How I got 1st Page Ranking on Google A few years prior I stumbled upon a good article in ActiveRain and saved it as a favorite. I searched the blog frequently for good information but regrettably failed to see its potential for my business.
In December, when my far-better half and I opened a new office, it was obvious that we needed to ramp up our advertising efforts. We had spent plenty through the years on magazine ads, newspapers, printed flyers, and postcards. Calls from these ads were not impressive. Most of our business came from direct contact with buyers and sellers or through other agents from the mls. Our listings were syndicated to many sites and broker reciprocity made it easy to find our listings no matter whose site it was, but were they finding our site? Hmmm, we had to make some changes. I joined ActiveRain December 29, 2010.
Over the years I heard stories of agents spending tens of thousands each year trying to get that 1st page ranking. The results of that expensive game are not guaranteed-plus, the game never ends! Sales were down, so this approach was not an option for me.
January 28, 2011. I got a call from Alexander Iankov of ActiveRain urging me to sign up for a Rainmaker account for 2 months at the special price of $1 per month; $59 thereafter. I could always cancel if I didn't think it was worth it, so I took the bait. I followed his advice and listened to the webinar about keywords and long tail searches. The teacher in the webinar, Steven Graham, made it sound easy and guaranteed 1st or 2nd page rankings if you followed his advice. Sounded too good to be true, but I would give it a shot.
I wrote my first ad Jan 29. It took me all day. I had to experiment with the html to make my ad look the way I wanted, but it was fun and exhausting. Finally, on Jan 30, I changed from draft mode to public-then clicked the button. I had other work to catch up on so I didn't Google my title words for a couple hours. I was under the impression that it might take days or weeks for Google to find my post, so I was shocked when I saw mine on the 1st page. I tried rearranging the keywords, eliminating some, adding others, and was still surprised at the number of times it appeared on the first or second page. Granted, I had to search with more than 3 words, but it was explained in the webinar-that long tail keyword searches are higher quality leads than short tail ones.
In the last two weeks I've posted six more blog ads (is that the right terminology?). I'm amazed each time. By just following the rules Steven taught in the webinar I can get 1st page Google ranking for a buck a month.
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