Does Google understand the difference between “Drive” and “Dr” or “Ave” and “Avenue”?
Posted by pete quinlan on Feb 15, 2008
Nope!
Check out these queries by address…
3706 Perseus Dr, Sparks, NV 89436 - With Drive abbreviated
3706 Perseus Drive, Sparks, NV 89436 - With Drive Spelled out
3706 Perseus Sparks, NV 89436 - Now I will remove drive altogether
Interestingly enough, when the city, state and zip are removed the Zillow result is still returned first. Changing Dr to Drive not only removes zillow from the top spot…it’s nowhere to be seen?!?! I have found this to be true with Ave vs Avene as well. Now if I could only figure out why and how to fix this.
NOTE: During the half hour dedicated to this blog post I re-uploaded the images of the search results and now this post is showing up first in the SERPS with Drive spelled out.
Indexing problems
Posted by pete quinlan on Feb 11, 2008
A major issue with many websites is getting deep pages to get indexed….especially if there is no link to the page other than a search funtion. In my case that’s the problem. I have a large number of properties than do not get indexed because there are no direct links to the pages. I want to create a special page that displays new homes for sale in a lsit and provides an rss feed so interested parties can subscribe and view properties as they come available. In order to get these pages indexed I will try and see if I can get this Auburn real estate property indexed externally, before the internal links kick in.
www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=58382697
Thoughts on inbound linking and anchor text
Posted by pete quinlan on Feb 6, 2008
Admittedly, I don’t blog much and haven’t touched this in several months. In order to get crawled more often I will try and write more.
At any rate, I just did a minor experiment placing a link from my me meager little blog to a Zillow local page. Zillow does not rank very well for any community pages in google. Oddly enough auburn wa real estate jumped to the second page in the google serps? So will now change that link to another small town and see if that page jumps. In theory all of this is not ground breaking , but I must see it for myself what kind of effect this has. I am dumping a ton of resources into getting good natural links to the local pages and I want to make sure it is time well spent!
Real Estate Web Design with an emphasis on SEO
Posted by pete quinlan on Nov 6, 2007
A few weeks back geekestateblog released a blog post about various real estate web design solutions on the market. I worked in the space a few years back so many of the 25 or so companies were quite familiar. When I was selling real estate websites I tried to explain the importance of search marketing, but most real estate web solutions did not fit the bill. Mot real estate solutions that are priced reasonably are templates and include duplicate or uneditable content. They are typically on the same class c address block as many other similar sites. However, last week I came across a solution that is built on the idea of search marketing. It is built on top of Wordpress so it’s open source and complete with modules designed to allow you to control content, title tags, meta description tags and more. The real estate solution was created by Greg Boser an SEO veteran. The Wordpress sites are called propertytown and are very customizable. It may be the best solution for real estate agents that are interested in using search engines to market their sites. Even if you are not a savvy search marketer, the solution offers private SEO forums that will answer your search marketing questions, testimonials and consulting. I have seen a few sites and am impressed by the search capability as well as the custom look and feel. If you are a real estate agent and want a simple clean site that works well with the search engines, this is a great solution!
Inbound Links: The REAL Story and 10 Ways to get them for your site
Posted by pete quinlan on Sep 13, 2007
Today’s Real Estate Agent has to be extremely competitive in all aspects of marketing including search engine marketing. Search engine marketing like the rest of the technology moves at a very rapid pace. To stay on top of it would mean either your sales are slipping or you are not sleeping . So I am going to make it easy for you, if you want your agent page or real estate website to rank for competitive search engine terms…..you need inbound links.
I will say it again, …you need inbound links!
Inbound links are links TO YOUR WEBPAGE or WEBSITE, from other websites. These links tell search engines that your website is worth going to as well as provide that door for the occasional visitor. The text contained in the actual link (anchor text) is equally important. For example, “Oregon Real Estate” with a link to your website or page is a well executed inbound link, because it describes the link. On the other hand, “click here” or “view this link” tells the search engines nothing about where the link is taking them. Be sure to provide good anchor text with your inbound links.
Search engines, especially Google, rank your sites with a very complex algorithm that puts a great deal of emphasis on your sites popularity. The stronger the website that executes your link, the more powerful the link. A link from realtor.com is much more valuable than a link from your Aunts website, www.fluffythewondercat.biz. Basically, it’s like a popularity contest, the more relevant the vote cast in your favor, the better the outcome. The cooler the kids rooting for you, the more famous you are. Being king of the nerds doesn’t do too much.
There are a lot of companies out there that sell ‘link building’ services. Be wary of these as some of them make use of so-called “Link Farms”. These are sites that allow anyone to add a link and are viewed as spam by search engines. A truly effective link building campaign involves much time, research, know-how, know-where and Okay, now the hard part, how do you get links?
1. Forum, Community and Social Sites. Get involved with online communities and social sites. www.activerain.com is an excellent example of a site that will allow you to create a profile and link to your website, as is www.Linkedin.com. I would steer clear of www.myspace.com for professional reasons.
2. Write Good Content. Just like it sounds, write something that people think is interesting and you might get some links. This works best if you have a blog. Add information to your site at least once every 2 weeks. Make sure the information is relevant. Remember that the popular kid is the interesting one.
3. News Feeds and Blogs. Create a blog, write good content, become an authority on your neighborhood, link to other blogs. Provide information and articles that your audience can identify with, such as local real estate trends, or best local burger.
4. Partnerships. Form business partnerships as well as internet partnerships. Seek out people with complementing businesses to yours and and refer each other business and traffic both in person and in cyberspace.
5. Directory Submission. There are many free and paid directories that will provide linking opportunities. Best-web-directories.com is an excellent resource. Make sure the directories are relevant to your website.
6. Ask for it? Find relevant sites that might give you or charge you a small fee for a link. Local newspapers or chamber of commerce sites are a good example. Another example, Seattle Real Estate!
7. Blog Comments. Comment on blogs with a link back to your site as part of your signature. Make sure the comments add to the post. “Good Post, Bro”, does not qualify.
8. Article Submission. Submit articles to sites and if it gets picked up, the traffic and links can be potentially huge. www.realestatevoices.com is a new real estate themed site similar to Digg.
9. PR. Do something remarkable, write a press release and submit to prweb.com or any online press release site. They will release your article to the press and you may get picked up by some noteworthy sources.
10. Charity Events. Get involved with charities, they typically list people that are associated with their organization.
Remember that your website is your online business card so you’ve got to give it out as much as you possibly can. Make sure that you’re getting your name out there, and most importantly, providing a means for them to find you and know more about what you do.