The Mortgage and More Blog

In an effort to make your PREP website easier for you to use we have done away with the traditional way members have been embedding videos in their blog posts. In the past members have selected the video hosting icon from the third row of icons on the same page where they wrote a blog post or page. The new and easier way to embed videos no longer requires this step; in fact we have removed the video icons that you used to use to indicate which service was hosting the desired video. Now all you do to embed a video is to use the URL of the video, being sure to place it on its own line. Below is an example of how this works: the pink writing represents ordinary text in a blog page or post while the yellow represents the URL of the video (you would leave the quotes off when posting an actual video).

This would be the normal text for your post or page leading up to the video you wanted to embed.

“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nda_OSWeyn8″

You would then continue with the text of your blog or page beginning on its own line.

That’s it!

Embed Videos Using URL is a post from: Test Account

©2010 Test Account. All Rights Reserved.

With the tax credit coming to an end for new homeowners, now is not the time to be fence sitting. The only thing that I know that it will truly get you is some splinters. Get off the fence and get with your REALTOR® today. There is no reason to be regretting not moving quick enough.

Fence Sitting Can Cost You is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

Keyword stuffing is the practice of creating ‘blog posts’ or ‘pages’ and literally stuffing it full with as many keywords as possible. A common tactic is to place excessive keywords in the meta SEO of a post or page, behind the images or videos, or repeating them ad nauseum in the body of a post. Stuffing can occur by using either keywords that directly relate or do not relate to the material. Though many individuals and webmasters still practice keyword stuffing, its effectiveness has been reduced because most search engines have dramatically lessened the overall weight given to keywords.

Whether done intentionally or unintentionally, keyword stuffing is considered a ‘black hat’ tactic. In the past keywords were the main things that informed a search engine what a site, page, and/or post was all about. With the changing in algorithms through the years this is no longer the case. In fact many modern search engine algorithms have functions that are designed to discover keyword stuffing as a practice by a website. Penalties for keyword detection are varied, but the most severe I have been informed of is a website being dropped to the bottom of all Google SERPs for six months.

In addition to the possible penalties that may be imposed by the search engines, keyword stuffing can easily be detected by your site’s visitors. If you use your website for business, I would venture to say that it would look less than professional to have the same words or phrases repeated on one of your pages. Keyword stuffing can also make a page virtually unreadable or seem like nonsense to a site visitor. Unintelligible pages, hidden text, and other deceptive practices also cannot say a lot positive about any profession where ethics is important.

In a nutshell, search engines no longer weigh keywords as they once did. Keyword stuffing is less than professional. There are more effective and ethical ways to achieve great SEO and SERPs.

Keyword Stuffing, Just Say No! is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

If you have never heard of the term siloing don’t feel bad, many web developers and most of the casual computer using public hasn’t.  Siloing is a common term among web developers that is used to describe a type of website architecture. Siloing is a linking strategy whose goal is to allow for multiple focuses on one website without diluting through the cross linking of subject matter. For the purpose of this post I am only going to illustrate Virtual Silos; there is also a Directory Siloing method that is accomplished very differently. If you have questions, please feel free to ask them in the comment section of this blog.

What is meant by ‘multiple focuses’?

Most websites have numerous topics that are covered by both static webpages and blog posts. Usually these topics are not separated but are jumbled together. There is a school of thought that says this jumble does not help your website’s rankings and in fact dilutes it.

How are ‘multiple focuses’ created for static pages?

Many website owners already create multiple focuses to some extent using multi-level navigation tabs. Siloing allows a website owner to organize their site’s static pages by using the ‘parent’ and ‘child’ hierarchy. The real benefit of this is to assist the search engines in indexing your site’s static page content. For example, if your site is about dogs but you have a lot of specialized information on various breeds you could create a focus (silo) for the various ‘dog breeds’. At the same time, you might create silos that focus on ‘travel requirements for dogs’, ‘various food options for dogs’, etc. The overarching or ‘meta’ focus of the site is dogs and this should be made clear on the landing page or about page. It is important that on this landing page the other major focuses of the website not only get mentioned but linked; this is in addition to the navigation tabs found on most sites. This could easily be accomplished on our dog website example through mentioning and linking your focuses, ‘dog breeds’, ‘travel requirements for dogs’, ‘various food options for dogs’, etc, in the text of the landing page.

Here is an easy to follow hierarchy of a narrowing focus for our dog website example:

Dogs

Dog Breeds

Afghan Hound

Airedale Terrier

Akita

etc.

Travel Requirements for Dogs

Various Food Options for Dogs

How is siloing accomplished for blog posts?

Just as with webpages, many website owners already create limited silos with their blog posts by putting related articles in the same categories. To avoid the jumble and create the most efficient silos for the search engines, it is best to have some categories dedicated to certain topics. In our example, a post you write about ‘common hip problems experienced by Afghan Hounds’ would go in a category dedicated to Afghan Hounds. This would also be appropriate for the ‘Dog Breeds’ category though it would help to create a cross linked jumble if place in the ‘Travel Requirements For Dogs’ category.

Are There Benefits To Further Narrowing Your Website’s Focuses?

The answer to this is yes…within reason. While more narrowly focusing a website might benefit site visitors and will benefit both SEO and SERPs, many web developers believe that you should not create a focus more than two steps beyond the site’s overarching focus; this should of course be tailored to your individual website.

One word of caution, do not break your existing links!

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Siloing Is Smart Site Architecture is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

One of the daunting feats that we all want to do is to keep people on our page. One of the newest ways to do that is to embed Google SERPs (search engine results pages) in your site. This way, when someone comes to your site looking for your informative post and want to do research, they can with the click of the button and never have to leave your site. Now, before you all say that this is old news, let me go into it deeper. The picture to the right is actually OLD news. However, that is not quite what I am talking about here.

For those of you that do not know, Google now has a feature through Adsense that allows for you to have the Google search engine results pages show up inside your website. This way, a reader or consumer can stick around on your site for some extra time. The one thing that I am not keen on with this product is the fact that it has to be at least 800 pixels wide. For most people, this is a majority of your content display. For people that employ the 1200 pixel themes, this really would not be a problem if you have a single sidebar or two that are less than 400 pixels total.

In closing, it is still a great tool to add to your site if you want to keep people hanging around. If you click on the picture to the left, you will be able to view a site that has this in action. If you notice, the header is still active. If you want to see it in action for yourself, visit SEO Info Now. For any PREP member that would like to add this feature to your PREP site, contact our office at 865-951-0522 and we will help you walk through it.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Embed Google SERPs In Your Site is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

PositiveRealEstateProfessionals.com now offers Video Blogs in conjunction with an account on our real estate network. The Video Blogs, just like the Photo Blogs and other additional blogs, can be purchased for a one time fee of $100. One of the greatest benefits of having this additional blog is that the page with all the blogs would be indexed and followed by the search engines, unlike tags or categories. In addition, you will be able to set the keywords for the Video Blog as well as each and every individual post that occupies space on the Video Blog. Any of these three blogs can be purchased from the main page of PREP.

So, what is a Video Blog, you ask. Video Blogging is also referred to as vlogging. Vlogging uses videos to create your articles as opposed to text. This creates a sense of internet television. Entries include videos or a link to the videos, supporting text, images, and other metadata. The best vlogging is done when the author provides a transcript for the article. These particular articles are drown with search engine juice. While it takes a little bit of work, the transcript can be keyword intensive.

In closing, if you are looking to increase your SEO without having to add a bunch of extra steps to do it, look into adding a Video blog or any of the other blog products that we offer to your PREP site. The additional potential for search engine juice is yours for the taking.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

PositiveRealEstateProfessionals.com Now Offers Video Blogs is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

Nobody wants to be prevented from reaching their desired URL. Nobody wants to be prevented from blogging or updating their webpages to help attract more business. While nobody wants these issues, they do occasionally happen. One of the most common errors that can cause a lot of frustration is the 502 Bad Gateway Error. The image to the right (which is clickable to get a bigger view) is an example of what a 502 Bad Gateway Error response might look like.

So what is a 502 Bad Gateway Error and why do they happen? This type of error message is a web protocol status message. It indicates that there is a communications error between an upstream server and the server that is acting as the gateway or proxy to fulfill the client (i.e. web surfer) request to access a particular URL. Basically when you type in the URL you want to access, there is a communication error that prevents access. While there is a common misconception that this communications error means that an upstream server is down, this is not indicated by this type of error. What it does mean is that upstream server and the server acting as the gateway or proxy do not agree on the data exchange protocol. That is why this is a protocol status error and not an error with an individual computer. The appearance of this message generally means that the upstream server and the gateway or proxy server have been programmed incorrectly or incompletely.

Even though this is not an individual computer issue About.com does recommend a few things to try to resolve this issue:

1. Retry the web page by clicking the refresh/reload button or trying the URL from the address bar again. Even though the 502 Bad Gateway error is reporting a networking error outside of your control, the error may only be temporary. Trying the page again will often be successful.
2. Come back later. Since the 502 Bad Gateway error message is an issue with the web site’s network, everyone visiting this site is probably experiencing the same problem as you. Chances are an issue like that has already been brought to the attention of an administrator at the web site and someone is working to resolve it.
3. If you can’t wait any longer for the problem to be resolved or if you’d like to help out, you may want to attempt to contact the webmaster or another website contact yourself and advise them of the 502 Bad Gateway error you are receiving.

This type of error message is quite frustrating for a user who really has little means to correct it. A permanent fix for this issue ultimately depends on the complete and correct programming of the upstream server and the proxy or gateway server by the webmaster.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

ERROR! 502 Bad Gateway is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

Title: Weim And Cheese
Location: St. George\’s Greek Orthodox Church, Knoxville, TN
Link out: Click here
Description: An Evening of Fun To Benefit Wolf Creek Weimaraner Rescue, Inc.

Special Musical Guest: Randy Webb and “Blues No More”

Silent and Live Auctions with Auctioneer Travis Royston

Wine, Beer, Beverages, and Heavy Hors d\’oeuvres

Ticket Info:
Advanced $30
At The Door $35
Order Online At http://weimcheese2010.eventbrite.com/?ref=elink
Start Time: 17:00
Date: 2010-03-13
End Time: 21:00

Weim And Cheese is a post from: Spoiled Pet Cafe

©2010 Spoiled Pet Cafe. All Rights Reserved.

Marketing properties with a listings blog just became easy. Imagine walking into a listings presentation appointment armed with the ability to have your client’s property reach the top of the search engines quickly. The great thing is, there are no black hat tricks used to accomplish this. Another great thing is, you do not have to log out of one site and into another to post to this additional blog. Everything is done on the same platform and is almost seamless.

One of the things with Postlets and VFlyers is that they require more room that what is typically on a page. To make sure that we have enough room for this to set up properly, we just remove the sidebars all together. Therefore, the property is front and center and is getting all of the attention that it requires. Also, once a property is listed in PREP, it does not take long for it to climb to the top of the search engines.

Now, before many of you ask why “categories” or “tags” cannot accomplish this, let me explain this; neither of these are indexed by the search engines. If they were, the bots would crash any network once they started to crawl them. So, having the additional blog gains the ability to have ALL the listings found in a search in one spot. It also allows for ALL the listings to be ‘index, follow’ and this is huge as it will increase your SEO.

As with any additional blog add on, there is a one time charge of $100. Once that fee is paid, it will take a couple of hours to be setup. If you have questions, please call us at 865-951-0522 or email me.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Marketing Properties With A Listings Blog is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

Add a Photoblog to your PositiveRealEstateProfessionals.com site today and start reaping the benefits. What are the benefits you ask? Well, let’s see where I should begin. First, you can garner SEO juice from Google Images. Second, you will have ANOTHER blog indexed and followed by the search engines on your site. Third, you only have ONE login to update all the blogs. And let me dispel one myth here and now, if you think that you can do the same with TAGS or CATEGORIES, think again. Neither of these are indexed in a blog network platform like ours. When you are dealing with an online real estate network like PREP, you will find they do not allow for Tags or Categories to be indexed as it would crash the network.

Okay, now that we have gone over the benefits in a nutshell, let’s talk about photoblogs and what benefit they have for a real estate professional’s site. First off, for a Realtor®, having a photoblog would allow you to show off your community. If you are like me, you love taking your camera EVERYWHERE that you go. Adding a picture a day gives the consumers the ability to see what the surroundings have to offer. Adding an ALT Title to the picture gives Google and the other search engines the ability to place them in the searches that they should be in. For a home stager, you can add before and after pictures that can demonstrate your work. For home inspectors, you can add pictures of issues that you come across on a daily basis. It does not stop with these three professions either, but for the sake of boring you, we will leave it there.

Here are a couple of articles for further reading on the importance of proper formatting of pictures and the impact that additional blogs can have on your site:

Say It With Pictures – Photoblogs

Increase your SEO with multiple blogs on one site

At this point, PREP is the ONLY online real estate network that is offering this feature. Unfortunately we have to charge for this feature. However, the one time fee is only $100. It takes us a couple of hours to get it installed on your site, but then you are up and running.If you have questions or would like to order this, email me or call the office at 865-951-0522.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Add A Photoblog To Your PositiveRealEstateProfessionals.com Site is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.