News

When it comes to search engine optimization, domain name age is certainly one of the factors that goes into how well a website ranks. If you have a domain that’s been around for a decade, it’ll be much easier to get that website ranking for your keyword than it would be with a domain name that was recently registered and has never had an actual website with content on it. We recently received a question from a client with one of our amazing predesigns mentioning the fact that they have been blogging actively for awhile, but their site is still no where near the first page of Google’s rankings. The domain name for this specific client was brand new as of about a month ago.

First of all, talking about “Google rankings” by itself is extremely vague and is useless for the most part, as ranking highly for “Seattle real estate” is a totally different scenario than ranking well for an obscure keyword such as “small teapot with flower cover made in Madison, WI”.

Unfortunately, as with most things in the SEO world, there is no simple answer as to how long it will take a domain name to rank highly. It depends on how competitive a keyword you are targeting, and how many links you end up building back to your domain. There are thousands upon thousands too many variables at play to give a blanket response that fits every scenario.

So, I think it’s clear there’s no magic pill to bypass the Google sandbox (damn, I know). Your best bet is to keep pumping out great content, and build a bunch of backlinks back to your domain (ideally with great anchor text). If you really want to speed up the process of ranking highly for your keyword, we recommend paying an expert to evaluate the difficulty, cost and to develop a strategic plan rather than just shooting in the dark and hoping a bunch of content takes you to the top of the search engines for your desired keywords.

I hope this helps a little bit at least…

How do future website updates and changes work on the predesigned websites that work platform?

This is one question we’ve been asked by several agents/brokers over the last week so I wanted to address it here (remember, every question you get asked more than 3 times should be a blog post).

First of all, “updates” and “changes” are two very different things. Part of what you get with your monthly hosting plan is instant access to the improvements we make on the platform – which we’ll call “updates”. When we add new home page design options, page layouts, plugins, and onsite SEO – you have instant access to those new features.

“Changes” to your website are a little different. The short answer to the how do changes work question is “it depends”. I know, not exactly the simple answer you wanted – but website changes can range anywhere from editing a single word on a single page (easy) to changing the entire design layout to support a new search box (not easy). Some changes you can do yourself, others we’ll have to do, and some cannot be done at all on the predesigned platform. Here’s a quick rundown of the most common changes and which category they fall under:

Changes Done by You:

• Adding or removing content – posts, pages, communities, associates, listings, etc
• Editing content already published on the site
• Changing the widgets on your sidebar (but remember – if a widget will not help traffic or conversion, don’t add it)
• Changing site settings from your WordPress dashboard
• Adding Google Analytics tracking
• Verification of Google Apps

Changes Done by Us (free):

• Activating one of our approved plugins
• Adding the embed code for a script widget such as Market Snapshot or Market Mapper to a page or sidebar widget
• Flipping the switch to show “featured communities” instead of your blog on the bottom of the home page. If you’re wondering what the featured communities home page component looks like, you can take a look at Marianne Whyte’s website.

Changes Done by Us (paid):

• Redesigning the header

Changes not possible on the Predesigned Platform:

• Editing CSS/PHP code
• Placing special scripts on your home page
• Changing the layout of your site outside of the framework available (such as changing from 1 to 2 sidebars, the size of the header, etc)
• Changing the search criteria included on our custom search boxes
• Adding meta tags to the home page to verify external services (with exception of Google Apps verification)

Hope that helps explain this topic. If you have specifics not covered here, leave a comment please. And if you have other questions about our Predesigned Websites that Work, let us know.

Enjoy another week of  10 minute our SEO for WordPress Series brought to you by your friends at VIRTUAL RESULTS…

Dont have a GREAT WordPress site?  Find out why you should have a great WordPress Website here.

Need WordPress SEO help?  Check our ALL of our WordPress SEO videos!

Enjoy Week One of the 10 minute SEO for WordPress Series brought to you by your friends at VIRTUAL RESULTS…

Dont have a GREAT WordPress site?  Find out why you shoud here

Learn More About Websites that Work

Why a Custom? Because your market is custom. Because your prospects are custom. Because your sphere is custom. And because YOU are one of a kind.

Shouldn’t your website be?

Virtual Results custom sites exude your brand. They allow Virtual Results to express who you are and why you rock. You are successful for a reason. You need to tell the world why you are better, faster, smarter, bolder and unique.

Our custom websites are not 100% custom. They are BETTER than 100% custom. We work with you to learn your brand and combine it with our knowledge, based on MILLIONS of clicks, of what works…and what doesn’t.

You see… YOU are great at Real Estate (or you wouldn’t be hiring us) and we are great at creating websites that convert traffic to leads. When we combine your knowledge with ours? Bingo. WE ROCK. We each have a job in the process… YOUR JOB is to ensure we understand and create a website that reflects your brand. OUR JOB, is Internet Marketing… We will ensure that your wants and needs don’t break the conversion of our expertly designed architecture, mind map and Call to Actions.

You know the Real Estate Consumer and WE know the Internet Consumer. Perfect partnership. Nothing is left to chance. Each word, placement and page is thought out and tested…

Virtual Results custom websites are not cheap. But if your business has brought you to the point where you need to move to the next level and show your market you are the thought leader? Our custom websites are the perfect solution.

Ready to get started? We’re standing by…

See Examples of Our Work

We wanted to share a video from Erica Liodice, the Director of Marketing for Real Living Lifestyles (our latest real estate brokerage partner), talking about their experience working with Virtual Results.

We’re thrilled to have Erica and Real Living Lifestyles as part of the Virtual Results family. If you want to join the family and get up and running with your own amazing WordPress website, let us know.

You all likely know we recommend that your own website should be the hub of your online efforts, and that you should spend the majority of the time you spend writing content writing content on YOUR DOMAIN. Not someone else’s.

ActiveRain, which is a popular blogging platform for real estate professionals, is not an environment you control. But of course, there are benefits to writing on another platform with a built in audience – you are just sacrificing some of the long term benefit of content creation for the short term benefits of a built in audience. For more reading on this issue, head over the Phoenix Real Estate Guy and read Jay Thompson’s post.

However, there is an inbetween ground for those who REALLY want to just keep contributing to ActiveRain and still build content on your own domain name at the same time. You can use the FeedWordPress plugin to automatically pull in your Active Rain posts to your own WordPress.org blog. I personally implemented this approach on Spencer Rascoff’s blog (he’s the CEO of Zillow, my former employer). The steps to doing so are pretty simple:

1. Install the FeedWordPress plugin and activate it
2. Grab your ActiveRain RSS feed (for example, mine is feed://drewmeyers.activerain.com/rss)
3. Navigate to your FeedWordPress settings, and add your RSS feed as a new syndication source.
4. You’ll end up with posts like this that get automatically created whenever you publish new posts on ActiveRain.

One of downsides to this approach is that photos still sit on ActiveRain servers – so there’s always the potential that you’ll lose them all if ActiveRain decides to not let people export images. Of course, it’s also duplicate content, so you’re not going to get credit for unique content on your domain (which is one of the primary ways to attract organic SEO traffic). Questions? Leave them in the comments.

If you just want to export all your content instead and start devoting the majority of your time to writing on your own website? Let us know, we can help. And if you need a WordPress website/blog, of course we can help with that too.

The topic of tonight’s #retechchat Twitter discussion will be Blogging Content Strategies. In other words, how to generate compelling, unique content on a consistent basis. It’s a challenge that virtually every new blogger battles with – and even some blogging veterans from time to time. So, come join the discussion and I’m sure you’ll get at least a few ideas on how to solve the content problem.

To participate, here are a few options:

• Follow the #retechchat hashtag
• Add a search column to Tweetdeck for the hashtag #retechchat
• Join Tweetchat under #retechchat (recommended approach)

Tune in tonight (Monday, May 9th) at 6 PM PST / 9 PM EST!

How do I increase my website conversion rate  from people looking for premium content such as a “Home Buying in Carmel Valley” PDF or whitepaper I’ve put together?

I’ve heard this question several times from agents over the last month. Afterall, conversion is all about building a database of potential clients, and then building relationships with those people. And premium content in exchange for contact information is one proven way to increase your website conversion rate.

There is a relatively easy solution to allow people to download premium content that’s much simpler than setting up an entire membership level plugin such as Wishlist. The high level answer is to use a gravity forms form and create a redirect that sends the visitor to a specified landing page upon completion of the form.

How you ask?

1. Create one page on your site and provide a link to your PDF (or whatever other content you want to give to people) on that page. For example – yourwebsite.com/home-buying-carmel-valley-whitepaper/
2. Create a new form using Gravity Forms (which comes with every one of our predesigned websites that work) titled “Premium Content” (or whatever you want to call it) that includes the fields you want to capture – likely name, phone number, and email address.
3. Edit the redirect on the form so that when someone completes the form, they get directed to your landing page you created that includes your premium content. Screen shot from the editor.
4. Create a primary landing page that explains what the person is going to get by providing their contact details and insert the Gravity form (screen shot of where to find the insert form option) you created in step 2 into a page on your website. For example – yourwebsite.com/members-only/
5. Link to your new landing page you created in step 4 from your sidebar or within any post/page on your site.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments or via email.