Homebuilders.com

When you decide on an SEO company you’re looking at a long-term relationship, and so you need to find one you can trust. Paying the wrong SEO team isn’t just a waste of (a lot of) money – it can actually damage your site’s credibility and ranking if they use “black hat” SEO techniques. These “black hat” styles garner quick results that just as quickly fall away and leave trouble in their wake. Not only are these attempts clear to tech-savvy homebuyers – who will then mark you down as untrustworthy – but they can get you blacklisted on Google. And that takes a very very long time to recover from.

So what are some warning signs of an untrustworthy SEO analyst?

They guarantee ranking position. This really isn’t possible; ranking depends on a lot of considerations, like your own content, the competing market, and sometimes just the whims of Google. They’re promising something they can’t actually deliver and that’s always dangerous. Likewise if they guarantee a time frame.

They can’t offer specific recommendations. An SEO analyst who has been in the game for awhile can immediately rattle of dozens of ideas based on what you’re doing now and where you need to go. That may be changes to your current methods, or it could be new keywords to aim for – but whatever the details, if they can’t voice specifics they don’t have the training you need as a home builder.

No solid examples of current work. A lot of the SEO game changes very rapidly. Procedures that garnered good results five years ago could now do nothing, or even penalize your results. Because of this the analyst needs to constantly stay fresh and keep an ear to the ground. If their work is recent they may not know what you need.

Anything less than full transparency. Because it’s so important to wade out that “black hat” SEO, a good analyst will happily explain how and what they’re doing, like why meta tags are so important or why they use the builder vertical. If things are constantly unclear, or they’re unwilling to explain how and what they’re doing, that’s a huge red flag. Combining this with a promise of immediate results is always a sign to look elsewhere.

You want your marketing money to count, and you also want home buyers to find you easily and quickly – that’s the first step of your entire relationship! Nowadays you can’t have a strong web presence without seriously considering SEO: that’s just a fact. And it’s also a fact that you deserve a consummate professional, one who is happy to work with you and the engine itself for your best results.

Did you know that 9 out of 10 home buyers look for their homebuilder online? It’s in incredible number, and it means that as a home builder you need to seriously consider your internet marketing schemes. Whether that’s a mobile site, SEO, blogging – the more internet presence the better. One way to really boost your presence online as custom builders in Nashville is a listing on Custom Builders.

Custom Builders is the first of it’s kind, the only online resource for all custom builders in Nashville. Google that and you’ll see we pop right up. Which means that your listing is up there on the first page – excellent for home buyers searching online, and a boost back to your personal website. Each listing we provide has a link to not just your home page, but also your inventory, new home communities, and blog. The listing has a gallery of photos and a summary of your offers with SEO-improving backlinking. It’s a great resource for home buyers, and an important place to be.

Every listing comes with a 90 day free trial. For a limited time Custom Builders is offering a special low rate on listing there and Top Ten Builders for just half the cost it’ll grow to within the year. And you’ll be locked into that low rate for your entire listing. As custom builders in Nashville you really can’t miss out. Contact us for more information and for our special price.

Did you know that 9 out of 10 home buyers look for their homebuilder online? It’s in incredible number, and it means that as a home builder you need to seriously consider your internet marketing schemes. Whether that’s a mobile site, SEO, blogging – the more internet presence the better. One way to really boost your presence online as custom builders in Houston is a listing on Custom Builders.

Custom Builders is the first of it’s kind, the only online resource for all custom builders in Houston. Google that and you’ll see we pop right up. Which means that your listing is up there on the first page – excellent for home buyers searching online, and a boost back to your personal website. Each listing we provide has a link to not just your home page, but also your inventory, new home communities, and blog. The listing has a gallery of photos and a summary of your offers with SEO-improving backlinking. It’s a great resource for home buyers, and an important place to be.

Every listing comes with a 90 day free trial. For a limited time Custom Builders is offering a special low rate on listing there and Top Ten Builders for just half the cost it’ll grow to within the year. And you’ll be locked into that low rate for your entire listing. As custom builders in Houston you really can’t miss out. Contact us for more information and for our special price.

Site Content
The content of your website will influence your site visitors —and search engines — more than anything else.

As a rule, the search terms you are targeting need to appear in the content of the site, in the exact same order in which a search query is performed (not necessarily with every usage, but it should appear that way at least once).

If the search term you are targeting is not on the page in the form of text, that page most likely will not displayed in the search engine results.

Description Tags
The page’s description tag gives search engines a summary of the page’s content. Like the title tag, the description tag is also an HTML meta tag, located within the <head> tag.

<html>
<head>
<meta name=‚”Description‚” content=‚” Find Homes For Sale in (your city). Search (your city) real estate, new homes, school information and much more at (company name).>
</head>

Many times, it’s displayed on the search results page. The description tag offers a lengthier summary of the title tag and, like the title tag, is also a contributing element to search engine results. Additionally, because description tags are displayed on search engine results pages, writing thoughtful and accurate description tags will have a strong impact on consumer click-through rates.

Title Tags
A page’s title tag tells consumers and search engines the topic of a particular page. If each web page is different, then each web page should have a unique title tag. Imagine each web page is a book, and Google is a library. Now imagine walking into that library, only to find books with no book titles. You might be able to navigate your way if you knew the author’s name, but if you didn’t, finding information would be extremely difficult. Book titles tell us what the book is about. Web page titles tell search engines what the page is about. The most important element a search engine uses to decide where a web page should be displayed in the search results is the title tag. When an accurate title is present, it’s much easier to figure out what this book is about.

The title tag is placed between the <head> </head> tags of the web page.
<html>
<head>
<title> (Your City) Real Estate & (Your City) Homes For Sale – (Company name)
</title>
</head>
<body>

TIP: Each web page should have a unique title, even if it’s only slightly different. Within the entire website, no two title tags should be identical. If your web page appears within a search results page, the title tag will appear on the first row of the results. Words searched by the user will be bolded in the web page’s title. This assists users in recognizing relevant web pages.

Keyword research is the foundation for all natural search engine optimization techniques. The objective is to know what search terms are reaching your target audience. A chosen list of keywords will ultimately be selected based on search volume and ability to compete for those terms. Don’t start optimizing until you know for sure what keywords you need. I caution you against taking this lightly. It does no good to optimize for something no one is looking for.

When researching keywords, you should:

Think Like Consumers

What would a normal person type in the search box to find your product?

Consumers may use several variations, but it most likely will include the location (this is called geo-targeting) alongside terms such as “homes,” “condos,” “homes for sale,” “real estate,” “condos for sale,” “foreclosures” or ”new homes.”

Other ways to think like your consumers:

Brainstorm and list every phrase that might be used to find what your site offers.

Ask friends and colleagues for suggestions.

Poll your consumer base and get their input. After hearing from these consumers, you may be surprised at the keywords they recommend. If that happens, resist the temptation to discard their input because chances are, the people you interviewed are the profile of your ideal customer. While the keywords they suggest may sound strange to you, bear in mind that most people use natural language in their searches. They don’t use the industry terminology you and I know. They just want to find a home.

Validate with a Keyword Research Tool

Use keyword research tools to confirm or deny your keyword list. Don’t move on without doing this. Many times, business people think they know what the best keywords are. Business people also are more familiar with industry terminology that consumers are not. Confirm your instincts with a keyword research tool before progressing to the next step.

Here are keyword research tools you can use:

Wordtracker Free Keywords (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/) provides free keyword suggestions from Wordtracker.

Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com/) also has a more advanced paid version, and sells top keyword reports.

Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool (https://adwords.google.com/ select/KeywordToolExternal) recommends keywords based on a keyword you enter or a URL you have the tool analyze.

WordStream Keyword Tool (http://www.wordstream.com/keywords/) allows you to export a list of thousands of keywords for free.

Keyword Discovery (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html) is a free keyword tool from Trellian.

Trellian (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/) also has a more advanced paid version of Keyword Discovery.

Yahoo! Research Tool (http://advertising.yahoo.com/smallbusiness/ysm)

YouTube Research Tool (https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_tool)

There are two types of SEO: on-site optimization, and off-site optimization. This is also referred to as internal optimization and external optimization, or on-page and off-page optimization, respectively. On-site optimization has to do with site components such as title tags, description tags and the content of your website — things you can control. Off-site optimization deals with other websites that link to yours; you rarely have control over this. Both are of equal importance in the complete SEO picture.

Google recently posted a historical timeline of Google Search. It’s pretty interesting so I’d like to share.

Here’s the photo timeline compliments of the Google Search Blog:

Here’s the video version:

Enjoy!

You’ve probably heard about outbound links being bad for your site. But sometimes, linking out can help your site if you do it correctly. Here are some reasons that outbound links can be good for your site:

It seems logical that linking to another site gives that site the PageRank authority that should be all yours. But Google has lots of other link-based algorithms besides PageRank (more than 400, it has been noted). They just don’t give us the details.

However, experts who have managed to crack a portion of the code say that one of those factors is a so-called trust rank” (see what we did there?), which looks at inbound and outbound links alike. The concept idea of evaluating the trust factor of a site by its links was first introduced by Yahoo. These experts believe that Google snapped up the practice as well.

How does it work? Certain “seed” sites are 100 percent trusted, and when determining how many link jumps away from one of those seeds sites your site is, it applies the principle that the further away you are, the lower the trust factor. The algorithm uses your site’s outbound and inbound links in this calculation, since spammers don’t link out to non-spam sites very often. In that sense, there’s an immediate algorithmic benefit to linking out to high quality sites.

Of course, there are social benefits to outbound links as well. Linking to others almost always guarantees that a few of them will return the favor. Be sure to choose sites that are relevant to your audience, and sites that are your “peers” – that is, no household names and no elitist blogs that have made it to superstardom (as they will likely ignore you).

To summarize: Outbound links can be good for your site, but trust is the key when it comes to linking. Link to “peer” sites that you trust, and be sure your site stays trustworthy as well.

How to know which site to link out to: If a website ranks well for competitive terms, those are great sites to link out to. By mere fact they rank well in Google, says Google trusts those sites. If a site doesn’t rank well, that’s a good indication Google may have reservations about the site’s trustworthiness.