Randy Eagar, CRS

I know that this will be unpopular, especially after being in the business for over 30 years, but I think that this extension is nothing but another “sweetheart deal” for another private industry. We like to think that we are special in leading this country out of a recession (which we are told that we are now out of) but the way out of any recession is to let the market take care of itself.
Of course this extension will be good for REALTORS. But where does it stop? How soon before we bailout Fannie and Freddy . . . AGAIN? How soon before the government owns the banking industry? How soon before the government owns the auto industry . . . oh yeah, it already does.
Currently the government has gone from owning 11% to now 30% of our net worth! When do we let the free market stand on its own?
Remember the sweetheart loans that we all got last year and the year before that put most of their homeowners into foreclosure? Do you still think that the short term good was a long term benefit?
I am now hooked on the show “V” on ABC. Why? Because it demonstrates what is happening to us right now. At two points in the show the main characters foreshadow the biggest evil that is happening with an alien culture coming to “give” miracles to we earthlings. The biggest evil is that we become DEPENDANT.

I fear that every industry is now asking for their share. Where is my “entitlement”? I think the better question is “where is my freedom”?
Randy Eagar, CRS

Randy Eagar, CRS

Twitter can be a very effective tool for you and your real estate SEO, but you have to use it the right way. If you make every post about real estate you may be seen as boring or a spammer, but with too few tweets about real estate your followers may not think of you when looking for a broker. Your tweets need to show who you’re; your personality, interests, and blend your personal with your business life. Unknown to most, Twitter is also a great for real estate SEO purposes because you can include links to your real estate website or blog, driving more traffic there. Here are some useful ways to use Twitter for your real estate business. There are many more, so feel free to add some of your own!

1. Converse with People About Your Real Estate Business

a. On occasion, you can tweet positive news about your company and what news is happening. Be careful about doing this too much in that people get tired of self promoting tweets and will tend to delete you. Thus this promotion effect can best be used when interspersed with many of the other ideas that we’ll be talking about today such as sharing quotes, giving advice, commenting on the industry and more. The more comments you make the more visible you’re.

b. Just like using Google on the Internet, you can see what people really think about you on Twitter, or if anyone that is following you is saying anything about you. Twitter is where people are. They’re freely expressing their opinion. You can use the search feature on twitter to see what people are talking about each topic. You can write your own name and see what people are talking about you. Whether they’re talking good stuff, or bad stuff. It’s better than those customer evaluation sheets that Macys and JCPenny ask you to do because not everyone does it. So you never get the neutral view out of it. You either read reviews that are super good or super bad. This shows you the general view about yourself, or a product that you’re looking for.

2. Establish a Good Database of Followers

a. The number one most easy way to get twitter followers is to simply follow others! Seems simple, yet not many people are doing it. All you do is search Twitter for the “gurus” in your niche, and follow the people that are following them. The gurus in your niche should have the bulk of your target market, that’s why I say to follow their followers.

Now wait about 2 weeks to give the people you followed a chance to start following you. You should get about 700 followers by the end of the 2 weeks! Now go to: Twitter Karma (which can be found at dossy.org/twitter/karma) and un-follow everyone who’s NOT following you. And repeat the step above to get more followers. A caution here. If you go to Twitter Karma using Internet Explorer, you’ll get a message saying that there are known concerns and/or conflicts with this browser. I’ve found Mozilla’s FireFox (FireFox.com) to work very well with this program.

b. Include a link to Twitter in your forum or email signature. Just think of Twitter as a website. The same way you can get traffic to your website, you can do the same for Twitter. So make sure to post your Twitter link in your signature on forums! Include a link to Twitter in all emails you send out to your list. At the end of the email, just say “Follow me on Twitter” with your link. Make this a hyperlink to your Twitter homepage.

c. Tweeting on a personal level is fun and for many that’s as far as it goes – but if you’re interested in growing your Twitter influence you need to provide your followers (and potential followers) with value. It’s the same principle as growing a blog – if you help enhance people’s lives in some way they’re more likely to want to track with you and read more of what you have to say. As a result your conversations should ‘matter’ on some level. Sure you can throw in personal tweets and have some fun with it – but unless you’re providing something useful to people (information, entertainment, news, education etc) they probably won’t follow you for long.

d. I’ve the majority of new twitter followers add me and find me during business hours. Tweeting during these times increases the chances of someone finding you and adding you as someone to follow. However I can also say that there are quite a few ‘adds’ that come online after hours as well. In addition, I’ve also used programs such as Tweet Adder (TweetAdder.com) to increase my followers. This is a program that can dramatically increase your followers, but you have to stay focused on your specialty. Then later delete those who don’t follow you back as we discussed in Twitter Karma.

3. Use Twitpic To Share Photos Of Your New Listings.

a. Twitpic is a website that allows users to easily post pictures to the Twitter microblogging and social media service. You can easily locate it at TwitPic.com. If you’re a member of Twitter, then you’re already a member of Twitpic. You can post photos from your smartphone or the site itself.

b. Twitpic is often used by agents to upload and distribute pictures in near real-time of new properties for sale and as an event is taking place. Twitpic could be used independently of Twitter, in a way similar to Flickr. However several characteristics make this site a companion for Twitter.

c. Again, Twitpic usernames and passwords are the same as the ones in Twitter. Comments to photographs are sent as a reply tweet. Twitpic URLs are already short, making it unnecessary to use URL shortening.

4. Remember, The Quality Of Your Followers Is Better Than The Quantity

a. While having a large quantity of followers can be valuable, don’t make the mistake of overlooking the quality of those who follow you. The addition of just a few good quality people can cause large numbers of others to follow you.

b. It’s not necessary to always be the content originator. Pointing to good content works too (and Twitter is the perfect platform for this). As I mentioned earlier, “retweeting” someone else’s post can be an excellent way of getting good quality material posted to your site.

c. On the Internet, as in life, people get major good will and brownie points for being helpful. So, even if you’re from time to time just the bird dog or pointer, people will remember you for helping them find useful information they need.

5. Group Your Posts and Others Using the Hashtag

a. Even if you’re new to Twitter and read a few posts, you’ve probably recognized the hash symbol (”#”) attached to many posts. That’s what Twitter users call a “hashtag,” and at any given time at least one of them can usually be found among the trending topics on Twitter. But what exactly is a hashtag?

Hashtags are basically a simple way to catalog and connect tweets about a specific topic. They make it easier for users to find additional tweets on a particular subject, while filtering out the incidental tweets that may just coincidentally contain the same keyword. Hashtags are also often used by various Boards, Associations, Large real estate offices and event organizers as a method of keeping all tweets about the event in a single stream, and they’ve even been used to coordinate updates during emergencies. In fact, hashtags were first popularized during the 2007 San Diego wildfire, when the tag #sandiegofires was used to identify tweets about the natural disaster.

b. Because hashtags tend to spread so quickly and because Twitter users often search hashtags for content from people they’ren’t following, using hashtags can be a great way to extend your reach on Twitter and connect with your current audience in a more meaningful way. There are a wide variety of already established hashtags — and new ones being created daily — that you can join. You need to be careful, however, that your use of hashtags is consistent with both your brand and the tag itself.

Proper etiquette dictates that you should only use hashtags if your tweet is actually relevant to the tag’s associated topic.

So which tags should you participate in? That depends wholly on your business and your purpose for using Twitter. For example, it’s probably a bad idea to participate in the #FSBOsRus hashtag (which does not exist currently) if you own a real estate office and use your Twitter account to assist in listing properties. But if you do a large volume in short sales, you’ll more than likely want to join in the #shortsale or #SHORTSALES hashtags (of which both exist), in which people tweet about their interest in or questions about short sales.

c. Use sites like Twubs (that would be Twubs.com), a hashtag directory, to locate and identify hashtags that make sense for your business. Also, pay attention to tags being used by your followers and search for them on Twitter to see what sort of tweets are associated with those tags. If it makes sense for your business to jump on board, compose tweets that are on topic and compatible with that hashtag.

d. While you certainly shouldn’t use hashtags to describe all of your tweets, they can be very helpful for your real estate company as a way to track social media campaigns that help establish a sense of community and build your company’s brand among your core customers. The first step in creating a hashtag is deciding on the tag word itself. Pick something memorable, easy to spell, and perhaps more importantly, as short as possible. Remember that Twitter gives just 140 characters per tweet, so no one wants half of it to be taken up by an unwieldy hashtag.

Once you’ve figured out the tag itself, the next step is simple: start using it and promoting it. Make sure your tweets using the hashtag are worthwhile and add something of value to the conversation. Promote your tag or the social media campaign that uses the tag via other social media channels, such as your blog or email newsletter. Tweet out calls to action explaining your new tag at regular intervals (but don’t overdo it!). For example, let’s say you’d like more information on short sales. Your explanatory tweet might be something like, “What’s the best thing you’ve learned selling ‘short sales? Tweet and share your thoughts using #shortsales!”

Unique non-words such as zwxsitg2jf will make your “Tweet” come up above all others, but I don’t suggest using this.

Randy Eagar, CRS

Do we really understand the power of real estate SEO? Okay, raise your hand if you know that 87% of all home purchases include the Internet. Wow, impressive. Okay, now raise your hand if you are doing something about it . . . come on . . . anybody? Just as I thought. We all know that buyers are almost all using the Internet, but we have a paralysis to action. So what can we do? Here’s a few simple steps that YOU can do to make your website more effective:

1. Create a Landing Page
   What’s a “Landing Page”? It’s just a simple one page website that offers some sort of service or product to the viewer for free. While this could also be a blog site, blog sites get more complicated. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly endorse them, but for different reasons and purposes. The two things about the Landing Page is that it should be on a separate server with a separate domain name, and with a link to your website. The reason for the later is that the search engines will follow it to your website and your viewer will as well.
2. Create Fresh Content
   Want to know one of the things that Google absolutely loves? Fresh content, and updated frequently. How frequent? Daily if you can, or at least several times a week if you can’t. The biggest gains for you here are if you update posts on your blog site regularly. The reason for this is that the blog site is read by the search engines MUCH more regularly.
3. Content Writing with SEO Keyword Phrases
   One of the most important things that you can include in your text is to remember your Keyword Phrases (like “Denver real estate”, “Boston luxury condos”, “Tampa waterfront homes”, etc). There are three main areas that you should focus on your Keyword Phrases:The most important area is in your Title to your website. In fact your Title should be built with your Keyword Phrases.The second most important area for your Keyword Phrases is to be sprinkled throughout your content. Fill your content with about 2% to 3% of these Keyword Phrases per page of 100 words. That means that an average page of 500 words should have about 10 to 15 Keyword Phrases sprinkled throughout.

   In addition, you can use these Keyword Phrases very effectively by using them as links to other areas within your website.

4. Keep a Logical Progression
   I’m making this a separate point as I think it’s critical. Google and the other search engines make a natural assumption. They figure that whatever you lead off with in your website must be the most important. And therefore, they give it greater value. So here are a few tips:Make sure that you start off your first paragraph with your best Keyword Phrases in a “strong” bold text. This tells the search engines that this is really important. Next, take your second best Keyword Phrase and put it up near the first of the first sentence. Continue this all the way down and it will make it easier for the search engines to classify the content.

   Think up plural and other forms of the same word within your Keyword Phrases.  This will help in your Keyword Phrase rankings as well as your Page Rank.

5. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)
   Some of the best websites that I’ve seen are simply elegant and not flashy with Java script, multimedia and slide shows. Keep in mind that the more of this you put on your website, the slower it will load, and that will effect the search engines ability to read your website.

While print medium is all about new events or products, the Internet is a very different medium. On the Internet, it’s not just about the story. The Internet is also about links. Just think, when you are performing SEO, what exactly are you trying to achieve?

Let’s be clear as to what we’re trying to do

While the SEO goal is to get websites placed high in the major search engines, there are many ways to do this. One of the more effective ways is to build back links (many refer to these as inbound links) to your website. More than this, you want strong back links from site with strong authority (sites that also have many back links to them).

In addition, you want what is known as “anchor links”. Instead of typing in text that says “Go to Jim Jones site by clicking here” (where “clicking here” is the link), try “Go to Jim’s Denver real estate website” (where “Denver real estate” is the link). By doing this, it tells the search engines what the site is about. “Clicking Here” does not tell the search engines anything.

The more relevant anchor texts you have that is pointing back to your website, the better your search rankings will be.

Let me put it simply;
1) Acquire more back links from high authority sites.
2) Get proper anchor texts pointing back to your website.

These are the two primary goals that you are trying to accomplish. Now let’s take a look at how press releases can help you achieve those goals.

Link building with online press releases.

Let’s take a look at the several types of press release services that you will come across.

1) Free releases with no links allowed – These are press release sites that allow you to submit press releases for free. But the drawback is that you can’t have any active links in your release. If you are purely looking for some exposure with no SEO benefit whatsoever, you can still make use of these services.

2) Free releases with links allowed but no anchor texts – These are services that allow you to include 1 or 2 URLs in each press release. But these are URLs, and you cannot have your choice of anchor texts. So unless your URL contains your target keywords, you are out of luck.

3) Paid releases with links and anchor texts allowed – These are the kind of press release service that will have maximum SEO benefits. For an affordable fee, you get to publish a press release with at least 2 back links included. You are also allowed to choose your own anchor texts.

The reason why such services work so well is because they usually include many high page rank sites in their distribution list. Imagine having sites like CNET, EIN News, InboxRobot, AmericanChronicle, etc. linking back to you.

These are all well established sites that have been around for years. No wonder the search engines pay so much attention to these sites!

a. Instructional posts tell people how to do something. I find that my Tips posts are generally the ones that are among my most popular both in the short term (ie loyal readers love them and will link up to them) but also in the longer term (ie one of the reasons people search the web is to find out how to do things and if you can rank highly with your tips post you can have traffic over a length of time).

b. Make sure you give instructions on interesting topics and you will make your blog posts more compelling to read and more likely to be linked.

c. Instructional blogs are highly recommended and bookmarked. The reason for this is in the nature of wanting to just click back to the instructions rather than take copious notes on how to do something of interest.

2. Informational –

a. This is one of the more common blog post types where you simply give information on a topic.

b. You can give information on any topic of your choice. The better the information that you give here, the more of an expert you appear.

c. It could be a definition post or a longer explanation of some aspect of the niche that you’re writing on.

d. This is the crux of successful sites like wikipedia

3. Reviews –

a. Another highly searched for term on the web is ‘review’ – I know every time I’m considering buying a new product that I head to Google and search for a review on it first. Reviews come in all shapes and sizes and on virtually every product or service you can think of.

b. Give your fair and insightful opinion and

c. ask readers for their opinion –

d. reviews can be highly powerful posts that have a great longevity.

4. Lists –

a. One of the easiest ways to write a post is to make a list. Posts with content like ‘The Top Ten ways to….’, ‘7 Reasons why….’ ‘ 5 Favorite ….’, ‘53 mistakes that bloggers make when….’ are not only easy to write but are usually very popular with readers and with getting links from other bloggers. One tip on lists – if you start with a brief list (each point as a phrase or sentence) and then develop each one into a paragraph or two you might just end up with a series of posts that lasts you a few days. That’s how I started the Bloggers Block series.

b. Examples:

i. Resource lists. The useful list of resources requires two ingredients: time and a good eye for quality. If a resource list seems useful many readers will bookmark or vote for it on face-value alone. If your blog is struggling, a useful resource list can be an effective way to spark up your traffic and links.

ii. Best-of lists. At this time of year you’ll see a lot of ‘Best of 2007′ round-ups, though best-of lists seem to work well at all times. They’re effective because people are constantly searching for the ‘best’ of everything. It’s a term that promises high quality. It also generates interest because ‘best’ is subjective — what’s best for you might be mediocre for others. Ranked lists always seem to generate links, traffic and debate.

iii. Lists of tips. Quantifiable lists of tips are really attractive to readers because they explain in just a few seconds what a visitors stands to receive in return for their attention. You see them everywhere — and that’s because they work.

5. Interviews –

a. Sometimes when you’ve run out of insightful things to say it might be a good idea to let someone else do the talking in an interview (or a guest post).

b. This is a great way to not only give your readers a relevant expert’s opinion but to perhaps even learn something about the topic you’re writing yourself. One tip if you’re approaching people for an interview on your blog – don’t overwhelm them with questions.

c. One of two good questions are more likely to get you a response than a long list of poorly thought through ones.

d. Q&As with high profile people. Interviews with well-known bloggers always seem to get links, comments and traffic. The nice thing about this method is that the only work involved is writing questions and approaching bloggers. The success rates for getting interviews are pretty high as most bloggers love talking about themselves!