Real Estate Marketing SEO Blog

Blog/Social Commenting For Traffic or Spamming?

This is an oldie but goodie and can be used for social marketing too.

Traffic Battle Plan 2012

Check out my Traffic Domination Plan for 2012 I announced the war with Google and Facebook over a year ago. Did SEO Just Die Since then many have said that yes SEO is dead. As Google has changed time and time again. Over the next few weeks I will be chronicling some of these deep changes that are effecting your website and your social graph right now. » Its a Social World In a nutshell Google blinked. And much of that has do with the velocity of content being created in the social media. Facebook, Twitter and more. And now the new kid on the block Pinterest is digging into the Facebook Traffic. » Its about the data. Google's and Facebook's business is not search and Social. It is datamining. While Google has been changing many have complained that Google is no longer relevant. That is the point of search relevancy isn't it?   Google's job is guessing at your and my behavior such that they can serve us relevant advertising.   Google grabs that data through all the data it gets from your cookied searches, visits to websites with adsense, analytics etc, your signed-in behavior, and your Google Plus behavior and your Android phone locations and behavior.   Facebook gets to know you through their graph of likes, follows, friends, clicks, etc and of course your profile you create when you sign up. In effect Facebook wants to be Google, Google wants to be Facebook. » The world just got smaller. Do a search in New York and chances are real good that Google will serve you local results having to do with services in New York. Google Places dominates the local searches with at least 4 results. Often times number 1 of yesterday, is now possibly 8.   Littered within that search will often be images and videos. We ran a post years ago that some day Google will be the new Yellow Pages. That day has come. » Disinformation. Google has succeeded largely from incredible public relations to compliment their just good enough search engine. With their online personalities, they have been able to spread vast and complicated concepts to misinform what is/was actually going on.   The more things change the more they stay the same. Google has always been about links, then the title tag and matching h tags. This concept has not changed. Its just that there is less of the same coveted prize called organic search results for you to grab.   Less competitive terms are easy as they have always been and the super competitive keywords will continue to be difficult to get.   Links have expanded in their definition. Links are 80% of the game. But now you have likes, Google pluses, and other social markers that Google desperately is trying to track. I call these social noise makers.   One reason Google has moved forward with Google Plus as an answer to Facebook, and recently adding SearchPlus Your World is that they were being blocked out of tracking social graphsof the biggies Twitter and Facebook.   Additionally local citations, or your business name, address, city, zip and phone weigh heavily for your Google Places (local) ranking. They serve the equivalence of links in local search. » To make things more crazy. Your website will need to adjust for mobile phonessome day soon as more and more searchers are using mobile phones to search the web. Soon to out number desktop searchers.   The long term answer is to get strategic and hire a firm like Spider Juice Technologies who can help you get your arms around the changes, while not getting swallowed up by all the marketing hype.   Step 1 is to embrace the fact that you must become a publisher of your own unique content, ghost written content, curated content, and collaborated content if you are to survive in this ever changing online environment.   Because the fact is. Google simply doesn't need you anymore. The only medicine is to get big on publishing. More on all of these changes and tactics soon.   We are here to help you.   Tim O'Keefe http://www.spiderjuicetechnologies.com/ 310 533 9145

Real Estate Leads Seminar

Why Isn't Your Real Estate Website Getting Leads Anymore?

Getting traffic is great, but worthless if you don't get leads. So I offer you 4 reasons why you are not getting the leads you are used to getting.

Economic-The economy has made viewers picky and less apt to commit to a registration.

Distraction-The social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. More and more people are spending their free time finding conversations and links at sites like Facebook.

Commodity-The dilution of control of listings inventory. Sites like Trulia, Zillow, and other classified websites have taken over the web. The listings inventory has gone from a Realtor controlled event, to an easily accessed commodity on the web.The only way to decommoditize your business is to let the world know YOU. Not hiding behind a banner. But you.

What are you about and how does that help your prospective client? Most of the way hyperlocality is taught is wrong. Hyperlocality is about your marketplace and how it relates to the local resident's concerns and desires for their home life and the area surrounding it. Bring your world to your website. Be an advocate for your market.

 You need to explore and demonstrate your Unique Selling Proposition. Not just saying it. But demonstrating it through your publishing of blog posts, articles, social interaction and posts, etc.
What is your most wanted action on your publishing? What do you want them to do?

Other Focuses-What other content can you feed into your web site? APIs, Feeds, Widgets can bring in targeted content that your MLS/IDX does not provide. Your brokerage needs to collaberate and publish as a team. Look at Trulia. It has a clasified listings site that has evolved to include market data as well as market FAQ's, and blogs. All provided by the Realtor community. As they and other similar Vortals dominate your city searches in the engines. And you haven't even received a thank you note.

Explore the conversation going on in your prospects mind and enter it. Go after General but also Specific keywords to attract buyers and sellers.Today, the market in most geographies in the country is distressed. The distressed homeseller is looking up phrases like, "how to avoid foreclosure",  "Il foreclosure laws", "Loan modification in Peoria, Il", etc.

Find out More About Publishing Techniques

 

 

 

 

Why Blog?

Image by aphrodite-in-nyc via Flickr

Why blog is the wrong question. It is why publish?

The internet is about publishing content. Some you can pull in and scale with api's (api is a way to pull in feeds of data like IDX or other information) and such. Some you cannot. If you can pull it in, so can someone else.

So the big diferrentiator is your editorialized opinion. Your view. Your take on things.

It is what makes your site unique compared to all the other me toos or commodities out in the marketplace.
 

5 Ways to Find Your Blogging Voice

Image by wallyg via Flickr

Publishing a blog for market share is more akin to an opinionated editorial than a news piece.  Here are 5 ways to find your voice in your blog:

1. Write Your Passion - If you care about something it is much easier to write with more emotion and that will come through in your words and text. Emotion adds texture to your words.
2. Write About Your Expertise- Its much easier to write about a subject that you know. And if you do not know about your topic go find out. Claim your guru status and your authority over that subject matter will shine through.
3. Write About Your Unique Perspective - Do you have an opinion? I bet you do. I bet you have a religious, political, musical, business, etc. If you do not then why should anyone hire you? Don't be a fish. People want to know who they are dealing with.
4. Tie Your Personal Life as It Relates To Your Audience and Your Business - Do you volunteer? Coach youth sports? Are you walking the walk for breast cancer? You get the idea. Use your voice to help promote your cause. You can also tie lessons from your causes to business as it applies to your audience. Recently in a video seminar I published, I tied a football coaching lesson I learned from Pete Carroll to running a business. Doing this puts texture around your life and your services.
5. Claim Your Inner Soprano - On the football team that I Coach I jokingly call it my cult. I was introduced to the idea of cult influence by Dave Lahkani who grew up in one!  But the same influencing dynamics that goes on in a cult. Occurs in gangs, the mafia, and branding. Are you a cheesehead? A member of the KISS Army, A Harley enthusiast? All cults. We are sheeple. Whether we are in a religion (or not), politics, or we just love Coke over Pepsi. We are all belongers. Or as a business leader we can get the sheeple to belong to our Mafia. Be a Tony Soprano or Seth Godin and get your audience to join your Tribe.
6. Tell the Story - People love stories. Since I mentioned Dave above I will use the interview I did with him as an example of story. Dave Lakhani has positioned himself as an expert in influence. He used the story of his growing up in a cult as a terrific background for his lessons in persuasion.

All of these six examples add texture and authority in finding your blogging voice.

What They Are Not Telling You About Hyperlocality

Today is Take My Gloves of Thursday!

part 1:

+How did hyperlocal emerge?
+Two types of hyperlocal as it is sold and why it is wrong
+And why that benefits you
+Why it is nearly impossible to get content feeds for the hyperlocal area and why it is your opportunity
+Four ways to create hyperlocal content
+The only way to sell in the new economy

part 2:

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Get a course on building content: http://www.spiderjuicetechnologies.com/content

Twitter Saved the Blogging Star

Getting Back To Blogging Basics

 When blogging first hit the scene it was seen as a panacea to expensive SEO and  webhosts. Rightfully so. There is much to be admired within most blog structures. Adequate html code, easy editing, pinging and syndication. And the mythological advantages that preceded blogs as a household name certainly helped to grow the medium.

Blogging and pinging was instant Google love back in the early 2000's.  Obsessions with long tails and link schemes like blog rolling and blog carnivals often gave birth to websites more interested in the shiny new media than business building .  Conversing with competitors and fellow bloggers than potential clients and customers.

Comment Spammers Are Not Just Retarded They Are Ignorant

There are only three reasons to publish anything on he web.

A. Get link juice

B. Get Traffic back to your site

C. Get Authority in another community.

If you run a website with open comments then you have felt the pain in the keester of having to delete stupid commentary.

And I am not just talking about the obvious comments like, "great one". I am talking about the guy who writes that is wonderful good going.

This person is missing out on the authority juice that can come from the readership in this community who will be so delighted and so intrigued by his commentary. That they will want to visit his brand. That authority juice is human. Better than anything Google can ever algo out.

How to Beat Gain Marketshare and Crush Your Competition

Putting Strategy into Your Content Production

Its like freaking out before a Midterm. Most small business owners struggle with content.

"What do I talk about? What do I say?"

Answer this question and you have a beginning:

Ask yourself,"in the grand scheme of things why do you or your business matter to your marketplace?" If it doesn't matter you have a larger problem than just missing web content. 

From your market position begin to ask yourself about what your marketplace needs to know prior to getting close enough to ask you an intelligent question.

That is where your potential client is when they read your content.

We have all been in those spots where we are asked by a salesperson, "can I help you?". And we know we need help but have not a clue of what we need help with.

This is also why you publish content.  You publish to claim your authority over your market and to elevate yourself above the pretenders that nip at your business and chip away at your market share.

The good news is that your competition has neither the desire or the know how to create useful and meaningful market centric content. 

As they say Content is King. Actually meaningful content is king.

Making a Case for Blogging and Social Media

I cannot sleep this morning and sooooo. I suppose it is in my morning slumber I gather these moments of clarity. Sometimes you have to just remind oneself of why you do what you do. It is in this moment of reflection that reminds us of our original intent but also re-energizes us with new distinctions. And when virtually the same words still seem new,then perhaps you really have something of value.

So this early AM I ask myself, "why blog"? If you notice I have not been very active of late. I need that juice. SO I ask, "why blog"? And then....

"Why have a website"? "Why Tweet or participate in FaceBook?"

Authority through thought leadership.I guess the more things change the more they stay  the same.