dsc_1000 will get you 707 results

Any one care to guess what I’m talking about here?  I mentioned this when I had the privilege to speak at the November meeting.  I’m talking about taking the time to change the name of images to be keyword rich and descriptive. I did a quick Google image search of the term dsc_1000 and got 707 returned results.

There are three place to pay attention when using images in your posts.

The File Name

I’m talking about the file name of the image you upload.  Change that file name to keywords which are descriptive of the post.  Instead of dsc_1000.jpg use McCormickRanchGolfCourse.jpg.  You can also insert hyphens between the words.  The search engines will remove the hyphens.

The Title Tag

I often make the title and caption the same.  (Captions if using a Wordpress blog).  Here again I would title it something like “The view from the tee box at the 15th hole”.

The Alt Tag

The alt tag is the one place you don’t put keywords unless they really do fit for the image.  The alt tag is what is spoken for the visually impaired if they can’t see the screen.  Their browser reader will tell them it is an image and the alt tag is what is read to describe the image.  This is not the place to put keywords unless they are descriptive of the image.

I would never recommend you use the Title or Alt tags to stuff keywords.  I don’t believe in keyword stuffing anywhere on a blog or website.  Create good content and tag your images and posts accordingly.  Do this often and you will do more for the SEO of your blog than all the keyword stuffing you can think of.

Descriptive Terms Increase Your Traffic

Up to 1/3 of my traffic on any given day comes from image searches on Google.  They find those images because they are searching for things related to Tucson or the desert etc.  No one besides me searches for dsc_1000.  Use those descriptive terms and you will increase targeted traffic to your site.

Finally, Google and other search engines are clamping down on all the keyword stuffing that has been going on in alt tags.  (Abuse leads to regulation and penalties).  My point.  If you have been keyword stuffing your alt and title tags of your images you not only should stop it, you should go back and edit those previous posts where you abused the system, even if you didn’t know it was an abuse.

Google doesn’t look to see when you started or stopped, it will know when it finds it and it will penalize accordingly.  JUST BECAUSE EVERYONE IS DOING IT DOESN’T MAKE IT OKAY.  What you might “Get Away With” today could very well earn you a penalty in the future.  This is why it is always best practice to follow “best practices”.  It will make your life easier in the future.

An artificial high placement today is fleeting.  What you want is long lasting placement and earned trust of the search engines by using best practices in all you do on the web.

Do you own your Real Estate Business?

This may seem like a strange question, and for some of you it will be a 100% absolutely, yes I do answer.  Particularly if you are the owner/broker of a real estate company.  But that isn’t actually what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about your online real estate business:  Do you really own it?

For example, how many of you have, as your primary email address:  SuperAgent@aol.com, or SuperAgent@yahoo.com, SuperAgent@cox.net, or even SuperAgent@gmail.com?  If you do, who owns that email address?  It doesn’t look to me like you do.  Rather, it looks to me like AOL, Yahoo, Cox, or Google own your email address, and they are simply letting you use it for a while.  I wonder how long they’ll continue to do that?  Forever?  For a year?  For a decade?  What if they start charging you for their service, or impliment anti-business rules for their “free” email accounts?  After all, each of those businesses can decide to do whatever they choose to, since they own the email account.

For bloggers, let’s look at another very common example of NOT owning your business.  Is your blog at Blogger.com?  Is it at Wordpress.com?  Both of those sites allow you to create a free blog.  Each has some sort of rule about blogging for business, which many people ignore, and for the most part, so do the sites.  But tomorrow they could actually start enforcing their own rules, and shutting down blogs, or even just sending you a nice fat bill each month.  How prepared are you to lose months or even years worth of blogging over night?  Speaking from experience, when I accidentally deleted the first 100 of my own posts from my blog, and thought I had NO backup, your heart will sink to the floor, and you will think the world is crashing in around you, if that happens.

The fix for both of these problems is relatively simple and relatively inexpensive. For each, I believe you need to start by purchasing a domain name that you OWN. At GoDaddy.com a domain will cost you around $10/year, but if you are nice, I can show you how to get one for a buck or two less.  So for the cost of 2 cups of coffee at Starbucks (and feel free to cut out two trips this week to pay for your domain, if cost really is an issue), you are well on your way to ownership.

For the email problem, I highly suggest you find a Microsoft Exchange hosting provider for your email.  MailStreet.com is a good choice, with pricing plans starting at $13/month.  For more ideas, Microsoft has this list of Exchange hosting providers.  Why do I recommend an Exchange solution?  Because it works.  And it works well.  With Exchange you’ll get integration with your email, calendar, tasks (to-do list), and contacts all in one application.  Exchange will push your email, contacts, and calendar entries to your smart phone real time.  And of course all of these companies provide web mail support, so you can view your email from any computer anywhere, if your laptop crashes on the day your smart phone is run over by a bus.

For me, the beauty is in the real time integration with my iPhone, although Blackberry users will benefit just the same.  There’s nothing like having your phone notify you of a new email as fast or faster, than your desktop computer does.

For a good, and a bit less expensive solution, you might also consider using Google’s business apps version of Gmail to have Google host your email/calendaring, which allows integration with a smart phone.  I don’t have any experience with this solution, but I have heard it works well, and the full blow business account is only $50/year.

To own your blog, there are a number of hosting providers you can choose from, which will allow you to use download the free software from WordPress and host your blog.  As a side benefit to being hosted, you’ll get to pick any theme and any set of plugins you desire in WordPress, which will further make your blog truly unique, and thus truly yours.  GoDaddy will host your blog for $10/month, however they are not very tolerant of blogs that get a lot of page views for that price, so while it can be a good place to start, with success, you may outgrow them.  Many people believe the leading hosting provider is currently MediaTemple, however HostGator and A Small Orange are each well thought of.

At this point, you may be wondering what I use?  My solution isn’t for everyone, but it works well for me.  In my office, I have a Windows Server with Windows Small Business 2003 installed, which gives me remote access and a Microsoft Exchange server.  Sitting right next to the Windows server is a Linux server, which hosts my blog (actually, it hosts many blogs).  Because I already had a T1 line coming into the office for phones/internet, and I have the skillz to build and maintain these servers, doing it myself was a no brainer.  I know a few agents across the country that self-host, but only a very few of us.

There are more choices than what I’ve given here, but hopefully I’ve given you some nuggets to think about and places to start looking if you don’t yet own your online Real Estate Business.

TypePad Explained - The Next Generation

Well, wouldn’t you know it…right in the middle of some great “series content” blogging, TypePad launches it’s “Next Generation” platform.  Which is actually (for the most part) an improvement over the previous format. So, what I’m going to do is take some time out to learn all about the new platform then I’m going to be doing free webinars once a week to do TypePad specific training.  I’ll save the webinars and provide links to them here in the future.

In the meantime, I am teaching all four of my courses in December - Blogging for REALTORS, Search Engine Marketing, Online Social Network Marketing, and a New Course - Marketing with Video.

Check out the Calendar Online at my Website - www.BleedingEdgeTech.com.

Rob the Tech Guy

A Note on SEO - Top 7 List

The world of Organic Search Engine Optimization is as cosmic as the heavens. Mainly because the search engine companies want it that way. If you could cheat the system (and some people try), they couldn’t give the most relevant results (which is what they are supposed to do).

Also, unless you have tons of time to spend on keyword optimization, tracking your competition, massaging your keywords every week/month it may not be the highest and best use of your time. So here is my “focus on the things that matter” tip for you in the form of a top 7 list (in no particular order):

1. Title Tag - This is what displays at the top of the IE7 browser window (All the way at the top). Make this meaningful and include words that you might like to get searched for.
2. Description Tag - This is not (always) displayed on your page, but is used by some search engines to catalog your site and sometimes it is used as the short description in the search results page.
3. Keywords Tag - Come up with about 20 good keywords (3-5 word phrases are keywords too). Eliminate prepositional phrases like “for” and “of” as well as conjunctions like “and.”
4. Large Type - The type that is the largest on the page (referred to as “<h1> Text”) is important to your users as well as search engines. Try to include things you would like to be searched for in these.
5. Body Copy - The actual text on the page…oh…your site is all flash and pictures…oops…not good.
6. Links - Having links to other websites is good. Don’t use “click here” to link. Try to make keyword phrases in the body copy links to good sites.
7. Navigation - you should have a site map of some sort on your homepage. On a blog this is often a “categories” list, but a user (and a search engine) should be able to find every other page on your website from the first page.

Again, these are in no particular order because each search engine operates (a little) differently.

Enjoy!

Rob the Tech Guy

TypePad Explained - Part 7 of Many

Typepad series of tutorials offered by Rob Gibbs, blogging instructor for real estate professionals. This tutorial will cover how to add and order your content using regular templates.

TypePad Explained - Part 6 of Many

The Basic format of a blog (posts listed in reverse chronological order) is what makes it a living website.  But every now and then we need static content.  You need to frame IDX or develop an About page.  In typepad they call the writing “Pages.”  Depending on your design they don’t always show up automatically on your homepage either.  Here is short video on how to create a page, then add it to your sidebar in TypePad Advanced Templates.

Who Is Your Blogging Audience?

Who Is Your Blogging Audience?

I get emails often from agents asking me if I could look at their blog and tell them why they are not getting any listings from their blog. Over 90% of the time, it is because they are not speaking to an audience. There is no conversation going on. When you just post listings and market reports, well, for most readers online that is quite boring.

The most important tip I can ever give a new or veteran blogger is to know who your audience is. Who do you want to be having a conversation with? Who do you want to be contacting you?

• Do you want sellers or buyers to be contacting you?

• What age group do you want these people to be?

• What income levels are these people in?

• What do you want these people to do? Call you, email you?

Next, it is vital that you do your keyword research. You will not be getting the calls and inquiries about your services if your are not attracting the people you intend if you do not know and do not use the very keywords that they are typing into the search engine search box.

This is not about guessing or assuming that the keywords you are using are going to be typed into the search box.  Go to the Google Keyword Tool and spend time there figuring out what keywords will be great for you to use because people are actually searching those terms. Many of the agents I coach are shocked to discover that the keywords they have been using which they thought were so popular are actually not even searched for.

Once you have discovered and decided on who your audience is going to be then the next action is to speak to that audience. Write on their level in their voice. Make your blog one of transparency and polarization.  When the calls start coming in, you know you have done your job!

TypePad Explained - Part 4 of Many

Sorry I’ve been gone for a while…this is a short video on how to apply a new design to your typepad blog. Enjoy!
Rob

Link Building Presentation

It was wonderful to meet up with everyone again! Thanks for being such an attentive audience, and for all your great questions and interaction.

Here is the presentation. It’s also posted on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. Huh, I just gave myself an inbound link…. ;)

How to Post on Typepad-Part 1

When you’re ready to update your blog, you can add a Post to Your Weblog. All of your posts are available within your blog Archives. TypePad’s intuitive interface allows you to add content, pictures and links quickly and easily. Whether you know a little bit about technology or a lot, you can go from blank screen to live blog in minutes.

Here is a quick video on

How To Do A Basic Post in Typepad…

How to post on TypePad from Rob Gibbs on Vimeo.

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