This is probably not the best title for a blog but my wife made me clean up what I had originally written as a title. Good thing I listened to her or I may have regretted writing the other title. You are probably wondering why I am so ticked this morning? It takes a lot to fire this old Georgia boy’s tractor up but some SEO scam artist got me going.
I spent about an hour on a telephone conference this morning with some independent Real Estate Brokers and Agents talking about how to do SEO during an economic downturn. The conference was going really well when several Brokers brought up how well they were doing, Well we all like to hear success stories and I for one can always pick up a nugget or two of new information that may help me and my clients.
Two of the Brokers use a well known SEO company. The Brokers were very pleased about their first page Google placement. On the service this sounds good and is very impressive. But a couple of questions later and the truth emerged.
The search terms they were being found under were not search terms people would ever use to search for a Broker/Agent or homes for sale. In fact when I checked the search terms being used I found there was only 5 other sites in the world using that term. So no wonder they were showing up in the number one position for that search term. So as not to embarrass the Brokers I have cleaned up the search terms so they can not be indentified.
Here is the search term they were in position one for on Google:
Hometown State USA real estate and homes for sale or rent in Another Town but Same State
No matter how you broke this search term down they could not be found in the first 10 pages of Google. The search terms you would expect to be used were not used and these Brokers sites were non-existent for the most used search terms for their area. The Brokers told me they had each paid over $5000 for this SEO Company to work on their sites. They were promised by this SEO company first page placement for their selected search terms.
Brokers and Agents are professionals who spend their time getting listings, showing homes and selling homes. Many of you do not have time to do the SEO for your websites or research the best search terms to use. That is why you trust and rely on an SEO professional to give you the best information possible. Many of you trust these people enough to give them thousands of your hard earned commissions.
SEO Companies who do business like this make it all the harder for honest hardworking folks like myself to make a living. Once an Agent or Broker have been burned, they are less likely to trust any SEO Company again. Who can blame you.
Stories like this really fire up my old John Deere tractor. So over the next several weeks I am going to share tools and tricks with you that will help you make some good educated choices. So whether you are thinking about hiring an SEO Company or checking on the one you currently use, you will be better informed.
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