Haha.. I laughed out loud at this one!

Would you sell your house FSBO... I swear RE agents will try and tell you you are crazy for not hiring a professional RE professional, but they are super cheap in the own life.

Always sales

Erica, I think you have a valid question. You asked is it worth it, (effective) If you don't sell a home you don't get paid but the seo companies get paid upfront whether on not they do a good job.

Scott: I'm not super cheap. I spend more money on marketing and promotion than most agents in my area. I spend the bulk of it online with ads and technology. I don't think this was a stupid question.

Betty: Thanks.

Scott: I'm not super cheap. I spend more money on marketing and promotion than most agents in my area. I spend the bulk of it online with ads and technology. I don't think this was a stupid question.

Betty: Thanks.

I've been tossing this around for awhile.  I think it's a great question. 

SEO is not necessarily easy.  It can be done if you have access to the html code on your site, but it changes often enough and it varies between searchengines that effective SEO can be a full time job.  The terms you need to optimize for and the competition are always changing.

But think about how you can minimize some of the effort it takes to optimize.  One is, how many sites are you allowing your listings to be shown on - besides your own?  Are those sites helping your SEO or are they competing with you for the same search terms?

Start by keeping your listings on your own site so your competition for search terms is minimized.  And, you need to learn enough about SEO to know what questions to ask a programmer, just like a good buyer knows good questions about real estate.

I'll be adding a link to your site - not to your listings - from Pottsvile, PA on REindex.com.  This is a site that I run that links to listing agent sites regardless of their SEO.  Also, your phone and address at the bottom of your own listings page is Anytown, Anywhere which doesn't help your seo.

If you decide to hire this out, go with someone who you get some good referrals from. Like anything else there are going to be qualified people and some not so.

Doing your own SEO is possible, but really time consuming, and personally not my area of expertise.  Think about taking some of your marketing budget and putting it into SEO.  But my understanding is that it is like everything else, it takes time to get a good return on your investment.

I agree with Carol. SEO is HARD. I've been trying to figure it out for myself! We had a guy that Gretchen reccomended and he got us higher on Google, but not #1. I know a guy at PSU who worked for Peperjam in Wilkes-Barre that did SEO. I don't know how much they charge, but I heard that it is a big help.

Yooter Interactive (a startup in Pottsville) also does it. But it costs thousands to hire them...

Oh, and another thought- seems to me it is not just google page rank that matters, but also traffic to your web site, and LEADS!!  Not that I have gotten many, or converted them, but in theory, that is how it would be!

I've asked some profs at PSU and they said traffic is a big thing with page rank also. The more links you have to and from your website helps!  

Erica:  The conclusion that I've come to is that yes, you can do a lot of this stuff yourself, but would that be the best use of your time?  Like Mr. Sanders points out, an agent would discourage someone from going fsbo because of the technical skills and the resources needed to sell a home, yet many of them won't hire out their SEO.

I've been fairly successful in getting my web site up to the 2nd page of google under my preferred keywords (thanks to Karen George and her posts here on AR), but I was having fun with it and learning.  Now that I've gotten to this point (and as soon as the last kid graduates) I'm going to buck up and let a pro take over.

Bob Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

I do have a professional company do my SEO.  I spent way too much time and should be selling not doing the tech side.  I want to understand it, but figured out last year I needed help.  The company has done a great job.  IF you are not a certain page rank for x amount of search engines you do not pay.  And that happened to me for about 4 months when it was starting.  But now, I get quality leads I am proud to say.   It is my open house working 24 hrs a day.  I get great leads and great referrals.  and my website is a template.  I am very happy. 

Erica:  I didn't think about it the other day, but check this guy out.  He's here on AR and seems to really know his stuff. 

http://activerain.com/brimultimedia

Bob Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.

Thanks for all the answers. I did find a local guy who's going to look at my site.