365 Days of Eliminating Crap Facebook Group by Linda Davis

365 Days of Eliminating Crap Facebook Group by Linda Davis AKA “The Crapmaster”. 

I am so happy to have found Linda's Facebook group. Linda is a real estate broker associate with Re/Max in Ledyard, CT. 

Around January 5, 2014 I found out about Linda's group- 365 Days of Eliminating Crap 

The purpose of the group is to inspire each of us to get rid of 1 item per day for 365 days. If I could do this, that would mean that I would get 365 items out of our house that we no longer need or are of no useful purpose to us. 

At first it sounded daunting but instead, it was awesome inspiring! 

What started out as the thought, “What in the world can I get rid of every single day?” ended up within one week's time thoughts of real things to get rid of. 

It was fun too. Although I did not have time to take photos and post them every day to the group- it ended up that not ONE day went by in 2014 where I did not eliminate something. 

Linda's strict rule was “one item per day” NOT cleaning out your entire closet or garage. That was great because if you break goals down into small manageable action steps it is easy to accomplish. 

In fact, Linda would oust you from the group if you started posting about cleaning out entire closets and rooms. 

It is easy to make sure to get rid of just one item per day out of your house. Most of us have way too much junk and items that can be much more useful to others. 

Some items went out to the recycling containers, some stuff was thrown in the trash but most of the items I got rid of were given to others who could use the items. First, I would ask our kids ( the grown up ones) if any of them wanted the items, if they did not want them, I would ask our church members and if no one there wanted them, I put them on freecycle. Our freecyle group here is very good, I rarely have no shows. 

I love spices and enjoy cooking. By doing just a little bit each day- I was able to clear out two good sized spice cabinets and one drawer. I consolidated all the half used bottles of spices into larger containers and then labeled all the containers. 

I also was able to clean out one half of my walk-in closet. Since I lost a lot of weight, I gave away all the clothes that are now too big for me. 

I cleaned out my trunk in my car over time and also many drawers in my kids' rooms as well as in our kitchen and offices. 

As you homeschoolers know, you can get pretty cluttered with homeschool books, notebooks, science kits, projects, etc. If you are like me then you also have a bunch of awesome homeschool ideas laying around with good intentions but in reality you will never have the time to finish them:). Yes, I do that too. So the best project was the one of eliminating those projects and passing along books and curriculum to other homeschool families who were in need of these items. Here is Tristan's homeschool desk now: 

And here is my clutter-free desk: 

It feels so empowering to get rid of “stuff”. It feels so good to look at nice cleared out areas in your home. 

No matter how busy you are- you can look around each day for just one thing. It does not even have to be in a specific area. It could also be deleting emails and clearing off your desktop files on your computers. 

Thank you Linda Davis for providing this group. I am excited to start another year of eliminating something every single day of the year. I have made progress in clearing out things we don't need yet still have a ways to go. 

So onward we go into 2015 getting rid of crap one item at a time! 

Join Linda Davis' Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/152141201557636/

2015 Real Estate Business Strategy Sessions Available

2015 Real Estate Business Strategy Sessions are now available. 

As you close out your 2014 year in real estate it is time to look over your business plan especially your online marketing goals and see where you want to be in 2015. 

There are only a few more days left in 2014. Spaces fill up fast for strategy sessions. 

What do we cover in your strategy session? 

We go over what you did in 2014 for your online marketing, your real estate production, your listing inventory for 2014 and your results from your activities in the past year. 

Then we look over where you want to be at the end of 2015 and strategize what needs to happen in order for you to reach that goal. 

We can also work on revamping your business structure, going over your niche markets to see if they are viable or not and revisiting your keywords to make sure they are still on point. 

You can learn what adjustments you need to make moving forward and also tips on how to scale your business. 

Contact Katerina Gasset at 561-502-1577 by TEXT. Text me your name and your phone number and geographical location you are in. I will then text you a time for your 2015 business strategy session. 

You will want to have yours before midnight December 31, 2014. The time goes by fast and I have a very limited amount of sessions available.  Reach out to me in order to save your time slot for your appointment. 

Happy New Year!!! 

SEO for Agents- The Story of A Million Links

SEO For Agents- The Story of A Million Links 

If you do your own SEO for your real estate sites and blogs then you most likely know that having website domains with high authority linking to your website or blog is important and always has been. 

Years ago, any link would do to help get Google bots to take notice, to crawl those links over to your site. Many real estate agents started setting up what Google calls, “Link Farms”, which are against the terms of service of Google. 

Now many of those real estate agents are contacting us with calls of “Help, our site is no where to be found!” 

When we are consulted about these instances and we run the scans on the sites- over 90% of them have been hit with a Google penalty because of their ‘artificial link structure'. 

Sometimes the real estate agents admit to knowing they participated in a link scheme but most do not even know. Sometimes competitors deliberately create bad links to competing sites. 

One broker/owner contacted us because her site was no where to be found on Google. I suspected that she was part of a low level junky link farm because her site was de-indexed. 

She is the owner of a large brokerage and a lot of agents who work for her, depend on the site's traffic for leads. 

She had just spent thousands of dollars for a brand new website and was not aware of approving ANY links to her site. 

The biggest problem was that she had kept her old domain. Of course, we want to keep our older domains because they most often have a good reputation with Google and the older the domain, the more trustworthy the domain is. 

But links follow the domains! 

So building a new website but keeping your domain won't solve a bad linking problem and won't get your site back in the good graces of Google. 

She had to keep her domain because it was her brand, the name of her company! 

Just as I had suspected, she was part of a linking scheme that she was not even aware of. What happened is that years ago, she had a homes.com site. Homes.com had at one time been given a Google slap and has since recovered but left a lot of agents' domains in the mud. 

When we ran the audit on her site ( domain) we discovered that there were over 1 Million links pointing to her domain! 

Obviously if you are not one of the big ZTRs of real estate it is not likely or natural for you to have 1 million links to your website. 

What to do? 

She had to run a detox and disavow project for her website. She had a choice: she could do this herself or she could hire Dave and I to do this project. Obviously as a busy broker she chose the latter. 

It took some time since Google does not allow us to submit that many links to disavow at one time. 

Once we ran the detox and the disavow project- and waited about one week- her site was re-indexed.

We found her on page 22 on the SERPS and then day by day she slowly climbed back into the good graces of the top 3 pages on Google SERPS. Then it was time to add on page SEO to get her to page 1. 

If you have found that your site is somehow no where to be found you may have been hit with a Google penguin penalty or you may just have bad SEO practices. 

Site audits are the best solution to start with. Your site audit will tell you what is wrong with your site and if you have been penalized and if you have, what the solutions may be. 

If your audit uncovers bad links linking to your site you can disavow those bad links. 

Text me if you need more information about site audits and detoxing your sites at 561-502-1577. 

Jackson Hole Wyoming- A Bit of Heaven on Earth

Jackson Hole Wyoming is one of my favorite places in the world. It is a touch of heaven here on earth. After we stayed at Yellowstone we drove around, up and then through the Tetons into Jackson Hole. 

As we drove around the windy roads we stopped at this overlook. The views were outstanding. From the viewpoint I was able to take this photo looking into the valley of Jackson Hole. What an amazing vista, a feast for the eyes. 

There is this friendly western atmosphere when you drive into the town. I could hear the ‘awe's from our family members in the car as we entered into the town. It is one of those places where you want to stay a while. Like my dream is to be able to stay there through late spring after the snow is melted to the end of fall before the snow falls again one year and spend time soaking it all in and writing a book and doing a bunch of online marketing:). Tristan asked if we were going to stay for a week in Jackson :). 

The locals are so friendly. I talked to shop owners all along the downtown area to find out where they were from, if they were seasonal, etc. Every person I spoke with lived in Jackson Hole full time and loved living there. The attrition rate of move outs is super low, like less than 6% per year. That means people don't leave. 

We were there in October of this year but before that I had not been to Jackson Hole since 1988. The same shops were still there. The streets looked the same. There was some new build out towards the outskirts of the town, like a new Walmart and some other newer stores and shopping centers. But the downtown area looks like time has stood still. 

Parking downtown is free, no having to pay those meters which helps with the sense of a slower lifestyle. Across the street from where we parked was a local bakery and next door to the bakery I saw a Raw Juice shop. It was the first time on our road trip I found fresh beet juice:). These were old homes that were converted to businesses. I love to talk with entrepreneurs about their dreams and businesses so it was fun meeting the business owners. 

Wort Hotel is a National Historic Landmark and you can stay at the hotel to get a great western feel of this part of the country. 

Life is easy to enjoy in Jackson Hole Wyoming. You can take a stroll through the town center park or rest on one of the benches as this couple is doing. The weather was awesome! The air was fresh and the water tasted like natural spring water. 

Going shopping is the big event for tourists that come to Jackson Hole Wyoming but locals shop here as well. You can spend an entire day shopping the downtown area shops. You can find high quality leather goods, western hats and boots, belts, well, all things western. 

We stopped by this real estate office in the middle of the tourist area of the town square. I am sure that nearly everyone that visits Jackson Hole wants to know how much it would be to buy their dream home there. Since land is very scare the properties, ranches and homes are on the higher end of the market. Most of all the land is National Forests so private land is not easy to come by. Only 3% of the land in the area is privately owned. 

The population of Jackson Hole is around 9,500 full time residents. 

Jackson Hole is a business friendly town. If you are thinking of starting a business Jackson Hole may be worth considering. While retail and tourist services have been popular in Jackson Hole, a new breed of entrepreneurs are moving to Jackson Hole – website developers and internet marketers because they can easily work from home. The following is a list of reasons that Jackson Hole might make the list of most friendly to businesses and entrepreneurs: 

• No state personal or corporate income tax
• No state inheritance tax
• No state gift tax
• No state tax on retirement income
• No state franchise or excise tax
• No state tax on real estate sale proceeds
• Low real estate property tax
• No state tax on mineral interest ownership
• No state tax on intangibles

Wyoming is a great state to retire in. There is no tax on retirement income and no inheritance tax. Mind you, the IRS and the FEDs still have taxes that you have to pay. Wyoming is one of the best states to create a family trust in according to the Bank of Jackson Hole trust division. There is also protection from creditors. 

If you are going to move to Jackson Hole Wyoming contact Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset today at 561-753-0135. We will assess your needs in housing and place you with one of our colleagues who is licensed to sell real estate in Wyoming who will represent your interests in your home or business purchase.