Real Estate Forums

SEOWolf · 02-20-2008, 02:49 PM

Good info here Jared.

Maybe in your next update you could delve more into SEO Malpractice.

There seems to be a trend for “SEO Professionals” to expose clients to severe penalties lately by blatant black hat tactics and gross self promotion. And the self promotion for SEO firms seems to be getting worse. Client sites are used (misused) as little more that link farms pointing back the SEO’s site. Which in and of it self may or may not be bad, however any lasting penalties could be spread throughout the entire network. These links back to the SEO site makes for an easy target for the search engines to identify network members as has been evidenced over this past year a couple of times.

The idea of REALTOR® being scammed for thousands of dollars is repulsive enough but to adversely affecting rankings on a permanent level through SEO Malpractice is far more frightening.

The majority of us do after all make our living from our websites. Based on the traffic to and leads from our websites we build and manage our businesses. We hire Agents, rent larger offices and budget our businesses according to revenues from these websites. And I am amazed at how casual some REALTORS® are entrusting the success or failure of this to complete strangers. Some of which are even for all practical purposes removed from the American judicial system making recovery of damages all but impossible or impractical.

Far better IMHO to retain an American SEO firm with a solid background in ethical and “White Hat” SEO tactics and build a solid foundation for rankings.

While fast track solutions to good rankings may be great for short term income, it comes at what cost to your long term business plans?

Just my 2¢ worth,

~VegasMack

SEOWolf · 02-25-2008, 01:04 PM

BTW Jared – A detailed segment on “White Hat” vs “Black Hat” would be nice.

~VegasMack

Jim B · 02-25-2008, 02:23 PM

I would love to see a segment on some of the more hidden methods of Search Engine Optimization, Such as proper site wide interlinking for optimum effect.

fred333 · 02-27-2008, 06:42 AM

I know for our website we went to a seo/ website management company called Mystic Liquid. They helped both us and our site when it came to SEO. They also have a great blog that I learned a lot from. You can find it at www.MysticLiquid.com. They were very affordable if you are looking for some help.

Jim B · 02-27-2008, 06:53 AM

Thanks for the post Fred333,

I went to the link, and I had not seen that blog before. I did a quick look though their last 2 pages of posts and noticed they are not getting much form comments on their posts. In fact only 2 commenter's, and only one linked out to his site, which mysticliquid stuck a NO-FOLLOW tag on.

When I see stuff like this it makes me wonder who good they really are??

Jared · 02-27-2008, 07:02 AM

I spent an hour on the phone with a Realtor who hired a well known or should I say well publicized SEO who included in his contract at $500 per month the services of contextual linking.

This person whom I can not name asked if they were obligated to the contract since this SEO experts site had been penalized by google and contextual linking services would be moot in terms of the contract. Hmmmm very interesting question and one I can't advise on but the illusion that once became real is about to be very transparent. Wait and see what I mean. I'm going to title the post. The Harder They Fall

I'm doing that only to articulate why my post on SEO Woes was created in the first place.

FRED333 thanks for the suggestions and link. I'll look it over.
James That is a beautiful idea and I may just do that, just post up some general techniques I've learned without letting the cat out of the proverbial bag by revealing some proprietary techniques. But that would be a great post.

White Hat” vs “Black Hat and proper inner linking is what I'll work on next.

~ Jared

castlelady · 02-28-2008, 05:10 PM

So can you share more about what SEO tactics we can do ourselves so we don't have to go an hire these expensive companies? I want to do what I can to help my site rank better and have been looking at various companies and I am disgusted with how much they all want to charge with no real verifiable plan. I just can't see paying thousands of dollars - when I know there's no guarantee. So are we better off just doing pay per click then?

Jared · 02-28-2008, 05:24 PM

Hello Columbus Realtor, I'll cover that in White hat vs Black hat this week as I publish other aspects of these practices.

castlelady · 02-28-2008, 05:38 PM

Do you know anything about a company called lazyurl.com. They have pretty cheap seo packages. I found another site that ranks very highly who has used that service.

castlelady · 02-28-2008, 06:11 PM

Oh - also what is a good blog company to use to create my own local real estate blog? Is wordpress good enough. I had a guy from real estate tomato try to convince me their blog was worth 3k. That seems steep for a blog? Am I nuts? Is there really something so special about their blogs that it's worth that?