I have been reading a lot on SEO lately, and am aware of a huge shift in Google's SERP placement for highly sought after keywords. You may be interested in this shift so let me explain.
"The January 18th Google Update Was Bigger Than Florida, but Few People Noticed it.
The Google Florida Update
I got started in the search field in 2003, and one of the things that helped get my name on the map was when I wrote about the November 14th Google Florida update in a cheeky article titled Google Sells Christmas [1]. To this day many are not certain exactly what Google changed back then, but the algorithm update seemed to hit a lot of low level SEO techniques. Many pages that exhibited the following characteristics simply disappeared from the search results
- repetitive inbound anchor text with little diversity
- heavy repetition of the keyword phrase in the page title and on the page
- words is a phrase exhibiting close proximity with few occurrences of the keywords spread apart
- a lack of related/supporting vocabulary in the page copy" -Aaron Wall. Google Branding Article
I am subscribed to Aaron Wall's blog, he is the author of SEO BOOK. One of the best, and most complete 
SEO informational site's out there. Aaron is, simply put, top notch.
Google has given "trust" based on branding.
Example: Say you search for Airline Tickets in Google. If you search for the highly sought after keywords you will now get big brand Airliners in your search results, such as, Delta, American Airlines, Northwest Airlines.
What's the reason behind this large shift?
Google assumes if you have a well known brand, you must know what you're talking about. They assume you have correct information, and this is kinda like a "cheat" to trust you because of your big name. The change is Google's way of weeding out "false Internet information."
So what does this mean to me, the small real estate agent? BUILD YOUR BRAND!
Google has, somewhat, stepped on the little guy here. So for those of you who are going for the largely sought after keywords, such as: Real Estate or MLS. This update is going to make it much more difficult to get to the front page if you aren't affiliated with a large brand.
What do I do now?
You do the same thing the founders of Activerain have been preaching since the start. CHASE THE LONG TAIL.
To build your brand start, or if you have already started, with long tail keywords. This is how you build your brand. If you can rank for the long tail, or less competitive keywords, it will help you build your "trust" with Google. The more and more you rank for the less competitive key word, the better chance you have to get the more competitive ones.
Niche, find yours, and pursue it like the cops chasing O.J. Simpson. This is where you, as the "small guy," can earn your trust.
The #1 ranking tool Google still uses is high quality links. Becoming an expert in your niche can help you establish these high quality links.
Sorry to say, but the big guys are automatically getting their foot in the door for the BIG keywords because of their brands.
This means we, the small people, need to work harder than ever to get where we want to be in the SERP's.
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