Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

How to Be Many Places At Once

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

Real estate is such a “local” business that anything you can do to associate your business with your locality will help you stand out and be found more easily.  Here’s a very cool free tool that will help your business get listed in multiple major online business directories faster than you can say “bi-location”…

First Check Your Business Listings Then Get Listed

Get Listed is a free site that a) first checks to see if you are listed in the major online business directories and search engines, b) helps you get listed in the ones you currently are not.  After entering in your business name and zip code it takes just seconds for it to check six of the major search engines and business directory and then provide you a result page similar to the example below:

For the ones you are not currently listed it will allow you to enter your information right from their Website making the process very easy and convenient.  And this is just the beginning because GetListed.org also provides additional guidance on how to maximize your online hyper-local presence that is so important for both SEO and professional credibility.

Take a few minutes to Get Listed now and in a few weeks or months you will be glad you did.

Essential Content

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Over the past 2 weeks I’ve been involved in a research project which had me viewing hundreds of real estate websites. I’m compelled to write this article based on what I saw while conducting my research. Although I didn’t keep track of the following results in a scientific manner you can get a rough idea of the problems I saw.

  • Lack of relevant key words – 80% (ie: name of the town, area or major employer, the term relocation, relocate or moving to…)
  • Lack of phone number on home page – 40%  (I was surprised by the number of sites that actually “hide” their phone number deep inside their site, usually on their contact page)
  • Lack of office location – 50% (If I am not from your area how can I locate your office?)
  • Lack of how you can benefit the customer and/or client – 30% (I was surprised to see websites still dedicated to the attributes of the agent, the agent’s family, the agent’s hobbies, the agent’s pets, even the agent’s grandchildren. I think Facebook and LinkedIn are the proper venues for this-but more on this in another article)
  • Lack of sophisticated, dynamic, interactive websites – 65% (This observation really startled me. With all of the inexpensive template website companies today it is a shame that an agent would have a website that looks like it was designed in 1970.)

Now, why should I be bothered about these statistics? Look at today’s economy. It is bad for many real estate agents and these agents are wondering how they can survive. If you are in this category then take a look at your online presence. You aren’t still in the last century are you? You can get virtually left behind if you don’t keep up!

Take a good look at your website and the content. Are you offering anything valuable to a visitor? What do your visitors consider valuable? Do you really know what your website visitors are looking for? Do you really have an idea how people search and find what they are looking for?  You’ve got to know! You aren’t spending the money on a website just to give a visitor something to fill up a few minutes of their free time, are you? No!! The ultimate goal is to generate business!

What do you need to generate business? You need a visitor that is informed about the services you offer or specialize in and is compelled to take action and contact you. This also means you need the visitor to know how to contact you. Your phone number and address needs to be in a prominent position, above the fold, on every page. Don’t make your visitors search! They didn’t come to your page to play hide and seek!

Speaking of hide and seek, can the right people find your site? If you want to attract a specific niche market then your site needs to be optimized to attract those customers you desire. If the largest employer in your area relocates a lot of executives on a regular basis and that is your desired market then make sure your site reflects that. Don’t have a site that is so general that no one can locate you when they are searching for real estate information in your area.

What you want for your website is essential content! You want content that is necessary to the visitors and that in turn will generate business for you.  If you need a website review please contact me and I’ll give your site an unbiased opinion and let you know if your site is meeting the needs of your intended target.

EDITOR’S NOTE: this is a re-post from Guest Author Jeri Winkler who is a VA and CEO of The Secret Assistant.  We invited Jeri to post her article here because it complements the most recent one by Mr. Internet (Seven Qualities of a High-Performance Website).

Seven Qualities of a High-Performance Website

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

The vast majority of real estate sales associate Websites fail miserably to come anywhere close to achieving their full business-producing potential online.  Typically these sites fail in a number of different ways.  Here is a powerful way you can self assess your own site to see what works, what doesn’t and what to do about it…

It’s Not Just About Driving Traffic

Driving traffic to your site is easy.  Getting visitors to engage and convert into serious clients is not.  In fact there are seven major qualities that your site needs to get right before it can be a fully productive online presence:

  1. Targeting & Branding – This is how well your site is targeted and differentiates itself to a specific niche market.  Less than 2% of all real estate Websites are targeted. In their attempt to “speak to everyone” they end up talking to no one.
  2. Design – Just because a site is beautiful doesn’t mean it will be effective (just ask any agent who has spent thousands on a “beautiful” site only to see it not produce a dime of new business).  Design needs to take into account many factors including being consistent with the nature of your target market and branding.
  3. Copy & Content – The primary purpose of you copy and content is to engage the visitor and effectively answer the question “What’s in it for me?” from their perspective.  It has been my experience that most real estate Web copy fails completely in this respect.
  4. Interactivity / Ability to Engage – Information, even great information is not enough.  Your content needs to engineered to maximize engagement via irresistible offers.
  5. Navigation – Ease of use and consistency are the hallmarks of good Website navigation.
  6. “Internet Empowered Consumer” Friendliness – Reassurances of privacy throughout your site and explicitly not requiring consumers to reveal who they are when they complete a form are crucial for your visitors to feel safe and secure when using your site.
  7. Promotion & Tracking – How your site is promoted depends upon its target market focus. Keep in mind that some target markets will NOT use search engines to find your site.

NOTE: You can self-assess your own Website for these qualities by downloading a 40 Point Website Assessment form I use to evaluate agent sites.  Just go to www.Facebook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools” tab at the top and follow the instructions on the assessment form.

Don’t Bother Calling a Web Designer –Yet

There is no such thing as perfect, only a constant state of refinement to continually improve a Website’s ability to generate business and differentiate you from your competition.  It takes many months of planning before you even THINK about talking to a Web designer.  Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite approach used by most people in the business.

Even the most gifted designer cannot make an effective Website that scores high in all of the above categories until you give them your written plan and vision for dominating a particular niche.  Think of it this way: 90% planning, 10% building and execution.  Once you give them your plan, the building of the site is actually fairly straightforward.

Here are some sites that score very high on the above mentioned assessment:

Each of the above sites are highly targeted and required 3 – 6 months of intense planning before their owners even spoke to a Web designer.  Take a few moments to examine each one carefully and you will see why they all score so high on the Website Assessment.

Improving your site’s performance starts with determining what its weaknesses are and then taking very well thought out and committed action to correct them, one at a time.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: another version of this article was first published in REALTOR Magazine Online a couple of weeks back. Despite the warning above about not seeking out a Web designer prior to planning your site, apparently that is what many people who read this article did.  In speaking with Bobby Carroll of Dakno (the design firm for all of the above sites) he said their phone “rang off the hook” with agents wanting sites “just like the ones in the article”.  Another example of how people look but don’t see and read but don’t get it…

Facebook vs. Google

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Last week I posted an article on how powerful Facebook Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising could be for your business.  Since then I’ve received responses from people who say it is not all that great shakes.  This is clearly a case of discovering a new “hammer” and thinking everything is the same kind of nail.  It’s all about using the right tool, for the right purpose at the right time.  Here are some tips that will help you choose the right business promotion tool for the job.

Facebook is about Interests

I recently challenged one of my ULTRA eTEAM members, Roman Pavlik to use Facebook to drive traffic to his new highly targeted DownTownLivingMiami.com Website.  Since most of his buyers for luxury downtown Miami condos come from New York, Canada and South America he targeted his Facebook ads to people who live in those areas.  Let’s just say there are a lot of Facebook members living in those areas.  In a very short period of time (literally just a couple of days) he had over 60,000 ad impressions.  Unfortunately, not one person clicked on his ads.  And to add insult to injury, Facebook stopped showing his ads (after all, they want to make money too!)

So Brad Carroll (our Online Dominance Social Networking Mastermind coach) and I suggested that he further refine his targeting by including interests that would be consistent with anything having to do with Miami.  For example, people living in Canada, New York and South America who are interested in Miami sports teams and so on.  While this refinement substantially reduced his pool of Facebook members that would see his ad, the click throughs to his site shot up (he had 24 just in a couple of days vs. zero before).

When advertising on Facebook, less is more and you really have to think about which member interests are most likely follow through on your ad’s call to action.

Google is About Wants and Needs

When someone searches on Google, by definition they are looking for something specific (i.e. a want or need).  In this case, it makes perfect sense for Roman to complement his Facebook advertising with a Google PPC campaign targeting people who are specifically interested in buying downtown Miami condos.  A little closer to home, I am personally involved in syndicating GoArmyHomes.com Websites for every army base on U.S. soil.  Part of this process includes driving substantial traffic to each respective base site.  At first we considered running Facebook ads because there are well over 300,000 Facebook members who are also in the army.  The only problem is that a tiny fraction of those will be interested in going to any particular base at any particular time.  Without a doubt if we had pursued that course of action we would not have seen any click throughs and Facebook would have shut our ad campaign down.  In this case, our PPC options are clearly better with Google.  However, Facebook is the tool to use as we begin to promote our GoArmyHomes Facebook page.

Facebook and Google are two awesome online advertising tools.  It’s just a matter of knowing which one is the best option for the task at hand and using it in the manner that produces the best results for the lowest cost.  With a little bit of practice and patience, you will get the hang of it :0)

Climbing the SEO Ladder with Real Estate Keywords

Sunday, June 6th, 2010
I’m sure by now you have all heard of Google rankings. We are all striving to climb that ladder up to the top of the search engine. It is called building your SEO – Search Engine Optimization. This coveted top spot is not something that Google is trying to hide from you – in fact, they have a special tool just to help you get there. It’s called the Google Keyword Tool, designed to help improve your Google rankings.

But if Google wasn’t quite helpful enough, a man named Kevin Harper wants to make it even easier for all you Real Estate agents out there. He has created a site called the Real Estate Keywords Tool. For all of the times that you have tried to update your web page or blogged and racked your brain trying to figure out what words you should be using to get you nearer to that top spot – this tool takes out all of the guess work.

Here’s how it works. All you need to do is enter your state, along with your core cities, counties, or other local geographic areas.  You can then adjust the keyword modifiers in the right that you wish to optimize the most. Once you click “Submit Keywords” at the bottom, you are given a whole laundry list of keywords that you can use for future reference.

Copy and paste these keywords into a document and refer to them when you are ready to update your website or when you write your next blog. You can get up to 1,587 keyword variations.  This may seem a little overwhelming to include in a blog post or a webpage, but remember that you can always use these words to put in your Meta tags. These are those tags that aren’t visible to visitors, but are visible to search engines.

Plus, it gives you more ammunition to use for all those future blogs you will be writing. If you don’t have time to blog and don’t know how to SEO your website content, this is a perfect project for your Real Estate Virtual Assistant. Have them perform the search and store the keywords for you. Every time they blog on your behalf, make sure they use up a handful of the keywords. You’ll be soaring to the top of that SEO ladder in no time!

Carrie Gable of RealSupport, Inc. is our “VA Quick Tip” columnist offering expertise in real estate marketing, technology and more. RealSupport’s office and team of 9 full-time staff members is located near Chicago, IL. Their successful team works virtually for many top real estate agents nationwide. Pioneers in the Real Estate Virtual Assistant industry, RealSupport offers marketing, website and logo design, branding, lead generation, technical support, transaction management and more.

Contact Carrie
Visit us Online at RealSupportInc.com
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Copy and Paste For New Web Traffic

Monday, April 26th, 2010

I get asked all the time about how to prevent people from copying content off their Websites and blogs.  Now there is a service that will have you hoping they will!

Copy Me —Please!

Tynt is a new free service that will track what is being copied off your Web and blog sites and help you drive traffic back to those sites as a result.  After you set up your free account you are given a short bit of code to add to your Website pages you want to track.  For blogs it’s actually much easier.  It shows you (or your Webmaster) how to add the code just once and which will then cover every page and post of your blog (highly suggested).

Once your site or blog is loaded in this way any time someone copies and pasts an image or text from your site / blog and pastes it into theirs, a social networking site like Facebook or even an email, it will automatically include an attribution link back to where it was copied from.  This provides a powerful and automatic way to build link backs that will drive more traffic to your site and raise its SEO positioning.  Oh, there’s one more thing.  You can even set Tynt up so that anytime someone copies and pastes your content online, it will generate a Tweet about it in your Twitter account.

Here’s a short video explaining the entire process:

So now instead of dreading that someone is “ripping you off” you can actually benefit every time they send a part of your work to their friends and associates.  BTW, feel free to copy any part of this post and forward on to others, you have my whole-hearted permission :0)

DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them.  RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants do not receive any compensation whatsoever from third party vendors and are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein.  If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned.

Explode Your Facebook Fan Page Base For No Cost

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Explode your fan base on FaceBook...Douglas Newby is one of my long-time students who had zero (0) fans for his FaceBook fan page last September (2009).  As of the date of this post he has well over 48,000 fans, each of which contributes to his search engine rankings.  Here’s how he did it and how you can explode your fan base without spending a dime.  NOTE: if you already have a fan page and want to learn the secret of explosively growing your fan base for no cost without having to read this whole article, just go to www.FaceBook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools!” tab.

Personal Profile vs. Fan Page

There are two primary ways you can represent yourself on FaceBook:

  1. Personal Profile – everyone who has a FaceBook account has a profile page.  This is your “home base” for all your friends and family to connect with you in a personal way on personal (i.e. not business) matters.  While how you grow and manage your “friend base” is a topic for another post, suffice it to say it doesn’t even come close to helping your business as the next way.
  2. Fan Page – sometimes also referred to as your business page. This is where you try to attract and interact with people who are part of your target market or at least connected to it in some way.  Now this next part is very important:  The more targeted fans you have, the more Google will see you as being relevant and important in your field of real estate expertise.  And this translates to significant gains for your search engine rankings.  For example, Douglas Newby is essentially a one-man shop in Dallas, yet his site consistently out-ranks those of companies in his area with 1,000 or more agents.

To create a Fan page in FaceBook simply go to www.facebook.com/pages/create.php and follow the simple steps.  Now there are some things you might want to do jazz it up so it looks attractive and engaging.  There are plenty of articles written about this that go into more depth (just Google “How do you create a fan page on FaceBook”).

Once created, Facebook will give your fan page an innocuous looking URL that no one would ever remember.  However, once you have at least 25 fans, you can get your own URL that is tied to your brand.  This is crucial that you do this ASAP!!  Get your friends and family to become fans so you hit your 25 fan threshold as quickly as possible.  Then go to NameChk.com to see if your intended name (i.e. brand name) is still available on nearly every social media portal on the Net.  If so, grab it immediately on FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube at the very least.

Growing Your Fan Base

Douglas Newby did something rather clever to build his fan base from 25 to about 2,000 in a short period of time.  He simply created a FaceBook ad targeted to people on FaceBook who are interested in modern architecture.  His ads were set up as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) which means if they clicked on his ad, they automatically became a fan.  Keep in mind however, this method is not free and each fan you bring in this way costs you money.  Once he hit the 2,000 mark, his fan page went wildly viral and started growing exponentially by word of mouth from his initial base.  The reason his fan base grew so quickly after that is a) his content is extremely interesting to his target market, and b) there are millions of people all over the world that are interested in fine modern architecture.

Here are several ways you can grow your fan base without spending money:

  • Send emails to your clients and prospects suggesting that they become a fan;
  • Place a “Become a Fan!” widget on your Websites and blogs.

While these methods may add marginally to your fan base, don’t expect rapid growth this way.  The key to explosively growing your fan base consists of two parts: 1) make sure you have something of extreme value in the eyes of your target market, and 2) well, it will have more impact if I demonstrate it for you —just go to www.FaceBook.com/OnlineDominance and click the “Cool Tools!” tab and you will instantly see how this second part works :0)

You will find that taking the time to aggressively grow your targeted fan base will have a dramatically positive impact on your online bottom line.  There is simply nothing more powerful in marketing than having a bunch of raving fans…

Photo Blogging Your Way to the Top of the Search Engines

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Photo blog from your cell phone...There is no question that blogging can be a powerful tool to help you and your Website stand out from the crowd and generate new business. And, as many have already discovered, it can be time consuming and a lot of work —until now.

Here’s an innovative way to post compelling content to your blog in just seconds that will also help propel your site to the top of the search engine results.

Photo Blogging: Cell Phone to Blog Post in 90 Seconds Flat

Photo blogging is a way to leverage what you do best every day, look at properties and use your cell phone, to create fresh search engine relevant content for your blog even several times a day.  Here’s how it works:

STEP 1 – Snap a cell phone picture of a listing in your market area

STEP 2 – Compose an email with the address of the listing as the subject line and just a sentence or two describing the property.

STEP 3 – Send the email to a special address that once received will instantly post your subject line as the blog post title, insert the photo and follow it up with the descriptive text as the main body of your post.

There you have it, about 90 seconds total (unless you are all thumbs like me, then figure 2 minutes).  And what is really cool is that you haven’t broken your daily routine to do it.  And no more staring at a blank computer screen trying to figure out what to post while you could be out, well… looking at property.

Now at this point you are probably thinking “Awesome, I can do that!  Ahhh, what’s that special address I need to send these emails to?” As you might have guessed, there’s just a little bit of set up you have to do before you start photo blogging yourself silly…

Getting Started

The first thing you want to do is set up a free account at Posterous.com.  Once set up, you will be able to send your cell phone posts to post@posterous.com and it will “know” who sent it (it also works with email sent from any device, including your computer).  Now if this is far as you go, Posterous will automatically create your blog and handle updating it via your emails.  However, if you want to maximize your “Google Juice” that a frequently updated blog can give you and have a look & feel that is consistent with your brand, then there are a few other things that you want to do:

  1. Create a sub-domain from your main Website domain that points to your photo blog.  For example, if your main site domain is “LuxuryMountainHomes.com” then you may want to set your photo blog URL as “photoblog.LuxuryMountainHomes.com” with links to it on every page of your site.  By doing this, search engines like Google will attribute the new photo blog content to your entire site.  And since you used the property address as the post title, your site’s relevancy for your market area increases with every submission.
  2. Have your Web designer modify the look and feel of your Posterous blog to be consistent with that of your main Website.

By doing the above, you now have a way to constantly be adding high-relevancy blog content to your site throughout the day, day-in day-out without breaking a sweat.

IMPORTANT: if you already have a blog with more traditional content, be sure to make your photo blog separate from it.  Not everyone subscribed to your current blog will want to receive your photo blog posts throughout the day.

Remember, the main benefit of a photo blog is quickly and easily adding search engine relevant content to your site on a regular basis, not necessarily to inform a reader base.

From $250K to $600K Average Sales Price in Just a Few Months

Walter Burns is a condo specialist with Weichert Realtors in Hoboken, NJ.  Thanks to his social media efforts (a large part of which is his photo blogging) his average transaction prices have soared from $250,000 to over $600,000 in short period of time.  You can see his photo blog by going to http://photos.livingonthehudson.com/.  You will notice that in addition to his photo blog he has a traditional one as well, both of which are seamlessly integrated into his main site www.LivingOnTheHudson.com.  If you examine both, you will see that the frequency of his posts to his photo blog is far greater than his regular one.  And for good reason, it’s so darn easy!

Whether you are brand new to blogging or a seasoned social networking pro, photo blogging is one tool you should be using on a daily basis.  If you can take photos and text with your cell phone, you can photo blog.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.


Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.russer.com


This article is reprinted in its entirety from the February 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.

There is no question that blogging can be a powerful tool to help you and your Website stand out from the crowd and generate new business. And, as many have already discovered, it can be time consuming and a lot of work —until now.  Here’s an innovative way to post compelling content to your blog in just seconds that will also help propel your site to the top of the search engine results.

Photo Blogging: Cell Phone to Blog Post in 90 Seconds Flat

Photo blogging is a way to leverage what you do best every day, look at properties and use your cell phone, to create fresh search engine relevant content for your blog even several times a day.  Here’s how it works:

STEP 1 – Snap a cell phone picture of a listing in your market area

STEP 2 – Compose an email with the address of the listing as the subject line and just a sentence or two describing the property.

STEP 3 – Send the email to a special address that once received will instantly post your subject line as the blog post title, insert the photo and follow it up with the descriptive text as the main body of your post.

There you have it, about 90 seconds total (unless you are all thumbs like me, then figure 2 minutes).  And what is really cool is that you haven’t broken your daily routine to do it.  And no more staring at a blank computer screen trying to figure out what to post while you could be out, well… looking at property.

Now at this point you are probably thinking “Awesome, I can do that!  Ahhh, what’s that special address I need to send these emails to?” As you might have guessed, there’s just a little bit of set up you have to do before you start photo blogging yourself silly…

Getting Started

The first thing you want to do is set up a free account at Posterous.com.  Once set up, you will be able to send your cell phone posts to post@posterous.com and it will “know” who sent it (it also works with email sent from any device, including your computer).  Now if this is far as you go, Posterous will automatically create your blog and handle updating it via your emails.  However, if you want to maximize your “Google Juice” that a frequently updated blog can give you and have a look & feel that is consistent with your brand, then there are a few other things that you want to do:

a) Create a sub-domain from your main Website domain that points to your photo blog.  For example, if your main site domain is “LuxuryMountainHomes.com” then you may want to set your photo blog URL as “photoblog.LuxuryMountainHomes.com” with links to it on every page of your site.  By doing this, search engines like Google will attribute the new photo blog content to your entire site.  And since you used the property address as the post title, your site’s relevancy for your market area increases with every submission.

b) Have your Web designer modify the look and feel of your Posterous blog to be consistent with that of your main Website.

By doing the above, you now have a way to constantly be adding high-relevancy blog content to your site throughout the day, day-in day-out without breaking a sweat.  IMPORTANT: if you already have a blog with more traditional content, be sure to make your photo blog separate from it.  Not everyone subscribed to your current blog will want to receive your photo blog posts throughout the day.  Remember, the main benefit of a photo blog is quickly and easily adding search engine relevant content to your site on a regular basis, not necessarily to inform a reader base.

From $250K to $600K Average Sales Price in Just a Few Months

Walter Burns is a condo specialist with Weichert Realtors in Hoboken, NJ.  Thanks to his social media efforts (a large part of which is his photo blogging) his average transaction prices have soared from $250,000 to over $600,000 in short period of time.  You can see his photo blog by going to http://photos.livingonthehudson.com/.  You will notice that in addition to his photo blog he has a traditional one as well, both of which are seamlessly integrated into his main site www.LivingOnTheHudson.com.  If you examine both, you will see that the frequency of his posts to his photo blog is far greater than his regular one.  And for good reason, it’s so darn easy!

Whether you are brand new to blogging or a seasoned social networking pro, photo blogging is one tool you should be using on a daily basis.  If you can take photos and text with your cell phone, you can photo blog.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.


Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.russer.com


This article is reprinted in its entirety from the January 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.

Google Now Has a Need For Speed

Friday, January 8th, 2010

I have a need for speed!Just when you thought all that Google cared about was fresh, relevant content, they go and throw another wrench into the works.  A few days ago Google announced that their page-ranking algorithms are now going to take page loading speed into account.  This means all those sites that have really cool revolving banner images have just been knocked down a notch in the page-ranking wars.  It also means that if you site is slow for *any* reason, it suddenly becomes a disadvantage to your search term rankings.

Google is all about delivering relevant results and a good user experience during the search process.  Apparently the Meisters in charge of tweaking their sacred ranking algorithms feel that a slow site inherently detracts from the user experience.  Even in our current world of ubiquitous broadband Internet connections, this is still an issue.  Now it used to be that all you had to do was optimize your images to improve page loading speed, not any more…

Google Page Speed

Google provides a free tool call Page Speed that Web developers can use to test your site’s loading speed and then optimize it for the best possible performance.  The issues it addresses are quite technical and go way beyond the scope of this kind of post.  So what do you do if you don’t happen to have a second career as a geek?  Contact your current Web developer and tell them you have, in the immortal words of Tom Cruise in Top Gun, “a need for speed!” and let them figure it out.

Find Out How Your Website Ranks for FREE!

Friday, December 4th, 2009

I came across this FREE site, www.KPMRS.com recently, and thought it was a pretty cool way to track your website’s Search Engine Rankings.

First, what is a search engine ranking? How high your site comes up when a keyword is searched for on a search engine.

For example, my keyword/phrase is “Chicago Illinois Real Estate”. When I type in “Chicago Illinois Real Estate” on Google, what number does my site come up? First, third, twenty-second?

This free site allows you to track this number for one website for free (the paid version allows tracking mulitple sites). It gives you google, yahoo, and bing! This is great for those of you (like myself) who are simply curious, but even more powerful, you can use it as a tracking tool when implementing any kind of search engine optimization.

If you are planning on or have recently implemented some new keywords onto your site, or started blogging using your keywords (see our Google Juice blog post for more on this) – then now is the time to start tracking your progress!

It is so easy, you can sign up for a free account with KPMRS.com or don’t sign up and just check your site on the homepage!

The main difference between the paid service is that it saves your keywords and site information, so you don’t have to enter it each time you check it. It also offers email updates when your rankings change, an Iphone application and some fancy charts!

Below is an example of what the resulits look like when using the free, unsubscribed version:

WARNING: This is addictive! Once you start checking, I guarantee it will become a favorite pastime!

Want to know how you can improve your SEO through keywords, blogging and more? Contact your Real Estate Virtual Assistant to learn more!

Carrie Gable of RealSupport, Inc. is our “VA Quick Tip” columnist offering expertise in real estate marketing, technology and more. RealSupport’s office and team of 9 full-time staff members is located near Chicago, IL. Their successful team works virtually for many top real estate agents nationwide. Pioneers in the Real Estate Virtual Assistant industry, RealSupport offers marketing, website and logo design, branding, lead generation, technical support, transaction management and more.

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