Welcome to the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Guide, a step by step SEO plan specifically designed for Realtors & Short Sale Blog Ring Members. This guide is your key to getting your blog posts (which are basically your marketing funnels) to rank well in search engines. The goal is to rank close to #1 for high-traffic, highly targeted keywords.
If you haven’t already, visit our Training Section and watch the “SEO Traffic Formula” video. These training videos are available only for a limited time.
Imagine ranking #1 in search engines for the “hottest” keywords, like: “Your City” short sales, “Your City” loan modifications, “Your City” foreclosure help...and other hot keywords related to credit repair, legal counsel, etc.
Ranking #1 for multiple keywords will drive you tons and tons of highly targeted traffic ready to use you as their agent and buy services from you, which is the key to growing your Real Estate business and generating multiple streams of passive income.
Well, this SEO Guide is designed to help you accomplish just that!
**Bookmark this page and use this guide everytime you write a blog post until it becomes habit.
The most time consuming task with SEO is backlinking (see below for details). While backlinking is very time consuming, it is important to understand that backlinking determines about 80% of your rank results, so do not neglect this step. Keep in mind that the ROI for a highly ranking blog post is typically unheard of in our industry, in that a SINGLE competitive keyword could drive anywhere from 2000 to 200,000 leads for your businesss every month.
Now, if you’re like me and would rather focus on creating content then backlinking for SEO, I highly recommend outsourcing this work to my personal SEO consultant. See below for details on the link building service that I use and still pay for. Keep in mind that I have already negotiated discount rates for Short Sale Blog Ring members, and the discounts will only get larger the more hours we purchase.
If you’re interested in outsourcing your SEO, simply fill out the form below.
If you’re wondering how good my guy is, let’s just say he is responsible for getting Expedia.com to rank #1 for the keyword “travel.”
“Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Step 1: Identify a Blog Topic by Finding a High-Traffic, Highly Targeted Keyword Using Google’s Keyword Research Tool
1. Open up the Google Keyword Research Tool
2. Then, ask yourself the following question: “What keyword or phrase would my target audience search for”? Now let’s briefly discuss who your target audience might be. Your target audience can be divided into 4 major audiences and unlimited ”minor” audiences:
Major audience #1: Local people (think local cities & your state) in pre-foreclosure looking for short sale services (keyword examples: Seattle Short Sale, Washington Short Sale, etc.) Assuming you are licensed in only one state, don’t bother trying to attract short sale clients from different states.
Major audience #2: Local & national people in pre-foreclosure looking for loan modification services (keyword examples: Seattle Loan Modifications, Washington Loan Modifications, Apply for a Loan Modification, etc.) Our loan modification partners can service all 50 states.
Major audience #3: Local & national people looking for credit repair services (keyword examples: Seattle Credit Repair, Washington Credit Repair, Short Sale Credit Repair)
Major audience #4: Local people & people from select states looking for discount attorney legal services (keyword example: Seattle Bankruptcy Attorney, Washington Foreclosure Law). While you can sell Pre Paid Legal services in different states, there are certain states that require specific licensing before you do. Contact Pre Paid Legal for more details on which states you are allowed to sell Pre Paid Legal services.
Minor audiences: The possibilities are unlimited. You can use your blog to attract all sorts of customers, from short sale buyers to other Realtors for our affiliate program. When you do attract a particular audience, make sure you have some sort of service to offer them. Don’t generate traffic simply for traffic’s sake; generate traffic knowing that you’ll have something to offer them in the end.
3. Input your ideas into the Keyword Research Tool and take a look at the results! Google will come up with exact or similar keyword words/phrases and even show you how much traffic they generate on a monthly basis. Choose keywords based on how closely they define your target audience and not how much traffic they generate. When it comes to leads, quality is always better than quantity.
4. The last step before you move forward with your blog topic is to make sure that your keyword doesn’t have too much competition. For example, if you try to optimize a blog post for a very general & competitive keyword such as “short sales,” it is highly unlikely you will rank #1 for that keyword. An easy way to determine this is to do the following:
A. Go to Google.com and input the following “code” into the search bar:
intitle:”YOUR KEYWORD” inanchor:”YOUR KEYWORD” intitle:”YOUR KEYWORD” inanchor: “YOUR KEYWORD”
For example, suppose your desired keyword phrase is ”Seattle Short Sales.” You would input the following:
intitle:Seattle inanchor:Seattle intitle:Short inanchor:Short intitle:Sales inanchor: Sales
After you input this “code,” check the search results. Anything less then 10,000 search results is perfect (less is better). Anything more then 10,000 results means that there is probably too much competition for that particular keyword. Your keywords can be anywhere from one word to as many words you want, given that you’ve tested the keyword or keyword phrase with Google’s research tool.
Step 2: Write & Publish your blog post!
1. The first thing you want to do before writing your blog post is to create a title tag & a description that includes your desired keyword (this is separate from your blog title and description). Search engines will use your title & description, making your blog posts more attractive on the search engine result pages. To create a title tag & description for search engine purposes, use the All in One SEO Pack (contact Ken at info@shortsaleblogring.com or your web developer for installation).
If you’re confused, simply download this free guide on how to use the All in One SEO Pack.
2. Keep your blog post entertaining, informational & ultimately pointing towards one of your services. I strongly urge you to review the training video titled “How to Convert Your Leads into Sales with Strategically Written Blog Posts & Landing Pages,” which is located in our training section.
Step 3: Create Backlinks to your Website and Blog Posts (80% of your search engine results will be determined by this!)
Very important: Backlinking is nothing more then creating high quality one-way links on other people’s websites that point to your website, blog post, etc. The more links you have pointing towards your site, the more recognition you will recieve from search engines. Think of every link to your website like a “vote.” The more votes you have, the higher you will rise in search engine rankings. Now not all links are made equal. A 100 links from low quality websites will not do as much for you as 10 links from very high quality websites, so don’t go falling for “free backlinking” submission sites, services, etc. as you will quickly be penalized for participating in such activities. Website quality is often measured as Page Rank or “PR.” so the goal is to get as many links as possible from high PR websites.
Backlinking Strategy 1: RSS Feeds
Ask Ken at info@shortsaleblogring.com or your web developer to install “Feed Burner,” then ask them to give you a link to your blog’s RSS feed. An RSS feed is basically nothing more than an easy way for other website owners (particularly news sites, informational hubs, etc.) to automatically recieve your website content. Then, download Allscoop RSS Submit Pro and submit your RSS feed to all the major RSS Feed directories online. This will let the world know who you are and may help drive traffic and create more backlinks for you on auto-pilot.
Backlinking Strategy 2: Article Sites
This is an extremely powerful way to create 1-3 very high quality backlinks to your website and blog posts while simultaneously driving traffic as well. How do you accomplish this? Simple. Write an article using the same method as shown in step 2 (do not use duplicate content or you will be penalized), and include 1-3 backlinks to your mainsite or whichever blog posts you want to optimize.
Backlinking Examples:
Google Knowls (PR7!)
Ezine (PR6)
GoArticles (PR6)
A. Submit short, informative articles on High PR Article Directories using all the same methods from this SEO Guide.
B. In those articles, make sure to include 1-3 backlinks to your mainsite or blog posts you are trying to optimize. Don’t forget to include your keyword(s) in your HTML link like in the Ezine example above.
C. You should write as many articles as possible and continue backlinking to your mainsite or blog posts until you begin to see 1st page results. Again, all of your articles should be original; Do not duplicate content whatsoever.
Backlinking Strategy 3: Blog Comments
A. Download Firefox and SEO for Firefox. This will soon be your backlinking workstation.
B. After installing SEO for Firefox, go to Tools -> SEO for Firefox -> Options. Place every “info block” on “hidden mode” except for the PR category, which should be on automatic. Keep the 1 sec delay.
C. You are now going to plug in your keywords (from step 2) into the “codes” below in Google’s Search Bar. What this will do is bring up forums & other blogs that are relevant to that keyword, and since you have SEO for Firefox, your browser will automatically tell you what the PR is for that particular site. Look for high PR sites (3+, the higher the better). The goal is to have blog comments containing links to your blog post or website on at least 4 .com sites, 4 .org sites and 2 .edu or .gov sites.
Code for .com sites: site:.com inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”
Code for .org sites: site:.org inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”
Code for .edu sites: site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”
Code for .gov sites: site:.gov inurl:blog “post a comment” -”comments closed” -”you must be logged in” “ADD YOUR KEYWORD”
Simply add your keyword into the quotes, then copy and paste the code (only one code at a time) into the search bar. If there are no results, cut your keyword phrase short (ie. cut “Seattle Short Sales” to “Seattle”). While results may not be as relevant, a high quality backlink is a high quality backlink and without them, your site won’t rank.
D. Again, the goal is to have a blog comment containing a link to your blog post on at least 4 .com sites, 4 .org sites and 2 .edu or .gov sites. Your blog comments should always be relevant, valuable & informative or you will be penalized for “spamming.” Your link, if possible, should include your keyword as well. Click this link for an example of a blog comment (scroll down to see my comment).
Hint: In order to include an HTML link in your blog comment, simply use the code below:
<a href= “ADD A LINK TO YOUR BLOG POST“>ADD YOUR KEYWORD</a>
E. More often then not, the forum or blog will ask for your user name, email address and an URL to your own website. If this is the case, then your user name will most likely become a link to the URL that you enter in this section, so use this to your advantage. You can simply copy and paste the URL to your blog post in the “URL” section and enter your keyword as your username (unless it sounds ridiculous. “Kevin Kim – Seattle Short Sale Expert” as a username is OK. “How to Find a Short Sale” as a username is ridiculous.)
F. Again, do not spam. Leave relevant, valuable comments so as to avoid being banned or penalized by webmasters. Have at least 10 high quality links going to each blog post while continually building links to your mainsite to raise its PR. If you raise the PR of your mainsite, your blog posts will rise in ranking much quicker. Most high PR sites moderate comments and hold them for review. As long as you leave relevant, valuable comments, your comments should be accepted. Keep track of all of your blog comments and continue to backlink until you see your blog post rising in search engines.
G. Stay away from blogs that contain too much spam and outbound links, or Google will group you together with those spammers and penalize you for it.
Step 4: Continue “watering your plants” and wait until you see them “blossom” before moving onto more blog posts.
A. If you are doing your own backlinking, I recommend starting off with 3 blog posts and focusing your “backlinking energy” on them before moving onto your next ones. You are better off having 3 blog posts that rank 1st page on search engine results then having 12 blog posts that all rank on the 3rd page.
B. Commit a few hours a day to backlinking. In a week, you should be able to create 10-20 high quality links for each blog post, which is a healthy volume. It is not beneficial to you (nor will you be able to handle) creating more then 20 high quality links per post any given week. Search engines will penalize you for having too many links built in any given week (since it doesn’t appear natural), so stick with 10-20 a week and you should see excellent growth.
Thus concludes our SEO Guide. Again, if you would rather outsource your backlinking for SEO, fill out the form below. Also, before backlinking any of your blog posts, make sure that your blog is completely setup with your profit partners, web forms & custom links, lest you drive traffic to your website only to have nothing for people to buy from you. I do recommend outsourcing your backlinking and focusing on content creation sooner then later. Now go apply these techniques and watch your business soar!
