tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87792552907057479122008-12-16T13:41:46.805-08:00Real Estate SEO Program for Real Estate Agents and Brokers. Rank higher on Google, Yahoo, and MSN with our proprietary method which has given us numerous top ranked positions in the real estate industry.Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-59359591933196093742008-10-17T14:01:00.001-07:002008-10-17T20:25:50.482-07:00

I was recently asked how to control the text that gets displayed along with each link in the search results.  This is a good question, this text is your chance to tell searchers exactly what to expect from your site and entice them to click on the link and visit your page. The highlighted yellow text in the image below is an example of this text at work:  So how does Google generate this text? 

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-11752551300643598742008-10-16T13:07:00.001-07:002008-10-17T14:05:12.651-07:00

The behavior of users as they fly around the internet with the use search engines is an interesting topic that reveals the importance of SEO and ranking for top positions.  It is fairly intuitive that ranking number 1 or 2 for a highly searched term is good, but the question is how good?    Here are some numbers that shed light on the real benefits of rank position by taking a look at the

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-36968806968318817402008-09-30T16:54:00.001-07:002008-09-30T16:54:21.402-07:00

Every once in a while I come across a new SEO tool that works exactly how I want it to and it opens the door for a lot of great ideas.  This is one of those tools.  The people over at TagCrowd.com have put together a simple way to convert any webpage, copied text, or document into a visualized tag cloud.  Tag clouds are really just a visual depiction of the word content of a site, the more

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-52481958210197085912008-09-18T13:10:00.000-07:002008-10-21T15:49:12.387-07:00

I'm a big believer of "raising the free line".  This is the idea of creating as much value loaded information as possible and then just giving it away for free.  Why?  The Internet has dramatically changed consumers expectation of a valuable product and we're ahead of the game; and maybe a little bit crazy.  All cards on the table, my goal is to create enough trust to build strong working

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-60097868731091424502008-08-21T11:21:00.000-07:002008-09-09T16:13:09.417-07:00

Some Google History Google began in January 1996, as a research project by Larry Page, who was soon joined by Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University in California.  They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better ranking of results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-34313027403359612882008-08-15T15:45:00.000-07:002008-08-15T16:24:53.021-07:00

A Blidget is a widget that displays your blog (Example below to the left). As ridiculous as that is to say Blidgets are a simple - and free - way to drive additional readers to your blog and make it more 'sticky'. You can make a custom Blidget for your blog in minutes and then share or embed your Blidget on as many websites as you want. Once it's setup your Blidget's views, clicks

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-36138934945433714442008-08-01T16:16:00.001-07:002008-08-01T20:34:52.151-07:00

Starting today we're offering one FREE month - no strings attached - of our Silver Level SEO Coaching ($500 value) to any real estate professional who completes our SEO Questionnaire. If you are interested in finding out what it takes to effectively compete online in your market and begin implementing our proven strategies then this is an offer you can't pass up. Limited spots available so sign

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-17341006389230591742008-07-24T13:41:00.000-07:002008-09-18T15:07:36.450-07:00

After selecting the right search phrase (Generally "City"+"Real Estate" for the sites we work with) it is useful to be able to evaluate the competition already showing up in the results for that term. Use these tips to evaluate the competitive landscape for any given search term. These two factors, and having a solid SEO strategy, will determine the time and effort it takes to obtain top search

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-22032627645959983412008-07-17T15:32:00.000-07:002008-12-01T15:51:36.357-08:00

What are you doing to capture leads with your website right now? Your website should be using 3, 4, 5+ ways to capture leads and convert traffic into contacts and ultimately closes. Assuming you are generating some traffic through your site, these are some of the best practices in online real estate lead generation that your competitor is already using. 1. Solid IDX Solution - IDX stands for

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-79521977495146636402008-07-15T16:15:00.000-07:002008-07-31T11:35:36.843-07:00

A few days ago Google updated the "What's an SEO?" page of their Webmaster Help Center. They have done a good job to outline the benefits professional SEO companies provide while giving advice on how to spot and avoid unethical SEO companies. Here are the six questions - and our answers - that Google recommends you ask a prospective SEO company: 1. Can you show me examples of your previous

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-39106677875132904392008-07-02T20:56:00.000-07:002008-07-28T16:40:50.112-07:00

In late February of this year we launched http://www.VancouverPowerSearch.com/ from scratch and now four and a half months later we are ranked on the front page of Google for the terms Vancouver Real Estate and Vancouver BC Real Estate. This is pretty fast results given the normal sandbox period for a new domain. A few months back we were noticing that Google was starting to rank sites a bit

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-16058799017984159472008-06-27T08:58:00.001-07:002008-07-28T16:42:16.110-07:00

For me it's very simple. SEO gives the real estate agent or firm a truly unfair advantage over other agents or offices in their marketplace. Over the last six years as a real estate professional I have had a very profitable career in real estate and that is for one very simple reason: I know how to rank my real estate websites to the top of the search engines for the terms that consumers use

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-32390177879434066152008-06-26T10:38:00.001-07:002008-07-28T16:45:18.212-07:00

We've been in discussions this last week with a client who is in a major metro who wants to dominate this major metro and the main metro term. It turns out there is some significant competition in this metro so we have been looking at what strategies it takes to go after a major metro. Almost every major city in the country has many sub cities. Many of these sub cities and neighborhoods are

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-16808055774921622032008-06-23T21:48:00.001-07:002008-06-23T22:53:18.943-07:00

Since around March 2004 Google has placed newly hosted "real estate" websites in what is commonly referred to as a Sandbox. Essentially if your keywords include a significant number of references to real estate including your title tags and description tags it is likely that your site will not rank for a few months via Google. This is one of the reasons why when you do trade links with other

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-4121572894819216022008-06-20T16:13:00.001-07:002008-06-23T12:07:33.261-07:00

Adobe Flash is one way to add media and rich Internet applications to a website. Done right flash is visually appealing and encourages a high level of interactivity with visitors making a website "sticky". The problem with flash is that search engines like Google and Yahoo choke on understanding what content and links are contained within it. Because of this limitation, when incorporating

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-55385167631906608422008-06-20T10:33:00.001-07:002008-06-20T10:41:47.485-07:00

A couple of days ago I mentioned SeoDigger as a way to evaluate what keywords your competition is ranked for, the amount of traffic those keywords are driving to their website and the ranking of those keywords on Google. Now in order to be relevant wouldn't it be really cool if Google would tell you what words they expected to show up on pages or sites with the keywords you are optimizing around

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-53061155553704502652008-06-20T09:42:00.001-07:002008-06-23T14:10:04.390-07:00

Having worked with a number of blogging platforms over the years including Wordpress, ActiveRain (for Real Estate Blogging), and Blogger which is the back end for the blog here on Working The Magic I am blown away at the difference between using Blogger vs. ActiveRain. Now ActiveRain is awesome for the amount of actual readership and commentary on posts in relatively short order so as a social

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-44873838372872845962008-06-18T17:19:00.001-07:002008-06-18T17:52:53.667-07:00

CMS - Content Management System vs. Blogging for Real Estate Okay... I'll let you in a little secret... It's much easier to blog on SEO then it is to blog on Real Estate. First of all blogging is about having an opinion, making an argument and backing it up with content. It's hard to take a controversial position on real estate. I know. I've tried. Now that's not to say there aren't agents who

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-79281666633539925182008-06-18T16:26:00.000-07:002008-06-18T17:08:49.984-07:00

So you want to do SEO for a real estate website? What do you need? Well generally speaking your going to need to be a bit of web designer, content developer, blogger, researcher, link builder and have a techie bent to name a few of the general job functions. You should enjoy getting under the hood of your website like your Dad used to like to get under the hood of the family car. If you don't

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-83124075603087506322008-06-18T12:15:00.000-07:002008-06-30T10:03:24.266-07:00

Despite spending the majority (An understatement) of my time working SEO, Search Engine Optimization, to achieve top organic results in Google and other search engines I enjoy experimenting with online advertising campaigns. Online advertising campaigns work well in the early stages of launching a website to drive traffic and begin converting leads from day 1. The downfall of this type of

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-4730693530197883782008-06-18T10:50:00.001-07:002008-06-18T11:45:37.073-07:00

It's a bit of an adrenalin rush to think about dominating a major search term like "Seattle Real Estate" vs a smaller market like "Bellingham WA Real Estate". Having dominated both terms for about five years I can tell you that as a REALTOR being dominant for Bellingham Washington is a much more fulfilling experience then dominating Seattle. The simple reason is that as an agent and now company

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-55346899833343446982008-06-17T10:51:00.000-07:002008-06-19T10:57:56.555-07:00

How did your visitors find your website? Who stayed and for how long? What pages are performing the best/worst? These are a few important questions to ask yourself about the ongoing health of your website and Google Analytics has the answers. Best of all, it's free. Below is a recent screen shot of the Dashboard of one of our Google Analytics accounts for May 17th - June 16th. All data can be

Gabe Hoggarthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03240234132305552032noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-50969844281952888272008-06-16T11:45:00.000-07:002008-06-16T18:24:17.894-07:00

At some point I'm sure I'll talk about PPC strategies however I wanted to contrast SEO vs PPC. PPC means Pay-per-click. All the main search engines provide some sort of Pay-per-click system. These result in text based content showing up on the search engines themselves and if you choose also as text based ads on other websites where the websites have decided to subscribe to the text ads as in

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-1540067352451926302008-06-16T10:38:00.000-07:002008-06-16T11:11:29.307-07:00

One of the first things I did when I first started to work on my own sites was to look at the sites that ranked at the top of the search engines for terms that I thought made the most sense. By using the Google Toolbar I was able to do a search for a term. Look at the result and click on the highlighter button on the toolbar and I would see how many times the search term showed up on the site

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8779255290705747912.post-28534918885521520952008-06-16T00:31:00.001-07:002008-06-16T08:14:00.083-07:00

For the last couple of days I've been reviewing ActiveRain a bit and reading many of the SEO related blogs there. It seems that most of the SEO commentary is relating to blogging as the primary vehicle for generating traffic to a website. I did read a bit of a blog from Mary McKnight who definitely does a bit of blogging on ActiveRain as well as I'm sure other places as well and she had a post on

Glenn Sanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12031082944736825108noreply@blogger.com1