BRER Real Estate Marketing Blog

Have you noticed a change in how the Google search box works?  If not, you may soon.  Google has introduced Google Suggest.  I would imagine it has reached all the servers, but it may still be making the rounds.

Google Suggest is something that was created to assist Internet searchers.  As you start to type in a search phrase, Google guesses at what you are looking for and displays a dropdown box with possible alternatives.  Google says that providing “more refined” searches initially will make searching more convenient.

I’m horrified.

I am even more horrified to learn that Yahoo does the same thing.  I don’t often use Yahoo, so I had no idea.

Is This Bad News for Webmasters?

Ah, yes.  The great thing about being ranked in the search engines has always been that a site gets ranked for many search phrases related to the main keyword phrases that were being targeted.  And, I’ll wager that will still happen.

The question is, Will anyone ever type in long-tail phrases if they are presented with the most popular phrases when they first start to type a search??

I  doubt it.  As human beings, we are very prone to take the path of least resistance.  At least Google isn’t as bad as Yahoo.

Here’s How it Works
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Thanks to Bill Gassett, who consults on Hopkinton MA real estate, I found some good ideas for increasing your exposure in your local market and getting quality incoming links to your blog.

Check out the site www.YourStreet.com.  Once you join, you will be able to:  “post articles, voice your opinion, join a discussion forum, and display your user profile” according to the website.

Bill has found the site helpful because he can send his blog posts to YourStreet and they are posted on the the site’s community page for his market area.   I’m not sure how much juice the incoming links have because there are so many pages on the site, but I think it’s a great opportunity to check out.

YourStreet will also syndicate your blog if they think the content is appropriate.  That will eliminate the need to manually add the post to the site.  Just use one of the feedback forms to request syndiating your blog.

The other site Bill mentioned is www.Topix.com.  Bill says that articles are cached pretty quickly on this site by Google, and Yahoo is showing some of Bill’s articles on Topix as incoming links.

Make the most of your blogging effort - get the word out electronically!

Thanks to Sam Chapman, I was introduced to a website that offers free training videos for real estate professionals.

You’ll find the site at www.CKGTV.com.  It was started by a firm called CKG International out of Ontario, Canada.  I’ve not heard of that company before, but I think they’ve done a good job of pulling together some helpful resources you can take advantage of at your leisure.  At least you could if you had any leisure time!

Address a Variety of Issues with Top Professionals and Consultants

The site has several “channels”:

• Coach’s Corner
• Special Feature
• Skills
• Inside a Mastermind
• Luxury
• Brokers
• Teams
• Foreclosure & Short Sales
• H.R.
• Technology
• Marketing

Each Channel is populated by videos on the specific topic.  So, it’s a great way to learn something if you’re a visual person.  You can see the person doing the talking and get a good feel for the subject.  That is especially helpful since several of the topics have to do with communication skills, so you can see role-playing sessions face-to-video.

The Coaches Corner is hosted by Ken Goodfellow who is the CEO of CKG International, and a professional real estate coach.  There are other videos about how to manage short sales, scripts for FSBOs and Expireds and interviews with top luxury agents.

You’ll also find videos from Michael Russer on Internet Marketing and Brad Carroll talking about technology issues.

I sampled a few of the videos and found most of them interesting and informative.  There was only one series that seemed to be more sales pitch than anything else.  Not to mention any names, but it was from a principal from TheShortSalesCompany.com.  Guess it would be useful if you were looking for a firm to handle your short sales.

Check it out.  Feedback would be appreciated.

Software to Help You Build Links by Posting on Blogs

If you haven’t heard anything about software that helps you find blogs where you can leave a comment and get a one-way incoming link to your website, here’s some information you’ll find useful.

I looked at a software program called Comment Kahuna.  I think that software and others like it are good tools to use if, like everything else related to SEO, you make a commitment to wear a White Hat when you use it.

Things to Keep in Mind

1.  Leaving generic comments on a blog isn’t a White Hat strategy.  If someone leaves a comment on this blog that is something like “I really love this blog.  The information is very useful.”, I will delete it and I think anyone else would do the same.  The purpose of commenting on a blog is to establish or continue a dialog on the topic of the blog post.  Generic comments aren’t helpful.

• The commenting software allows you to store “profiles” that consist of an author name, email address, URL and comment.  The software will automatically insert the information in the profile into a blog’s comment fields. 
• But, if you aren’t going to actually read a post and come up with a valid comment, then you’re abusing the system.  I’d suggest using the first three fields, but writing a valid original comment for each blog post.

2.  Building backlinks by posting blog comments only works if the search engines put a value on the links.  There are two places where the search engines could be instructed to ignore an outgoing link. 

First, there could be a tag in the header on a blog page that looks something like this:  rel=”nofollow”.   Second, there could be an argument added to a specific link:  rel=”external nofollow” or rel=”nofollow”.   The bottom line is that if there is any type of a nofollow tag on a page, the odds are that outgoing links will not be acknowledged by the search engines.

• Comment software can be used to find sites that use the nofollow tag on their home page.  But, you’ll really need to evaluate each website yourself to determine whether links are set up as nofollow.  Here’s why:
  • The software can spot a nofollow on the home page of the blog.  However, most blogs don’t display comments on the home page.  So, if there are no comments, the software can’t tell if the links are set up as nofollow or not.
• The best thing to do is to use the comment software to identify blogs on a specific topic.  Then, for each blog that is identified as being nofollow-less, you will need to:
  • Find a post that has comments.
  • Go to the page with the comments on it.
  • Look at the source code for that page (View-Source or RightClick-View Source)
  • Do a search for the characters nofollow  (Edit-Find in a notepad file)
  • If nofollow is discovered on the page, mark the blog accordingly

 What Comment Software Can Do

Commenting software can be helpful in finding blogs on related topics and automating some of the tasks required to submit comments.  But, you can’t just use the software in the hopes that all the work will be done for you.

If you’re going to use blog comments as part of your link building strategy, make sure you select the right blogs and that you put the effort into writing useful comments.  Part of the result from commenting on other blogs is that real people might visit your website, as well as the search engines. 

Thoughtful or insightful comments will go a long way toward encouraging other blog visitors to visit your site, too!

Questions come up from time to time about how changing a website will impact search engine rankings.  I have talked to folks who have “heard” from SEO “experts” that you need to change your home page regularly, meaning at least once a week, to get good rankings.  Others have heard that if you change your home page you will fall off the charts. 

Neither of those theories are true from my perspective.  Since I just did a fairly major restructure on our main website, I thought I’d share my experience as an example.

The www.BuildRealEstateResults.com (BRER) website is always the last one to get any attention.  The home page on that site is changed very infrequently.  This blog is resident on that domain name, so the posts here do count as updates for the BRER site.

The latest update was published on 4-27-08, so it has been online for about a week.  The update consisted of major changes to the home page, the elimination of quite a few pages and the addition of several new pages.  I considered doing 301 redirects from the deleted pages to the new pages but never did get that done.

The main keyword phrase for the BRER site is real estate marketing.  I wish I had more detailed history, but I tend not to track that site’s rankings very regularly.  I do know, however, that right after the update was published, the site went from about #4 on Google to #1.  That often happens when something changes - a quick bump up in rankings.

As of the last time I checked, the site is now #2 on Google.  Still a better position than the site had before the update.  And, Google is doing what seems like almost daily adjustments to that search term.  The number of results returned has been bouncing around in a range from 9-13 million.

So, one week after a fairly major change, the site’s ranking has improved.  I attribute that to the strength of the site’s incoming links, the length of time it’s been online, and the fact that I was careful to maintain the relevance among the page titles, meta tags and content.

This experience reinforces what I’ve seen when it comes to SEO and website changes.

• Engines like it when there is fresh content, but if it doesn’t make sense for your visitors if you change some words on your home page each week, don’t worry about it - fresh content on a blog counts, too. 
• And, unless you do a very poor job of updating your site, the benefit of the fresh content will probably outweigh any confusion the engines have if your pages have been shuffled around a bit.

Writing a press release is a great way to get incoming links to your website and exposure for your business. 

If you haven’t written a press release lately, now would be a good time to get one put together.  The biggest question when it comes to press releases centers around finding something that you think merits a press release.

What is Press Release Worthy?

An online press release can provide two benefits.  One is to get one-way incoming links to your website - that’s good for SEO.  Another benefit is that other websites will pick up on the press release, and your information will get published on several or many websites.

To get the second benefit, you need to write about something truly newsworthy.  And, I don’t think something newsworthy comes along all that often.  However, to get incoming links to your website all you really need to do is write a well-optimized press release that is about something that you are doing.

Press Release Topics Don’t Have to be Newsworthy

I have a Google Alert set for the term “real estate marketing”.  So, new pages that Google thinks is important for that term are sent to me in an email every day.  Last week Google included a press release in one of those emails that announced ”Real Estate Website Offers New Way to Search For Properties”. 

And, what was the new way to search?  Using a Google map to display where homes for sale are located.  Hmm… sounds like a map search that is available on lots of real estate websites.  But the point is, who cares?  If a consumer comes across that press release, they will know that the agent is Internet-savvy and has an easy way to search for homes available.

I’m not sure that lots of other websites will pick up that press release.  Maybe a small newspaper in the agent’s hometown?  But, the search engines will notice the links going from the press release to the agent’s website.

So, don’t wait until you have something to write about that is earth-shattering news.  Have you updated your website lately?  added a new team member?  published a new market report?  started a blog?  The possibilities are endless. 

And, you just never know who might find your site from seeing the press release, or from seeing your site as it climbs higher on the search result pages.

More than one person has asked me why I don’t talk more about the work we’re doing here at Getting It Write, Inc.  They seemed to think that many people who read this blog have no idea what we do.  Just in case that’s true, I’m going to take this opportunity for some shameless self-promotion.

Most of our time is focused on providing services to real estate professionals in three areas:  developing brands, designing logos and establishing effective real estate web sites.  Lately, more and more of our time is focused on web sites.

We specialize in customizing Point2 Agent websites.  I know there’s a lot of discussion about using a custom site vs using a site from a vendor like Point2.  But, I’m really practical in my approach.  I think you should use what works best for you.  And, for a lot of people, given the capabililties, ease of use and great support offered by a company like Point2 agent, it just makes sense to go in that direction.

We identified the things that we feel are most important in a real estate website, and since 2004, Point2 Agent has met and exceeded our expectations — we think they’re still leading the pack.

We provide a range of services to get a real estate website ready for primetime, including several levels of custom design, original content pages, custom marketing messages and Search Engine Optimization.  We do coaching on marketing issues, and to help identify what should go on a website for a particular audience.  Then, we help clients implement the types of Internet-based tools and information that are discussed on this blog.  We also do monthly maintenance for some clients.

You can see some of the latest sites we’ve completed here:  New York City SOHO Real Estate, Atlanta Real Estate, Hampton Falls Homes for Sale, Bluffton Real Estate, Park City UT Real Estate.

So, that should take care of that for a while.  We now return to our regularly scheduled blog posts.

Since I know Internet surfers are notorious for scanning rather than reading, I wanted to point out the Special Offer in the left sidebar of this blog.

The PDF file containing the series on Website Content Mistakes has been offered there since that series was completed.  A PDF file containing the series on Do-It-Yourself SEO has just been added to the list.

If you found those two series of posts helpful, you can download the PDF files and get all the posts in one document.  Please let me know if you find the PDF files useful.  They take a while to put together, but it’s worth it if some of you like having the information consolidated and ready to download.

And, if you have any suggestions for issues you would like to see addressed on this blog, please leave a comment.

Here’s an update on the poll that is running in the left column: 

• 21 people have responded
• 58% of respondents receive very little or none of their business from the Internet
• 43% of respondents receive one-half, the majority, or almost all of their business from the Internet

If you’re quick at math, you’ll know that rounding has resulted in a total of 101%, but you get the idea.

Take a moment right now to respond to the poll.  We’d have a lot better results if more people responded!  If you’re in the 58% category, the PDF files containing the two website series may be just what you need!

Use this link to see all the posts in this series: Do-It-Yourself SEO.  

Blogging and SEO

If you blog on a regular basis, your blog will be a search engine favorite – search engines just love the fresh content.   And, if the information you post is useful, your site visitors will love it, too.

7 Tips to Make Your Blog SEO-Friendly.

1. Blog Frequently - Blog as often as you can.  Check the Real Estate Blogging category on this blog for ideas on how to be consistent with blogging, and where to find topics.
2. Optimize Your Blog - Use the same guidelines for the On-Page Optimization of your web pages.  On your blog, you can put keyword phrases in your blog’s title, post titles, post content, category names, tag names and the ALT text of photos or images that you use in your posts.
3. Maintain a Focus – You can blog about anything you want.  But, especially when you’re first starting up a blog, make the majority of your posts about real estate and your keywords.  That focus will help the search engines understand the theme of your blog.  If this blog had two Whimsical Wednesday posts for every post related to its keywords, the site would not rank as well.
4. Link to Your Website  – Use your blog as a way to get quality incoming links to the pages of your website.  This is a great way to get deep links to the interior pages of your site.  You can write about a variety of topics and link to your community pages, MLS search page, market condition page, etc. and it would make perfect sense within the post.  Use good anchor text in your links to get the most from them.
5. Link to Outside Resources – You don’t want to put too many outgoing links in your posts, but 2 or 3 links to quality outside websites that can be helpful to your readers is a good idea.  You may get a link in return, and the search engines will notice your choice of outgoing links, too.
6. Submit Your Blog to Blog Directories – One way to jump start your blog is to submit it to blog directories to help the search engines find it.  Just do a search for real estate blog directory, and you’ll find quite a number of directories that focus on real estate blogs.
7. Advertise Your Posts – Set your blog up to “ping” Update Services.  If you’re not familiar with pinging or Update Services, take a look at this explanation on the Wordpress site.

Typically, you can also increase the traffic to your blog by being active on other blogs.  If you read and leave comments on other related blogs, that may bring visitors on that blog to yours.  And, if you leave comments, very often other blogmasters will return the favor.

I hope you have found this SEO series helpful.  If you decide you’d like professional assistance, you can find more information about SEO for real estate websites, and please feel free to contact me!

Use this link to see all the posts in this series: Do-It-Yourself SEO. 

Off Page Optimization

Anything that doesn’t have to do with how your website and your web pages are set up is off page optimization.   Most often, the term refers to obtaining incoming links – also called backlinks or inbound links.

Incoming  Links - And Why You Need Them

An incoming link is a link from another web page to one of your web pages.  You need them because the search engines put a lot of emphasis on incoming links to determine the popularity of your web pages.  Each incoming link is counted as a “vote” for your web page.

What’s The Best Way to Establish Incoming Links?

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