I chronicled the first page success on Google for my Ohio client, Treo REALTORS a few posts ago.

They have a stealth site, or rather a foreclosure site. The site ranks on page one for the term and it's just four pages:  cincinnati REOs. The site is MyCincinnatiForeclosures.com. Within a few more months, their main site, TreoRealtors.com will be ranking on page one of Google for cincinnati homes for sale

In my effort to educate REALTORS who don't have a clue how to get their website to a top ranked page on Google, I have posted many, proven ways how to get your site from here to there. As we wind down the year, a lot of us are thinking how to get better visibility and get more commissions in 2010. 

So -- here's the recap of the top FIVE things you can do to get a top page rank on Google for your Website in 2010. 

Step 1. GET a Killer Domain Name with one or MORE of the local keywords in the domain.

If your Website is something to the effect of, Bob-Jones.com or JustCallAmy.com, you can keep them. If these sites are not showing up today on any Google first page results search --- Just get a 2nd name, or 2nd domain. Many of us REALTORS are getting a 2nd or third website. Stealth sites. Specialty sites like a Foreclosures site or a site dedicated to Short sales, etc.

Go to BulkRegister.com and sign up for an account. You need to have a place to register your domains at, and relying on any small firm to do this for you is nothing more than a recipe for disaster. Too many ISP and small web firms working out of a garage are going out of business.

So it's so important to have a SAFE place and a big company that lets you register your domains. Don't get caught with your pants down and lose all your domain names when your small web guys firm goes belly up. Protect yourself by using Network Solutions or BulkRegister.com. 

Successful REALTORS today own five, ten some even 30 different domain names. For example, I own more than 410 of them. Some domains I will sell to REALTORS or rent for a period of time to help BOOST SEO. For example, I rented the domain name:  AlbuquerqueMoves.com to Pargin Realty. This is how I got Google to get their site to rank on page one. This was White Hat SEO technique #17.

The domain I rented to ERA's Pargin Realty four years ago. Pargin Realty was and I think still is the oldest ERA office in the U.S. We were hired for a complete bull doze of the old site and for SEO of the new one. If you search for the key phrases:  albuquerque homes for sale or albuquerque realty you will find ParginRealty.com on page one of Google and they've been there now for three years.  

If you are looking for a killer domain name that is SEO friendly and very old and indexed by Google I have a short list of Domain Names for sale you can look at here for many cities around the country.  SCROLL DOWN to the bottom of that page when you get there. If anyone wants one of the domains... please let me know. Tel: (505) 466-2483 or iPhone: (505) 204-8097. 

Step 2. Register your domain name out for 7 to 10 more years

Important stuff here. Google now looks at your domain name and wants to SEE the WHOIS record.

If the domain is like most websites we all own, we only register it every year when it comes up for renewal. The robots want to see domains that are registered every 7 to 10 years. This lets Google's robots see who are the REAL players out there and if you have a domain name registered for 10 years... it says that you intend to stick around. 

Google's robots will look at those websites with one year registrations and index them differently. Old sites already indexed however, are grand-fathered. But if you intend to launch a brand new website and climb your way to the top of Google in 2010, then you must know this important fact. Google likes domains that are now registered for 7 - 10 years. 

Step 3. Press Release and Social Media Networking.

Real estate is boring. You sell homes. There's just so many ways to tell the World that you sell homes. Nobody cares to read about this anymore. Which means you have to CREATE BUZZ about what you do and HOW you do it.

Reinvent yourself. Innovation becomes your weekly battle cry as you fight your way through the frenzied world of on-line real estate marketing. 

Tell people that you just signed up for the Gumiyo SMS and you are letting customers TEXT a GoCode into their phones to get photos and property information on their iPhones and Blackberries instead of getting out of their car and walking over to a yard sign to pull out a house flier. 

CONTESTS: Tell the World that you are giving away a $5,000 appliance shopping spree to one lucky family moving to your town, USA. Details are on your Website.

FREE GAS: Tell the world that your are going to give away $1,000 in FREE GAS to three lucky new families moving to the area.

PARTNER UP with a local Custom Home Builder or Landscaper: Another website contest. Give away some custom cabinetry work, landscaping, etc. BE CREATIVE. Real estate sales do not have to be BORING. And these contests do not violate RESPA, either. 

Rule of thumb, think of cool stuff you get or win if someone found you on your website. You cannot REQUIRE the family buy from you as part of the contest rules as this might violate a few RESPA rules here. But the point is if you GIVE... you will GET. 

PRWeb.com and others sites are SEO friendly and place your Press Releases into the Social Media network mix. I also like 1888FreePressRelease.com.  We ran TV commercials over the Summer on our one shot Do It Yourself Virtual Tour kits and we used a few brokers and real estate agents as our spokesmodels for the TV commercials. 

The result?  Our Press Release vent viral. Our Bob the Broker TV commercial and Sandy the Agent tired of hiring the Soccer Mom photographer were huge, smash hits. We generated MORE SALES from the PR going viral as I could include our YouTube video of the TV commercial inside the PR. 

Sales sky-rocketed by 284% in six weeks. 

Step 4. Retune your Website every 21 Days with Key Words Higher than Your Competitors

This is an important step. You do not use the META KEYWORDS tag anymore for Google, but you do need to look at your site and find the secrett, juicy key words that Google loves to eat up. For example, on the top right side of your website, use HTML text NOT a graphic when you place a key word up as high as you can. See this website we did for Keller Williams agent, Jamie Mades. 

We used the Colorado Springs Homes keyword on the top right. 

Important: Your Google DENSITY of any one key word phrase must not exceed 5 to 6% per page. Meaning if you have 100 words on your web page, be careful how many times you use the word: colorado springs homes on your site. Follow that rule.

Step 5. WATCH the Follow Me on Twitter, FaceBook Links. There  * IS * a DARK SIDE of too many offsite links. 

As I consult with people, you have to watch how you post links to FaceBook or Twitter -- do it wrong and your website ranking on Google will tumble. Darth Twitter exists. He is very real and he wants you to know the power of the Dark Side. (failure). 

Why send people away to Twitter, FaceBook or some other site AFTER they found you on Google? Your home page and your landing pages are sacred. I've seen lots of broker and agent websites drop one position to a whole page or more TWO MONTHS after they added, "Follow me on Twitter, Facebook," links on their home page.

I hate to point this out to a former customer, but Santa Fe Properties screwed up. Big time on this one. 

I did the website rebuild and SEO for this firm in 2002. For more than five years I kept them at page one #1. Three years ago, I no longer did the work for them as my rates went up and my contract was not renewed.

Go to the Santa Fe Properties Website.

See the Follow us on Twitter, FaceBook links? Big mistake. This is Google PR hemorrhage. You bleed off links to another website and this can drop you a few positions or a few pages.

This website USED to RANK page one, #1 on Google. Now it doesn't. Here's what happened. 

Google the phrase:  santa fe real estate

Santa Fe Properties USED to be page one #1. Now they rank page one #2. Another local independent REALTOR is ranking on page one #1. SFRP.com. Why?

a.) SantaFeRealtyPartners.com simply has better (more relevant) one way incoming links to their website.

b.) A REALTOR at Santa Fe Properties posted the same content on the broker website here. Word smithing a few other articles to get points from local websites also created some duplicate content. 

c.) Santa Fe Properties website has to get rid of some of the BAD METAs in their web pages. See the META KEYWORDS tag? Sniff their home page source code. Now considered gray market, is the use of the key words using:  santa+fe+real+estate.... see those? It's now considered as a Search engine trick. And should not be used. Ever. 

I even sent a letter to the broker telling them what was wrong with the site. Did they listen to me? Obviously not. Their ranking is dropping and I sent them the letter well over a month ago. 

Santa Fe Properties is holding onto OLD SEO myths and tools that no longer work. They copied Follow me On Twitter and FaceBook links without thinking about the right way to do that. 

This is a big problem with many REALTOR websites. The rush to follow the herd.  Mooooooooo.  Copycat techniques.

We see one agent or broker put the Follow Me links on their website. We then put them on our site with no thinking that it can have a bad impact on your Google page rank.  Santa Fe Propeties has (7) offsite links from their home page. This is pure insanity. They destroyed their own page one #1 ranking. See for yourself below.

The SMART AGENTS and brokers do this:  They have a small graphic box that says Follow me on Twitter or FaceBook, but they do not put direct links on their website taking people away to other sites. Your FaceBook pages should point back to your with a relevant text link.

I have used the Santa Fe Properties and SFRP comparison sites as a good use example of what to DO and what NOT to do with SEO. As Tony Robbins says: "Success and failure leave clues. Do what the successful people are doing and you will achieve the same if not even greater success."

If you'd like to learn more about SEO and how you can improve your ranking in four (4) Saturdays... call be before I leave on October 20th.