Are You Playing Hide & Seek With Your Real Estate Site?

If 2007 was the year I really became engaged by the blogosphere, then 2008 ranks as the year I began to understand the power of connectivity.  And..No, they're not the same thing.  Although, I must admit, I used to think they were.

When I first started blogging about two years ago, it was all about communicating my message and getting a handle on commenting. 

Active Rain provided the perfect platform and I embraced everything the community had to offer, rarely venturing out to the wider world. 

Initially, it was hard to understand how videos, podcasts, pictures and a short 140 bit sentence bite on Twitter could be an integral aspect of relationship building. Afterall, wasn't that what blogging was all about?

Well, it is...but, it's not the whole picture. My experiences within the past 12 months have opened up a whole new comprehension of what Social Media and blogging can be about.  Effective Relationship Building requires Exposure as well as Connectivity.  If you have a great message, but no one understands it or sees it, the Value of the message is greatly diminished.  Far too many bloggers in the real estate community are making this mistake.  They're not investing the time and effort to ensure that their well crafted messages are seen.

For instance, when I started blogging, I totally underestimated the importance of labeling my pictures. In fact, it wasn't until I became an active member of Flickr that I truly began to appreciate the importance of a little identifier known as a tag.  I've been amazed to see how properly tagged pictures can land on the first page of an indexed search on Google.  I've learned that tagging can be as effective as a blog post in gaining better Search Engine positioning.

The next step for me is geotagging my pictures by location.  I'll admit that this still presents a little bit of a mental challenge for me as geography was not one of my favorite subjects.  But at least I'm getting it.  Search Engines don't want to play Hide & Seek to find our data.  They want it clearly identified and labeled so that they can do their job which is to provide FOLKS WITH THE INFORMATION they are searching for.

Many of us are playing the game of Hide & Seek and don't even know it. 

We fail to tag our pictures, don't tag our blog posts and give our articles very hard to understand titles.  In addition, we have different avatars and sometimes even names for different sites and often forget to complete our profiles when we are instructed to. To compound our evasion tactics, our blogs fail to link to other blogs with a similar focus and our articles don't provide additional related links within our own websites or blogs. Did you know that this type of activity makes it difficult for the Search Engines to give you credit for all the hard work that you're doing? 

Here are a few simple steps you can take TODAY to stop Playing Hide & Seek With the Search Engines and make it easier for them to find you:

1.  Create Relevant Titles!

The operative word is Relevant.  Cute and funny may be entertaining, but they won't give you much traction.  Cute and funny may give you tons of comments on Active Rain but if they're so irrelevant to your topic that the Search Engine Spider has to try to decipher your meaning...expect to be dumped into the heap of forgettable entries sooner rather than later.

2.  Create Links to Your Stuff!

This is so easy to do.  Every expert on SEO here on Active Rain has told us to do this, but most of us never do.  It's simply a matter of heading over to your sidebar, clicking on a relevant tag and copying 1,2 or more links to the bottom of your post.  It's better to revive your older posts if possible.  This gives additional relevance to your material.  You should also do this on your website which normally gets even less love than your blog.  Internal Linking can be extremely effective in helping Search Engine Spiders to weave your material into the world wide web.

3.  Tag, Tag, TAG!

Take a second to tag your pictures, your blog posts, your Utterz etc.  Anything that allows you to tag should be tagged.  No exceptions.  Failing to do this is like doing a ton of work and walking away without your payoff!  Tagging identifies what you are saying.  And no, the Search Engines don't just automatically get it.  If you're comfortable with it, I'd highly recommend you begin to Geotag or at least place your ZIP Code in the tag line if you're blogging about something which is real estate related.

4.  Build on Consistency!

You loose a lot of cache online when you appear as a variety of different persons online.  Now, if you're trying to hide the fact that you work in real estate, that's not necessarily a bad thing.  But, if on the other hand, you would like to take full advantage of this medium to do more business...the more easily recognizable you are, the better for you.  This year, I have been even more impressed by the number of people who are connecting with us online.  It's not the wave of the future...this is business today and into the future.

5.  Study the Pro Game!

I am not an SEO expert, but there are many who are here on Active Rain.  I've learned so much from reading their blogs; it has literally transformed my understanding of my profession.  Here are some of my Favorite bloggers: Mary McNight, Justin Smith, Jim Cronin, Jeff Turner, Brad Anderson, Barry Hurd, Laurie Manny & Karen Jason, whose extraordinary contribution to this network remains as a well spring of knowledge and insight. 

Not all these individuals are technical folks; some of them have simply done a remarkable job of translating their success for the rest of us.  In every case, I've found their contributions helpful.  Check them out!

Search Engines really want to know what you're talking about in your articles and online content.  Remember, you're the expert.  Let's do our own little part to make it easier for them to do their job.  This is a case in which a little due diligence can truly go a long way.

Other Related Posts about Blogging & Marketing Real Estate...

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blogging: Blog Prospecting....Optimizing the Reach of your Local Real Estate Blog!

blogging: What to Do When Google Shows Up for The Interview Before You do!

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Picture courtesy of: chris runoff's photostream