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Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category

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.

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.

PREP now offers broken link checker to it’s members. We decided to add this tool after running a number of reports on our online real estate network. For those of you that are unaware of what damage broken links can have to your SEO and your site, let me explain it this way. When a link is broken and someone clicks on it, they are directed away from your page. Sometimes you will get a “500″ error, but most of them come back as a “404″ error and state nothing was found. Not only are these errors encountered by human searchers, they are also encountered by search engine bots. In the end, neither are happy when they encounter this.

As part of full disclosure, when we ran ours on PREP, we found 144 broken links out of 1751 for just over 8%. For me, that is just too high of a ratio and damages our SEO. Once we figured that portion out for our site, we thought that the members would have similar issues. So, with that coming to light, we decide that this was a “must have” tool to offer to our members. It is free to use and can be located on your dashboard under tools. The first time that you run it, it might seem to be stuck, but let it do it’s thing. It will clear out.

Now, what causes broken links, you ask. Well, that is a simple answer. Links can be deleted over time. A website can expire over time or go corrupt. Even worse, a site can be moved from one domain to another. While there are other fixes out to preserve these links, you have to ask yourself if it is worth the effort to track down the new URL. Once the program runs, you will have the choice to edit the URL, exclude it, or unlink it. In most cases, the only real choice is to unlink it.

So, what all does this tool do? For that information, I thought that I would just turn to Wordpress Plugins Directory for that answer:

Features

• Monitors links in your posts, pages, the blogroll, and custom fields (optional).

• Detects links that don’t work and missing images.

• Notifies you on the Dashboard if any are found.

• Also detects redirected links.

• Makes broken links display differently in posts (optional).

• Link checking intervals can be configured.

• New/modified posts are checked ASAP.

• You view broken links, redirects, and a complete list of links used on your site, in the Tools -> Broken Links tab.

• Searching and filtering links by URL, anchor text and so on is also possible.

• Each link can be edited or unlinked directly via the plugin’s page, without manually editing each post.

Basic Usage

Once installed, the plugin will begin parsing your posts, bookmarks (AKA blogroll), etc and looking for links. Depending on the size of your site this can take a few minutes or even several hours. When parsing is complete the plugin will start checking each link to see if it works. Again, how long this takes depends on how big your site is and how many links there are. You can monitor the progress and set various link checking options in Settings -> Link Checker.

Note : Currently the plugin only runs when you have at least one tab of the Dashboard open. Cron support will likely be added in a later version.

The broken links, if any are found, will show up in a new tab of WP admin panel – Tools -> Broken Links. A notification will also appear in the “Broken Link Checker” widget on the Dashboard. To save display space, you can keep the widget closed and configure it to expand automatically when problematic links are detected.

The “Broken Links” tab will by default display broken links that have been detected so far. However, you can use the subnavigation links on that page to view redirects or see a listing of all links – working or not – instead.

There are several actions associated with each link listed -

• “Details” shows more info about the link. You can also toggle link details by clicking on the “link text” cell.

• “Edit URL” lets you change the URL of that link. If the link is present in more than one place (e.g. both in a post and in the blogroll) then all instances of that URL will be changed.

• “Unlink” removes the link but leaves the link text intact.

• “Exclude” adds the link’s URL to the exclusion list. Excluded URLs won’t be checked again.

• “Discard” lets you manually mark the link as valid. This is useful if you know it was detected as broken only due to a temporary glitch or similar. The link will still be checked normally later.

In closing, this tool is set out to benefit our members. Unfortunately, we do not have the time to run these for you. We also do not have the time to review your broken links to give you direction. Ultimately, this is something that you are going to have to make the call on. There is really no right or wrong answers.

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.

PREP Now Offers Broken Link Checker is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

With all of the hoopla over the release of Google’s Buzz  in the past couple of weeks I got to thinking about similar services that already existed. First lets look at what Google Buzz actually does. If you missed Danny Thornton’s recent post on Buzz, you may want to check it out Positive Real Estate Professionals adds Google Buzz; especially the video.

Buzz is basically a social bookmarking site. Once you have created a Buzz account http://www.google.com/buzz you can then begin building your friends’ list. An easy way to start building this is by utilizing your current gmail contacts. This type of bookmarking is a way to create a ‘Buzz’ about your articles and by extension your website and business. You actually setup an integration with various services you use, like , , etc. which will bookmark your posts from these sites to your Buzz account. These bookmarks are then shared with your friends.

I setup a Buzz account within the first couple of days of the service going live. While I appreciate this bookmarking service and what it can do as far as generating more exposure, I have had an account with for quite some time. Like Buzz, FriendFeed is also a social bookmarking site. FriendFeed has similar features in that you build your friends’ list and then share with those friends your posts from both your own sites and posts from sites that you like. There is not supposed to be any SEO advantage to using Buzz over FriendFeed simply because Buzz is a Google product.

Both of these systems are rather easy to setup. Simply visit their respective websites (link to FriendFeed https://friendfeed.com/account/create?next=http%3A%2F%2Ffriendfeed.com%2F and Buzz http://www.google.com/buzz) and follow the instructions to setup your own account.

FriendFeed And Buzz is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

Today we ran a few reports to check the performance of this real estate network. We use visitor and visitor activity as a gauge of how well Positive Real Estate Professionals is doing. So here are the latest numbers.

161,000 Visitors Per Month – This is to the main PREP site.

67.49% Of The Visitors Are New – This means that growth in terms of visitors is trending in a very positive direction.

41.75% Of The New Visitors Come From Search Engines – This means that peoples’ search terms are matching the meta tags used on the site for increased organic search engine results.

428,000 Page Views (including the main PREP page) – This represents a tremendous amount of traffic to member sites.

2.66 Pages Viewed By Site Visitors – This means that many of the visitors are exploring pages beyond the main site.

4 minutes 20 seconds Average Time Spent On The Site – This means that visitors are taking the time to read and not simply coming and going quickly.

Even if you don’t fully understand these numbers, just know that they are quite good. They represent very positive trends for both the network and the individual member sites. As the network continues to grow in popularity we expect these numbers to continue to trend in a very positive direction.

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.

PREP By The Numbers is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.

Do you have a account? Do you use it? How do you use it? In this post I want to examine the benefits that YouTube (and other video service hosting sites) can bring to your business.

Most smart business people already recognize the reach of the internet in getting their business out there. From stand alone websites like Strategic Funding Concepts to sites like RE/MAX Lakeside: Lake Arrowhead Real Estate which take advantage of the SEO juice that a network creates, a huge part of any overall business plan should incorporate a dynamic website. Dynamic websites have new material added on a regular basis.

Adding new material can be easily accomplished through adding new static pages, blog posts, images, or videos. While traditional blog posts are one of the easiest ways to add new content, both photo and video posts are growing in popularity. Here is a great post on the benefits of photoblogging Say It With Pictures – Photoblogs. You can either incorporate photoblogs and videoblogs (vlogs) into your existing blog or you can create an entirely separate blog just for these mediums. Here is a post on the benefits of multiple blogs Increase your SEO with multiple blogs on one site.

If you have a YouTube account (or an account with one of the other video service hosting sites) then using videos on your site is a snap. From walkthrus of your property listings to potential issues home inspectors encounter everyday to a walking tour of a local attraction, it has never been easier to incorporate these videos into your site. All you do is upload your video to whichever service you have an account with. This then places it in your account so that when others view it, they know it comes from you. You can then use your video’s URL to place it in your blog as a post. That is all you do! You have now added to your video library and to your website; this is a win/win on both counts.

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.

YouTube And Your Business is a post from: Positive Real Estate Professionals All rights reserved. ©

©2010 Positive Real Estate Professionals. All Rights Reserved.