Myrtle Beach Real Estate

Website Linking Strategies- Are your efforts paying off?

I wrote the other day How to Get Your Website to the First Page of Google which received an awesome response from many. One of the main points I discussed in that article was the importance of linking in your blog posts. I explained how this can be a vital part of your Search Engine Optimization and if done properly can bring great results.

Many questions were asked in the comment section as well as a few practices that were used by commenters that I wanted to address.  Before I get into that, let's do a quick review of what I'm talking about.  In that post I said:

"The more sites that are pointing links at your page (especially when titled with the keywords you are trying to achieve) will produce a great return.  One easy way to get some great links pointing to your site is to make sure you have added your business site to your profiles on any and all networks you participate in.  Links from higher ranking sites help the search engines realize that these sites recognize your website." 

Many who read the post I believe stopped reading there & rushed off to their twitter profile, Facebook profile and every other social network they participate on and started adding links.  But, if you read on, there was a very important disclaimer that went along with that statement.  I said: "One thing for sure, you need to be positive that the links you insert places are actually working for you.  Many networks block the search engines from following the links to prevent spam."

A common misconception is that when I place a link online, that link is automatically recognized by the search engines and is benefiting me each time I place it somewhere.  So, every time there is an opportunity to place a link, the instant notion is to place one.  Don't get me wrong, I am not saying do not place the link just because the search engines are not reading it.  I always place a link when there is a place asking me.  Even if the search engines do not follow it it still can bring a consumer reading that site to me. 

So, how do we know whether the link is a benefit or not?  What can we do to check?  As I have shared in the past, I am huge fan of using Firefox as my web browser because of the amazing add-ons they have to enhance & help you analyze your online presence. Firefox has an add-on called NoDoFollow.  This simple add-on can easily be turned on and off and show you whether the links you are leaving are being followed by the search engines or not.  Here is quick video showing you how NoDoFollow works:

Try using NoDoFollow and see how effective your linking strategies are.  My guess is that you will be surprised by some of the places that links are followed and not followed.

Anchoring Your Links

Another common mistake I see when inserting links is not setting them as anchor text.  What do I mean by anchor text? Anchor Text as defined by Wikipedia is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink.  Think of them in the most literal play on words possible, they anchor the link down for search engines to understand what that link is supposed to be.  So when you are writing your posts, instead of placing a link like this, http://www.eventbrite.com/event/581158260 you would make a link like this: How to Chug Google Juice & Gain 15 Years of Fame.  Not only does this assist the search engines in understanding what you are trying to say, it also assists consumers to know what they are about to click on. 

If both of those links were placed in a blog post, my guess is that the one with anchored text would be clicked on at a ratio of around 5:1 to the other link.  I wrote how to insert links into your blog a few months back, so if you are not sure the proper way to do so, visit the tutorial for assistance.  While this seems like a minor thing, if it is done properly over several hundred posts of content, it can really pay off in large dividends. 

Titling Your Links

This is another minor step that can help both consumers & search engines understand what you are trying to convey.  When adding a title to the link, it does exactly that, titles the link for everyone.  That way when someone hovers over a link, a pop-up appears with what that link is supposed to be.  So even though the link anchor might be Jason Crouch, and the link is to his profile, the title is completely different pops up when you hover over the link Jason Crouch.  Once again, a very minor thing to do that can result in many more clickthroughs and SEO benefits.

I hope this helps everyone have a better understanding on linking strategies.  If you have any questions, let me know. And by the way, 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors offers some really great personal coaching taught by myself and Jason Crouch on this subject.  We also have a webinar coming up where we will get into this in more detail.  Find more info here.

Photo Credit 1HappySnapper(photography)& John of Austin

Join Us This Thursday For Agents Helping Haiti, a Telethon to help families devastated by the recent earthquake in Haiti.  This 6 hour telethon will feature 30 minute segments with some of the most well known people in the real estate industry.  Come listen as they share some of their tools and secrets they use in their daily and support this cause. 

12 Top Real Estate Experts 12 BIG Ideas

12:00PM Kendra Todd- Shares of her trip to Haiti & REALTOR® Experience

12:30 PM Jeremy Blanton- How to Write a $10,000 Blog Post

1:00 PM Laurie Moore- How to Keep Your Foot Out of Your Mouth and In the Door

1:30 PM Frances Flynn Thorsen- Risk vs. Reward REALTOR® Foreclosure Pitfalls

2:00 PM Jason Crouch- The Importance of Building an Online Following

2:30 PM Ken Golde- Distressed Agents: Settling Your Own Debt

3:00 PM Jim Cronin- Social Media.  The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

3:30 PM Special Guest

4:00 PM Joeann Fossland- 6 Figure Referral Business Using Strategic Partners

4:30 PM Special Guest

5:00 PM Patti Kouri- 100% Intention- 100% of Your Results

5:30 PM Jay Kinder- 65 Million in Sales... How to List 500 Homes a Year

If you haven't heard by now, we are in 2010, (twenty-ten, two thousand ten, or my favorite, oh-ten) and as this new decade begins I see this year becoming more of a shift in the way consumers gain the information they need as well as how other consumers share their experiences with others.  I read an article the other day about consumer review based site Yelp being offered 500 million from Google to be purchased.  Yelp, however, turned down the offer from Google.

This being said, I really feel that as this year carries forward you will see more companies adopting the principles of consumer based reviews and question/answer sections on their sites.  The other day, I heard of a company called Formspring which allows you to easily add a Q&A to any site that you use.  This is a free service that takes virtually no time to set up, but could be very beneficial to your business.  Why?  Well, it is rather simple:

1.  Gives consumers an easy place to ask you questions about your business or your area.

2.  Gives you the ability to share your knowledge in a non publication type of arena with consumers.

3.  Allows consumers to find answers to other questions they may have without needing to fill out a form & feel as if someone will begin spamming them for business.  They can simply look through past questions & answers and possibly find what they need.

I said all this to get to the point of my post which was to tell everyone about what I have been up to these days. In addition to recently starting my own Social Media Consulting business with Jason Crouch called 210 Consulting, I also recently started a new job as a community manager for a company called SmartHippo.  SmartHippo is a site designed to allow the consumers a place to come and ask questions of lending professionals and receive free top quality answers directly from lenders.

Another awesome feature that SmartHippo offers is a platform for consumers to write reviews of the lender they used to benefit other consumers.  This should help to raise the bar of customer service provided by lenders as well as give other consumers a place to come and read unbiased opinions of a lender before making the largest decision of their life. A customer can read whether the rate quoted online was the same they received, the loan closed on time, the lender was prompt in returning calls, etc.  SmartHippo's main focus is to empower the consumer with as much knowledge as possible before getting a mortgage through these lender reviews. 

The last thing that SmartHippo allows which I think will be very beneficial to real estate agents is the ability to refer your customers to a site where the buyer can compare ALL the rates available in their area.  Unlike other sites that offer similar things, they will not be selling the leads to the highest bidder.  This means that buyers can see all the rates available in their area and make their own decision based on the reviews of the lender, the Q&A responses of the lender as well as the rate offered by them.

As a real estate agent, I see this being a great new tool to offer to your buyers to assist them make an informed decision on a mortgage as well as keep you from having to "recommend a lender" which we all hate to do for the liability associated with it.  You are no longer needing to make up lists of available lenders to share with a buyer or anything.  We all know how awkward that moment is when the buyer asks you "Which lender would you recommend?" You simply give the buyer a website and allow them to get all the information they need. 

So what are my duties with this new position?  Well, as the community manager, I have a few different roles.  The first is to help build our community through various different social media platforms.  (YouTube Channel, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, etc.)  My other main task right now is to create and manage our community blog that will consist of some of the top bloggers in the lending industry.  This includes writers like Ken Cook, Eleanor Thorne, & John Cannata.  The community blog known as "The Herd" will provide valuable content to buyers who are in the process of purchasing a home. I hope over the next few months to add several other top notch bloggers into the community.

I am really excited to join up with this SmartHippo and am really looking forward to what the future holds.  So, if you are unfamiliar with SmartHippo, please take a few minutes to check out their site here.  I think this can be a great tool for your customers to "Join the Herd, Save Money" as their slogan states.  Also, check back on my blog over the next few weeks as I will keep you updated about some really exciting features & updates of what is happening at SmartHippo!

Visit SmartHippo Now!

As a staff member here at ActiveRain, I probably read anywhere from 100-200 posts a day.  Well, not really read the entire post, but I look through at least that many daily.  One of the things that baffles me daily are the titles of posts.  Have you ever seen some posts with titles like these?

• Just Listed 3BR/3BA home for $199,900
• Hurry, 8,000 Tax Credit Expires soon!
• Home Sales Increasing, Buy Today!
• Now is a Great Time to Buy!
• Great Custom All Brick Home
  

I could continue on but I think by now you get the idea.  If you notice, all of these types of titles are nothing more than a cheesy tag line used in advertising.  Unfortunately, your blog is not meant to be used as an advertisement.  The point to writing your blogs is to share with consumers information that they want to know. 

I have covered this topic in my webinars the past few weeks for our new members that have not yet become a Rainmaker.  Many people over look the importance behind the title of your post and do not place a lot of thought on it.  The title is one of the most powerful parts of your blog posts for search engine optimization or SEO.  If you are using generic sales ad statements in your title then you are missing the ability to use your keywords & help your post to rank well in the search engines.  Also, I am not exactly sure how many people search for things in Google by phrases like: Just listed 3BR/2BA home on Cul-de-sac, Now is a great time to buy.  Why?  Well see what happens when you type in Now is a great time to buy.  When I just did that, the results brought back 307 million results.  Or, if you search for the term Just listed 3BR/2BA $199,000.  This brings back homes for sale in California, Philadelphia, and who knows where else.

So, instead of these very general sales ad titles, how should you be titling your posts?  Well, it is actually rather simple.  You want to be more specific on the title of your post.  Also, be sure to include your longtail keywords.  For example, if I was going to write about a new listing, the title should be something more along these lines:

Home for Sale in The Farm at Carolina Forest in Myrtle Beach, SC~ 123 ABC St. Myrtle Beach, SC 29579

The example above is targeted on my Keywords.  My keyword is the community, The Farm at Carolina Fores in Myrtle Beach, SC.  Also, by including the address in the title, it allows consumers who drive by the property and write down the address of the property to find my blog post.  If neither of those pieces of information is included it makes it very difficult for consumers to find the blog post.

In the example Home Sales Increasing, Buy Today, the title should be changed to something resembling this:

Sold Homes in The Gates Austin, TX increases by 12%. An Austin Texas Real Estate Market Report

This title once again Targets on the longtail keyword which is Sold Homes in The Gates Austin, TX.  Also, we have used other keywords that someone might use when doing a real estate search by saying Austin Texas Real Estate Market Report.  

These are just two basic examples of how to attract more readers to your posts just by making some simple changes to the title of your posts.  Use this tip and watch how your posts will begin to receive more traffic and better results in the search Engines.

Last week I wrote about the exciting new one on one training program that ActiveRain is offering for those who want to become a Rainmaker.  Well the response has been so great that I have been very busy with those sessions.  But, many have asked if I can do this as a live webinar so they can see things live as I point them out.

With that being said, I am proud to announce that I will now be offering Live Webinars each week for those that are new to blogging and have not yet become a Rainmaker.  These webinars will be on Monday & Wednesday every week. In the beginning there will be 3 sessions per week. Monday will host 2 webinars, one at 1PM EST and another at 6PM EST.  Wednesday's session will be at 1PM EST.  Each webinar is limited to only 25 seats, so the make sure you register immediately.  The sessions will last aprroximately 60-90 minutes in length.  Unfortunately, if you are already a Rainmaker, this class isn't for you.  But, there is a great training session that Steven is offering for those that are currently a Rainmaker.  Check out his full schedule here.

What will be covered in the Webinar?

How to Optimize Your ActiveRain Profile.
How to Insert Photos into your Blog
How to Insert Hyperlinks.
Setting up Your Outside Blog.
How to write effective blog posts for consumers & search engines.
How to use your blog to connect with your community.
Topics to write about on your blog.
Question & Answer

How Much?!? How Much?!?

This is the greatest part, these webinars are only going to be $5.00 per person! But wait, theres more!  The $5.00 that you spend to join these webinars is not going to go to waste.  Not only will you receive a top notch training session on how to write blogs effectively to show up in the top of search engines which is worth much more than $5.00 in itself, you will also be given one full month to try out our Rainmaker Membership.  That includes your posts being indexed by search engines, the ability to send those posts to Localism and also posted to your personal Outside Blog.  As a final bonus, you will receive 1,000 bonus points for attending the webinar.

Why do I want to be a Rainmaker?

There are plenty of reasons why everyone should want to be a Rainmaker.  I am going to share just a few.  First, becoming a Rainmaker means that your posts will have the ability to harness the power of our 160,000+ members and the massive amount of search engine dominance that ActiveRain possesses.   Over 75% of ActiveRain's 2 million visitors per month come directly from the search engines.   Also, Rainmaker accounts consistently outrank members personal websites in searches.  Our Rainmakers posts average 500 views per post.  Others are receiving much more traffic (25,000 views!).

How do I sign up?

Well signing up is rather simple.  Simply fill out the form below with your contact information and I will send you an email confirming your session and also how to register.

If you were wondering why you would want to be a Rainmaker, here are 6 reasons why everyone should be a Rainmaker. Also, here are some awesome results from a member who took my webinar: Take Rainmaker Webinar today, the #1 spot on Google 10 hours Later!

Today I am excited to announce some exciting news for our new members on ActiveRain.  I was recently asked by Jon and Bob to assist on our newer members in optimizing their blog so that it will show up in the top of search engines results as well as train them on how all the various features of ActiveRain work.

Introducing One on One Blog Training

Starting today, new members can schedule a one on one blog training session with me.  One of the biggest fears that new members face is writing that first initial blog post.  Many are afraid that what they write will not be good enough or that they will mess things up by writing a bad post.  Beginners end up scaring themselves from ever actually writing that first initial post and end up never realizing the benefits of ActiveRain. Trust me when I say, I can relate.  I was so nervous when I started here and my first few posts were terrible.  (If you don't believe me, read my second post on ActiveRain, it was the worst I have ever written!) But, as I continued on, things changed and the success stories started to pile up for me just like many of our other members.

Overcoming The Fear to Blog

That is where I come in.  As a member of the network for over a year and a half and also the author of over 500 posts, I have learned how to write effective blogs. The past 6 months have been spent writing step by step tutorials on how all of the different features of ActiveRain work and how to use them to enhance your blog.  You can see those posts on my outside blog. During that time, I have learned first hand the many  features of The ActiveRain Network.

What Will I Learn in Our One to One Training Session?

During your One on One Training session we will cover:

How to Optimize Your ActiveRain Profile.
How to Insert Photos into your Blog
How to Insert Hyperlinks.
Setting up Your Outside Blog.
How to write effective blog posts for consumers & search engines.
How to use your blog to connect with your community.
Topics to write about on your blog.

Each session will last anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour.  If you are a new member that has not started your blogging career because you have not been sure where to start, this course is for you!  Or, if you have been blogging for a while as a free member, this is an excellent opportunity to try out all the great features of ActiveRain as well as get some excellent training on how to maximize your blogging efforts.

Because ActiveRain feels so strongly in the power of the network, they are offering a special promotional rate for non-rainmakers to sign up as a rainmaker for the first month for only $5.00.  In addition to that $5.00, you will also receive the training session from me.

******ATTENTION RAINMAKERS*****

I Just Talked to Steven about the Webinars he is hosting for our members that are already Rainmakers and this is what he said the classes cover:

"Each class will cover seo blogging to dominate google search results, setting up the outside blogs,and how to write a blog including adding links,pictures,making a picture a link, embedding maps, widgets, and video's, AR syndication, RSS, blog settings and blog customization, hit router, referral network, as well as any questions they may have!"

So for all of you current rainmakers, check out the Calendar for upcoming classes & Register NOW!

If you are currently not a Rainmaker, simply fill out this form below and I will contact you directly to schedule your session.

One of the most common objections I receive when consulting someone on social media, is "Jeremy, I work in an area that is made up of an older generation.  They aren't into twitter and Facebook and all this Internet stuff.  So, I don't know if writing a blog would be a big benefit to me."  So, I asked a few more questions about the demographics and came to the conclusion that it appeared the average age range she was referring to was somewhere between late forties into late sixties. 

So this morning I started to do some research to see what type of age groups are making up social media and if older generations are participating or if they are non-existent.  The first place I started was here on ActiveRain.  I remembered the wonderful article by Art Kruschka titled: The View from the 84th Floor (which btw, Happy Birthday Art!) in which he wrote about celebrating his 84th birthday on Monday!  Art has been a very active member here on ActiveRain.  In fact, since starting here in March 2008 at the young age of 82, Art has published 566 blog posts!

Next, I decided I would visit both my Facebook business page & also ActiveRain's to see what the age breakdown looked like.  Here are the results:

This first graph is from my personal Facebook business page.  You will notice that only 35% of my group is under the age of 35.  While 35% of my fans are over the age of 45!  Also, I have twice as many fans over the age of 55 than I do between 18-24.  That stat really shocked me!

This graph is for fans of ActiveRain's fan page on Facebook.  The numbers here were even more astounding.  Fans under the age of 35 only make up 18% while there are just as many fans over the age of 55.  Fans over the age of 45 make up almost half of the members. 82% of the fans are over the age of 35!

After viewing these two graphs it leads me to believe that while many believe that Facebook is just for teenagers and college kids it appears that the majority of users are those over 45 years old by a long shot.  With that being said, I started to doubt the validity in the statement that the older generations are not on the Internet and definitely not involved with social media.

Are you still thinking this might be the case?  If so, let me share one more thing that should solidify my results that social media and Internet marketing isn't just for kids. 

Ivy Bean just celebrated her 104th birthday the beginning of this month and has become an instant celebrity.  Where you might ask?  Well on twitter of course!  I just followed her on twitter and became her 46,000 follower!  At first when I heard about her being on twitter, I thought it was some promotional stunt that someone was trying to just collect followers.  But when I investigated things I found out that it was legit.  Take a minute to watch this awesome video from Ivy.

So I ask if this statement is true?  Older generations are not reading blogs or using other social media platform.  I will let you be the judge of that.  My personal opinion is that it is the exact opposite, more and more are signing up for these different social media platforms every day.

It seems that everywhere you turn lately you are hearing buzz words like Social Media, Web 2.0, and the latest buzz word, "New Media."  You hear experts debate the best way to use twitter and facebook to increase your business.  Tweets from celebrities like Oprah & Shaq are posted all over the news and discussed by millions.  All of this buzz and hype have people seeking more information on how to use these two services to generate business.

But, one of the other types of social media and in my opinion the most effective avenue is being pushed to the wayside.  The amount of hype that you hear about writing blogs and using one for business seems to becoming a dying breed and lost art form.  That being said, I decided that it was time for me to do some research to see if blogs really were losing steam and becoming an ineffective means or if the "gurus" were just omitting an important component to any social media strategy.

The first thing I wanted to see is what is driving traffic to ActiveRain. Are search engines still what brings people to your site, or are they finding your sites through other social media means like Facebook & twitter. Over 75% of the traffic Came from search engines.  On the other hand, the two social media giants, Facebook and Twitter are only accountable for 1.65% of web traffic.  Seeing this, was a major shock to me.  I thought for sure that both would be in the top 10 and probably bring somewhere from 12-15% of our traffic. In retrospect, if you remember my post about the importance of labeling images, we learned at that time that 3.65% of our traffic comes from image searches.  That is more than double two social media giants!

Since it seems like social media is not great for directing traffic, I next decided I would see how a blog ranks in comparison to regular websites.  Whenever I ask someone if they use a blog on a regular basis, the top objection/reason they say is "they already have a web site that gives them an Internet presence.

I started doing some typical searches that a consumer would do to see which show up higher in the rankings.  My first keyword I did a search for was Austin Relocation Package.  The #1 result out of over 600,000 for that term was a blog by member Jason Crouch that he wrote in March 2008.  What was even more interesting was that Jason's website, only ranked #6.

Next, I decided to do a search for a community that Virginia Hepp, another member markets on both her blog and also on her website called Copper Bluffs in Mesquite Nevada. The Results were astounding!  Virginia's ActiveRain, Localism, and Outside Blog captured places 1-6 while her personal website showed up in the results at #8.  If you don't believe me, take a look at this search for Copper Bluffs Mesquite Nevada Real Estate. 

As I continued to do searches, this seemed to be the recurring theme.  Blogs consistently outranked personal websites on just about any and every search term I used.  This leads me to the conclusion that if someone is just using a website and has no active blog that they are updating on a regular basis that they are missing out a major chunk of potential business.

The third test that I used was to check activity from and whether it has decreased over the past few months as Twitter and Facebook have grown.  

A few months ago I wrote a post titled: 40,000 Visitors To Your Rainmaker Account in Just 25 Days!  This post shows how over a one month period of time I wrote 25 posts that garnered well over 40,000 visitors to my blog.  I also went on to share in that post how the best performance I ever had on my regular website was just over 3,000 hits.  My blog had more than 13 times the amount of traffic!  Since this was written several months ago, I decided that I would run the numbers again to see if my blog is decreasing in traffic since other social media sources are gaining such popularity.

For the last 25 posts, the total number of visits is 47,881 in comparison to the 40,699.  This averages out to a 6% increase or almost 300 more clicks per post.  This would lead me to believe that instead of my blog losing traction to other social media realms, it is actually gaining popularity over the past 5 months and becoming a stronger tool in social media arsenal.

So in closing I ask this question to you, Are blogs a technology of the past and something you should not focus on any more?  From the research I have done, I do not believe that statement to be true.  In fact, I believe the opposite.  Your blog is something that needs to be the main component to your social media strategy that you should focus on. What do you think?

Well, the time of year has come for Jeremy & his Family to take a vacation.  We will be packing up the car & heading towards Atlanta, GA.  This year we decided to incorporate visiting family with a vaction to have our very own away from home staycation.  Rainers, have no fear, while i will be gone for the next week, I still will be checking in from time to time.

But, if you have questions & need an immediate answer, I would suggest contacting either Bob or Brad.  It might take me a few extra days to respond as I will probably either be at The Georgia Aquarium, the Atlanta Zoo, The World of Coca-Cola, or maybe even touring the CNN building.  (Ya never know, maybe I can get my own TV gig if I visit CNN)

I know some of you may be saddened by this void of Jeremy on the network, but have no fear, I will still be lurking around & ya never know when a tutorial might pop up on my blog.  Also, if you want to follow along on our journey, feel free to check out my photo blog & facebook page that will be updated regularly of our journey via my iPhone.

I hope everyone has an awesome week and I will see you all on Labor Day!

I just finished reading Erin Golding's post: How on Earth Do You Blog So Much and in there, she made the following statement:

(I can't figure out how to embed videos into my ActiveRain blog so if anyone can help, that would be great).

I wanted to make sure she got the answer, so the first thing I did was read through the 80 comments thinking for sure someone had left a link to a post on how to do this.  To my surprise there was none.  To my even bigger surprise, when I searched ActiveRain for an post I couldn't seem to come across an updated blog post with information on how to do it.  So, Erin, this tutorial is for you!

If the video is too small to view, try watching in HD.