Virtual Results Blog

My guess is that when Teresa Boardman posted this message to Twitter:

“O.K. if an agent could only use one, which should they use? Zillow or Trulia?”

She had very little idea (or did she?) what an inspired discussion would commence.

As it is with Twitter, both David Gibbons, Community Director of Zillow and Rudy Bachraty, Social Media Guru of Trulia were listening, and what transpired over the next hour or so was a spirited discussion on SOME of the merits of Zillow and Twitter.

Now, this discussion fell quite short of discussing the ENTIRE difference and benefits of the two (although consider this a formal offer for VR to host that discussion…  TokBox, maybe?) between the two sites and concentrated mostly on the Search benefits of both.

Having a passion for SEO, this is what caught my attention and this is what THIS post will concentrate on.  He

re is the transcript, best as I can assemble it…without any additional interjection..below I have included a video of the discussion as well…

davidgibbons: @TBoard LOL, do you really wanna see @trulia & me get into it or what? Ur listings should be on BOTH but Zillow offers more traffic, leads & SEO

• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia after painfully sitting through Francis & Sara’s cage-match, it’s honestly not something I relish …
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons @tboard – No offense, but your stage isn’t big enough T- How about Inman SF David?
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Touché – Speaking of leads – http://cli.gs/trulia-top-lead-generator
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia LOL, now you know this “I can link to stats that say I’m number 1” thing could go on forever …
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia Sara/Francis convinced me no good would come of it but would love to see u explain nofollows to the icsf crowd, that may be worth it
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Why wait for icsf? nofollows on listings are a non-issue – listings are not permanent = no long term seo value – case closed
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia LOL, are you REALLY saying that no-one searches for listings by address? I have a few million folks a month that say you’re WRONG
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia nice try dude, but you’re gonna have to get honest about this one
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons who said that David? Whether follow or not – Agents listings on Trulia still have great SEO and get ranked well on Google
• 
  davidgibbons: @TBoard as I said, @trulia is going to have to get honest; many RE Pro’s are smart about SEO and that “not permanent” line is BS
• 
  trulia: RT @davidgibbons: @trulia nice try dude, but you’re gonna have to get honest about this one – You’re boring me – what else you got?
• 
  trulia: RT @jbern: How about a @trulia vs @davidgibbons cage fight at ICSF? Could be fun… [Sounds good to me ]
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia “you’re boring me” is Trulia‘s answer for “why don’t you give SEO credit to listing agents???” … that was over fast, next …
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia … but we can move on to this if you really want to … http://tinyurl.com/48acp5 (expand)
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons How so David? If The listing is sold and off the market? Where is the value then?
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia I’m not sure why you’re talking about solds??? The question is why slap a 302-redirect on the links to listing agents’ websites?
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons so agents want a dofollow link to their listings David?
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia agents I speak with will take every link they can get (and they should)
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Well, they can on Trulia – When agents claim their listings, they’re listings are dofollow on their profile = juice…and….
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons …..they also can add 5 dofollow links on their Trulia Profile to the site of their choice…..
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia interesting … but got you beat there too; there’s no limit to followed links (for Pro’s) on Z profiles … next?
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Pro’s on Zillow who pay get unlimited links?
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia nope, it’s free – pro’s get unlimited followed links from Zillow profiles @TeriLussier can’t do this on T http://tinyurl.com/d9ccxb (expand)
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Thank you.
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Don’t forget Facebook 🙂 “Quantity vs. Quality”…..the debate continues…….have a great night all!

And for those of you who are “Twitter Challenged, ” Jeff Turner put together this VERY cool video of the exchange…”

Zillow Vs. Trulia – David Vs. Rudy (The Movie)

Now, that you have read the tweetalogue, (just made that up) you probably understand why this is of interest to me…  SEO.

Within this spirited discussion, there where QUITE a few statements concerning the SEO of both sites.  I would like to first create a series of questions from these statements and hopefully provoke a discussion on the benefits of both.

1) Do temporary inbound links, help your website… (and why don’t BOTH companies just mark the property “SOLD” and let the link live, and grow old and VALUABLE.”

2) Do links from profile pages help your website and how can you best MAXIMIZE this feature. (Proper Anchor Text, Multiple links, Deep Links, etc)

3) Do links that do NOT have favorable anchor text matter.  In other words, If the anchor text is an address, and not a keyword you are trying to rank for.

4) Is the address search, a valuable search.  I believe David when he states that he has a few million searches a month by address. But WHO AND WHY is someone searching by address and this really a home buyer?

5) How valuable is the long tail in Real Estate.  I see analytics all the time showing the QUANTITY of long tail page views, but is a searcher searching “Restaurants in Laguna Beach” or “Laguna Beach Architecture” really a valuable page view? (Bloggers get involved here…)

6) And a little “pet peeve” non-SEO question.  I have always taught that Realtors should create listing pages for their websites, because the MLS descriptions should be written to help OTHER REALTORS sell the house.  Realtors should be able to edit ANY outward facing listing page to appeal to the consumer.  I am under the impression, that neither Trulia or ZIllow allow this.  Am I correct, and how come?

I absolutely have my opinions on ALL these questions…  and will back them up with analytics.  Lets here your answers and opinions…  Please forward this post to anyone you think is interested in the SEO value of these two popular websites, and be sure to subscribe below to keep up to date on the conversation…

before I finally figured out EXACTLY what it takes to be a Social Media Rockstar.

Now, I am NOT speaking of the “I followed 5000 people that I know have auto-follow to get a bigger follow base” type of Rockstar..  That would be too easy.  I want to be the “I have 5000 followers that love me, engage me and hang on my every word” type of Social Media Rockstar…” You get it, the “other social media rockstars will fly thousands of miles to attend a conference I am attending…  NOT because I am speaking…but because I am THERE”  Rockstar…  Are you getting my point?  I want to be the “people are SO engaged in my life, they take the time to learn that my wife is awesome too!” Rockstar…  Yes,  I was possessed to become the “I am sooo loved that any charity I touch becomes blessed, just cause I am involved and so incredibly passionate and sincere…”rockstar.

Yeah, thats the type of SM Rockstar I want to be…  So how did I figure it out?  I am tricky…

Step One:  Find someone who IS this type of Rockstar…

Well, I looked, and looked, and looked…  and I found him…  Well, to be honest, he wasn’t actually hiding…  he was freakin’ everywhere…  filling up my facebook, my Twitter, My LinkedIn, Speaking at every RE engagement known to man, etc…(he is a SM Rockstar , after all) but I found him…  My unassuming, social media uber-rockstar patsy to be?

Jeff Turner…alias @ResPres (look at that face?  This is gonna be easy!!)

Step Two: Befriend him (Sh-h-h)

This, surprisingly enough, was not that difficult either.  I emailed Jeff… then Facebook friended him, tweeted a tad…  invited him to lunch under the pretense of “some crazy business idea” and just oozed my self-serving, sucrose-enriched charm…  The funny thing was, it was almost TOO EASY…  It was like Jeff….  ACTUALLY CARED about what I had to say…  no, no… it was much stranger than that…it was as if Jeff actually cared WHO I WAS…  He listened, and engaged me, and respected my opinions, and shared important ideas freely.  He almost made it too easy…

WOW, this guy is goooood…  but I found the chink in his armour…

He was the same way to EVERYBODY…  Nobody can be that interested in everybody… can they?

Step Three:  Learn all his tricks

This is where my plan derailed a bit…  I paid attention, I really did…  but I just couldnt figure him out, what was he hiding?…  how did he do it?…  puzzling.  Then it hit me like a ton of bricks…  This super great guy… This caring, engaging, thoughtful, social, guy…  This killer communicator, charitable, funny, guy…  Yeah, this pensive, warm and downright AFFABLE guy that everyone SHOULD want to communicate and be social with…  HAS A VERY UNIQUE AVATAR!!

How could I have missed this!!  Could this really be it?  What else could it be?  Let me take inventory one more time…

Is he smarter than me?  Well, probably, but that cant be it..

Is he more successful than me? Well, I think so, but that cant be it either…

Is he better looking than me?  HELL NO!

Nicer, more engaging, thoughtful, caring, INTERESTED…  of course, but who cares.  IT HAS TO BE THE AVATAR!  I ‘VE GOT IT!!

Step Four: Use this new found knowledge to conquer the SM world!!  So, here it is, my fool proof Social Media Strategy.

@jimmarks…  be gone.

Introducing…@vrpres

Wait…  where are you going…  arent you gonna follow me?   Hello!!  Did you see my AVATAR??  (happy april fools day!)

It seems almost eery that within the week I scheduled to write a post on WordPress SEO about the Robots.txt file,  I get two…not one, but TWO calls from Realtors who just can not figure out why their sites are not ranking as they should. After careful observation, BOTH of them turn out to be robots command issues… Now granted one was an on page robots (no index) issue, but the other was a robots.txt file issue…  Each carry the same message…  HEY GOOGLE, DONT INDEX THIS SITE (PAGE) K? Probably not the message YOU want to send to Google, now is it… So today, we will speak about the robots.txt file…  in a week or so, (probably not next week, as two robots posts in two weeks would even bury my eyelids…) we will talk about robots commands, another sure fire way to increase slightly, or DECREASE GREATLY your SEO. Real estate agencies and realtors can always benefit from being at the top of the search results in both Google and Google Maps. With the help of real estate seo agency here will help place you in front of your real estate clients! So, What Is Robots.txt?

Robots.txt is a text (not html) file you add to you root directory that tells the  Search Engine Spiders which of your pages NOT to visit. Search Engines do not guarantee they will abide by this information, but typically they do.  Most spiders will not go where they are told not to go.  A robots.txt is a strong suggestion to a search engine not to index your page.  However, it is not a rule…  It is a bit like asking someone not to go in a room while you are not home…  the room is unlocked, but you trust they will not. Achieve a better search engine ranking for your business with help from Get The Clicks.

Just as you would not leave VALUABLES in that room, do not PROTECT sensitive information by adding it to your robots.txt file. There are way better ways to secure pages.

The location of robots.txt is very important. Search engines will not search your site for it. They simply scan the main directory and if they don’t find it, they assume that your site does not have a robots.txt file and they proceed to index everything they find. Work with an SEO agency in Vermont to achieve a successful digital marketing plan.

So HOW do you write a Robots,txt file.

Well the simplest way, is to open NOTEPAD and create the file there.  robots.txt is exactly what it says, it is a text file named robots not an HTML file.  So, notepad is the logical choice.

The structure of a robots.txt is pretty simple, but frankly NOT very flexible– it is an endless list of user agents and disallowed files and directories. Basically, the syntax is as follows:

User-agent:

Disallow:

“User-agent” are search engines’ crawlers such as Google Bot or Yahoo and disallow: is a lists of the pages or directories you wish NOT to be indexed. You may also see lines of text proceeded by #.  These are simple comments and intended for human eyes as opposed to the spiders. The professionals from an SEO Agency will make sure your site gets good traffic.

For example, if I did not want the spiders to index my wp-admin page (something I do on all my sites to keep from leaking link-juice to meaningless pages) I would write it this way…

# All user agents are disallowed to see the /wp-admin page

User-agent: *

Disallow: /wp-admin/

The first line is for me, the second states “OK, this is for all spiders and bots” and the third line, “Pretty please, don’t index my logon page.”

The concept and structure of robots.txt is a decade old, and there are plenty of resources, such as http://www.robotstxt.org/ or you can go straight to the Standard for Robot Exclusion

Robots.txt files can get lengthy and the exact syntax, punctuation and SPELLING (most of the errors I see are mis-spelling of user agents, directories or missing colons, slashes, etc.) is of great importance. So be careful…

Here is an example of Virtual Results robots.txt file.

User-agent: * Disallow: /cgi-bin Disallow: /wp-admin Disallow: /wp-includes Disallow: /wp-content/plugins Disallow: /wp-content/cache Disallow: /wp-content/themes Disallow: /trackback Disallow: /comments Disallow: */trackback Disallow: */comments Disallow: /*?* Disallow: /*? Allow: /wp-content/uploads

Dont be totally discouraged if you dont get all of this, as you will have another chance.  In coming weeks, look for my WordPress SEO for Real Estate Websites post on wordpress DUPLICATION,  a pretty large SEO issue with WordPress out of the box.  WIthin this post, we will give tips and tools to use wordpress plugins to create robots.txt to reduce content duplication…

Next time?  Creating Great WordPress titles for SEO

In WordPress, what some call a URL, we call Permalinks…

Permalinks are literally permanent links to your blog posts, yeah, the ones that live in your address bar because they contain the address to your blog post (or page).

WordPress sets them by default to look something like this…

http://virtualresults.net/?p=123

Now, having important keywords in your URL (permalinks) is pretty darn important to the major search engines, (arguably, one of the top 5 most important things in the Google algorithm) So, unless your post HAPPENS to be about the number 123, we should really change this.. In addition, it gives your readers a better idea what your post is about…

Change to what? and how? Well here again, there are two schools of thought…
1) www.yourdomain.com/the-title-of-your-post/
2) www.yourdomain.com/category/the-title-of-your-post/

Both make a ton of sense in the proper situation… I tend to favor number two when I can build keyword rich, important categories and write proper descriptions for those categories…

How to change to “pretty Permalinks”
In WP 2.7, simply locate the link that says “permalinks” near the bottom of your left hand tool bar, under “settings”…

next choose the radio button next to “custom settings” and finally enter the permalink structure youhave decided on…

For 1) www.yourdomain.com/the-title-of-your-post enter /%postname%/
For 2) www.yourdomain.com/category/the-title-of-your-post enter /%category%/%postname%/.

Thats it your done?

*Note that if your .htaccess file is not set to be writeable, WordPress will produce a set of codes which you’ll need to copy and paste to your .htaccess file!

Now, I know this is really simple stuff for a lot of you, but please hang with me and SUBCRIBE, because it is going to get a lot more interesting….

Next Post? When is the last time you invested some time in your robots.txt file?

Okay, I am a TAD fed-up, just  TAD… At almost every Real Estate Internet Marketing event I attend, someone…some Internet-marketing-SEO-real-estate-social-media-twittering-facebook-connected-expert, says something to the effect of “The great thing about WordPress, is that is has UNBELIEVABLE on page SEO, straight out of the box. Some clients would also suggest to check out online sites for further information about digital marketing, but others would end up choosing Marketix Digital to opt with their concerns.

Now while WordPress is not BAD, and in fact is significantly better than MOST flash intensive, java-laden REAL ESTATE Websites, it is really not (in the immortal words of Dr. Evil) “Two clicks and a bag of chips.”  In fact,l it has some pretty significant issues, “straight out of the box….”

The Good News?  Almost nothing that can’t be fixed, with a few (8-10) plugins, a smidgen of PHP, a smattering of existing code changes, and maybe a rub of your lucky rabbits foot…  (although that wasn’t really lucky for the rabbit, was it…)

This started as one REALLY long post… but I think it may end up as a bakers dozen or so…  A series of bite-size pieced nuggets to clean up your WP install and make the lean, mean, ranking machine you hoped for when you launched it…  Lets start with the Obvious and SLOWLY journey to the esoteric.. well not so fast, lets start with the esoteric..kind of.. go directly to the basics, and slowly get more advanced..

Theme Validation

There is, and always has been an ongoing argument about the necessity of Theme Validation.  Validating Code simply ensures that your page (or theme) conforms to a agreed upon technical  specification, which usually include a machine-readable formal good grammar (and vocabulary.)

The reason is simple: search engine spiders need to interpret your source code. And while the Internet Explorert and Firefox are very forgiving of your coding errors, search engine spiders, such as Googlebot aren’t quite as kind.  Most browsers are very forgiving of bad code. If the browser can interpret the intent or meaning of the site then it will likely display an agreeable page. But search engine spiders are often not as forgiving and something as simple as an overlooked “tag  close” can cause the spider to read the code structure  differen tthen how the page is displayed in the browser.

My opinion? Most validation errors will not affect your SEO at all…  but the really bad ones, absolutely will. The only thing you really need to be sure of is that there are no problems in the code structure that would prevent the search engine spider from parsing the code correctly. Proper validation does this.

While a page may still get ranked for keywords, improperly developed code may actually keep  the page from performing as well as it otherwise could.

The solution here is to ensure the site you are building, buying or developing is  W3C XHTML and CSS Validated .  If you are purchasing a site, ask.  If you are starting with a theme, make sure the theme is documented as compliant. Solid programmers and theme writers validate their code…

With that said, in most cases, if a page doesn’t validate it  probably still will work for adaptive technologies and search engines, however depending on the errors within the code, it’s not a guarantee.  Due to this, it’s best to try and take one extra precaution and  begin your project with valid code.

Next post in this series?  Something simple.. or is it?  Permalinks

PS: If you’re interested in amazing world class SEO, let us know.

Active Rain has launched a new membership policy for new members starting this morning at 5am… New members will now pay $29 month for outward facing blogs. New members may create new members only blogs for free. I think this is a great step for Active Rain and I wish them success… Their service has truly benefited tens of thousands of Real Estate Professionals and they deserve to be profitable with these efforts.. Here is the details…

ACTIVERAIN – Our NEW Membership Plan

We are implementing some changes in our membership structure on ActiveRain for NEW MEMBERS. We believe the NEW membership plan will be beneficial to both our existing members and to our “New” members joining the Community. We want ALL NEW MEMBERS to reap the same benefits and rewards that existing members have created and experienced in the past. The time has come for us to make a change.

* Any member accounts that were created before February 16th, 2009, but have NOT yet produced at least a single Blog post will continue to have access to the network and all the tools that they’ve utilized up to this point. If those members wish to activate their account so their Blog posts will be viewable to consumers and search engines, they’ll be required to sign up for the New Membership Plan at $29 per month.

All New and Existing ActiveRain Members will also receive:

* Listing Router “Wholesale” pricing, with clicks being delivered to the highest bidder on an auction basis. All members including the New Braunfels cash home buyers will have the opportunity to pay the same price as bulk wholesale buyers. This represents a 70% per bid price reduction.

* The NEW Rainmaker Badge: If you currently utilize any AR product (Listing Router Campaign, Outside Blogs, Sponsored Localism Communities etc.) the new RainMaker VIP Badge will appear when leaving comments and wherever the member profile picture is currently displayed.

* ALL Outside Blogs will now have the ability to add multiple users/authors. The pricing will only be $19 per month for existing AR members going forward. (This includes Individual and Group Blogs)

* Premium technical support will continue for paying members. Non paying members will only have access to email based support. These changes will be rolled out over the next few weeks and will be automatically applied to member accounts.

* Weekly ActiveRain Webinars and On-line Training will also be made available to ALL ActiveRain Members.

All current members will be given ActiveRain Founder Accounts. You have gotten us to this point and your contributions have been the fuel to mature the network. Again, nothing changes for our existing Active AR members.

This new membership plan goes into effect at 5am PST on Monday, February 16th, 2009. Feel free to contact any of the ActiveRain staff or team if you have any questions or concerns. We are looking forward to the continued growth and success of our network and YOUR business here on ActiveRain. Thank you for your continued support, your contributions, and your allegiance.

FInd the WHOLE article, HERE…

“All it took was a brief description of HOW and WHY Virtual Results designed Websites that Work the way they do… They design and make changes based on Analytics. They watch what does and doesn’t work and constantly improve…”

“I interviewed a lot of Internet Companies that knew design, or social media, or even SEO… but Virtual Results was the only company I interviewed that knew it all, and planned to succeed from square one…

Cooper is our most popular site…  Not that the colors are for everyone, but most Realtors, (it seems) just cant quite get accustomed to a completely “stealth” content-driven website.  They like a touch of warmth, and we provide this with a header image and introduction that speaks to the area we are servicing.  Cooper is proven and the analytics are inarguable.  This site engages readers and converts them to leads…  Cooper is are old stand by.  Available in any pallet and with a few custom patches to make it your own, Cooper MIGHT be the site for you…

View Site »

I think the Internet is simply passing Realtors by.

Realtors seem to fixate on shiny objects, they trip over dollars to pick up dimes, they love to think of themselves as tech savvy, which in Realtor speak  means “yeah, I have heard of xyz and have used it…some.  Unfortunately, the shiniest objects in the Internet marketing world are (at this very moment) social media apps, and they are absolutely NOT the best thing a realtor can do to create revenue on the Internet.

In fact, if not handled properly, (like a sharp knife) they are more likely to cut into your productivity, than increase it.

The current darlings of Realtor time-suck are Twitter, and Facebook… but there are dozens of other social media sites that can waste away your professional career as well. Now before you reach down to pick up that stone, or cry out “But I found YOU on twitter,” I am NOT saying that either one of these Social Media tools are not plausible forms of Internet Marketing. In fact, I believe that just like the proverbial sharp knife, they can be very useful tool, however,  most Realtors simply just don’t understand enough about Social Media Strategy to reap a decent  return on investment with Twitter or Facebook, or even doing it with a website that you can promote using SEO services from sites as https://the-indexer.com/seo-companies/ that are experts on this.  (Shameless plug for future social media strategy for Realtors post)

And  frankly, investing valuable time on social media before you have built an internet foundation, is silly.

To gain true results with Internet Marketing, a Realtor most build a solid Internet foundation.  This short post is dedicated to the 3 CORNERSTONES of any Realtors successful Internet Marketing campaign. Please be advised.  The following is NEITHER sparkly nor shiny and IS for the faint of heart.

1) A website that works-I constantly see Realtors investing huge amounts of time to the latest greatest Internet app to increase their Internet exposure or traffic.  But where are you driving that traffic. Realtors need as their base of operation a well written, properly executed website.  Notice I didn’t say pretty…effective is the key word.  Most web designers are just that… designers.  Ready to redesign your site?  Check this post for 11 items that every effective Real Estate website must have. Does your site contain them all? It really should.
2)  A Prospect Database-How long have you been selling Real Estate?  How many people have you spoken to over the years you have served your community?  How many friends of friends have called you to ask a question about the market?  How many Internet leads have you just stopped working because they got cold… How many leads just didn’t get worked to the level you would of liked when the market was just so busy? Check out sites like https://victoriousseo.com/seo-agency-san-diego/ to know more about marketing.

Each and every contact you make from the very first day of your career should be in database.

Once you start creating this database, you will be shocked at how fast it grows, and more shocked how many buyers and sellers it produces, when watered, nurtured and PROPERLY tickled.   Don’t think Web Leads are good Leads?  Read this article to learn how to make them great.
3) Listing Syndication-What are you doing to post your listings all over the web…  Do you know that there are hundreds of sites that will host your listings with links back to your (properly written, effective) website?

Listing syndication is possibly the most effective and under utilized Internet Marketing tool to drive traffic and real leads to your website.

Take a look here for a list of 60 sites and their URLS that will post your listings and give you and your properties valuable exposure…
So , whether you are an Internet neophyte or a social media god or goddess, you must first ask yourself… Have I properly built my Internet foundation?  Do I have my cornerstones properly in place?  And can I maximize my efforts to build traffic and revenue through other avenues, by driving prospects to a sticky website…