Hi guys, I have this website and, I don't need the content critqued so much as I need the providers ability to be ranked in google/yahoo if the content is there.

I am really not into the link exchange thing as from what I have read, a site will rank with good content just as well, if not better as with a reciprical link directory.

Anyways, just wanting opinions on how "seo" this site can be made? Am I limited by the site?

The provider is Ihouse FYI.

Thanks!

Shoot, I thought it would be in my sig,

the web site is www.wakelinghomes.com

Thanks

You can certainly improve your site's SEO. I'd also recommend cleaning up the organization a bit.

Try breaking "Portland Oregon Real Estate Resource Site. Search the MLS for homes in Porltand, Beaverton, Aloha, Hillsboro, Tigard, Tualitin, Sherwood and surrounding areas." up a bit. Make it so the important terms stand out (remember your site is also for consumers - not only search engines).

Look at things on your site like "Visit My Portland Oregon Real Estate Information Blog" Why is the whole thing a link? Why not make "Portland Oregon real estate blog" a link?

Drop menus are not good either for seo. Engines can't easily crawl your links in the drop menus.

I realize that this is a bit jumpy, but I wanted to throw you a few ideas.

Thanks, I have been seruoulsy considering dumping this site for a more customized seo site. I'm not interested in link campaigns and really just want a site that ranks clearly off of content. IYHO does this site have the capability to raank high without the link gimmick?

Any site has the ability to rank high, but it takes work. Link exchanges are starting to be less important in terms of SEO.

Have you considered a PPC campaign or hiring an SEO company?

yes, on the SWe omcpany no on rhw lins exchage,,,

????

pdxrealtor,

You can choose to not link exchange, but why?

I can show example after example of it working. Well.

Your competitors will simply ignore the pundits that say it does not work. When you see them at the top of the search results, you may become very frustrated.

Competing with a site with 500 to 1000 reciprocated links from other home and real estate sites is VERY HARD TO DO. Where are your links oging to come from?

Good content does not guarantee links. That's an SEO fantasy. Good content is necessary, but does not automatically get links. Links come from promotional efforts. Reciprocation is one way to promote a site. Take it off the table, and you are competing with one hand behind your back.

LS, I the really good sites that I see do not have link exchange, I just feel it's cheating the system and will eventually not work.

Matt,

I am not trying to be a wiseacre. I am trying to get you to confront the reality of your situation.

I just ran a link back report on 5 of the sites that rank well in Google for "Portland Oregon Real Estate".

You have a considerable competitive hurdle to overcome. Some of them have hundreds and hundreds of links, obtained by a variety of methods. Some by reciprocation, and some not.

Some links were apparently purchased outright, probably at considerable cost. Buying links is most definitely a blatant form of Google-gaming. So much for "honest" compettition. Sites will do all kinds of things to get ahead.

Your own site shows maybe a dozen or so links from unique domains, so you will need a very well-planned comprehensive plan to compete. How are you going to proceed?

Sitting and waiting for people to cite your content, as some in the SEO community advise, simply will not cut it. These other competing sites will continue to earn more links, since links beget links. Those with links get more, automatically. In the real world, there is a built in advantage to established sites.

Matt, again, I just trying to put you on a path toward competitive realization. from what I see, you will ahve to be very pro-active about getting links. Reciprcating not only allows you to get stable links, in decent numbers, but to do it affordably. I think that you will see that other pro-active methods that can provide numbers you need will be VERY expensive.

I do this every day, and I have to do it in real world situations, not the world of SEO theory. You are going to need significant link count, from somewhere, somehow, and the sooner, the better. You can choose to avoid reciprocation, and listen to the SEO pundits, but in doing so, you take away the single most effective and affordable weapon at your disposal. It's your choice, and your money.

Here's a multi-page document that was specifically written for real estate professionals, using real estate examples:


Search Engine Optimization Basics For Real Estate-Related Websites

I hope it helps.

Thanks, how do you find out the backlink number of my site or any others?

bigp said:

"Link exchanges are starting to be less important in terms of SEO."

Do you ahve any proof of that? Because that is nt what we are seeing here. Our clients, old and new, are doing quite well. Many of them rely only on reciprocation to build their link popularity. If reciprocation was not important, they'd not do well.

I see statements like the one you've put forward all over the place. I never see any proof, though. Just speculation. It's certainly not based on analysis of real search results, especially in the real estate industry, where reciprocation is alive, well, and very effective.

didn't yahoo have a huge thing with Advaced Access and completley remove them from their search results due to link exchange between AA sites?

So, I guess my main question is, can this site be made to hit the top, or should I choose a different provider that doen't base their sites on frames?

I really need help with this as my goal is to have a site up, running and have been submitted by February at the latest. Would it be cheaper just to play the PPC game? I hate doing that though. Like someone said somplace, I'm a Realtor, not a web designer. Why would I want to be a FSBO....

Please advise, thanks!

Matt-
All my sites are P2A sites and from what
I've seen are very amenable to SEO. I've seen
P2A sites with a PR of 5..Here:
http://www.agentinottawa.com/

T

Thomas, thanks for the invite, I will check them out. What about advanced access, REW, number1 and agent?

Does point 2 point have lead capture capabilites, or do you have to do that all your self, meaning create the forms with the ability to capture the info. Is there a contact manger system? Can you pull you listings auto or do you have to manually enter all of you listings?

Webmasters on this site, what would you prefer to work with and what is, in your opinion the most well rounded package?

I must admit, I've looked at sevarl point 2 point sites and like the way they look...very clean.

pdxrealtor said

"didn't yahoo have a huge thing with Advaced Access and completley remove them from their search results due to link exchange between AA sites?"

I am aware of that. As far as I understand the situation, the AA sites were generally (not all of them) simply linking to each other. As harmless as that may seem, they were really living on the edge, since closed link networks are not really appreciated by the engines.

In the old days, some SEO firms would do a very similar thing, bu buying hundreds of domain names for the sole purpose of inter-linking them and their clients. that gambit has long been discredited.

When sites link out to other sites that are themselves independently running link campaigns, it's a natural linking pattern. Not everyone is linking to everyone else. What is listed in Joe's site is different than Sally's site, etc.

Drawing conclusions based on less than a full understanding of the facts is what drives a lot of anti-linking talk. when you look closer, you can find other factors at play.

This happens to a lot of sites that play all kinds of linking games. When they get punished, they run out and blame "reciprocation". It's an easy scapegoat, and one that has alot of support in the SEO community.

Curiously though, the sites that get downgraded for outright gaming are often replaced by other sites that are actively reciprocating, and not playingthose other games. Again, an overlooked fact in the SEO world.

LS, I see. So, what site would you reccomend for a template site? I have named a couple above.

Also, do you have the link for the REW web forum? I can't find it anywhere?

Hi Matt,

I don;t have any recommendations for template sites, as that is not my area of expertise.

I would say that, for our purposes, sites that do not permit you to upload your own pages via FTP can make our work here cumbersome (lots of cut and paste of code, etc), so we have to charge an additional fee for labor. Some template sites are like that, such as AA. Not sure about all of them.

I think the REW forum is at:
http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/forum.php?

Hey, thanks for the link. So you are saying AA does not allow for uploading of pages via FTP....makes sense as I was talking to an AA rep and he said a lot of people create pages in dream weaver and then copy and paste....

What about point2, any experiances with them???

I am actually headed to check them out right now...just always looking for more opinions from people who know what they are talking about...

I have been told that point2 does not allow FTP access, but I haven't seen the guts of one myself.

pdxrealtor:

I built my own site and maintained it for 5+ years, but I'm now fleshing out a point2 site and will be closing the other one soon. Point2 Pro level at $39.95/month has prospect management, forms for lead capture, automatic application of appropriate drip email campaign for type of prospect or form filled out and now a blog. The blog module is in beta, but I've already got it rocking along and expect SEO benefits soon.

As far as linking, I got my old site from PR4 to PR5 when I got rid of all reciprocal links. Not saying they had no value, but lots of original and relevant content will win out over time.

Jim-
Which one is your P2A site?

Pdx- You are very welcome...I have not popped
for the Pro site on P2A ($39-but will soon)but
do love the standard level site,customer service,upgrades etc...

The company seems very responsive to member requests and as far as I can tell they hold our suggestions dearly and try to incorporate our various suggestions on improving the sites...

T

So, P2A.... do they simply have drip email and lead capture forms or is it a full blown contact manager?

I currently use market reach but it is lacking a couple of key features. I do like it though because you can upload thousands of email addresses from .csv file and then blast email to every address at once. I currently have about 12k emails I blast for Broker's Opens and new listings..... very nice to have. I don't expect this for P2A, but do they at least have some kind of management for the people that come along via the lead capture forms?? I mean, you talk about ranking 1,2,3,4 in google and I would imagine that you would be getting a lot of inbound names / email addresses.....

pdxrealtor said:
"Thanks, how do you find out the backlink number of my site or any others?"

We sue a desktop tool called LinkSurvey.com. It queries about ten engies for backlinks. Then we run the output through a scrubber that reduces it to unique domains, which provides a much more accurate picture of a sites overall backlink profile.

Jim Kimmons said:
"As far as linking, I got my old site from PR4 to PR5 when I got rid of all reciprocal links. Not saying they had no value, but lots of original and relevant content will win out over time."

Jim, that's interesting. I haven't heard of that before. A couple points and a couple of questions.

- Can you be sure that removing your link directory was the reason for your improvement from PR4 to PR5, or was your site poised to get the increase anyhow? How many other examples of what you describe can you point to? Can you say that it will work that way for everyone?

I'd like to know the result of it over dozens of situations, since removing link directories can also result in a loss of link popularity as well, as the site on the other end of the exchanges begin removing their links to your site, due to lack of reciprocity.

That seems to be the next result when our dormant clients decide to do what you did. Their link popularity also goes dormant, and it seems to have not helped them at all. All situations are different.


- This implies that you used reciprocation to build your link foundation, then you removed the link directory from your site. Did you notify the other sites that were providing a reciprocal link to you that you had changed your policy, and that they should remove their link to your site as well?

- What would you recommend to a new domiain owner that needs to build their link popularity? I realize the importance of good content, and wouldn't go into battle without it, but where will they get hundreds of links to compete effectivley, as with the case of Matt, who started this discussion thread? You seemed to use reciprocatuon as one of your methods, but if that's not an option to Matt, then specifically, where will the actual links come from for a new site owner, and how should they proceed? Again, I'd be more interested in methods that will provide large numbers of links over a few months, and not just a few citations here and there.

Thanks.

LinkStrategy:

I realize there is value to links into a site. I spent two years building reciprocal links as carefully as I could. In one of Google's updates, I lost several top 5 positions and analyzed my site.

The only thing I found in doubt was the linking, probably too many with the same link text. In my market I also found that the three or four consistent high rankers had few links to their sites. I pulled the links and concentrated on content, getting a bump up the next time around.

My intent is not to knock linking (or your services) but to emphasize content. I see too many template sites with identical content, so I harp on it a bit. In working with the editors at About.com, I've learned even more about the importance of lots of original content and its relation to meta information.

Thomas:

Like many, I got my Point2 site and did little with it for several months. Then, when they announced blogs were on the way, I got serious. I deleted all of the template content. I've been slowly moving content over from my other site, mostly due to time constraints. Once complete, I will close the old site and point the name.

It's only a PR3 after six or so months of light content addition. The blog is only a week old and I'm moving posts from old blog and adding new furiously. I'm doing my business right now with limited PPC while I work on it. I sit at a computer writing about ten hours a day, so this is a long-term project. I do 100% of my business with web clients.

LinkStrategy:

Forgot, yes I did get the reciprocal links in removed over time by informing them.

It is funny this "link" issue has come up, I'm new to this thing for the most part, but since I started reading about link exchanges, and seeing the templates that do rank because they have a link from every Realtor from one coast to the next, I have just never felt right about it.... it seems like an easy way out, a temp solution. I see those sites disappear (in Google) as fast as they come. The couple always at the top are loaded with content, good content, so good i find myself reading some of it.

Link building with other Realtors seems like a shot of nitrous to go fast for a while, pretty soon the bottle will be empty. Why do that when you could supercharge from the beginning and always have boost....???

Guys,

I tell you what. I don't want to get into a knock down drag out discussion about whether recirocation works or not, or if it is appropriate.

Matt, you seem convinced that there is something inappropriate about it, so I'd agree that you should not do it. It's that simple. It's not for everyone.

I would suggest that your competitive environment is very well established, and that the sites ranking well for "Portland Oregon real estate" have a lot more than a few good links to their advantage. Displacing them will be a real challenge.

There are a lot of ways to try to tackle the challenge of ranking well for a site. Some are based on theory, and some are based on a lot of real world practice, on dozens and dozens of sites, in a lot of situations. Some are rather expensive, and some are modestly priced. Some work quicker than others.

Having the advantage of doing this work in a lot of situations, I know what I would recommend to a site owner in your situation, because I have seen it be successful, both short term and long term. I have tried to convey that here, only as a means to provide some substance to the discussion.

But mine is just one of many possible approaches. I would wish you success with whatever approach you choose, and I am quite willing to accept that alternatives may work quite well. I like to learn from it.

Time will tell.

LS, not saying it's inappropriate, just doesn't seem to hold up, from what I've seen searching portland oregon real estate in google.

If you search portland oregon real estate periodically for some time, you will see the same solid sites, and you will also see sites come and go. All I was saying is that the sites I seem to see come and go are the ones with lots of links to other realtors. That's all, just an observation.

Will I do link trading, yes, will I have good content, lots of it....main focus. will I know how to set up my key words, build my pages, no way....will I learn eventually, with out a doubt.

Wow, glad I found this thread, though I am clearly not as technically sophisticated as others here.

Wanted to answer some question about P2A. Yes, P2A does have a lead capture function in the "Standard" version. My challenge, however, has been in converting those leads into appointments. This version also allows for 15 pages that are automatically generate and also 50 content boxes (I've reached capacity and seem to keep hitting my head on the ceiling). The "Professional" version at $39.95 per month apparently allows up to 250 pages, but there is no indication on the use of FTP. At any rate, I am pleased with my site and am ranked #46 in Gwinnett County, but improving each day.

LS, thanks for the SEO Basics Doc and the SEW site.

Hello,

I have seen very nice templates in www.templatemonster.com .
Check this one:
http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates/9636.html
I am still learning ,so for now i am building with xsitepro and WAW.

Thank you

Alexander

Hey Thomas, good to see you here too. As you know, I went with point 2. Maybe in a couple years if things are done right I'll be all over page 1 for many searches.