Happy New Year – 2012

Happy New Year!

“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors and let each new year find you a better man.” – Benjamin Franklin

Top 10 Most Influential Moments of 2011*

• January 8, 2011 — 10:10am Gunman Fires at Congresswoman Giffords
• March 1, 2011 — Charlie Sheen is ‘Winning’
• March 11, 2011 — Earthquake with a 8.9 Magnitude hits Japan
• April 29, 2011 — The Royal Wedding (Kate Middleton and Price William)
• May 1, 2011 — Osama bin Laden is killed
• May 25, 2011 — Oprah Winfrey’s Last Show
• August 2, 2011 –National debt hits 14.3 trillion. Unemployment reached 9.2%
• September 11, 2011 — Marks 10th year anniversary since 9/11
• September 17, 2011 –20,000 ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and flood lower Manhattan
• October 5, 2011 — Steve Jobs passes away. Apple most valuable company in world capping $347 billion

*as per AOL

Top 5 New Releases for RE/Advantage for 2012

• Office Spotlight – VERY economic way of display featured listings, open houses etc. from your office storefront window.
• Mobile Websites – whether you are just looking to get a branded IDX search or complete mobile website this is a great project to boost your business in 2012.
• Blogs – if you are looking for training classes or a customized blog with integrated IDX this solution is for you.
• New Portfolio – we’ve updated our portfolio with ALL NEW website layouts. Get an online presence face lift for 2012
• IDX for Agents and Offices – we’ve launched new 2012 updates to an already great IDX solution. Check out some of our examples and features.

Happy New Year!!

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Google Releases Some Changes – How Does This Affect the Real Estate Agent?

Google recently released a list of improvements to their ever popular search engine.  I am going to highlight some of the improvements that might affect your real estate website.  Google roughly releases 500 improvements per year and I will attempt as they are released to post some of the more relevant ones that might affect your real estate business.

• Related query results refinements: Sometimes Google fetches results for queries that are similar to the actual search term you typed. This change makes it less likely that these results will rank highly if the original query had a rare word that was dropped in the alternate query. For example, if you are searching for [Blue Mountain Condos], you might not be as interested in a page that only mentions “condos.”
• More comprehensive indexing: This change makes more long-tail documents available in the Google index, so they are more likely to rank for relevant queries. Great news for you Agents that are creating long tail keyword pages.  I wrote an post titled “Long Tail Keywords Power Hyper Local Content” which explains the importance of long tail keywords and how you can use them in your real estate business.
• Fresher and more complete blog search results: Google made a change to its blog search index to get coverage that is both fresher and more comprehensive.  As I mentioned in previous posts blogs are great for the real estate agents and now you will be getting even more attention. Megan at our office wrote a great post “I’ve Set Up My Real Estate Blog…Now What?” which she explains how to use a blog in your real estate business and another good post; “Tips for Writing a Market Leading Blog.”
• Original content: Google added new signals to help them make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original one.  Remember I always said, original content is very important and that it is important to always write good fresh content that is enticing and interesting. “Some Common Mistakes Writing Good Content” explains how to avoid some of the common mistakes when writing quality content.
• Top result selection code rewrite: This code handles extra processing on the top set of results. For example, it ensures that Google doesn’t show too many results from one site (“host crowding”). They rewrote the code to make it easier to understand, simpler to maintain and more flexible for future extensions.  This I think it great news for the smaller sites (i.e., agent sites vs. the bigger franchise sites) because the larger sites may loose some SERP’s in light of this update.
• New “parked domain” classifier: This is a new algorithm for automatically detecting parked domains. Parked domains are placeholder sites that are seldom useful and often filled with ads. They typically don’t have valuable content for users, so in most cases Google will prefer not to show them.

Google is always tweaking its search engine algorithms to make for a better user experience.  If you follow my updates regularly and try to leverage some of these improvements by either making changes to your pages or changing your marketing plans to make better use of the changes you can not only gain better visibility but also keep exiting pages from falling off of Google’s SERP’s.

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Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays to ALL!  We at RE/Advantage would like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday as well as a prosperous New Year!

 

Providing Website, IDX, Mobile Solutions, Social Media, and Training to the Real Estate Industry for over 20 years.

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Some Ways You Can Control Your Real Estate Website

Duane Forrester over at Bing wrote another great article entitled 9 Things You Need to Control in regards to optimizing your your real estate website.  These suggestions are a must for anyone with a website.

By understanding these items you can improve your sites visibility to the search engines and hopefully provide a boost to your SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page).

Social sharing integration

This almost goes without saying, but I still see so many websites not involved socially with their visitors.  Social integration for the REALTOR® is a MUST.  Real Estate is so personal and a big part of your success is all about the conversation.  Since Social Media is all about the connecting and conversation they are natural partners.  At the very least get buttons embedded into your pages so your visitors can share content with their friends and followers.  AddThis is a great Social plugin you can use and it is simple to install.

Title, Description, Alt Tags, etc.

This is perhaps the easiest item on the list but the most often forgotten.  Having a good title, description and alt tags are vital to your websites SERP success.

A quick note on the meta description.  While writing unique descriptions for each page won’t vault you necessarily to the top of the search engines – it can make a difference when a searcher is looking at results and likes your description over the others.  Better to have your words appearing in the search results than random text that search engines take from the page because your meta description was low quality or empty.

Content

This might seem pretty obvious to talk about but this is a huge issue for many Agents.  You just built a new website and never change any of the information.   I talked about how to build good content in a previous post but I still see websites with little effort put in to building good, original, and dynamic content.  Take the time to write keyword rich content and become the expert in your area.  Your reward will be an elevation in the search engine rankings.

Sitemap.xml

The sitemap.xml is a file that search spiders use to find all the pages in your website.  This is especially important when you either have a lot of pages on your site or they are hard to crawl.  If you do not have a sitemap, talk to your web designer about getting one.

Verification access

This is pretty straight forward.  You need to be able to place the verification code in place to use Bing’s or Google’s webmaster tools.  The verification process is used to among other things autorize Google and Bing to read your sitemap.  Authorization can be done by embedding a tag in the code of your web page or by a notation added in the DNS for the website.  No matter the option used, you need to have access to make this happen.  If you do not then you cannot take advantage of the many things Google and Bing have to offer your website..

UX improvements

If you don’t have a website your visitors love, you’re missing an opportunity.  Get cracking on a user experience review and see where you’re bleeding users.  By staying in tune what users like and dislike about your website, you can make the necessary changes needed to field a UX-winning site.  And if you keep your visitors happy they may share you more often with friends netting you more links.  Visitors are also more likely to come back to you again in the future if they like the site and find it easy to get what they’re after.

It might seem like a small thing to focus on the user experience but that UX directly influences the happiness of visitors.  If you don’t have input on UX improvements, you need to push.  This is an important aspect of optimizing any website.

Rel=canonical

Canonical is a useful tool if you have multiple pages all pointing to the same thing.  Using this you can tell the search engines which URL is the most important to you and combine them into one URL location boost the rank of that one you deem the most important.

The hard part is finding all the instances and getting the code on the page.  This is usually a web designers job but once done will provide a clearer picture for the search engines when they crawl your website.

Robots.txt

I bet many people are not even sure what the robots.txt file is or that they even have one.  but having one  setup properly is vital.

Search spiders use this file to understand how to interact with the website. The Robots.txt file tells the search engines what they can and cannot do when indexing, how often to index and if they should exclude any pages.  This is something your web designer usually sets up but it is a good idea to make sure you have one and that it is setup correctly.

All the items above are not in any particular order and aren’t meant to cover every single thing you need to be in control of, but should at least get you started down the right paths.  Once you get these items under control you can then think more about your website in terms of its SEO (Search Engine optimization) value.

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Anatomy of a Good Keyword Rich Blog Post

I get a lot of questions on writing a good blog post with rich keywords, scannable content while making sure it is still SEO friendly.  Below is a fictitious post about a condominium.  At the end of the article I summed up the major on-page factors that I considered important in writing this post. While this does not represent all that could be done to make an effective SEO post, it does cover the major items you must consider.

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The Pinnacle in Houston is Condominium living at its best.  As you enter The Pinnacle, prepare to be overwhelmed by breathtaking views showcased through high ceilings and curved glass walls spanning half the floor. This luxurious penthouse, featuring 2 BR + library and 3.5 BA, offers amazing scale and a spacious layout with a gourmet kitchen, marble bathrooms and expansive walk-in closets. Everyday amenities include concierge services, underground parking, and a fitness center with a 75-foot pool — all in a vibrant location just minutes from the Transit Building. Undeniably, the best of luxury living taken to new heights.

The Pinnacle Residences

The Pinnacle offers a wide variety of floor plans to suit your lifestyle. Residences feature 9-foot ceilings and expansive windows to maximize your view of the city or private courtyard while inviting abundant natural light into each home.

• LOBBY – Your stylish front door gives way to an elegant, light-filled lobby where you will be greeted by a lobby ambassador.
• LIVING ROOM – The flowing curves of The Pinnacle are as distinctively inspiring inside as they are from the outside.
• KITCHEN – The kitchen has been artfully designed to cater to the needs of the most discriminating chef.
• BATHROOM – There is a wonderful sense of richness in the design of the master baths.

The Pinnacle – Houston Condominium Amenities

In addition to being visually stunning, The Pinnacle in Houston amenities are defined by a combination of sublime luxury and superior functionality.

• RESTAURANT – The celebrated culinary team of Scot Desort, Dan Cotto, Beverly Lazzaro and Lyndsey Mavi are set to open a new restaurant in The Pinnacle.
• CONCIERGE – Homeowners enjoy the benefits of a full-time, on-site concierge team.
• FITNESS CENTER – The 5,000-square-foot fitness center is fully equipped with state-of-the art cardio and weight training equipment.
• SWIMMING POOL – Your 75-foot lap pool features an intricately designed mosaic wall, and shimmering natural light from the skylights above.

For additional information on please contact Megan Lade at 555-555-3000 or inquire online here.

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Here are the factors I considered when I wrote this post.  I also explained each one of them so you can understand how they were used in the post.

Keyword Phrase: The Pinnacle Houston

Total Post Word Count: 325

Keyword Frequency: 2.5% (Keyword density refers to the ratio of keywords within the total number of index-able words within a post.  Good rule of thumb is to have this ratio between 2%-8%.)

Keyword Density: 8 (Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a post.  Good rule of thumb is I like to follow is having my total word count between 300-500 words and my keyword density between 7-12.)

Keyword Prominence: 1 (Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a post. The general rule of thumb is to place important keywords at, or near, the start of a post, sentence, and in your META TITLE, META KEYWORDS, and META DESCRIPTION.

Keyword Proximity: Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.

For example:

• The Pinnacle in Houston – Luxury Condo’s
• Houston’s Luxury Condo’s – The Pinnacle

Using the example above, if someone searched for “Pinnacle Houston,” a post containing the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second. The reason is because the keywords are placed closer together. This is assuming that everything else is equal, of course.

Notice my first keyword phrase in the actual post was “The Pinnacle in Houston”. Most people looking for The Pinnacle in Houston Texas would type into Google; “Pinnacle Houston”

Tags: The Pinnacle, Houston Luxury Condominiums (Blog post tags.  Use them to describe your post)

By thinking about this style writing for keyword rich posts you can hopefully gain some good SERP results.  If you consider writing good quality content coupled with smart use of your keyword phrases you can most likely build a good post and have some success with SEO. Remember while I like to always think SEO on every post, sometimes that is simply not possible or the post itself does not lend itself to any relevant keyword terms besides broad terms like Real Estate.  In these cases, quality writing is most important because ranking higher in broader keyword terms is extremely difficult.

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Mobile Technology – Changing the SEO World as We Know It

By 2014 mobile technology is projected to overtake desktop computer use — that’s only 2 years away folks. REALTORS® spend time and money making sure their websites are SEO (search engine optimization) friendly by the standards of web developers and SEO specialists today but with mobile technology quickly taking over the way we (home buyers/sellers) use the internet, real estate professionals MUST TAKE NOTE!

Five differences between desktop and mobile internet use:

1. Type-search: we all know how to execute an internet search – open Google, type in your keywords and BOOM; results. But mobile technology has changed that process (making it easier for the user) by using ‘predictive text’ keyword strings. This is going to change the keywords used when searching for real estate related results. Link building and long tail keywords are great for desktop internet searches but be sure to do your homework on keyword strings for mobile devices before you spend your time and money on optimizing your mobile website.
2. Voice search: there has been a rise in popularity of using voice search on mobile devices via Google and Yahoo search apps, or Apple Siri for example. This, again, makes internet searching easier for the user but requires more optimization from the REALTOR®. Instead of a prospect typing “New Jersey Real Estate” into Google they may say “Affordable Housing in New Jersey with Top Rated Schools” — so again comes that research needed to maximize your keywords in order to optimize your mobile websites.
3. Sociability: mobile internet use is dominated by social media, topping 90% of total use already! I’ve stressed the importance of social media in real estate marketing plans in previous posts so I am going to keep this bullet short — if you are not using Facebook, Twitter, a blog, YouTube or any other social networking platform now good luck my friend!
4. Geo-Targeting: geo-location is used to enhance website and search functionality to show localized search results. Mobile users are on the move (DUH!) therefore search results are highly likely to fluctuate more on mobile devices than desktop computers because of the change in location where the internet search is being preformed. Make sure your mobile website is built with the tools necessary to offer the best localized information.
5. Immediacy: mobile users want information on the spot, so giving them the resources needed will enhance the ‘stickiness’ of your mobile website (stickiness – meaning prospects keep coming back to your site/app). If you have an easy to use/understand listing search solution, dynamic content and great response time on your lead follow up you are definitely ahead of the game.

So with that in mind REALTORS® and their web masters have a lot on their plate. Technology is always changing and we need to keep up! Be sure to think about the list above when managing your internet marketing presences. Good Luck!

RE/Advantage has the tools and knowledge necessary to give you a great mobile solution with built in location based search-ability (in regards to listing searches for your prospects) and SEO friendly content building for your mobile website. Let us know what we can help you with!

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