Real Estate Forums

HHI Golf Guy · 01-12-2006, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webmaster

I believe what you are pointing out is that there is not a homepage link to the links directory main page from the homepage, is this correct HHI?

If so, I think you might just have missed it.
If you look under "Ed Kirkland also services these other Emerald Coast Real Estate Areas:" on the right hand side, you will see a link that says "Destin Condos Resources" that links to http://www.edkirkland.com/resources/ that link has been there for well over a year, feel free to use the wayback machine to verify.

OK - that's just an odd way of phrasing a resources page because it implies that the page you are linking to is about Destin Condos and not other resources. I know why you did it that way, but it does make it hard for any link partners to trace navigation.

I appreciate your response to this issue, but I still contend that those pages were abandoned or orphaned either intentionally or unintentionally (change in policy or change in site structure). The reason that I say this is that when I performed a link verification check those individual state pages would "hang" because they could not find the SWF slide show file coded in the HTML.

Also, when I went to the folder http://www.edkirkland.com/resources/ it did not default to your main resources page (I got a 404 error).

LVH · 01-12-2006, 06:41 PM

Quote:

OK - that's just an odd way of phrasing a resources page because it implies that the page you are linking to is about Destin Condos and not other resources. I know why you did it that way, but it does make it hard for any link partners to trace navigation.

I am not trying to add fuel to the fire but please help me understand something, with the way that the links are directed to other linking partners using the anchor text Destin Condos, could this not be considered keyword stuffing? I honestly dont know but would be interested in hearing some feedback.

webmaster · 01-13-2006, 10:49 AM

When you go to http://www.edkirkland.com/resources/ you get a 404? I am looking at it right now, and I have the page up and running just fine, what browser are you looking at it in?I checked IE and firefox.

As far as the SWF file, that wasnt working in the resources directory for some reason, but there is no reason for that to make the pages appear orphaned, links in flash are not even parsed by the SE's and the navigation is not dependant on those flash links, as there are html text link alternatives for each button.

Regardless, thanks for noticing the flash file, it has sinse been fixed.

Re naming convension of the resources file, I believe initially we were going to make that section specific to just condo sites, and then expanded it to include all real estate agents, as most of them dont just sell condos even if they have sites focused mainly on condos. I mean why turn down links.

That being said, Ed's site, links copy etc is a few years old and is due for an upgrade anyways, I will be working on it in the coming months. I just finished building the destin IDX site for him at http://www.destin-florida-real-estate.com and I have a few more project ahead of edkirkland.com in the lineup, but it will be brought up to 2006 REW standards. Would have done it sooner, but it was #1 in all 3 engines for so long, I just didnt want to touch it.

Btw all resource pages will keep their filenames, and thus no link shifting will occur on a rewrite and redesign.

I don't think this thread was created for a site review of edk, but we do appreciate the feedback.
thanks guys

heatherstanton · 02-21-2006, 01:28 PM

I was reading some of your post about Ed Kirkland. My wife sells real estate in the Atlanta area I have been trying to get my wife's website higher on the search engine rankings. She uses a template which was not designed to be search engine friendly. I can add text links and as much content as I want. I have tried to get her to change websites but, that is not an option for her. After reading some of your post I typed in Destin Real Estate into Yahoo. and Ed Kirland is ranked number 1. I didn't check google but, I assume it's pretty close as well.
My question to you is; how many clients are you producing these top rankings for and given that my wife's website is a template can you do it for us as well? Check us out when you get a chance. http://www.heatherstanton.com

Tony Sena · 02-21-2006, 09:53 PM

It takes time for a site to get ranked in the top 10. Not only time but links and fresh content. I have spent almost 2 years, hired a webmaster, spent over 100K and my site is still not in the top 10. I am in the top 15, but thats still not the first page. Las Vegas is a very competitive market when it comes to seo.

If you want to be ranked high, it is my opinion to hire a professional person to handle all the seo.

Hope this helped a little bit.

LVH · 02-22-2006, 03:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tony Sena

It takes time for a site to get ranked in the top 10. Not only time but links and fresh content. I have spent almost 2 years, hired a webmaster, spent over 100K and my site is still not in the top 10. I am in the top 15, but thats still not the first page. Las Vegas is a very competitive market when it comes to seo.

If you want to be ranked high, it is my opinion to hire a professional person to handle all the seo.

Hope this helped a little bit.

Tony my friend I have to disagree with you on this one. Seo is easy to learn it just requires a lot of reading and then applying what you have learn to your sites. See I know this cause I have been down the road you are traveling down now. I spent well over 100k and only have some sites to show for it.

Since I have read and applied what I have learn to my sites they are making progress. Seo is not rocket science, it is a matter of applying common principles of using h1, h2, title tags, meta tags, alt tags, density, proper navigation, importance of link text ratios, backlinks and then waiting to let these factors naturally move you up the serps.

There are ways to manipulate these search engines but I am sure you can understand where that will lead you. The techniques used to manipulate serps are easy but they are short term. These types of practices cost you thousands and at some point you have nothing to show for them, whereas a site that takes the natural approach will keep those high rankings for quite some time.

Seo's are good if you dont have the time to spend doing it yourself and for programming needs, other than that, I personally think after experiencing it first hand, they are a waste of money. I am sure as your knowledge level grows about Seo, you as well will look back and ask yourself why did I spend all that money.

heatherstanton · 02-22-2006, 09:49 AM

Well, I am in the same boat as you. I haven't spent 100k but, an easy 30k and countless hours, and still growing. It's a lot like smashing my head up against the wall. What do you do, right? I have learned alot more than I thought I ever would and I have come along way with the serps. However, in the real estate business, if you're not on the first page you may as well not be ranked at all.
LVH, thanks for the heads up about the seo's. I have considered time and time again on hiring one. As a matter of fact I spoke to this one company somewhere out of Raleigh. The kid couldn't have been more than 19. He didn't have any customer skills what so ever and he wanted to charge me 4k a month with no guarantees and mostly just managing my ppc's. I couldn't believe it, I guess I'm the only one who is not a millionaire.
Anyway, thanks for the advice and I will continue my serp education.
http://www.heatherstanton.com

SEOWolf · 02-22-2006, 11:06 AM

Heatherstanton,

You need to create good quality back links if you want to move your wife’s site up in the SERPs.

Currently your site only shows 17 black links in Google, 3,740 in MSN and 116 in Yahoo.

Build a reciprocal links directory that is themed to real estate only (no Casio sites and so on.) Build an structured directory (by states). Limit out bound links to 40 - 50 per page.

Stay away from link partners that use framed link pages.

Exchange links with sites that will use anchor text with your main key word phrases like Atlanta Real Estate, not just your URL (http://www.heatherstanton.com/).

In your forum post, (here and elsewhere) remove your URL and add text links in your signature. They do count as back links.

Like LVH and Tony stated, it all takes time, but this is something you can do yourself and is critical for rankings.

Just be fair with all of your link partners. While there are methods you can use to create one way links, the stronger your partners are the better the quality of link you receive from them.

Before discounting all SEO Pros you might open a dialog with HHI Golf Guy. He is good, honest and fair (rare qualities in this field unfortunately).

Regardless of rather you have an SEO Pro are not, you will need back links and a ton of them. The older they are, the more they are worth, so start at the beginning. Unfortunately there are NO short cuts.

Good luck.

Just my 2 ¢ worth,

~VegasMack

webmaster · 02-23-2006, 05:17 PM

heatherstanton - LVH is right, there is nothing an SEO can do for you, that you can't do for yourself. However there is a learning curve, and it does take a lot of time investment.

Ask yourself, do you want to be a webmaster or a realtor?

I think to do a great job on your site you should budget this many hours.

Copywriting & onpage SEO - 10-15 hours per month

Link building and directory submission - 30-40 hours per month

Design - (Probably best have a design company design your site as it is the selling point, and graphics are much harder to do well than SEO, also make sure your graphics company creates SEO friendly sites - Budget low end $1000 high end $10,000) - if you try to go for a cheap template, you will end up with a cheap website.

So you are looking at 40-55 hours of your own time per month to do SEO. If you are even a half decent realtor you will bill yourself out at $100 per hour, so thats $4000-$5500 it costs you in your own wages to work on your site, suddenly hiring a professional does not seem like such a bad idea.

SEO is a buyer beware business. When you choose someone to do it, make sure they can show you plenty of examples of websites they have ranked. (Not ones they did 5 years ago, ones they still work with today)

Ask for references (And for goodness sake call them!)
Q'S
- Are you happy with your SEO company
- do they provide good customer service
- are you getting good leads from the traffic they are bringing
- are you closing deals from those leads (They arent bogus)

That sort of thing. A good SEO company is 1 in a billion (And there are only 50 million out there go figure) so yeah their worth it (Unless you want to do it yourself, seo can make a darn fun hobby for some) - but as with any industry, there are those who excell and those you should probably never call in the first place.

I havent seen any of HHI's work, but as a member of our REW forum, he does seem quite knowlegable so that is a good start.

Best of luck to you.

Tony Sena · 02-23-2006, 08:16 PM

I have to agree withe the last post.

Wayne I am a real estate professional and I am in the process of opening my office. I know that if I had the time to devote to reading and studying, I am sure I could learn seo, but then that would take me away from selling real estate.

Most real estate agents are spending most of their time working with clients, following up with files, past clients, loan officers, escrow agents, so on and so on. I don't know about you, but agents don't have the time to spend all the hours it takes to make sure their site is ranking well in the search engine.

I close about 8 deals a month and even with my assistant, there is no way I would have time to study about seo and impliment what I have learned. Because I am successful at real estate, I have had the opportunity to pay a professional to handle seo.