How important is link scultpting? Apparently the LA Times thinks so. Notice all the red marks on their internal links? These have the rel="nofollow" attribute.
What is the nofollow attribute? It was originally a plan from Google and the other engines to stop comment spam. Simply use the attribute in your blogs comments and the links are rendered worthless. Technically you place the attribute in your link html as so: a href="http://www.url.com/" rel="nofollow">anchor text </a
It was not too long before us SEO's figured out that this was a quick and dirty way to do what Leslie Rohde taught me years ago in his book Dynamic Linking. This technique was extremely complicated for most as it employed javascript links that were not able to be followed by Google.
Now with the nofollow attribute the same can be accomplished without the hassel of javascript. To see if a site is running nofollow on its links simply install the firefox plugin called Search Status.
It means Death Grip! That's probably a secret you want to keep to yourself lol.
.. from medieval times when, if one fell on hard times, one solution was to seek to mortgage a property you already owned in order to get cash.
From Websters:
mort·gage Pronunciation: \ˈmȯr-gij\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English morgage, from Anglo-French mortgage, from mort dead (from Latin mortuus) + gage gage — more at murder Date: 15th century
From American Heritage Dictionary:
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English morgage, from Old French : mort, dead (from Vulgar Latin *mortus, from Latin mortuus, past participle of mor, to die + gage, pledge (of Germanic origin).
For a few years now, looking at backlinks thru Google using the link:http://www.url.com query was all but a waste of time. Much like putting any credence into the Google Page Rank bar.
So thank goodness for Yahoo. And in fact, they put together a nice little tool over there called Yahoo Search. But alas a recent post has confirmed my own suspicions. The tool ain't all its cracked up to be.
Yahoo site Explorer shows the following stats for my blog site.
Indexed Pages: 3,673 Crawled Pages: 580 Known Pages: 3,673 Hosts linking to Site: 153
On click of the Indexed Pages link it shows me only ONE page indexed.
I use to have 220+ backlinks and 631 indexed pages till May 16th 08 and then it dropped to 0 the next week onwards.
Currently it shows 800+ backlinks and ONLY 1 indexed page whereas my blog contains 2370 pages till date.
This brings me to a couple points I would like to make:
These free tools are just that, and as such are only as good as the data that is feeding them.
Remember these engines have zero incentive to help us to figure out their positions. So do not be at all surprised when this tool goes away or becomes useless lke Google's green bar or link query.
Yahoo search allows you to check how many pages of your site are indexed in Yahoo. (see pages). It alos allows you to discover how many links you have coming to your site or just on epage. It also will allow you to not count your own links from your own site. Additionally, you can download the report as a TSV.
A story in the Register portends to expose Google's willingness to manipulate its own Algo generated results with people generated editorial.
..technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view. It explained that its algorithm "relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. "
For now that data is not being used to change overall search results, she said. But in the future it’s likely Google will use the data to at least make obvious changes. An example is if “thousands of people” were to knock a search result off a search page, they’d be likely to make a change.
But this is not anything new. Google has always used its human power to correct huge mistakes in its algo. However, it has also always preferred to see manipulations and tricks as algo errors and something that needed to be fixed not by its people but by its algorithm.
More interesting however, is the shift of journalistic power from the papers to Google as reporters follow Googles lead instead of leading the news:
...it's becoming all too clear at The Telegraph, whose online business plan seems to be centered on chasing hits through Google by rehashing and rewriting stories that people are already interested in.
So who is creating the news then? The Register says in the end it could be Google leading to a very Orwellian news feed.
This is a tale of tails that include blogs and traffic. You have heard the pitch all over the web.The pitch is the promise of traffic just from writing anything. Implied in that is the lack of a need for any "SEO" because of a magical phenomenon called the long tail.
That ain't workin thats the way you do it Money for nothin and chicks for free Dire Straits(not Sting as Jeremy corrected me)
We all love free and free is all over the net. The long tail theory is a phrase that has been co-opted by the blogging and SEO industry to explain non voluminous key phrasing as a possible strategic advantage. It also can produce higher lead conversions if used properly.
Cliff notes on the long tail:
From Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine who like Seth Godin and other web pioneers has flipped common web paradigms on its head. He wrote the infamous Long Tail Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More book. As well as his most recent Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business (try to wrap your arms around this one).
The Long Tail can be thought of as the 80/20 rule or Parettos Law ( I know all these rules. Don't you feel like in school again). Paretto noticed that 20% of the Italians control 80% of the land. That is, a small number of things have a larger impact. In sales 20% of agents do 80% of the sales. This notion permeates across all contexts of nature. Here is a terrific example of the 80/20 rule in sales.
Anderson noticed pre-internet that the brick and mortar stores were limited by the most sought after inventory. An inefficiency in distribution. In other words, Virgin Record Stores could only inventory the most in demand music choices. While niche or less in demand items could not be kept in inventory as their simply was not enough demand to justify the expense of stocking them on the shelves.
Anderson reminds us that the web allows niche songs to be sold because inventory is only stored once and digitally at that! (A newer example of the long tail going wild in music check out my Blip station.) "The Net has infinite shelf space". Thus making it possible for fans of Jazz musician Joshua Redman to purchase music. (never heard heard of him before huh? He has a fan base online that justifies his existence economically).
So the free Google traffic pundits soon co opted the Long Tail idea and applied it to search traffic. The Blogging Industry vendors soon saw this as a great sales pitch and have sold the Long Tail as the fast track to easy traffic. The sales points have centered on little competition means easier (not easy) traffic. That is true of course only if you have lots of pages with these words. And these pages are positioned in the engines.
Easy Real Estate Traffic
First of all lets look at Short and Long Tail as it applies to real estate web sites.
Short Tail keywords could be:
Torrance Real Estate
Torrance Realtor
Torrance Homes
Torrance Condos
Long Tail keywords could be:
New Homes in Torrance California by Lemar
Home For Sale in Walteria Area of Torrance
Homes For Sale in the 90505 Area of Torrance
Homes For Sale on Felbar in Torrance, CA
Home For Sale in the McChenty Elementary School District in Torrance
When searching "Homes For Sale on Felbar in Torrance, CA" in Google two pages of results show up. No competition.
The challenge is that there is no volume either. In other words very few if any people are searching.
So Anderson uses examples of Wallmart as an example of short tail and Rhapsody Music as long tail. But even Rhapsody has very measurable volume for its long tail words. A long, long tail for Rhapsody would be Rhapsody Music Everlong Marty INXS
In real estate the long tail words above simply will not be found on most keyword finder tools. Because truth be told, the local real estate searches are more like long, long tail.
Where is the Scale or Why the Long Tail Ain't All its Cracked Up to Be In Blogging?
So long as agents are writing or even paying people to write in their blogs then the whole idea of long tail blows up. That is manual labor and is not what Rhapsody is doing. For long tail efficiencies to work we must have scale. Think your IDX.
The long tail theory is important to know in reaction to the cheap storage of the net. But as I have pointed out, the theory does not fit perfectly into most agents business structure. The challenge is to be able to create meaningful content efficiently. So long as you and I write meaningful pieces such as this one (if I may say so myself), then the idea of scale is way off in the distance. Without scale, where is the long tail? In your mind saved for a future post.
Interesting fact: The majority of searches (67%) are made up of one to three keywords. However, 82% of searchers said that they are likely to enter a few more words when they cant find what they are looking for in a search. Phrases of four or more words are often used to deliver the targeted results that most searchers aren't seeing with broader-based search terms. These terms can offer you higher conversion rates at a lower cost per click, so it makes sense to have a stable of long-tail search terms, rather than relying on a few big money, high-volume search terms. Again, if you can achieve scale.
HouseBlogger started off way back in 2004 proclaiming that the web was best suited as a DM tool for real estate agents. DM means Direct response.
Which implies that you start with a slippery chute that starts with traffic & finishes with the outcome of a lead & then sale.
What might that chute look like?
Traffic. Traffic might come from Adwords, SEO, or even banner ads.
A website. A website can be your main website, a blog, or landing or squeeze page.
A call to action. If you don't ask they won't buy or sign up in this case. This has to include a strong offer of value. It might include access to listings (although this has become less enticing because of the commoditization of the MLS), a report (my friends at Altos Research offer very useful market data).
A follow up sequence including at least some of the following: EMail sequencing(drip campaign), phone, snail mail, fax, etc.
Without some sort of DM strategy a website is nothing more than a digital brochure and we all know when someone asks for your card or brochure in the real world, your paper is usually headed for the round file!
Ask. Many real estate agents see their leads double when they just place a registration out front.
How do you create this with all your social web pages lie Twitter, Facebook and the like? They are merely webpages are they not?.. and they can serve to bring your peeps back to your call to action.
President elect Obama has been heralded before on HouseBlogger for his net savvy ability to get the grassroots to come out and vote. Now, politics is always a polarizing issue so please put away any bias you may have and please come with me as we appreciate his marketing ability. Because thats really what matters is the marketing and how we can mimmick superior online marketing of others for our purposes.
Obama took his original website and changed it to http://change.gov in an attempt to keep the buzz happening. The site recently released a new application that to me kind of shows the limits and also the manipulations that are possible with social media.
The newer system is a Digg.com like system whereby visitors can vote and deny commentary. I will let Politico.com explain what has happened:
President-elect Barack Obama's Transition today launched "Open for Questions," a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another's questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.
It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using -- and abusing -- a tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama's website.
The Blagojevich questions -- many of them polite and reasonable -- can be found only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions missing from the main page of the site.
"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will 'serious' campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of Santa Cruz, California.
"This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads the text underneath it....
.... Community reporting systems like this are often vulnerable to abuse from committed partisans -- YouTube has wrestled with a parallel problem -- and the only solution is conscious efforts to remedy it.
Some call user generated content and the new media the Democratization of the web. Maybe, but it also can be a giant propaganda machine. Intended or otherwise.
From politics, to markets, to opinion. The web can and does influence.
The web is a syndication machine as distributed computing allows networks to talk with one another with ease. It is what has given us Google and their huge computing power. It is what RSS is about.
This ability to manipulate the perceptions of the crowds is what I alluded to in my early 2008 http://www.positiveonrealestate.com mission as a way to take back the news and in fact change perceptions thru multiple syndications.
Pat Kitano (listen to our social media interview/podcast with Pat Kitano) is employing similar techniques by getting "armies" of micro bloggers. What I would call at its core content publishers that are building pages of juicy content to drive traffic to their home base.
As a SEO professional, I think I could add some strategies that would help them get social traffic and organic as they can coalesce, but will often have to be received independently.
Another way of thinking about this is to employ the social networks as a propaganda campaign.
Does this stuff work? You bet otherwise how can stupid rumors like the Yahoo Microsoft be passed off as news this past weekend:
The Times of London reported that Microsoft may acquire Yahoo’s search business for $20 billion dollars. While the Times report included detailed information, named parties, including Velocity Investment Group founder Ross Levinsohn, said there is “No truth to it.”
So how does one go about propagandizing the web? Stay tuned and sign into http://www.realestateguerilla.com as we are about to open it back up for more membership spots.
How can this web propaganda work?
Ask Obama. Or any politician of late. The Dems have done it especially well online the last two elections.
Why is it that buyers won't buy, even though all indicators are that the market has hit bottom (notice my own pre supposition here? This is used allot in propaganda)? The web can rapidly deploy ideas or memes that spread across multiple channels and change perceptions and beliefs. Exactly what you want as a marketer.
Pownce, one of many alternative Twitters, is now about dead. Six Apart, owner of TypePad (which powers HouseBlogger) just purchased them. And it seems they will disolve it into the Vox ap.
This is the problem with new media. In a reccessionary world of reluctant investors and no revenue, the idealism of the Social Web is getting full court pressed to survive. It will be interesting to watch to see who is gobbled up and who survives.
Much like those of the Dot Bomb times, I believe many aps will be bought for the technology and names. For those poor souls who invested their time into Pownce? Tuff luck hombre.
This is why I tell anyone who will listen to spend most of your time on building your brand on YOUR own URL. Use the other stuff to attract people into your URL.
President elect Obama has been heralded before on HouseBlogger for his net savvy ability to get the grassroots to come out and vote. Now, politics is always a polarizing issue so please put away any bias you may have and please come with me as we appreciate his marketing ability. Because thats really what matters is the marketing and how we can mimmick superior online marketing of others for our purposes.
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