on an interactive map of Lawrence, KS.

Jason...your post just confirms what the president of our company preaches to us each day. Content is king.

Thanks for the update on SEO, I've been wondering why I've been seeing some changes.

Jason,

I think you are right on key. Content is everything. I have every bell and whistle added to my site for my clients. This keeps me on page one for Fredericksburg Homes for Sale. Keep up the good work. See you at the top.

Tom Smith, Realtor
Century 21 Adventure, Inc.
http://www.fredericksburgagent.com

Wow, something to really think about. lots of good information from everyone, sound like I need to get busy...

Jason, still in the learning phases of all of this. I hope I'm not too far behind!

Interesting but old news. This video is from November of 2008.

Jason -

We all knew this was on the way, and, in principal, it makes sense. However, let's see if this formula really takes hold the way it is supposed to.

I'm calling my SEO folks this week!

DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO

My real estate coach is huge on SEO. Always looking for more info. Thanks

oh my gosh, i have so much to learn!

Hey Jason - where'd ya go? 55 comments in your "open house" and you're out playing golf? lol~ :-)))

Jason... curious... I heard this about 8 months or longer, and it still never happened. Not saying anything negative to what you have stated. Just curious to where you all get your info, and are we 110% sure that it will happen. Again, just curious.

Now, on another note... I am not a true expert on SEO, etc, etc. I have been blogging for 2 1/2 years and 80% of my business has come from blogging. Another 10% from building relationships from blogging, in which I get consistent business from those referral sources. But you stated this... "The most important part of a website is the ends result; attracting more leads and increasing business. To get there you have to attract website visitors, keep them interested in your website long enough to stay past the first page and finally get them to convert."

How do you get them there? If you don't put your site in front of the by telling them yourself... or that it's on your card, on some sort of advertisement, etc, etc.. the only way I can think to make this happen is to have people find you by searching. As in key word searches. Yes, I believe content is king... and people can manipulate key words and buying up the 1st page. So, if I can't get people by searching, how do you get them there. You said by newsletters... but you usually have to have a data base to send out newsletters.

So again, how can this new change be good. ??? Yes, I write what I think is excellent content... but I know people find me from key words and searches. Can you explain this any better? So many comments in here seem to agree with you. I am not so sure, unless you can go into more detail. Unless I am just missing something. thanks and thanks for this.

jeff belonger

Thanks for the great post, Jason. I guess we will all have to wait and see to what degree these proposed changes will be implemented. I hope Eric isn't right and that the "little guy" my eventually get shut out of consumers' search experiences due to what would boil down to the biggest budgets getting the biggest coverage.

Thanks for the information.

I actually have been a contract employee with Google (contract expired beginning of this year) and this is the first I have heard of this. I do know that Google currently uses an algorithm, as well as human quality raters to rate landing pages of searches (this was what I did while employed). I am curious to know more details.

Stephanie Avery
REVATS.net
Real Estate Virtual Assistance and Technology Services

The title of this post certainly caught my attention and reminds me that I need to do some more work. I have some of it right though there's always more to do.

JUL

2009

Great Post and Great INformation. Continuously work on getting to the top. Google always seem to come up with a way to keep us all hoppingl Got some reading to do. Thanks for the link to the video.

Dick and Dixie Sells

Thanks for the info! But what would Google consider a "conversion" for a real estate professsional's Web site? And how could they know that?

Great post..thanks for sharing.

Its always a good idea to be aware of ever changing search algorithms

http://www.bluelavamedia.com/traverse-virtual-tours.html

Jason LaVanture

Vice President / Founder

RTV, INC

http://www.realtourvision.com

Your post and all the comments and responses that follow are very educational. Thanks for the time it took to help the rest of us try to figure this out!

JUL

2009

Jason

Such an interesting topic, theres quite a bit of interest in a very relevant thread downunder here - http://3.ly/2wG

And in fact it is just as important, in an SEO way, internationally as it is the States, in fact I suggest even more so.

You should still be able to see what your rankings are using tools like "Googlr Analytics" and "Google Webmaster Tools". Just search online for them, they'll come up. :)

It seems like the same theme that if you build a quality, user friendly site. The periodic algorythym changes will not have as big of an impact as those who are only going for ranking.

Jason,

I'd be cautious about SEO gurus who predict the future. Sure, the engines change. And yes, behavioural data will eventually make a difference. It has not yet. Who knows when, and how. It is really bad advice to play around with sites that rank well and perform well, on speculation about what might happen someday.

However, if someone searches for "Yourtown ST real estate", and they land on a page that delivers good quality info about Yourtown ST real estate, then what more can you do?

Good SEO is also about good information. Alwasy has been. YOu have to deal with a real human being, once they get to your site. So, keyword stuffing, and other old tricks, only get in the way.

Here's a FREE eBook that was specifically written for real estate professionals, using real estate examples:

Search Engine Optimization Basics For Real Estate-Related Websites
http://www.domaindrivers.com/seobasics-realestate-main.htm

I hope it helps.

Need GOOD landing pages? Try this:

Also, you can create your own optimized pages easily with our new landing page tool, here:
http://www.domaindrivers.com/pagegumbo/pagegumbo-test.asp
http://www.domaindrivers.com/pagegumbo/pagegumbo.asp

(BTW - The access code is: Approved)

The first link is an "example" page, and the second is a live tool that you can use at anytime. The tool forces agents to put more of the secondary real-estate related keywords on their pages.

good luck.

Great heads up Jason. And you're right, if you're doing your job correctly, this change is only going to help you out. Excellent post!

I beg to difer Dirk. This change has been happening over the last six months and IS in play right now. Read my comment above and test for yourself.

Best,

Jason

Jason, have bookmarked this for future study. Thanks for the information.

Sharon

JUL

2009

Great post about SEO and conversion rates. I didn't see you mention a lot about Backlinking. Do you give this a lot of weight in SERPS?

Good post...anything that improves the user experience is a good move forward. Google has continually changed their raking methods from the beginning & there's no reason to expect the future to be any different.

AUG

2009

Thanks for the heads up Jason. It will be interesting to see.

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Traverse City, MI

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