[ Podcast ] Take Back Your Listings- Real Estate SEO

[Podcast] Take Back Your Listings- Real Estate SEO

Welcome to another episode of my podcast.

This podcast is especially created for real estate agents.
Why is it so important to control how and where you market your listings on the internet?

Find out in this episode of my podcast for Digital Marketing Strategies.

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You can click on the above image to download this podcast episode to your computer or device.

Take Back Your Listings – Real Estate SEO Podcast:

0:11 – Take back your listings

01:37 – How Virtual Assistants can help you on marketing your listings

02:31 – #TakeBackYourListings

03:41 – Syndicating your listings automatically

02:28 – Take back your listing movement

05:34 – SEO your Listings

06:35 – Listings Experts Academy

07:31 – Own your Listings

 

Or you can click here to subscribe to my iTunes podcast channel and you can also listen to past episodes of my podcast.

Click on this link to go to my iTunes channel: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rising-above-noise-growth/id810838153

When It Comes to Your Digital Marketing Strategy, Taking the First Step Can Make or Break You

The last few weeks have been busier than normal. What else is new, right? But really, it has been super busy. I've been working on creating a huge new project that has been keeping me up at night. Being busy is actually a good thing. I would rather be actively engaged in good causes than be bored or lazy. 

This project has been on my mind for a couple of years now but I did not know how exactly to put it all together.  I am so excited about this new project. 

The reason I'm so excited is this focuses on answering the question that has been keeping me up at night: 

“How can I help busy real estate agents to get their SEO best practices up and running faster and more efficiently? In other words, what exactly would this look like? What does it take to get on the #FastTrack to SEO your site to the top of the search engines and still be able to work with buyers and sellers and not go broke?” 

 

 

I realized it has been over 10 years now since I started learning about SEO and applying all that I learned to our real estate company website and our brand. Zig Ziglar once said, “if you want to be an expert in a subject study one hour a day for five years and you will know more than most people who are in that field.” I did the math and started studying about SEO for 6 to 8 hours a night when the rest of the family was sleeping. In one year, I was able to apply what I learned. 

Blogging about SEO and creating tutorials for agents to follow, sharing our successes and helping ActiveRain members was how it all got started with paying it forward. Back in the day, there was no ActiveRain University. 

This is what inspired me to create the popular course: SEO to the Top. For years agents have been taking SEO to the Top modules and trainings. 

It seems as though time keeps going by faster and faster. This got me to thinking about how Universities and High Schools now offer fast tracks to get through school faster and more efficiently. 

Over the years I've had the opportunity to personally coach individual agents just like you. This has helped me create more efficient programs and modules for you to use in your marketing and businesses. 

I've also had the awesome blessing of helping many of these agents rise to the top of the search engines. Agents who have applied what I teach enjoy page one placement for their keyword phrases which results in listings and buyers as well as very good branding. 

Through this journey I kept not only a watchful eye, performed testing on keywords and other SEO strategies but also kept data and notes on which techniques are getting real estate agents up to the top of google faster than before. Over 10 years of data, of defining, of testing and of learning from the great masters of SEO on the internet has transformed into #FastTrackSEO to the Top. 

The point is during that time I've amassed an incredible amount of knowledge, skills, information and applications about what it takes to get to page one on Google and the other search engines which in turn you can then apply to hopefully get the same benefits as I have and all the agents whom I have helped have. 

So why would any of this keep me up at night? 

Simple. It's one thing to know this stuff. It is something quite different to take everything about the SEO best practices and put it into some kind of immediately usable format that can help you to get to where you want to go more rapidly. 

Well, I have it figured out. It's take a long time and it's a lot of work putting it together, but I have now built a full out end to end system which will teach anyone how to do this including you and other busy agents. 

I'd like to share more specifics about the actual #FastTrack SEO to the Top path however there are still some more pieces to get nailed down. For one thing, I'm trying to decide how many people I can accommodate and I don't want to raise expectations and then not be able to meet those obligations. And the last thing I want is a bunch of disappointed agents on my hands! 

Do you have 1 minute to help me help you to #FastTrack your SEO strategies? 

There is one other thing… 

You see, I like think I've covered all of the elements of my new #FastTrackSEO to the Top system. In fact, I'm thrilled to say after two years of hard work I'm about to finalize everything for this system. 

But before I do, I want to make sure I've covered all the bases. This is where you come in…. 

I want know your thoughts about fast tracking your SEO strategies and best practices. 

I've made it incredibly easy for you to send your thoughts and ideas to me. Just click here right now:  

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FastTrackSEO

Now, I can't promise an individual answer to each of your questions and comments- with over 2500 subscribers on ActiveRain and over 4500 followers on Facebook there is no way that I can do that. But I can promise you that I will be personally reading each and every one of your questions- and I might be answering some of those on my blog. 

Thanks in advance for sharing your questions with me, I promise I will take good notes! 

Remember to click the link below to send me your SEO questions. I really appreciate your help! 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FastTrackSEO

How Come My Own Listings Don’t Show Up On Google On My Own Site?

How Come My Own Listings Don't Show Up On Google On My Own Site? 

We have received several emails this week with this question from agents and brokers. 

This is a great question with the answer being relative to each particular situation. 

This is a tough question to answer if you can not also add details about your website and what you are doing with your listings to get them to show up on page one on Google.

You can not simply add your listing to your website and somehow magically your website with that listing suddenly appear on page one. SEO does not work like that. Also, you most likely are NOT manually adding your listing to your website. 

First, I would like to start off by addressing a couple of things that need to be taken into consideration. 

As far as listing exposure goes- the more the better. So at the end of the day it does not always matter if it is you or someone else that is on page one with your listing. The sellers don't care. They just want their listings on page one – which they are if you do an address search – IF- you have syndicated your listing. 

But if you are using YOUR listings on page one to GET MORE LISTINGS- it does matter. Using the evidence that your website shows up on page one on Google in your listing toolbox works in getting more listings. 

With the onset of tough competitors in the internet space- the big ZTRs- it becomes even tougher to get to the top of page one for the listing address. 

In most cases, it is not worth the effort, the time and the money you would have to invest to compete against the big boys for your own listing addresses because by the time you do all that, your listing most likely will be sold. 

You have to weigh ego versus highest and best use of time and resources. 

There are WAY better keywords to go after that you CAN rank on page one with your listings for that buyers actually are typing into the search box, ( that is a different subject). In fact, with the right SEO steps you can dominate 7 out of 10 spaces on page one on Google for keywords that sellers type in to search for an agent to list their home. 

Right now, we will focus on the question on why your website does not show up for listing address on page one. 

The first and most important factor in Google's algorithm is “AUTHORITY”. It works to find what it considers based on programming metrics and rules what is the website with the most authority for any given keyword phrase. 

What creates “Authority”? TRAFFIC. 

Traffic is the main measurement that the algorithm uses to determine authority. 

So you then ask yourself: for my listing address- who gets more traffic to their website, the BIG Z or little ol' me? 

The next factor that Google looks at is the popularity contest. 

He who has the most links wins that contest if those links are quality and/or social. 

In both of those 2 categories the majority of real estate websites don't hold a candle to the big boys who now control those top spots for listing addresses. 

The linking campaigns that I know of that consist of quality links can not be bought by the hundreds like the old days. Most of the time, manual linking campaigns are the only ones trustworthy enough to deploy with your site. Those are expensive. 

How does Google determine which site is more popular than another? LINKS 

Check your competitors to see how many links they have compared to you and what is the trust factor of those links? How relevant are those links?

Then there is the issue of WHO owns your listing as far as the search engines like Google go. 

If you did not follow the steps in Listing Experts Academy's Listing Syndication module– you most likely do not own your own listing data according to the search engines. 

When Google picks up the data of your listing- they don't see that you are the listing agent- that is not even a part of their algorithm. Their programming determines who owns that data through original posting on the internet. He who put it there first which is actually determined by who is indexed first is considered the original content provider. 

If you simply go through the motions of adding your listing to your MLS and then auto syndicate your listing- guess what- you just gave up your online ownership of your data. That will NOT help you with your SEO. You are depending on your IDX to pull in that feed from the MLS to your website. SO your listing is REALLY NOT on your website! 

Unless you have blogged about your listing with photos and video and placed that on your website, you do not own any info about your listing according to the search engines. 

Now, there are some places where you can have placement of your listing on page one on platforms that have proven to be very powerful and have a lot of traffic and are NOT the big ZTRs. Realbird is one of the them. ActiveRain is another one. YouTube is yet another one. 

If you are looking to attract more buyer leads from your listings- be sure to do your keyword research to find other ways besides just the address of your listing. After all, not many buyers actually know the address of your listing when they search for a home. 

In my opinion it is best to be ranking for the following in this order: 

1. Brand ( not your brokers unless you are the broker)

2. Keyword phrases that sellers search for 

3. Neighborhoods – market reports, etc. 

4. Avatar centric keywords 

There is much to do in all 4 of those areas. If you are a Listing Experts Academy member make sure you know who your avatar is, retake the modules on speaking and discovering your avatar. This is where most agents fall short in having a real dialogue online with the ideal customer.

There are over 35 steps to properly syndicating your listings. To find out more…
Check out Listing Experts Academy. 

 

 

 

I was quoted in RISMedia about the Trulia acquisition of Market Leader

I was quoted in RISMedia about the Trulia acquisition of Market Leader.

When the news of Trulia buying Market Leader surfaced last week I was doing my daily posting and networking on Facebook. I chimed in on some posts on Facebook about this news event. I posted on my Facebook page what I thought about this event. 

Then I wrote a post about the acquisition and my take on the SEO factor and the big 4- you can read that post here: http://activerain.com/blogsview/3720156/trulia-buys-market-leader-what-does-this-mean-for-your-seo-

RISMedia wrote an article about the acquisition and used one of my comments from Facebook. This goes to show that you can be picked up in any of the social platforms these days.

When something newsworthy comes along and you add to that conversation you can get quoted or interviewed in regards to your opinion on the matter.

This is great exposure to your business and brings traffic to your blog and website.

You can read the RISMedia article here: http://rismedia.com/2013-05-08/trulia-to-acquire-market-leader-securities-litigation-firm-investigating-sale-for-shareholders/

What I am really grateful for is that RISMedia picked up and reported about who I was and what I do. This is a great way to add credibility to a business. “Katerina Gasset, owner and CEO of Coach Katerina a business consulting company” is how they credited me. 

Not happy about this. I love Market Leader and train companies to efficiently use Market Leader. It is the best tool for CRM and lead funneling. So for Trulia who is one of the “big 4”, a top competitor of us small independent brokerages in SEO and in prices of PPC- this is very disheartening. I don't like providing funds to my online competitors. Trulia does not wish for an even playing field in the SERPS space and we who use SEO as our main source of lead generation have to work harder and spend more money to keep Trulia off page one for our “money terms”.

Whenever you are picked up by any news source make sure you print out a copy of the article, get the link to the article and create an article about the article that you can place in your media room on your website.