Are You Being Suckered? Why Paying Someone to Submit Your Site to Search Engines Flushes Good Money Down the Drain… (Part 3 – Conclusion)

Mary: My favorite SEO expert is Jill Whalen. Here is her bio on Wikipedia. She has a good newsletter you can sign up for at her Web site. She and her team answer SEO questions on her forum here.

Another top resource is SEO Book. I think you will be greatly encouraged by what the author has to say here. And here are his free tutorial and other free SEO tools you might find useful........Kay

Jim: I don't know. Did you read the forum discussion I linked to above? It explains a lot about this issue. I know real estate is highly competitive; however, there are thousands of agents listed on Dmoz from across the country, many of whom are competitors within their local markets. Don't get me wrong ... I don't propose to know that it's not about competition. But that theory is just too much of a stretch for me to believe it. I do know the guidelines say that resubmitting slows the process to a crawl........Kay

Kate: You would profit from the resources I linked to above in my comment to Mary. Check them out, especially SEO Book because it's kept so current. Thanks for commenting.........Kay

Cari: the P.S. in your comment above really made me laugh. If you ever do decide to get some outside SEO help, find the person/company on your own by researching and asking others for referrals. Do not give your money to someone who solicits you. Not that there's anything wrong with solicitation. But this field has too many who prey on others' lack of knowledge. Also, I highly recommend SEO Book. There's a link to it in the comment above yours.

Here are some important points: 

• SEO has a lot to do with common sense. Provide the people who visit your Web site with good, informative content about the service(s) and/or product(s) you provide, to the tune of at least 250 words per page. And then provide the search engines that visit your site with the things they need to recognize the relevance of your content to particular search phrases people will use to search for information about your subject.

• The only thing a search engine wants to do is to offer their searchers relevant information. But the robots are dumb and need certain indicators to show them that your information is relevant to particular search phrases. That's what SEO does to a site's content: provide those indicators. Things like page title, description, bold, links, etc. How hard is that?

• Plus, the search engines themselves will tell you what indicators they are looking for so you can put them in. At a search engine site look for something like Webmaster guidelines, etc. Here's a good starting point for Google: How to Create a Google Friendly Site   You don't have to do everything recommended. If you don't understand something, leave it out. As your knowledge grows you can do more things. AND the search engines will tell you what NOT to do. This is very important information.
  
  
• The things the search engines need are NOT hard. And they can be explained in simple English. So, if someone is talking to you in jargon-laden language, which is used to make you think SEO is more than it is (to justify outlandish fees), run, run, run. Sign up for Jill Whalen's newsletter and read SEO Book, and you'll do fine.

I searched for your company on Dmoz and couldn't find it. It never hurts to search on Dmoz. About changes, the Dmoz guidelines have some information about that. Also, if your domain name will remain the same, changing hosting services shouldn't affect anything. I'm so glad this information helped you. Sorry this is so long..........Kay

Miro: Thanks for commenting. It's important that links to your site be from high-quality sites, so select them carefully. Links from low-quality sites can actually hurt your search engine rankings.

Here is a link to a Google search for "real estate directories." As you see, many, if not most, require a subscription or link fee. So, the ones you choose, if any, should be part of your overall marketing strategy. My opinion is that you will not suffer if you're not listed in any of them. There are other important things you can do to your site to help your search engine rankings besides having lots of inbound links such as making your page titles keyword rich and providing relevant content for your site visitors.

For free relevant directories, I would not pay anyone to do this for me, but if I did, I would require a custom report verifying those directory links. And I would check them out. Just remember that once your site is submitted to a relevant directory, it does not have to be re-submitted ever. The key word in all of this is "relevance."

Also, each of your blog posts here at ActiveRain should contain a link to your site, perhaps beneath your signature. Hope this helps..........Kay

Andrew: Thanks for the confirmation. You'd think they'd have the good sense to do their research before calling someone. That alone is a red flag. Congrats on the Page One ranking...........Kay

Christopher: I'm glad you read it too. Now you can use those funds for something that WILL help you.

I've been away from AR for several months. And your comment is the reason I'm going ahead and replying at this late date. Hopefully, it will bring the post back on the list and others can profit from this information too. I hope people will read Part 1 and then Part 2 to get the full benefit. Thanks for letting me know that it helped you..............Kay