Shock and Awe Marketing Tutorials in Plain English

The first rule of understanding Google is that Google is not psychic.  It doesn't know where your website or new pages are unless it can find them by following a link from a site already in its index to your new page.  (yes, you can ping and submit a sitemap, but direct access from Google is not the same thing as a crawl!) So, now that you get someone else to link to you and Google has found your site, you need Google to crawl, index and begin to trust your site.  That means YOU need to link to both other pages on your website and link out to pages on other websites.

Think of Google as the ultimate game of 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.  Somehow, your website should be connected to other important websites (i.e. websites that Google trusts) in order for Google to discover and begin to trust your site!  One of the most critical things you should learn about SEO, is how to think like a search engine.  Most people never consider HOW Google crawls the web, and because they never consider HOW- they never assist it in doing so.  And that is one key to becoming a FOG (Friend of Google). 

How a search engine crawls the web

Basically, a search engine crawls the web to discover new pages by starting with the websites it already knows and trusts and following links on these trusted pages to other pages.  Search engines begin their crawl of the web with a list of completely trusted sites (i.e. sites that would never link to spam - we call these "seed sites") These seed sites are the MOST trusted sites in the search engine's index and where it will begin its crawl of the internet (essentially - seed sites are the Kevin Bacon of search - we all are somehow connected to them!)

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What are dead pages?

The technical definition of a dead page is "a page that is linked to by another page in your site, but which has no hyperlinks to other pages in the site." Since it's a page without navigation, visitors can only leave it by using their back button or clicking away from your site entirely.  Essentially, a dead-end page is one that has no outgoing links, thus creating a "dead end" for a search engine. Dead pages are unnatural on the web (a web page should be connected to other pages) Most importantly, a dead page leaves both the robot and the visitor no choice but to abandon the site since they have no natural way to get off the page. 

Resource: What are dead pages?

How to breathe new life into dead pages

Just make sure you place at least one link out to another page on the web and one link to another page within your own site.  I like to give readers textual or visual cues as to whether I am keeping them on my site by saying "read also" or sending them off the site by saying "resource."

Read also: Formula for a Successful Blog Post

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Back to the conversation about hidden text.  Recently I have seen 3 sites banned (completely de-indexed) from Google because a web developer thought they could artificially boost the SEO of a site by injecting hidden text into the template.  This is what I call, Case of the Idiot Web Developer.

What is hidden text? 

Hidden text is text you place on your website that is typically keyword rich, invisible to a user but evident to a search engine.  Hmmm... sounds a lot like spam, huh?  Well, that is exactly how Google sees it! SPAM!  And what happens to spammers in Google?  They get banned - i.e. de-indexed. 

Read also: Is Your Real Estate Blog Keyword Spamming Behind Your Back?

What are the most common ways you or your web developer can place hidden text in your website or blog?

• 1. Make the text the same color as the background
• 2. Set the CSS for the text to display:none

• 3. Make the text tiny timey like a 1-3pt font

How do you check if your site is spamming and/or has hidden text?

Use This Tool to Check for Keyword Spamming:  spam detector tool

***FYI: CSS attributes with visibility set to none are very common today as more and more sites are CSS driven, this is not always indicative of spamming and should be ignored like the tools own disclaimer notes.  However, if the CSS attribute contains text - especially keyword rich text, IT IS SPAM!

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Not everybody in the blogging community believes that SEO is a viable component of blogging.  If you are of this belief, you can stop reading this post now and move it right along.  But if you want to be at the top of the search engines and you are just starting now, without SEO, you are going to have a really hard time in most markets. 

Look at the engines in your local market.  There are Realtors, directory sites and lead aggregators at and pounding their way to the top of the engines.  How are you going to pass them and arrive anywhere near page one?  Do you think a new site can do that without being fully optimized?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization.  No, you do not need a secret decoder ring, it is not about writing in code.  SEO is simply the act of optimizing your site for maximum performance.  It’s not a mystery and it doesn’t happen all at the same time, it’s not a race to the finish.  It is an ongoing process and once you have learned the basics it’s fairly easy to apply. 

If you are new to blogging it can seem a bit overwhelming at first, and it really can be.  There is so much new information coming at you, it just seems to jumble all up and come out wonky.  Don’t worry, most of us went through that in the beginning as well.   It does all sort itself out pretty quickly if you are paying attention. 

Once your blog is designed, you have purchased a keyword rich domain, added the right title tags and  keywords to your site it is time to begin to add content.  Writing blog posts doesn’t have to be a brain squeeze, although your first month blogging is actually a pretty important time for your blog.  You are laying the informational base for your blog and establishing yourself in Google’s eye’s.

The first month you should be writing keyword rich, sticky, neighborhood posts, describing the neighborhoods (your farm) in your area.  Tie them into real estate by describing the area, types of homes available, lifestyle etc…  You do know about your neighborhoods - right?  Write what you know, do some research, find some interesting facts, link to businesses, convention centers, restaurants, city agencies and programs and other neighborhood sites.  Give out some link love.  Write a series of posts on the history of your community, or highlight the finer points of it, go ahead and brag about it.  Write individual posts for each of the neighborhoods in your community.  Link them all together.  It’s not as overwhelming as it sounds.  Just sit down and write one post.  Then write another and link them together.  It’s not a race, do it in your time. 

Did you also purchase 1 Park Place lead generation system with your blog?  If you did, learn how to set up the RSS IDX feeds and link those into your neighborhood posts as well, make it easy for the consumer to search for homes in your lead generation system, by community and by neighborhood.  You are building a powerhouse here. 

Read also:

• The First 30 Days of Blogging
• Formula for a Successful Blog Post

The title of your post is very important.  You will want to include keywords that consumers use to search on the engines, which are also included in your post.  Your title instructs the search engines where to place your post. 

For instance:  If you are writing about the neighborhood of Celebration in Orlando Florida, Your title might read:

Celebration Neighborhood Resource Guide - Orlando Florida

This is a keyword rich title and will be a post that lives forever.  You can always change and update the information in it and keep it fresh.  The search engines love it when you freshen up old content and reward accordingly. 

Read also:

• Real Estate Blog SEO Tip: Keyword Use in Title Tag

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