Logan Utah Real Estate And Cache Valley Homes For Sale

BLACK FRIDAY WORDPRESS SETUP AT A MAJOR DISCOUNT! + MUCH MORE!!!!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 06:57:28 -0800

BLACK FRIDAY WORDPRESS SETUP AT A MAJOR DISCOUNT! + MUCH MORE!!!! Have you been on the fence about setting up a WordPress site? Don't have the time? Keep putting it off? Now is the time to get off the fence and take action! From Now Until December 5th: I Am Offering Full Wordpress Setup + 20 Pages Of Fully Optimized Content For $999 Just $497!!!! That's 50% Off! This includes: 20 Pages Of 600-700 Word Highly SEO Optimized Community Content Written By My Professional SEO Writers ( $600 Value) 1 Uniquely Designed Header (Normally $99) 1 Uniquely Designed Call To Action (Normally $97) Genesis Framework ($59 Value) StudioPress AgentPress 2.0 Theme ($44.95 Value) Installation Of My Preferred Plugins For A Better Blog ($99 Value) IDX Integration If You Want It (Highly Recommended!) This Includes dsIDXPress Or IDX Broker And as a special bonus to ensure you know how to use your website properly. I will be throwing in free coaching and training! You Get: 5 Hours Of Training (Normally $100 An Hour!) 5 Hours Of Coaching (Normally $100 An Hour!) That's a total value of $1,999 for just $497! Get Your Wordpress Site With 20 Pages For Just $497 Now! Contact me at Chase@PursuitTroop.com or give me a call at 435-760-7473 for more details. Still not sure? Here are some recent client testimonials: I found Chase on AR because I kept asking my current website person to "help me move forward" with my site. I felt stuck until I got ahold via AR of Chase. He called me back immediately. Chase is very professional in his approach. He presented me with several written options regarding cost to me vs. what he does for that money each month. Chase is always available. Phone calls, e-mails..always returned and questions answered promptly. He attacks his work with a sense of humor. He's created a very user friendly site for me that is pushing me into the forefront in my area. I would recommend him to anyone! - Kimberley Joy Kelly Before I hired my son Chase, my business was sputtering. I was getting desperate and I needed to find a way to attract new clients. This was in 2008. Since then, I have opened up my own brokerage, hired 4 buyer’s agents, and I closed more transactions in May 2011 than I have ever closed in a single month before. All of this because of the amount of Internet exposure my company is getting. I don’t know where I would be without my SEO magician Chase! My company would never have happened. Thanks Chase! - Lisa Udy Chase was superb in providing us guidance in getting our new website up and running! We were previous users of a template website, so starting from scratch with a self-hosted website was a novel experience! His step by step process for getting the tools available for him to establish the framework was very easy for us to follow. He provided guidance for possible service providers, IDX solutions, etc. He was ALWAYS very responsive and right on the mark with advice! We HIGHLY recommend using him to get your custom website created! - Liz & Bill Spear Chase I just wanted to drop you a note to say how impressed I am with your SEO knowledge and how to get a website to rank well in Google. SEO for Real Estate is certainly a competitive field and your expertise clearly shows. It is always great to compare notes with you on what works and what doesn’t with online marketing. Keep up the great work my friend! - Bill Gassett My personal website was out of date, needed to be re-invented and I had no idea where to begin. Chase helped me complete the process by providing format and layout insight, targeted direction, as well as excellent follow up. Chase made an overwhelming project seem like nothing more than a moderate learning curve. Whenever I have a new question, I can count on Chase to provide quick, concise feedback. I highly recommend Chase… he will exceed your expectations. - Ron Monson Want to see an example? Here you go: http://kimberleyjoykelly.com/ Kim hired me at the start of October and we've already created over 130 pages of content since! She writes, I optimize. However, for you, I will kick start your WordPress site with 20 community/neighborhood pages thrown in! I will also teach you how to write, optimize, add photos, videos, IDX searches, and post to your site. I will be available by email 7 days a week 365 to help you with your site. I will be available by phone with one weeks notice when you need it! (Normally 24 hours turn around!) Get Your Wordpress Site With 20 Pages For Just $497 Now! Contact me at Chase@PursuitTroop.com or give me a call at 435-760-7473 for more details. Can't Afford $497 Right Now? Don't worry...It gets better... The Genesis platform, home to the new AgentPress 2.0 theme, is having a sale until the 28th of Nov. Right now you can get 25% off anything StudioPress Offers! If you can't spend $497 now, you can at least get the Genesis Framework and the AgentPress theme at a major discounted price until Monday November 28th at 7pm Pacific Time! Here's the details: Using the code THANKS at checkout (don’t forget that), you can save 25% off of anything you’d like at WordPress design shop, StudioPress. 1. Get the Genesis Framework + StudioPress 2.0 Theme for only $75. (Normally $99!!) 2. Snag The AgentPress Theme By Clicking The Banner Below: All you need to do is use the code THANKS when you check out and you'll save 25% on anything and everything at StudioPress.com. This deal ends promptly at 7:00 pm Pacific time on Monday, November 28, 2011. Hurry up and claim your new WordPress theme before the code expires! Contact me at Chase@PursuitTroop.com or give me a call at 435-760-7473 for more details. Hold On...There's Even More! In order to use StudioPress you have to self host it. That means you have to pay for hosting. Well guess what! HostGator is having a massive Black Friday sale on their hosting plans. I personally use HostGator for all of my WordPress setups. This sale will start at 12:01 am on Friday morning and end at 11:59 pm. It's a one day sale ONLY so don't forget to check back here on Friday for the details. If you want me to remind you, leave a comment and I will email you Friday to remind you to get the hosting. Hosting will be 50% off which is just $2.48/month! Contact me at Chase@PursuitTroop.com or give me a call at 435-760-7473 for more details. Disclaimer: The banners contain affiliate links. I get a small amount of money if you purchase through my links. If you do this, just send me an email at Chase@PursuitTroop.com and I will personally setup your blog with your hosting for using my links. How's that for a fair trade? You buy through my affiliate links and I'll setup your framework for free!!Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Introducing My Son Chase!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:01:38 -0700

Hey Activerain! So as many of you know, I haven't been active here lately and my son, who many of you may have heard me talk about, is going to be taking over for me. He just setup his AR blog here: Chase Green. Feel free to check him out and welcome him to the community. He will be able to help you with SEO, Social Media, and internet marketing. Many of the things I have talked about on my blog are a direct result of him and I working together to learn about internet marketing. I will be reposting many of his posts here to keep my subscriber base updated on new marketing techniques and blogging ideas. His first few posts are going to be about Wordpress and setting up IDX to help you generate more leads. I think you will be pretty happy to have him taking over for me as he is extremely intelligent and a great person. So, thanks AR for keeping up with me, and I hope you have a great time learning from Chase! :)Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Online Lead Generation For Real Estate Agents

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 05:56:03 -0700

I've been on AR for a little more than 2 years and during that time, I've found some pretty great ways to generate online leads. I've also seen many agents on this network who don't have the necessary tools to generate a sufficient amount of leads to make a dent in the online lead generation world. This guide is for those agents. First off, let's define lead generation. I see a lead as a potential buyer or seller who needs some sort of follow-up or convincing that you are the right agent for them. In order to get the chance to talk to that lead, you must first generate them. There are many ways to generate a lead, but for this guide, I want to talk about generating a lead through the use of an IDX property website. What's an IDX property website? IDX stands for Internet Data Exchange. It means you have data that you receive through a shared feed. An IDX property website is a website that allows you to display other properties listed on your MLS that are not your own. Want to see an awesome IDX property website? View mine here. This website has 1000's of properties listed by every single agent in my MLS. Pretty cool right? I think so. Don't have a lot of money to spend on an IDX website? Get a Wordpress IDX site from my son for cheap. You can see some possible templates from his Utah Web Design page. You can see an example from Bill & Liz spear, he setup their site just the other day. Why Do I Need IDX To Generate Leads? An IDX website is a valuable resource for one reason. Buyer's looking to view properties online can view every property they will ever need on your IDX site. Instead of just showing you're own listings, you have more to offer. This extra incentive to stick around on your website is a value proposition. And, if you know anything about generating leads, you know that you have to offer something of value to interest the potential prospect to use your services. How Does IDX Generate Leads? If you go back to my website and click on two separate properties, after you click the first one, the second time it will require you to create an account in order to view more. Now, there's been a large debate on whether to force registration or not, but I fully believe that forced registration is the key to successful online lead generation. Some agents are adamantly against forced registration, but instead of a back and forth argument of why u should or shouldn't force registration, I want you to make up your own mind by viewing actual data. Forced Vs. Non-Forced Registration There's a great study that was done by real estate agents at BarkerHdeges.com on using forced registration vs. not. Here are the last three posts on actual data of leads generated, conversion rates, and some nice commentary by other real estate agents who switched to forced registration after non-forced wasn't giving them the results they wanted. Week 6 Week 5 Week 4 - This study shows the amount of leads gained with a forced registration vs. non-forced is quite dramatic. Driving Targeted Traffic To Your Website In order to generate leads online you have to have targeted traffic. Targeted traffic is key to generating the right leads who could potentially turn into a valuable client. Any other traffic is, basically, worthless. I have many funnels to generate traffic to my website and I wanted to share with you my full strategy of traffic generation. Blog For Real Estate - Are you using your AR blog to generate real buyer's traffic? There are a lot of real estate agents here on AR who are not. People may disagree with me on this front, but I truly believe that real estate agents should blog about real estate. Leave the local journalism, restaurant reviews, and such to the experts who dabble in that sort of stuff.If you're serious about generating leads with your real estate blog, blog about real estate related topics only. Search engines rank sites with laser like focus at the top of their results pages. A blog that tries to be both real estate related and the local town hall is confusing to search engine robots. With the recent Panda update, it's more important than ever to stay focused. So how should you write blogs to generate targeted REAL ESTATE traffic? Formula For A Successful Lead Generating Blog PostKeyword Rich Titles - Using keywords in your blog post title is critical to success. But don't go overboard. Each blog post should have one main keyword set to focus on. And don't use clever titles, just be direct. Search engine users want to scan a title and know exactly what the article is about, so be stick to your stated subject.Keyword Rich First Sentence - Reinforce your posts title in your first sentence. Your first sentence should make people want to read your next sentence. Add your keywords into the sentence and let them know the benefit you will offer them if they continue to read on.Give Them What They Came For - Stay on topic and don't ramble. People want information and they want it now. Keep your post precise and make it easy to digest. Separate long paragraphs with bullet points, break up big ideas into small paragraphs, and don't forget to add pictures and graphs to make your content more appealing.Finish Strong - Finish your post with a call to action. If your post is about a new condo development, point the reader to your IDX page with those condo listings. This tactic is precision business blogging with a purpose. You give a potential lead expert information, (Hook) - Send them to your IDX page with listings (Line) - And follow up to gain trust. (Sinker) Want an example? Here's a post I wrote on The Most Expensive Houses In Utah that has been rather successful in generating luxury home buyers.Website Promotion - Promoting a website has two channels: Online and Offline. Online promotion can be done through blogging, social networking, pay per click ads, article marketing, blog commenting, press releases, and syndication. Offline promotion can be print advertising, sign riders, newspaper ads, open houses, post cards, and so on. They are both crucial to generating business and should both be treated equally. However, I wanted to focus specifically on the online promoting. An internet lead can come from many different channels. Social networking sites and article marketing are, from what I've found, the best ways to get the most bang for your buck. I recommend you approach online promotion with a goal in mind and stay focused. It's fun to get caught up in the latest happenings in the social media world, but is it going to help your business? If it won't, why bother? Article marketing has changed recently, but it's still a valuable tool for online web promotion. I would refrain from using article marketing sites and focus more on guest posting and posting articles on your own blogs. Formula For Successful Online Website Promotion Content - Laser targeted content can bring in excellent traffic if you correctly optimize the pages for high performing keywords. Getting your on-page optimization right can show a dramatic difference in your contents performance. If you're unfamiliar with the basics of SEO and optimizing content, my son just wrote a nice post on his new website you can check out: On Page SEO Tips Link Building - Generating links to your content with relevant anchor text is priority number two in web promotion. Links can bring traffic, search engine bots, and increased rankings all at once. Generating links to your site is very, very, time consuming. I suggest that anytime it makes sense, link to your site with your desired keywords from any platform you can. Some consider this spam, I consider it marketing. Another great way to build links is through guest blogging. There is a huge network of real estate agents on this site that would love to exchange guest blog posts. Social Media Promotion - Everyone knows about social media these days, but very few are making money from it. I've found the best way to make social media work is to hold contests for your fans on Twitter & Facebook. Be creative with this. Offer gift cards, cash, prizes, discounts, anything that can get people talking about you. The best way to hold a contest is to make a poll on your website so your followers can vote for their favorite submission. Ask the submitters to get their friends to vote for them. You can setup a free survey on your site with: Survey Monkey. Paid Advertising - Google Adwords is a simple and cost effective way to generate immediate traffic. You have complete control over your account and daily spending limits. Want to spend $50 to try it out? No problem. Be sure you have a way to capture leads before you jump into Adwords. You can see how I setup landing pages for generating leads here: Real Estate Landing Pages. Hire A Professional - Don't have time for this? You're a real estate agent after all, and your time should be spent selling homes. If you don't have the time to learn online lead generation, hire someone to do it for you. There are a lot of descent SEO companies who can build links and write great content for your website if you don't have time. Here's a little plug for my son who has done SEO for me for the last 3 years. He is available and can give you a free consultation, I think his plans start out at just $300 a month for local search marketing: www.PursuitTroop.com. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Google Filters Vs. Penalties - How To Fix Over Optimization And Restore Search Engine Rankings

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:45:27 -0700

Have you ever been told that Google will penalize your site for this or that? Most of the time, when your site disappears from the rankings, it's been filtered not penalized. A filter is very common and easily overcome if you know what to do. A penalty is something that takes more time depending on the severity of the infraction. However, if you have a penalty, you can still get back on your feet if you fix the problem and let Google know what you did to fix it. If the problem was removed from your site correctly, Google will usually allow your site to resurface after a certain amount of time. So what's the difference between a filter and a penalty, and how do you fix it? Google Penalties Vs. An Algorithm Filter A penalty can be both manually done by a Google engineer (usually done with a spam report filed by someone) or algorithmically by Google's secret ranking sauce. Common penalty situations include: Doorway pages or hidden text. Buying links or selling links. Excessive reciprocal linking. Over-optimizatized anchor text. Link schemes & cross linking. As real estate agents, most of these don't apply to us as I think most of us don't even know how to do most of them! In fact, Google penalties are rare for the average website, and usually a site owner knows exactly what they did to deserve it. However, many real estate websites are suffering from filters from some common SEO mistakes. Things like keyword stuffing, duplicate content, and over optimization, can cause a filter. An over-optimized site, or a keyword stuffed page, is filtered by Google's algorithms automatically, and can be overcome if you fix your pages using these guidelines. Over Optimization Filter Vs. Manual Penalty The most common filter applied to real estate websites is the over optimization filter. This filter will drop a page to the bottom of the search results. You can often tell a page has been filtered if you notice a page previously ranking in the top 10 suddenly drops out of the search results or towards the bottom. A manual penalty is applied by a Google engineer and is site-wide. Your entire website will be bumped back usually around 3 to 4 pages. If you continue to do the tactics that imposed this manual penalty, your site could be banned from the index entirely. Let's talk about each of these and how to fix them. Overcoming the Over-Optimization Filter I've seen this myself on websites I've run. It happened after I wrote a couple of new pages. They initially were in the top ten spots and a few days later they completely disappeared. I was baffled so I went studying to find out what happened. Turns out, as I was new to SEO, keywords stuffed in every nook and cranny aren't such a good thing! Here is a great video by SEOMOZ on the over optimization penalty: On Site Over Optimization How To Test Your Website For An Over-Optimization Filter Did a few select pages disappear from the search results? Is your website still indexed? (Test this by typing in site:www.mywebsite.com.) Are your pages using excessive keywords in the title tags? Are your pages using excessive keywords on page? Are you using excessive keywords in the URL? (Example - www.mysite.com/real-estate-listings-for-sale-city-state-homes-properties-foreclosures-short-sales-waterfront.com) Abuse of H1, H2, H3 tags? Excessive interlinking using unnatural anchor text. (Used Cars, Used Cars For Sale, Used Cars For Sale City, Used Cars In City, etc...) Does your website have a massive amount of navigational links? (Usually anything over 100 is bad.) Is your content on multiple websites or not very unique? If you feel your website is participating in any of these practices but you don't have a problem with a filter it could be a number of reasons. You may have some strong in-bound links off setting the filter causing your web page to be above the threshold. This filter is applied differently in different markets and for different search terms. You're website may also have enough trust and authority that you get away with some of these practices. Fixing An Over Optimized Page Suffering From A Filter Clean up the title tag. Each page should be optimized for one to two keywords, anything over that can get you're page filtered. Example: Keep your title tags under 70 to 80 characters and only use the most specific keywords that describe the page. Have someone who knows nothing about SEO read your page. Did it seem natural to them? If not remove excessive keywords and clean up your page for a user, not a search engine. Are your URL's filled with keywords? Recent data released by SEOMOZ on rankings and correlations show that the more characters in a URL, the lower the page ranks. You can see the full study here: Search Engine Ranking Factors - Keep your URLS's short and to the point! You shouldn't really have more than one H1 or H2 tag on a page and keep your H3 tags minimal if possible. Use internal links wisely. I've heard from multiple sources that you should keep internal on page links under 10 if possible. That means you shouldn't have a footer on every page with 100's of links pointing to every keyword you can imagine. Try to keep navigational links below the 100 mark. Matt Cutts says that anything over 100 could be excessive. I don't think this is a huge factor as there are millions of sites breaking this rule. However, if you can remove a few links that you don't think are necessary, it won't hurt you. Remove all duplicate content or add more fresh and unique content to a page that is struggling to bounce back. Sometimes you just need to add some more content for a page to bounce back from this filter. If you have duplicated content, remove it or rewrite it to give the page a fresh look. Overcoming A Manual Website Penalty This penalty is a site-wide penalty meaning your entire site's rankings will be dropped by four to six pages depending on the your previous rankings and the severity of the penalty. This penalty is applied by a Google engineer due to a spam report or because your website was reported. (Usually by a competitor!) These problems are usually one or more of the following: Hidden text or hidden links to deceive search engines. Cloaking Or Re-Directs - Serving different pages to bots and users for rankings. Using automated tools to check rankings or to send queries to Google. Loading pages with spammy and irrelevant content including spun machine articles. Creating multiple domains with similar content for interlinking and link schemes. Excessive reciprocal linking or three way links schemes. Selling or buying links to manipulate search engines. To overcome this penalty you'll have to clean up your website and file for a re-inclusion request. This is done through Google Webmaster Tools. Before you file a request, you have to fix the problems that cause the penalty. You should know if you've been handed a manual penalty as these tactics are fairly brazen. Sorry for the long post, but if you feel your pages aren't ranking like they should, you're probably over doing it on the SEO front. Refrain from spamming keywords, using duplicate content, heavy internal linking, and over use of anchor text. If you follow these simple rules you shouldn't have to worry about any kind of Google penalty or filter. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Creating A Neighborhood Landing Page That Converts Traffic To Clients

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:58:01 -0700

Hey folks! (Yes, I stole that from Broker Bryant!) I've been really excited by all the SEO banter going on lately here in the rain about what works and what doesn't. People claim things but they don't back it up with real world results, so I am here to show you how to create a neighborhood landing page on your website that converts traffic into clients with proof! :) I don't know how your website works and what not, but in order to create effective neighborhood landing pages, the most important aspect is to have an IDX. IDX allows you to display properties from your MLS from other agents. If you don't have a website with IDX capabilities, you should definitely look into getting one, they are amazing! (P.S. Make sure you can customize the IDX searches, otherwise it's a waste of time.) First Step - Determine the neighborhood you want to target. For me, I have created well over 100 neighborhood landing pages on my website. I create pages for every neighborhood in Logan, the area I serve, and a small bit of information related to the area. Let's break this page down so you can get an idea of everything that I did to convert leads. Now, you are at a disadvantage if you don't have an IDX to display listings, so again if you don't have IDX, go get it right now! Second Step - Keywords are crucial to being found in Google. The first thing a searcher who was looking for this neighborhood in Google sees are the keywords they expected in the title. After the title there is an initial paragraph with more keywords and a little information about the area as well as some long tail keywords such as "waterfront", "quiet neighborhoods" and "Logan River." There's more keywords in there and I'm sure you can find them, but let's keep it brief. After the initial paragraph the next step is to provide the goods. Just below the initial paragraph there are the listings. We introduced our page, had our initial keywords, and now it's time to give the searcher what they really want. Listings! This is easily done with my website through the custom IDX builder. Again, people searching for neighborhoods want to see listings. And, if you notice at the bottom of the initial paragraph, it asks them to read below if they want more information. Some people want to read more about the area, while some people just want listings. This page gives both types of people what they want. Step Three - Provide more information for those who want it. You'll notice a lot more keywords that could bring in a potential searcher as well as information on the neighborhood. Below this I also have schooling information and real estate statistics over the last 5 years for those who are analytical. This page has it all. Targeted keywords to bring in the initial search. Listings for those who want to see properties. Neighborhood information for those who want to learn more about the area. Schooling information for those with kids, and of course statistics for both the analytical type and sellers who are looking into the neighborhood. Final Step - Make your contact information easy to find & use a call to action! There are three ways for someone to contact me on this page for more information. First at the top of my website is my phone number. Next they can visit my Contact Page which is displayed at the top of the page. After the initial paragraph there is a small sentence asking them to contact me if they have questions like so: And just below the listings I have a small box that asks them to sign up to bookmark favorites, setup listing alerts, and save their searches. Secret Lead Generating Sauce - Forced registration. My IDX gives me a couple of options for people looking at listings. I can make them sign up for an account after looking at any number of properties. After testing non-forced vs. forced registration, I have determined that forced is better. You may not believe so, or it may not work for your market area, but in my market forced registration works. I allow my visitors to see one property before it asks them to sign up. Want to see the proof? This is 6 months of lead generation with forced registration: This is small potatoes compared to some of the mega agents out there, but hey it works for my setup. You won't see many agents showing, out in the open, their lead generating techniques. This is because they are scared to show you due to not having anything to show, or they think it's all a big secret. I say phooey! Show me what you do and I'll decide if it works for me. Well, this is what I do, and it works for me. Setting up neighborhood landing pages is easy and it generates leads. If you're struggling to generate online leads, create more neighborhood pages, and make sure it's easy for people to contact you. You need to offer something of value (Cough IDX, Cough) and people will sign up on your website. If you have questions about IDX and setting up neighborhood landing pages, leave me a comment or send me an email if you want to keep it private. I would love to help! Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Blogging Is Great For SEO - I've Heard That Before!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:42:08 -0700

How many times have you read or heard someone tout that blogging is great for SEO? I would say I hear it about 3-4 times a minute! LOL - Anyways, why is blogging so great for SEO? To all of you that say it, can you explain it? I'll try my best here and if you have anything else to add, please leave me a comment and an example of how you walk the walk. Content Is The Lifeblood Of SEO Blogging allows you to update and add content very easily. If you're new to SEO, your first lesson is to understand that without content you can't rank. Want to rank for a subdivision in your area in Google? Well, you better have some content related to that subdivision. Adding a blog post detailing the subdivision, local amenities, restaurants, and such will help with SEO. So rule #1: Blogging is great for SEO because SEO is all about content! Walking the walk - Here are some examples of subdivisions blogs I've written that rank well:Deer Crest In North Logan - Google It!Pheasant Run Subdivision In North Logan - Google It!Homes For Sale Near Lundstrom Park In Logan - Google It!Quail Bluff Homes In Logan Utah - Google It! The Primary Function Of SEO Is To Rank Better Blogging allows you to rank better, faster, and more.How do you rank better? Blogging allows you to link to content within your website or any other platform you want to rank. As you notice in my paragraph above, I just linked out to 4 posts with my desired anchor text. This will tell search engines to rank my pages better.How do you rank faster? Search engines crawl blogs that are frequently updated with lightning speed especially if you have your blog setup on a ping service. And just like your mom used to tell you when you were younger, the early bird gets the worm. The first content about a story usually stays towards the top once it's crawled.How can you rank more? A blog allows you to rank multiple times for a single keyword phrase. Blogging on ActiveRain, your Wordpress blog, and your self hosted blog is a great strategy to rank #1, #2, and #3 for a certain keyword. Dominating a search result gives you more chances to convert a potential client.Blogging is great for SEO because SEO is all about ranking better! Walking the walk - Here is how I use blogging for better, faster, and more rankings:Majestic Mountain Meadows Homes - Blogging helped me rank my website #1, #2, and #3! Google It! Glenwood Hills Homes Logan Utah - Again, #1, #2, #3 and my AR blog is #4 & #5 - Google It! Wasatch Estates Homes Logan Utah - #1, #2 for my Website and my AR blog is #3 - Google It! Heritage Cove Homes Logan Utah - How about the top 7 results? Yep, that's blogging! - Google It! Not convinced that blogging is good for SEO and your business? Well, I don't know what else I can do. I guess you'll just be another agent asking why their business is disappearing. I can tell you why, it's because the agent in your area that is dominating Google is taking your business before you ever had a chance. Na na na!Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Flashback - The Best Of: I Hope My Blogging Journey Can Help You On Yours

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:55:27 -0800

I've been on ActiveRain since January of 2009 and the other day I was going through my past posts reminiscing about the good ol' days! I haven't been as active here on ActiveRain as I have more priorities that take precedence, but I thought about all the new people that have joined ActiveRain since I started who could benefit from some older posts I wrote and I would like to share them with you. Here we go! My First Blog - Oh my! I have come a long way since my first blog. I still remember the cold sweats and the worry that no one would like me. It was terrifying to say the least! But, I knew that if I just tried it, it would be over after just a click of my mouse. If you're sitting on the sidelines thinking you're not good enough or you have nothing to write about, stop it right now, and write your first blog. Seriously, leave right now and go write a post, I'll wait... One Of My Most Helpful Posts - When you get into blogging, it's extremely important to know how people are engaging with your content. The easiest way to get this data is through an analytics program. I searched far and wide to find an analytics program that runs with AR and found GetClicky. It's a great program and you can finally see how people are finding you in the search engines and how long they are staying on your blog. Anytime I talk to a new member I always refer them to this post so they can see the results of their hard work updated in real time! Want More Google Juice? - Aww, this post brings back some good memories. When I first started out I was extremely excited to blog but I couldn't understand why some people's blogs were outranking my own. So, I quickly learned that in order to gain traction in the results pages, it was important to market my blog correctly. I took what I was learning and put it into a simple post on why links are so important to an SEO strategy. If you're new to blogging and SEO, this post is very basic, yet can be a core building block for your blogging success. Who's Stealing My Content!? - Ever have someone steal your content? If not, it will happen, I can guarantee it. So, I hit the streets of the Internet to find something that would help me find those pesky little content theifs, and I came across a simple tool called Fairshare. This tool scour the Internet and anytime it comes across content similar to yours, it will notify you through an RSS reader. Bam! You now can go all Lenn Harley on those little buggers and sleep well at night knowing your content is protected! Are You Syndicating? - Blogging for business is all about gaining exposure through online communication in order to attract potential clients. The more places you place your content, the more chances you have to gain new eyeballs and possibly a new friend, or better yet, a new client! This post gives you a little help on finding new places to attract a different audience, get some links, and become a blog rock star. If you've followed through on the four previous steps, it's time to up your game, so get to it! Taking On The Internet Crazies - After blogging for a while, you're going to end up making someone upset or come across someone with a different opinion than yours. Sometimes, due to the nature of the Internet, they will remain anonymous and call you out in your comments. Taking care of these situations is a delicate process and should be nipped in the butt as soon as possible. This post gives you a few things to think about on the way you handle this situation. Don't give up on blogging because someone was mean, move on, and keep your head up! Taking It To The Next Level - As time goes by, you'll be astounded at the number of ways people will find your blog. Analytics data is a gold mine and should be used to target new verticals every chance you get. This post describes how you can use your GetClicky analytics to come up with new posts and new ideas on how to target a new demographic. After blogging for a while, you'll sometimes struggle to write a post. Use that time to check your analytics and expand on a previous topic to increase your market share. It's easy! Join The Party Don't Be A Loner - Ever wonder why some people get so many comments on their blogs and people mentioning them around the blogosphere? It's simple. They engage others through comments, emails, tips, helpful hints, expertise, and networking. I can't tell you how many people, since I started blogging, that I have reached out to for one thing or another. Just as in real estate, in order to increase your popularity and social graph, you need to network with like minded people. This post gives you some ideas on how to start building your online social sphere, now get to it! Clean Up That Wall Of Text My Eyes Are Bleeding! - Although my first blog was short and sweet, it was a bold wall of ugly text! No pictures, no bullet points, and it wasn't built to be scannable by an Internet reader. I quickly learned from the ActiveRain experts that in order to increase readership, it's important to make your content sexy! Videos, pictures, and small easily-scannable paragraphs are crucial to a bloggers success. If you want people to read your blog, give them something they can digest easily. Trust me, people on the Internet are fickle readers. If they can't get the message quickly, unless they are your die hard fans, they will leave never to return again! Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone - Real estate statistics, neighborhood reports, my day sucked, yadda yadda, blah blah blah, ICK!!! This post describes ways you can excite your readers and how stepping out of your comfort zone when blogging can be a great way to break through the glass ceiling. Want more readers? Teach them something amazing. Want more clients? Make your blog the best resource for everything they would need to know about your town. This post gives you some ideas on how to kick it up a notch, do it, I dare you! Have The Real Estate Blues? Try Something New - My team and I put a lot of work into this post to detail 101 ways you can jump-start your real estate career. It was a fun post, but I will probably never do it again. 101 ideas? Yikes that was hard. However, if you're struggling in your real estate career, blogging is a great step, but you also need to step up your ofline. Over my career, I have learned a lot of great ways to make my business a success, and I wanted to share them all with you. So, if you're looking for some new ideas, this post has tons! ActiveRain is a great place to learn from the best bloggers and real estate agents in our industry. Everything detailed in this post was sparked by something I learned by trying new things and jumping into the party. Please, if you read this post, take something from it and implement it today. Have fun blogging and remember, everyone had to start somewhere so get to it. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Paying It Forward - Why My Buyers Lost To An Offer That Was $20,000 Less!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 07:48:45 -0800

This story is amazing and I just had to share. So, I met some great buyers over the Internet a couple of weeks ago and have been showing them homes. They found a home they really liked so we submitted a very reasonable offer. The home was a lower end home priced at $124,000 and we submitted our offer at $120,000. We felt confident we would get the home as there was another offer, but it was low. The other offer was from a buyer who wanted to remain anonymous so we had to go in blindly. Well, I got a phone call today from the listing agent saying that we lost the home and they were going to accept the other offer. I was about to get upset as we would have increased our offer, but before I could get a word in, he told me to just listen to why they took the other offer. Turns out, the lender of the other buyer, when sending the pre-approval letter to the listing agent, left the buyer's name on it. The listing agent passed the letter on to his sellers and it turns out the sellers knew who the buyers were. The buyers were the homeowners neighbors. The offer they submitted was at $100,000, which was $20,000 lower than our offer! The buyer wanted to remain anonymous due to the the low offer they submitted. They didn't want to offend the sellers as they knew each other. But, the seller, once they saw who the buyers were, decided to accept it with no questions asked. But why? Well, the seller recently watched the movie Pay It Forward. Turns out, the buyer is an Iraq War Veteran who, as you might imagine, is having a tough time readjusting after returning home. So, the seller knowing that the buyer was who he was, accepted an offer $20,000 less than ours and said it just felt right. And, the kicker...they have to bring money to closing to make the deal happen! They are willing to bring money to closing in order to help a Veteran buy their home. I have never seen anything so selfless in my life. When I called my buyers and told them the story, they were a little heartbroken to lose the home, but they were extremely happy for the buyer. Who could stay mad at a story like that? Anyways, we will be looking at some more homes later in the week, but dang, what an amazing story. What about you, do you have a crazy story in the real estate business that just blew your mind? Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Cache Valley Utah Photos & Contest - Vote For Your Favorite Picture!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 09:20:50 -0800

Hi Everyone! I am currently holding a photo contest and the pictures are absolutely amazing! The contestants are friends and past clients that have sent me their favorite photos of our amazing Cache Valley. Anyways, I thought I would share the photos with you and give you a chance to cast your vote for your favorites! CAST YOUR VOTE HERE: Cache Valley Photo Contest Enjoy! Vote Photo A Vote Photo B Vote Photo C Vote Photo D Vote Photo E Vote Photo F Vote Photo G Vote Photo H Vote Photo I Vote Photo J Vote Photo K Vote Photo L Vote Photo M Vote Photo N Vote Photo O Vote Photo P Vote Photo Q Vote Photo R Vote Photo S Vote Photo T Vote Photo U Vote Photo V Thanks to everyone who participated! Please place your votes by visiting the Cache Valley Photo ContestLisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Using Sold Listings As Comparable's Just Doesn't Cut It Anymore

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:03:23 -0800

Last year, when doing a CMA (current market analysis), I would use recently sold properties as comparable's. I would try to find homes similar to my clients property that had sold within 3 months to base my assessed value off of. At the start of July, after the first time home buyer tax credit expired, I started to notice a trend in my market. Homes were starting to sit on the market longer and there were many sellers dropping their prices in order to get their homes sold. This caused a lag in pricing for some of my sellers as they weren't keeping up with this trend. (Totally my fault!) As a real estate agent the most important thing I can do for my seller clients is to give them accurate information when helping them price their homes. If their priced to high their home will linger on the market costing them and I more money. I had to find a new way to get my clients homes sold. So, I had to change the way I worked with my sellers. I had to completely change the way I determined a price assessment. I now base all of my CMA's off of active listings. Sold listings just don't cut it anymore. Sold Comparable's Just Don't Cut It Anymore! You Have To Look At The Current Competition. If you want to sell your home, and you're competing against short sales & REO's (bank owned homes/foreclosures), you have to be competitive. It doesn't matter that a home in your neighborhood sold 2 months ago for $200,000, you now have two short sales in your neighborhood priced at $180,000. You have no choice but to price competitively, or you won't sell. No longer does a sold home matter when pricing your home with today's market. Home prices are changing everyday, and if you don't price ahead of the trend, you're going to be losing a lot of money. From now on, I only use active listings as comparative properties, otherwise, I would be doing a disservice to my clients. They have no hope of selling if there are 5 properties just like theirs priced 10% below last months market value. It just won't work. To all you home sellers out there, if you want to your home to sell, you have to be better than your competition and that's it. What sold last month doesn't matter anymore. It's all about who's selling today. Your neighbors determine your selling price; not your agent, not your equity, not our commissions. To all you real estate agents out there, if you want to get rid of your long standing inventory, you better start looking at active properties. You better start learning how to calculate absorption rates, and you better up your game. It's your job to get that home sold, and if you're pricing based on what sold last month, your way behind the curve. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

No Featured Posts Giving You The Blues? Feature Your Own Post!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:27:38 -0800

If you're like any of the other members on Activerain, having a featured post on the Activerain dashboard makes you feel pretty good. Not only do you get more exposure to your blog, but your comments will sky rocket! It's a great feeling to get featured unfortunately however, not every post can be featured. If you're posts aren't getting featured it's up to you to feature them yourself, and here's how: Create Your Own Group - Creating a group is easy as pie and you can feature your own posts in your group anytime you want. How do you make a group? It's very simple. Just go to Activerains Group page, scroll down to the bottom and in the bottom left there is a button that says Start A New Group. Define your groups name, description, and voila! You have your own group to feature your own posts in. No one in your group? Create a contest to get some attention! Contest Posts Get Featured - Once you have your group together contact the Activerain staff with a contest proposition and make one of the requirements of your contest for people to join your group. Do you love butterflies? Great, make your group about butterflies and do a photo contest for the best butterfly photos. Creating a group and holding a contest to get others to join is probably the easiest way to get a featured post. If you don't feel like taking this route to get a featured post, which some people just don't have time to maintain a group and a contest, you can feature your own posts by sending them to friends and family. You can use the many social media tools available such as Facebook, Linked, and Twitter to feature your best posts to friends, family, and potential/past clients. Use Facebook To Feature Your Post - Use your Facebook status and pages to get more people to view your posts. Submit the link and tell people to check it out. You don't want to spam your friends every time you write a post, but if you feel you have a post people on Facebook would enjoy, ask them to check it out and leave a comment. Join The Activerain Group On LinkedIn - There's a group of members on LinkedIn who share and comment on posts outside of the network. You can view the Activerain Members Group by following that link. If you don't have a LinkedIn account, now is a great time to get on that. ;) Each post gets submitted to everyone who is subscribed to the group which will give you more exposure. Tweet Your Post - Don't use Twitter? Well you're missing out big time. Twitter is becoming a crucial signal in Google's algorithm for ranking. Plus, if you tweet your post on Twitter, Google will index it faster. Google crawls every tweet on the Twitter network within 80 seconds, which means they will see your post faster than ever before. Once you start building up a Twitter following your posts may be re-tweeted and spread around the web which can bring you business. What's better than an Activerain feature? Someone who finds your post on twitter and calls you to list their house or help them find a home. A featured post is fun, exciting, and can make your entire day. I have had my share of featured posts, and every time I get one it's like Christmas morning. Not every post can be featured but you can make sure your posts are getting more traffic by taking these simple steps to promote them. Don't post and ditch. Stick around and market your posts to get your own features. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Link Building For SEO - Are You Taking Advantage Of Your Internal Links?

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 05:48:14 -0800

Last week I wrote a post about common SEO mistakes new bloggers make, and I talked a little bit about building trust with search engines. In the post I mentioned that search engines determine the trust of a website by the amount and quality of external links pointing to it. I also mentioned that if you have 3000 links coming from Activerain, you can bet Google has nullified most of those links, and they don't count as much towards your overall rankings. Because of that post, Pat Haddad asked me what she could do to combat the problem of gaining new links. This question is the basis behind this post. If you've heard anything about SEO, you've probably heard a whole lot about trying to get external links. But, many people fail to realize, the easiest way to acquire new links is not to look for external links, but to look at your own website. Did You Know Ranking For Highly Competitive Terms Has More To Do With Internal SEO Than External? It's true. Many SEO's will tell you that SEO is 60% internal and 40% external. The 60% has to do with content, website structure, and internal link building. If you don't have the 60%, good luck ranking with the other 40%! I also mentioned in my post last week that you need a lot of quality content in order to rank for a highly competitive phrase. If you haven't noticed, websites with 1000's of pages seem to rank for really competitive phrases. Take Wikipedia for example. They have millions of pages and rank for millions of keywords. Wikipedia ranks so well because they use internal linking to leverage their vast pools of content. Have you ever noticed how many links are in a Wikipedia article? And did you notice that almost all of them point to another article within Wikipedia? Wikipedia is the grandmaster of internal linking. How To Use Content And Internal Link Building To Obtain High Search Engine Rankings. Do You Have Enough ContentIn order to rank for a highly competitive phrase you need enough content to warrant a top ranking in the search engine's eyes. You can determine this by doing a search in Google for the phrase you want to rank for. Take the top three domain names and do a site:www.domainname.com "key phrase" command to see how many pages they have related to that keyword. Here's an example I did for the keyphrase Las Vegas Real Estate: 1. site:http://www.greatlasvegashomes.com/ "Las Vegas real estate" = 215 pages2. site:http://www.trulia.com/NV/Las_Vegas/ "Las Vegas real estate" = 157 pages3. site:http://www.lasvegashomes.com/ "Las Vegas real estate" = 312 pages As you can see, the top 3 ranking websites for the highly competitive phrase "Las Vegas Real Estate" all have quite a bit of content related directly to that keyphrase. If you want to rank as high as these sites, you better have as much, or more content related to that phrase, as they do. Choose your preferred landing pageWhen creating relevant content, you need to determine which page you want to rank for your targeted key phrase. You may have 215 pages with the term "Las Vegas Real Estate," but which one do you want to rank for that keyword?Once you determine your best page or your "champion page", you need to leverage internal links to signal search engines that you want that page to rank for your chosen key phrase. As you build content, make sure that each page related to your key phrase links to your champion page with the exact keywords you want to rank for.You can determine a champion page by doing the site:www.yourdomain.com "key phrase" with your own website. The first page is the page Google already considers your best page for that phrase. If you like the results, build links to that page. If you don't, point your internal links to another page you want ranking higher instead. It's actually quite simple. How To Sculpt Your Rankings Using On Page SEO And Internal Link BuildingInternal links are used to give signals to search engines. By linking to a page within your website, you're basically telling a search engine that page is about this. The more links you have internally pointing to a specific page, the more page rank you funnel to that page. However, only one link per page will be counted. You can't just link 10 times from one page, it doesn't work like that.Also, it is recommended when linking internally not to exceed more than 10 links on a page. Less outbound links from a page gives it more weight when passing juice from your desired keywords. And, you don't want a page to look to spammy in the eyes of search engines.Be sure to keep anchor text relevant to the key phrase you want to rank for when linking internally. Unlike external links where it is recommended you mix-up your anchor text, internal linking doesn't need to abide by that rule, so keep your anchor text relatively the same. Internal link building is just as important as external link building. If you are having a hard time finding links to increase your rankings, look internally and you may be surprised with the results. One thing to keep in mind is that search engines take time to sift through the web. Be patient with your link building and watch your rankings gain ground as you continue to add content with internal links. It takes time, but I guarantee you it's effective. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Common SEO Mistakes New Bloggers Make And How To Fix Them

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:24:29 -0800

When starting out in the blogging world I didn't have a clue about SEO. I soon began to realize, in order to take my blogging to the next level, I needed to start understanding a little more about the science of search engine optimization. So, I did what anyone would do when they wanted to learn something, I started studying the experts around the web. And when I say experts, I mean some of the very best of the who's who in SEO. I will give you the names so when you're ready to really get into SEO, you can be sure to learn it the right way. (Bruce Clay - Aaron Wall - Webmasterworld - Search Engine Land - Seo Design Solutions - Matt Cutts - Sugar Rae & Outspoken Media) There are a lot more out there, but these blogs/people I have found to be the best of the best. And, as I have been going along the past 2 years, I have learned and grown quite a bit, which brings me to my first mistake. SEO Mistake #1: Content is the king to ranking for any search phrase. When I first started, I didn't understand the importance of content creation. I thought it was a good idea to blog, but I didn't understand the importance of creating enough content related to a subject to be worthy of a top ranking in Google. I soon learned, Google rank's web pages based on authority (content) and trust (links). In order to be an authority on a subject (top 3 ranking), you must have enough content to constitute authority status. To truly understand the importance of creating enough content to become an authoritative figure in Google's eyes, you can do a simple test. For example, I want to rank for the term Logan real estate. In order to rank for this keyword, I must have enough content to support a top ranking. To determine how much content I would need to rank for that keyword, I can ask Google. In this example, I went to Google and typed in "Logan real estate." Once I had the results, I went to the first result in the organic rankings and did a site:command search + the key phrase in quotes like this: Google Search: site:http://www.lisaudy.com/ "Logan real estate" This tells me how many pages the top result has related to that keyphrase and how many I need to have on my own site to gain an "authority status". When doing this with my website, I get 166 results and I am ranked #5 for that keyword. The #1 spot only has 52 pages related to this keyword, yet they still out rank me. Why? They out rank me mainly because of links. Which brings me to: SEO Mistake #2: Understanding the importance of link building. I had no idea how important links are to an SEO campaign when I first started blogging. But, I soon realized links are so important, in fact, that if content is the king, link building is the queen. However, you can't just link a million times from your Activerain blog to your website and expect to rank for highly competitive key phrases. In order for me to take over the top spot for my key phrase "Logan real estate" I am going to need to get better links. I know I have enough content, the only problem is getting the right links. If you find yourself in the same struggle where you feel you have enough content to rank for a keyword, but can't quite get to where you want to be, the problem is most likely your links. Links, and how search engines react to those links, is a very complicated and tricky science. And, depending on what search engine you're trying to rank for they react differently to links. For example a no-follow link doesn't pass link juice like a do-follow link does in Google. Bing, on the other hand, doesn't recognize the no-follow tag. Confused? So was I, but I wrote a post on what the difference between no-follow and do-follow is here, and I think it's extremely important for you to understand the difference, so please read it! But, watch out, you can't just spam a whole bunch of links to a page and expect it to rank where you want it to. Which brings me to my next mistake: SEO Mistake #3: All links are not created equal. Not only does it matter what type of link you're using, Google has implied that they nullify links from the same domain name after a certain amount. For example: If you have 3000 links coming from Activerain, you can bet Google has nullified most of those links, and they don't count much towards your rankings. You can link until you're blue in the face from one domain (Activerain.com), but eventually, search engines will stop counting those links and you're fighting a losing battle. Search engines also look at where the link is on a page to determine it's importance. For example, a link in the first paragraph of your blog might be more important than a link at the bottom of the page. Or, a link in your sidebar or a "blogroll link" may not be as important as a link within the content itself. Confusing? You bet it is. However, at a recent conference, Matt Cutts from Google gave a hint as to what you should be doing when linking. This is quoted directly from the horse's mouth: "Users are more likely to click on the first link in an article as opposed to a link at the bottom of the article so you should put your most important links at the top of the article." - Matt Cutts This is a hint to SEO's that Google determines the importance of links based on where they're located on a page. They may also give more importance to links not only by the location, but how many people click on that link. Again, very complicated, but keep in mind; a link at the top of your article is probably more important than a link in your signature at the bottom of your post. So, I would recommend you put your most important link within the first couple paragraphs to pass more weight. And did I mention anchor text? No? Well, you need to be aware of your anchor text. SEO Mistake #4: The importance of Anchor Text. Anchor text are the words used to link to a web page and using the correct anchor text is extremely important for search engine rankings. If you link to your website with the phrase "click here" as compared to a more descriptive phrase such as "Logan Realtor," you're shooting yourself in the foot form the very beginning. When linking to a page from your blog, or anywhere else, use the correct anchor text. If you want a page on your site to rank for Logan Realtor and related phrases, you need to use anchor text related to that theme and mix it up a little or it doesn't look natural. For example, what phrases do you think about when you think of a Realtor? I think of Realtor, real estate agent, agent, selling agent, buyer's agent, seller's Realtor, buyer's Realtor, etc. And, since ranking for the term Realtor would be all but impossible, you need to add location to that phrase. Such as Logan Realtor, Logan real estate agent, Logan buyer's agent, and so on. Focus on keeping your anchor text pointing to the right pages. You can rank your website with laser precision by following this simple tactic. If you want a page to rank for Logan Realtor, use your anchor text correctly and keep adding links gradually over time. Eventually you will start to notice a bump in rankings if you keep at it. Also, one mistake I found when linking was, I tried to get to complicated with the anchor text. I was using long phrases and I found I was diluting my anchor text. Search engines are machines and really just want to know what your page is about, so make sure you're sending the right signals. If you want a page to rank for a certain keyword, keep that keyword in all your links pointing to that page. Simple! If you have any questions about anything here, please don't hesitate to email me or leave me a comment. I will do my best to answer to the best of my ability. Thanks for reading and good luck with your search engine optimization efforts! :) Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Logan Real Estate: Logan Neighborhood Search Part 2

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 06:59:54 -0800

If you missed the first part of Logan Neighborhoods, you can view it by following that link. Today, we are doing part 2 of our 3 part series on Logan's residential communities. Below you will find a little bit of information about Logan's premier subdivsions, and if you like what you see, follow the links to see homes for sale in the area. Or, if you like, you can search all Logan homes for sale by clicking that link. Enjoy! Mountain Road: Mountain Road is located on top of Cliffside starting at the bottom of the hill and goes all the way to the bottom of the mountain. You can get to Mountain Road by following East Center street from Main street in Logan, UT. Homes in the area where built from the 1960's up until the 1990's. Sunstone Circle: Sunstone Circle is located on 940 West and 200 South in Logan, UT. Homes in this neighborhood were built in the early 2000's and range from the low 140's up to 200k. This newly built subdivision provides easy access to 10th North and many of Logan's industrial work places. Glenwood Hills Subdivision: Glenwood Hills is located off of 1525 East and 1450 North in North Logan, Utah. Homes in the area are older built in the 1960's & 1970's. Located just a few blocks from USU and Lundstrom Park, the Glenwood Hills is a great location for some of Logan's hot spots. Wasatch Estates Homes: Wasatch Estates is located on 1200 North and 300 East just a couple blocks away from Logan Regional Hospital and Utah State University. Homes in the area range from $100,000 to $180,000 depending on the home styles and the location. Spring Haven Senior Community: Spring Haven is a small senior community located on 870 North and 200 West in Logan, Utah. Spring Haven residents enjoy a maintenance free lifestyle with one level properties providing easy access for wheel chairs. Heritage Cove Homes: Heritage Cove is a small neighborhood located on 700 North and 250 East in Logan, Utah. Homes in the area range form $150,000 to $180,000. Located close to Smith's Market Place, Heritage Cove is close to a lot of Logan's local businesses. If you have any questions about these fantastic neighborhoods, please feel free to contact me. Moving to Logan? We are your neighborhood experts with a focus on your needs. Check out our Logan Utah real estate website, the best website to search homes in the Cache County area. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Logan Utah Real Estate: Search Logan Neighborhoods To Find The Perfect House!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 09:57:03 -0700

Last week I wrote a post a Logan neighborhood guide with condos & townhomes. Today we are on to more Logan neighborhoods & homes for sale, but now I'm going to go over single family residences. Logan has many neighborhoods and with over 30,000 residents, I will name just a few. Next week I hope to finish out the list, so please check back for an updated link. Hidden Village & Sumac: Sumac drive is located on The Island in Logan Utah. Nearby businesses include The Island Market with USU just a short bike ride up the hill. Known for it's superb location and quiet setting, The hidden Vilage subdivision is an exquisite neighborhood for those looking for tranquility in a house. A few homes in Sumac are located on the Logan river, which is about as close as you can get to "waterfront" in Logan Utah. Conifer Place: Located on Logan's Island, Conifer Place is more of a road than a neighborhood located in the Hidden Village subdivision. With breathtaking views, abundant vegetation and mature trees, this area is truly fascinating and will bring many great peaceful summer days relaxing to the sound of the Logan River. Cache Estates: Cache Estates is a small neighborhood located on Cliffside, one of Logan's luxury neighborhoods. Close to Mount Logan, areas included are Sage circle and Mount Logan Road. Homes in the area range from $200,000 up to $700,000, with some of the highest end properties in Logan. Temple View On The Boulevard: This neighborhood is located just South of Logan's Island community. The primary home style is a 2-story conventional with brick and stucco siding. Homes in the area range from the lower 130's to the upper end of 400k or more. With the proximity of the LDS temple and USU, homes on the Boulevard provide easy access to Logan's hot spots. Canterbury Estates: Canterbury Lane is located on Cliffside's Bench at the bottom of the hill. Homes in Canterbury Estates are priced from 200k to 400k with 2-story custom homes, ranch/ramblers, and split level architecture. With views of Southwest Cache Valley, Canterbury Lane provides a unique vantage point not shared with other Cliffside neighborhoods. Quail Bluff Estates: Quail Bluff Estates is located on top of Cliffside just off of Mountain Road. With luxury homes over $1 million, Quail Bluff provides some of the best views in the valley. The East bench is one of the most prestigious locations for a house in Cache Valley, and Quail Bluff is the best of the best. Castle Hills & Aspen Drive: Castle Hills is a small neighborhood in Logan located just above Lundstrom Park and the USU campus. Aspen Drive is reached by heading up 1080 North and onto Cedar Heights Drive. There is a small creek behind the homes on the west side of the road providing water access. Sunset Vista Park: Sunset Vista Park is located above Utah State University next to Logan Golf & Country Club gofl course. Homes in the area range from $200,000 up to $500,000 with homes directly on the fairway. Sunset Vista Park includes homes on Sunset Drive and Country Club Drive. Equestrian Estates: If you're interested in Horse Property, Equestrian Estates is one of the few areas within Logan's City limits that is zoned for just that. This quaint little suburb has homes on larger parcels of land providing plenty of room for out buildings, sheds, and a few animals. Red Fox Trace: Houses for sale on Red Fox Trace road are in the higher end price range above $200,000. Located on Cliffside, Red Fox is considered one of Logan's premier luxury neighborhoods with great views looking into Southern Cache Valley. Hillcrest Heights: Hillcrest Heights is a neighborhood that consists of homes from $150,000 up to $300,000. Located within a block of Utah State Universities Campus and a block away from Lundstrom park, these homes are located withing walking distance to many great Logan hot spots. Leruisseau Drive: Leruissea Drive is located on the Island off of Canyon Road and 200 East, just west of Preston Avenue. Homes in the area range from 2-stroy conventional to rambler ranch style. With a small canal and quiet cul-de-sac, Leruisseau Drive real estate is a great place to buy a home. Autumn Woods: Autumn Woods is a small cul-de-sac located just off of 600 South and 500 West in Logan, UT. Homes in the area start in the lower 200's and go up to the higher 200's. Autumn Woods homes are close to Willow Zoo and the park providing easy access to some great Logan hot spots. Adams Avenue Subdivision: Adams Avenue is located on the Island close to Canyon road off of 320 North. Homes in Adams Subdivision were built in the 1960's starting from $160k and go up to $260k. Adams provides residents with a nice quiet cul-de-sac providing a great location close to USU. Summerfield Homes: Summerfield is a small area just a block away from Logan Regional Hospital on 1260 North and 600 East. Homes in the area were built in the 1990's starting around $200k and topping out at $260k. Summerfield is close to 1400 North providing convenient proximity to local businesses. Canyon Hills Real Estate: Canyon Hills is located on the East Bench in Logan Utah on 1500 North and 1750 East. Canyon Hills is located close to many of Logan's recreational areas such as Logan Canyon, First Dam, and Logan Golf & Country Club. Homes in the area start in the lower 200's and round off at the upper 280's. Henry's Point Drive: Henry's Point is a large subdivision of homes broken down into two seperate neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods are Stuart Court and Spring Circle. Homes were built in the late 90's and early 2000's. Prices start at $160k and go up to $210k depending on lot size. Spring Creek Village: Spring Creek Village is a new subdivision located on 2200 South and 1400 West in South Logan. These homes were built by Immaculate Construction starting at $169,900 and going up to $230,000 depending on upgrades and lot size. Rose Hill: Rose Hill is a newly built and developed subdivision located on 1800 South and 1380 West. Homes start in the 180's and go up to the 230's. With newly built homes from 2005 to 2010, this small subdivison provides some great homes in great condition. Green Meadows Homes: Green Meadows is located 600 South in Logan Utah at about 1400 West. This subdivision is close to Henry's Point, with homes built from 1999 to 2007. Prices range from the low 150's up to 200k. This newly built neighborhood provides great access to Logan's industrial buildings like ICON & Thermal Fisher. Majestic Mountain Meadows: Majestic Mountain Meadows includes homes on Meadowbrook Drive, Teal Loop, Mallard Loop, Rainbow Drive, & Majestic Drive. Homes in the area start from the 130's and go up to the 190's. Homes were built from 1999 to 2005 with home styles ranging from Split Levels to Ranch Ramblers. If you want to view more Logan homes for sale, please follow the link. You can search all homes by map, zip code, mls#'s, with the best search technology in Logan, UT. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

When's The Last Time You Updated Your Websites Content?

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 10:17:03 -0700

Are you struggling to rank your website for your most desirable short tail keywords? If you're not updating the content on your website on a constant basis, I can tell you, you probably won't ever rank for those juicy short tail keywords. Although blogging on Activerain provides great juice for those longtail keywords, if you ever want to get your own website ranking for keywords that drive substantial traffic, you need to start focusing on quality content creation. Why You Should Update & Add Content To Your Website Constantly Have you ever heard the saying "content is king"? You may have heard someone mention it, but how well did you actually listen? How well did they explain exactly why content is king? When people say content is king, they may not truly understand what their saying, and this is the basis behind this post. Content is and always will be the #1 factor for a good SEO campaign, and here's why. Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all other search engines have two objectives. Provide the most relevant search results pages to their users and sell advertising. We won't worry about advertising, let's focus on the content part. In order for a search engine to provide the most relevant SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages), they have to have content, and they're constantly looking for more & better content all the time. The more content a search engine can provide to their users, the more their users keep coming back to find that content. Which is why it's so important to, not only create content for a search engine to spider, but to create quality content that a search engine can be proud to serve to their searchers. Which brings me back to my original question: When Was The Last Time You Updated Your Website's Content? If you aren't updating pages on your website, you don't give search engines a reason to spider your site. Search engines feed on fresh content, and the websites that continuously update pages, add blog posts, and provide high quality content to their users are the ones that will continually rank in the top of the SERP's. SEO is not rocket science. You may hear people talking about these crazy viral social media tactics and super SEO secrets, but not of those tricks matter; not one of them, if you don't have quality relevant content. Obtaining those coveted top 10 rankings for high traffic short term keywords is a process. You need to start with content, and lots of it. As a real estate agent, you should understand that a house needs a solid foundation to last. SEO abides by the same basic principle. In order for your SEO house to last, you need a solid foundation of excellent content. Building An SEO Foundation One Keyword At A Time In order for you to rank for a keyword, you have to have relevant content related to that keyword for a search engine to spider. For example, one of my targeted short tail keywords is Logan Real Estate. I know that I can't just rank for this keyword by supplying one page of content with that keyword on it. It's just not possible. There is to much competition. Instead, I must build up to that keyword by providing a foundation of relevant content. Creating a stable SEO foundation for Logan Real Estate means keyword research. I need to determine what phrases are related to that short tail keyword, and then I need to start building content around those keywords. Some phrases related to my short tail keyword include local neighborhoods, parks, schools, statistical information, local businesses, real estate market trends, and anything else that someone looking for real estate in my area may be interested in. As many of my awesome loyal readers know, I won a free website from Real Estate Webmasters. The new site went live about two weeks ago, and I have been adding that content on a daily basis. A few pages I have added related to my main keyword are Logan Utah Neighborhoods, Logan Utah Real Estate Statistics, and I'm currently working on some pages about local schools. For each blog post I write related to my champion key-phrase "Logan real estate," the more signals I give to search engines to rank my website for that keyword. SEO is all about creating a theme and developing continuity within that theme. You must constantly re-enforce your desired theme through content creation. The more content I have related to a specific niche, in this case anything related to Logan real estate, the more authority I start building with a search engine. Search engines rank authority websites for competitive keywords. Do you have website authority? Continuous Content Creation Is The Key To Website Authority When you think of an authority on a subject, the people that come to mind are the people that know the in's and out's of that subject. They have spent years learning, growing, and adding expertise to that subject. An authority website is built the exact same way. You have to be the authority on the subject you want to rank for by adding content that re-affirms authority signals to search engines. Google ranks authority websites for keywords with high competition, and the first step to creating an authoritative website is through high quality relevant content. Your website has to be the go to source for information on the subject in which you want to be an authority for. After a few months of adding relevant content you will start to notice a shift in your website. You will start to notice your pages getting indexed faster. You'll start to rank for weird key-phrases that you didn't even think of. You're blog posts and web-pages will start to rank within the top ten immediately after creating a new page for less competitive key-phrases. Once you start to notice these changes, your website has overcome the tipping point, and that's when your website will rise in the search engines for those highly competitive key phrases you always dreamed of. Do You Have An SEO strategy? I'll tell you mine even though I know my competition reads my blogs! My strategy is to constantly add high quality relevant content to re-enforce my websites theme. You can do the same thing, and it will work. You have to have patience, and develop a strategy you can stick to for a long period of time. You can't rank for a tough phrase in a day, but you can rank for anything if you follow this strategy and stick to it. Good luck!Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Logan Utah Townhouses & Condos: A Guide To Finding Logan's Residential Neighborhoods

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:01:24 -0700

Logan Townhouses & Condos allow a home owner to worry less about maintenance and more about relaxing in their comfy homes. Logan Utah has many neighborhoods full of townhomes, however, no one has put them all together in one place. That is, until now. Below, you will find all the information you need to know about these neighborhoods such as: how big the units are, HOA fees, elementary schools, and where their located. Enjoy! Logan Utah Townhouses & Condos: A Guide To Finding Logan Neighborhoods Blackhawk Condos & Townhouses: Located in South Logan off of Le-grand Street with sub roads Black Hawk Drive and Talon Drive, these townhouses are some of the most popular units in Cache County. Unit prices range from $110,000-$85,000 depending location and upgrades. Blackhawk condos are 2 beds, 2 baths, with 1,190 square feet and a monthly HOA fee of $100. Elementary school: Hillcrest Bridgerland Meadows Luxury Townhouses: One of Logan's larger developments, Bridgerland Meadows is located off of 1400 North and 400 West in North, Logan. When I say luxury townhomes, I mean it. These units are very well built with some great features such as the large clubhouse, a $100 a month technology package with DSL Internet, Direct-TV, and a top of the line home security system. HOA fee is $55 a month which includes grounds, snow removal, and common areas such as the large clubhouse and community park. Units range from 2-3 beds, 2-3 baths, and 1-2 car garage's depending on the phase and unit. Elementary school: Bridger Brookside Gardens Townhouses: Brookside Gardens is located on 10th North and 200 West in Logan. This development, although small, provides a convenient location for residents. Close to USU, the Brookside Gardens Condos would be a great choice to live while getting your degree. Units are 2 beds, 1 bath, with a 1 car garage for parking, and are just over 1,000 square feet in size. Elementary school: Bridger Devonshire Downs/Court Townhouses: This quaint community is located conveniently close to the Logan Mall and the North Wal-Mart. Address is 1530 North and 200 East in Northern, Logan. Just a few blocks from the University, Devonshire provides shopping convenience for residents and young families. Units range from 1,000 square feet up to 1,400 square feet with 2 and 3 bedrooms, with 1 to 3 bathrooms, and a varying HOA fee from $80/$150 a month depending on the specific unit. Elementary school: Greenville Eagle View Townhouses: This development was built in 2007 and is located on Golf Course Road in South Logan. Have you ever wanted to walk out your backyard to watch the locals play a round of golf? If so, the Eagle View subdivision would be a perfect fit. Located next to Fairway Lane, with spectacular mountain and golf course views; Eagle View provides units with 3 beds, 3 baths, and over 1,600 square feet with a 2 car garage. Elementary school: Woodruff Fairway Acres Townhouses: Fairway Acres is an older development built in 1980 with 12 units. Priced under $100,000, this community provides great prices for first time home buyers. Units come with 3 beds, 2 baths, over 1,100 square feet, and a one car garage with extra parking spaces available in the parking lot. Elementary school: Woodruff Glenn Brook Condos: Glenn Brook is a 55 and older community for our local fun loving seniors to enjoy maintenance free living. Located off of 300 East and 450 North, this development provides quick access to Logan's business districts. Units come with 2 beds, 1 bath, a 2 car garage, main level living, and a little more than 1,200 square feet of living space. The HOA fee is $100 a month which includes yard care and snow removal. Hawks Landing Condos: Hawks Landing is an older development built in the 1970's, however don't let that get you down, as many units are newly remodeled give them a fresh look. Located on 300 North and 255 West, this convenient location on the West side of Logan provides residents within walking access to many Logan businesses. Units are smaller with 2 beds, 1 bath, a one car car-port, and between 800 & 900 square feet of living space, perfect for a first time home buyer. Elementary school: Ellis Meadow Village Townhouses: Located on 600 North and 300 West, Meadow Village is a small community built in 1995. With very little units available and priced under $100,000, these little town homes are just right for a first time home buyer seeking a quite abode. Meadow Village home come with 2 beds, 2 baths, a one car ca-port, and 900-1300 square feet of living space depending on the unit. Elementary school: Bridger Rivercrossing Townhouses: Rivercrossing is a brand new development located on Golf Course road on 10th South. With spectacular views of Logan River Golf Course, local hiking trails, and stunning mountain views, Rivercrossing is one of Logan's premier developments. Units come with 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 car garages, a front patio, a deck off the master bedrooms, river views, with the smaller units at 1,300+ square feet and the larger units with over 1,700 square feet; Rivercrossing townhouses have it all. Elementary school: Woodruff Temple Avenue Condos: Located in the heart of Logan on 200 East and 255 North, Temple Avenue is a block away from The Historic District. This community development was built in 1980 with an incredible view of Logan's LDS temple. Units are 2 beds, 2 baths, with 1,200+ square feet, and a one car garage. Elementary school: Adams Ten-O-Two Townhouses: Built in 1978, these units are old and may need some small repairs. With repairs comes a great price, and with units starting at $57,500, if you're low on funds, these homes could be the right place for you; even cheaper than rentals! Units come with 2 beds, 1 bath, two levels with close to 500 square feet each, and a one car car-port. Elementary school: Bridger Twin Pines Condos: Twin pines was built in 1973 and is located on 100 North and 163 East. Located close to Logan's LDS temple and many local businesses, Twin Pines is a great place for those who prefer to walk or bike rather than drive. Units come with 2 or 3 beds, 1 or 2 baths, and range from 786 square feet to over 1,500 square feet. Elementary school: Wilson Yorkshire Village Townhouses: Yorkshire is one of Logan's larger condo communities located at 1700 North and 200 West. Construction started in 1998 and finished in 2000, with more than 75 units built. Units range from 2 to 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1 or 2 car garages, with 1,200 square feet smaller units up to 1,400 square foot larger units. Elementary school: Bridger Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

We Are Proud To Announce Our New Website - LisaUdy.com - Thank You Real Estate Webmasters!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 07:45:46 -0700

Hi everyone! As many of you may know, I have been lacking on the blogging lately here in Activerain. One reason is because of how busy I've been with building a brand new website. Well, I didn't build it myself, the great team at Real Estate Webmasters (REW) built the site. All I've been doing was adding content to the site. You can check out the website here: www.lisaudy.com. How We Won A Free Website Anyways, this website, which is a Limited Edition Custom website known as an LEC 5, was given to us as a reward ($10,000 value!!!!) for a reputation management contest that REW held for a fellow Realtor. The contest was to try and get a fellow Realtors name (Carolyn Capalbo) ranked in the top 3 spots in Google. Long story short, her name was being buried due to a promiscuous women, and it wasn't helping her real estate career. So, a whole bunch of Realtors with some great SEO knowledge teamed up to help her take her name back, and I would say we came through with flying colors! She now dominates the first page of Google! We ended up coming in third place in the contest. The reward for coming in third place was a free trip to Real Estate Webmasters Summit. The summit is where Morgan Carey, the CEO/Founder of REW, brings some of the best real estate SEO experts together to brainstorm and share ideas. If you're interested in learning from the best of the best when it comes to real estate SEO, I would recommend you attend the conference next fall. During the announcement of the winners of the contest, we were a little confused on the way the prizes were going to be distributed. There were three prizes; a free website plus hosting for 10 years ($19,000+ value), $5,000 worth of free content from the REW professional writing team, and of course the free trip to Nanaimo, Canada to attend the REW Summit ($4,000 value). The way the contest prizes were worded in Morgan's blog post made it seem like the top 3 in the contest could choose which prize they wanted. I was confused, so I chose the free website. Morgan explained that we came in third so we won the trip to the Summit. I was a little sad by this, but was excited to go to Canada. I don't know why, but after a few hours Morgan changed his mind. He decided to give us the website instead! He upped our prize out of the kindness of his heart. Who does that? He gave away $6,000 more than he had to, and another $900 in free hosting fees for a year! Woo-hoo! Why You Need To Check Out Real Estate Webmasters So, with Morgan stepping up and being super awesome, I wanted to step up and be super awesome to. If you're looking for a great real estate website, by far the best choice you could make would be a REW site. I am not saying this because we now have a REW site; I'm saying this because the websites speak for themselves. I have been longing for a REW site ever since I heard about their company two years ago. I have done major research on real estate websites, and by my own understanding, REW sites will out perform any other site platform I have come across. Plain and simple; REW websites are the best there is when it comes to design, lead capturing, and SEO. Don't believe me? Do your own research. Here is a portfolio of some top REW websites: http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/portfolio/. When you Google the search phrases these websites are optimized to rank for, they will be in the top 10 every time. And, the phrases they rank for are EXTREMELY competitive. We're not talking about long tail little neighborhoods, we're talking about major metropolitan cities. So, as you can understand, I am extremely excited for the new website, and over the next few months I will be documenting the success the new site brings us. I will be going over our analytics, the amount of leads it generates and I will be keeping track of the search engine rankings as well as what I'm doing to get those rankings. Hopefully, with the information I am going to give you, you can start implementing these strategies yourself and increase your own rankings. And, if you've been thinking about buying a new website, hopefully I can show you why you need to go with the REW team. Sign Up For A Free Blog At REW.com Can't afford a new website right now? Don't worry, Real Estate Webmasters has given anyone the chance to build their own website on their highly authoritative domain name. All you have to do is visit their site and sign up for an account. You can add pages just like their websites, blog for free, and even add listings! If you have any questions about how to use the REW free sites, just visit their forum, ask a question, and someone will help you out. Let me just state, all this "cheerleading" for REW is me. I have not been asked by the REW team for anything of the sort. I am not being paid, I am not being asked to write this, and everything I wrote here is of my own opinions and views. The REW staff and their websites are truly magnificent, and I leave you to do your own research. Stay tuned! Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

This Could Be The Most Important Information You Ever Learn For Your Clients - NAR Are You Listening???!!!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:24:17 -0700

If you're involved in the real estate business, which if you're reading this I am sure that you are, then the article that was featured yesterday with a mere 16 comments by Eric Martell should be at the very top of your list to become educated about right now. There is a huge S*** storm brewing that every real estate agent, real estate attorney, title company, and the National Association of Realtors should be up in arms with. Here is a summary of the problem in my own words and opinions, however, I leave it to you to study this topic with the diligence your clients expect of you as their fiduciaries and form your own opinion. The problem going on right now could give 62 MILLION homeowners clear title. Did you read that? 62 MILLION HOMEOWNERS FREE AND CLEAR TITLE. How, you say? A bit of a history lesson first. To understand the problem, you need to understand MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems). The MERS system from wikipedia: "MERS serves as the mortgagee of record for lenders, investors and their loan servicer's in the county land records. MERS claims its process eliminates the need to file assignments in the county land records which lowers costs for lenders and consumers by reducing county recording revenues from real estate transfers and provides a central source of information and tracking for mortgage loans." In layman's terms: MERS makes it easy for lenders, investors, and loan servicer's to chop up their loans into a million pieces and sell them as securities to avoid paying title transfer fees. Which means, they avoid paying the county where the deed of trust is/was/should be recorded. They are ripping your local legislature off and they aren't happy about it and you shouldn't be either. We're talking about billions of recording fees that were never paid. The Greatest Ponsi Scheme in American history? Here's the deal. The MERS system allowed lenders to sell their loans in pieces, which means, if they want to foreclose on real property, they can't establish a clear chain of title entitling them to relief. The wall street big boys sold mortgages without holding clear title. Which means? Fraud. There are already many cases where judges agree, including the Kansas Supreme Court. You can read that case here. Another case in California where the judge said MERS could not foreclose can be found here. Which brings us to the current class action lawsuit being put together. Figueroa Vs. MERSCORP - Class Action Lawsuit (Florida) Defendants: Merscorp, Inc. , David J. Stern , Law Offices of David J. Stern, P.A. , DJSP Enterprises, Inc., American Land Title Association, Bank of America Bank, N.A., CCO Mortgage Corporation, Chase Home Mortgage Corporation, Citimortgage Inc., CRE Finance Council, Corinthian Mortgage Corporation, Everhome Mortgage Company, Fannie Mae, First American Title Insurance Company, Freddie Mac, GMAC Residential Funding Corporation, Guaranty Bank, HSBC Finance Corporation, Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation, MGIC Investor Services, Mortgage Bankers Association, Nationwide Advantage Mortgage Company, PMI Mortgage Insurance Company, Stewart Title Guaranty Company, SunTrust Mortgage, Inc., United Guaranty Corporation, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., WMC Mortgage Corporation and WMC Mortgage Corp. All the big boys are involved in the fraudulent activity, and the Mortgage Bankers Association is holding a meeting in North Carolina as we speak. GMAC has issued internal documents telling all asset managers to hold off on foreclosure filings, contract negotiations, and closings for 30 days. Why bring up GMAC? As you will find in this link: GMAC forging over 10,000 affidavits a month, GMAC is the one that has been caught forging documents to foreclose. Although only GMAC has been caught, you will find that the class action suit being put together alleges all of the institutions above are doing the exact same thing, they just haven't been caught yet. Send Them To Jail? YES PLEASE! The reason this class action is so important is because they aren't only challenging the right to title, but they are seeking criminal charges. How many times have you wanted the bailout banks, the wall street cronies, and the Ponsi scheme implementers in large financial instituions to face criminal charges? I don't know about you, but every time I get a call from a seller saying they can't get anyone to help them at the bank with a modification, a short sale, or a re-negotiation of their interest rate that someone should be in jail. This class action suit, if it gets enough notice, could be the case that gets some revenge for the American people. This is huge! And I don't see anyone on Activerain, or any real estate agent calling or mailing NAR to get their butts in gear on this subject and inform the people affected. Contact NAR - Contact Your State Reps - Write A Blog Post So the point of my post. It's time for you to stand up and fight back against the people who played back door paddy-cake selling our houses as derivatives when they didn't have the right to. It's time for you to call NAR, your state representatives, and let them know you're not happy about how things went down. Contact NAR here or find out how to contact your state representatives here. Let them know you won't sit idly by while these big financial institutions hold closed meetings with government to come up with a plan to fix this problem. They must be held accountable. Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Stop Making Payments During A Short Sale?

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:30:22 -0700

I was asked by one of my clients who is thinking about doing a short sale if they should just stop making their payments. This is a very difficult question to answer for anyone, and I can’t answer this question as a real estate agent. This question should be asked when talking to your accountant, a financial advisor, or your attorney. What I can do is, give you some scenarios that can happen if you stop making payments during a short sale. (These are some hypothetical scenarios! Please consult an accountant or attorney.) Should You Stop Making Payments During A Short Sale? This question should be answered with another question. Are you willing to go through a foreclosure? A short sale is not a guaranteed sale. Your home selling in a short sale is based upon many factors and you never know what the bank will do. If you receive an offer on your short sale it doesn’t mean the bank will approve it. If the bank denies your buyers offer and the short sale is denied, this will leave you with backed up payments if you stopped making them. If you can’t come up with the money to pay these payments, you will go into foreclosure. So, this is a personal decision. Are you willing to face foreclosure if your short sale doesn’t work out? Which could be very likely considering that only 20-25% of all short sales around the country close. Short sales are difficult, emotionally draining, and time consuming. When you decide a short sale is the only way out, you need to be prepared for a foreclosure at anytime. It’s the nature of the beast. Why You Should Keep Making Payments During Your Short Sale If at all possible, making your payments during the short sale could be advantageous for a few reasons: If your short sale doesn’t work out, you can cancel without any penalties. If the bank doesn’t accept an offer you submit, you don’t get an offer, or the bank denies your short sale for any other reason. You will be in a much better situation then if you had stopped making payments. Making payments will protect your credit. Although your credit may not be the most important thing for you to worry about during financial hardship, your score will not reflect late payments. However, the bank may report your short sale and the short sale itself could have an affect on your credit. It is possible to purchase a new home directly following a short sale if you stay current. Both FHA and Fannie Mae have guidelines allowing a short sale seller who is current on payments to purchase a home directly following a short sale. Why would anyone do this? If your home is worth dramatically less than what you paid for it, selling it short may be your only option. You may have to move for any number of reasons such as divorce, employment, or many other reasons. If your payments are up to date, you could purchase a new home when you move if you stay current. Reasons To Stop Making Payments During A Short Sale You may not have a choice in the matter. If you don’t have the money to make payments than you can’t make payments. Plain and simple. Other’s decide to not make payments by choice, and here are their explanations: To save money for a move. It’s no secret that many homeowners are under water and feel they need to get out from under their current situation. They will stop making payments during the short sale process to save up money to move when the short sale goes through. Lenders may not force you to make up the payments. Many times during a short sale, all missed payments are forgiven, but not all the time. If your situation allows you to not make payments and you don’t have to pay them back, you may consider not making payments. Banks still may file a deficiency notice however. The short sale could be moved to a more critical time frame for approval. If you aren’t making payments, it would be in the banks best interest to close on your short sale as soon as possible to start recouping their losses. You don’t have to be in default in order to short sale, but someone who is making payments compared to someone who isn’t making payments may take priority. If You Miss Payments You May Face Default Many short sales do not get approved, never find a buyer, or are screwed up by inexperienced real estate agents. There is a very good chance that you may end up facing foreclosure if you stop making payments. Here are some of the drawbacks if you go into foreclosure: Although both short sales and foreclosure affect your credit, a foreclosure is much worse. After short selling a home, even if you miss payments, you can purchase a home again within 2-3+ years. If you go into foreclosure you won’t be able to purchase a home for 7-10+ years. Seven years if you don’t have any other credit issues, pay off all your delinquencies, and stay up to date on all future payments. Ten years or more if you face delinquencies or other credit issues related to your foreclosure. If you’re facing financial hardships, please do not avoid the situation. It will not go away, and a short sale may be the best option. If you can’t make your payments, you can still sell your home in a short sale and avoid foreclosure. Be sure to talk to a lawyer, an accountant, and seek out an experienced short sale agent to give you advice on your personal situation. Related Posts: How To Avoid Foreclosure What Is A Lease Option And What Are The Pro’s And Con’s Choosing A Realtor To Sell Your Home Common Short Sale Questions Answered Common Short Sale Myths The Full Short Sale Process Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Basic SEO Tactics That Most Realtors Suck At Implementing

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:22:14 -0700

Most of us Realtors are not SEO experts, but we can learn if we take a little time. There are some very basic SEO (btw, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization) strategies that most Realtors fail to use to get their websites showing up in search engines. Do you know what they are? Maybe you do know, or maybe you don't. Either way, now you'll know and have no excuse, and you better get implementing! How To Stop Sucking At SEO Step 1. - Determine Your Keywords This step is extremely easy to do. A keyword is something a searcher will type into the search box in order to find what they want. Very basic. Determining your keywords is all about determining what people who want your information are typing into that little search box. Let look at some basic examples. I live in Logan, Utah. People who want to buy real estate in Logan, UT will search phrases related to real estate with the term Logan Utah in it. Examples: Logan Utah Real Estate, Logan Utah Homes For Sale, Logan Utah Properties. The same can be said wherever you live. If you live in podunkville, people are searching podunkville USA real estate just the same. Okay, you have a couple of keyword phrases, now what? You optimize your page for those keywords. This is very simple and I can't figure out why so many people don't do it. It's mind boggling! Optimizing a page means you put those keywords in the text on those pages. Do not spam these keywords. Make sure that people reading the page can still read it easily without puking on your overused keywords. No one likes to puke! Basically, every 300 words, you're going to want to use your keywords once or twice. Some people say you need a keyword density of 4-6%, but I say that's to much. I have tested this. I write posts with very little keywords, and they still rank well for the keywords I was trying to target. The key to my strategy is title tags. This is step two. Step 2. - Learn What A Title Tag Is And Implement It I see this easy SEO opportunity missed way to much, even agents here on ActiveRain are failing to properly use a title tag. What's a title tag you say? It's the title of the page. Example - When you write a blog post, you put a title in that post, and that title is at the top of your internet browser. Here is a little picture to show you what I mean: I put my mouse over the top of my browser, and you can see that it pops up my title tag for my Wordpress blog. It says: Homes For Sale Logan UT | Logan Utah Real Estate | Logan Utah Homes. Do you know what this does for search engine optimization? It's one of the most relevant factors for Google to determine what that page is about! It's extremely important! When you click on a search result in Google, you click the title tag. Did you know that? The title tag is the big bold lettering Google shows it's searchers to help them determine if that result is what they are looking for. Your title tag is the first thing Google crawls when they visit a page. The title of your blog post, the title of your website, and the title of all of your web pages needs to be optimized to increase your search engine rankings. For those Realtors that just have their name in their title tag or just their brokerage are missing out big time. Step 3. Optimize Your Title Tags With Your Keywords It's time to put two and two together. Choose a keyword you want to rank for in Google. Once you choose a keyword phrase, write a page of content using your keyword once or twice for every few paragraphs. Add a couple pictures, and put some listings in that area on that page. Now, when you're done with the page, put those same keywords you chose in the title of the page. That was simple right? It is very simple! If you can't change your title tag on your website or don't know how; you either need to get a new website or hire a geek to help you. After you finish your first page rinse and repeat. Use this with multiple keyword variations. Make a page for podunkville real estate, podunkville homes for sale, podunkville properties, podunkville listings, podunkville luxury real estate, and so on and so on. The more pages you create, the more authority your website will build up, and the better your chances of obtaining a new client looking for your information online. Step 4. Do Some Off Page SEO Now that you have your optimized page, with your optimized title tag, it's time to do some off page SEO. Off page SEO includes link building, telling people to visit your website via social networks like Twitter or Facebook, writing blog posts about neighborhoods, and driving traffic to a page through social bookmarking or blog commenting. This is where the pros leave the newbies in the dust. However, in many towns across the nation, Realtors are failing to take this step. Which is exactly why you should start now and blow them out of the water before they read this post! Step up your off page SEO using these tips: How To Syndicate Your Real Estate Blog Posts All Across The Web What You Ought To Know About Blog Commenting What You Ought To Know About People Reading Your Blog Use Your Analytics Tools To Take Your Blogging To The Next Level Use Your Google Analytics Tools To Create A Gift Basket Full Of Longtail Keywords If you spent time implementing keywords into pages, updating and optimizing title tags, and doing some off page SEO work. Your leads will start to increase dramatically, your paychecks will start to come more frequently, and you will become the next SEO pro. It's worth the time to learn, it's worth the time to do, and it's worth the time to master. Start using these SEO tactics today and stop sucking at SEO! Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

How To Syndicate Your Real Estate Blog Posts All Across The Web

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:18:47 -0700

How do you get your blog posts from the first page of Google to number 3, 2, or even #1 in the search results? It's simple; you need to market them, link to them, and syndicate them for more exposure. Every time I write a blog post, I have a notepad document of the links I use to syndicate my posts across the web. I have built up a nice list of sites over the 1.5 years I have been blogging. These syndication sites are social media/social bookmarking sites, and they generate some nice traffic to my homes for sale in Logan UT blog. Do you syndicate your blog posts? If not, let me give you a push in the right direction, and hopefully you will see the drastic affects this will have on your blog post rankings. And, if you continue to do this over a long period of time, you will start to notice that your entire site will build up more authority with search engines, and it all snowballs from there. If you're already doing this, maybe you can leave a couple of tips in the comments for the newbies out there. If you have other websites, social media sites, and social bookmarking sites you use, please share those in the comments as well. How To Syndicate Your Real Estate Blog Posts All Across The Web Re-Post Your Blogs On Other Social Media And Blog Sites:http://www.trulia.com/voices/blogs/ http://www.realtown.com/ http://www.zipvo.com/ http://housingstorm.com/ http://brokeragentsocial.com/home.php http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs http://posterous.com/ For these blogs, make sure you put a link to your original article to tell search engines where the orignial is. For example, you can write just a small snippet of your post and put a link like this - Read more by visiting: Logan UT real estate blog. Or you can post the full article and post a link like- Orinigal Source: My Blog etc.. Submit your Post To Social Bookmarking Sites:http://www.mixx.com/ http://bx.businessweek.com/residential-real-estate/ http://www.delicious.com/ http://identi.ca/ http://www.realestatevoices.com/ http://www.diigo.com/http://www.imautomator.com/ - Automated social bookmarking tool. More bookmarking sites: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-bookmarking-websitesSocial bookmarking sites are websites that allow you to link to webpages. These sites usually have a lot of traffic, and if your blog posts are interesting, controversial, or just a great blog. You can get some nice traffic, and people may end up linking to your posts. Those natural links will boost your search engine rankings and will help your posts climb higher in Google. The more eyes you have reading your blogs the better. Other Syndication Sites To Try:Ask to be an editor of your local area on http://www.topix.com/ by going to http://www.topix.com/member/registerhttp://outside.in/ Sign up to syndicate your blog across their large netowork. You can also syndicate your posts through http://amplify.com/, which will syndicate your posts to many places at once including: Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, Blogger, FriendFeed, Delicious, and more.Topix and Outside.in are news sites. In order to get approved to be an editor on these sites, you must have some great local content. Be sure not to spam them to much or they will ban your account. Read the terms of service for each of these places to make sure you're following the rules. By syndicating your blog posts, you're taking the extra time to make sure you're posts get more visibility. In turn, the increased visibility will bring you more readers, more subscribers, and can produce some really good natural links to your blog posts. Which will lead to more paychecks and that's what really matters isn't it? :) Enjoy! Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

5 Reasons Why Logan UT Real Estate Deals Fall Through

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:20:39 -0700

After sitting no the market, you finally have a buyer that wants to buy your home. They are excited to purchase and you are excited to sell, but you’re not out of the woods yet. Just because you have a contract on your home, doesn’t mean your home is sold. There are many obstacles to overcome before you and the buyer are shaking hands at the closing table. Here are 5 reasons why your Logan UT home sale will fall through, and what you can do to avoid these pitfalls. Lack Of Commitment From The Buyers After the initial “wow” factor subsides, buyer’s often feel buyers remorse. They start to get antsy and feel they made a mistake. That little voice will pester them throughout the purchasing period, and will start to nit pick every little detail of the transaction. These buyers are hard to deal with, but you can overcome this situation with a little comfort. Ask your neighbors to chip in on the sale of your home by offering your buyers comfort. Buyers often like to talk to neighbors, and you should let the people around you know when the buyers will be around your house. Have them linger outside, or ask if they will talk to the buyers about how great your neighborhood is. You can also leave the buyers a note with local phone numbers so they can contact the neighborhood inhabitants on their terms. It’s also important to remind buyers of the reasons they fell in love with your home in the first place. Point out the great location, the close amenities, the great schools. Anything the buyer said they liked initially about your home needs to be a constant topic of conversation. Reinforcing a buyers initial feelings can overcome a strong buyers remorse. Low Appraisals Appraisers have come under a lot of heat since the market downturn. Because of this, many are becoming more conservative with their values causing low appraisals to be more prevalent. Nothing can kill a deal like a low appraisal. In order for a buyer to obtain financing on their home purchase, the appraisal the bank requests must satisfy the loans terms. As soon as you receive a contract on your home, you and your real estate agent should be prepared to combat a low appraisal. If you’re worried about a low appraisal, have your agent meet the appraiser at your home to give them comparable properties they used in their initial market analysis. Be sure to point out any upgrades to your home since your purchase, any work you have done, and remodeling projects. If the appraisal is still low, you have 3 options. You can read: What to do about a low appraisal as a home seller by following that link. Misunderstood Contingencies And Low Earnest Money Deposits Home buyers have a due diligence period when purchasing a house. They have the right to inspections, appraisals, and obtaining financing. These contingencies in a contract give buyers three chances to walk away from the purchase of your home. It’s important when you’re going through contract negotiations to make these deadlines very clear to a buyer and their agent. Your agent should also keep the buyers agent well informed of these contingency dates. If there is a problem with the inspection, be sure to define clear dates when the problem will be fixed, who pays for it, and who will fix it. You have to be clear and fast to act when problems arise. If you let things go, or fail to make necessary repairs, your deal will fall apart. A low earnest money deposit gives a buyer an easy out. When asking for earnest money be fair, but make sure you get enough to ensure your protected. An earnest money deposit of $500 may not convince a buyer to stick around through closing as much as a $2,000 deposit would. Discuss with your agent the best route to go when securing an escrow deposit. Bad Inspection Reports A bad inspection report can kill your deal faster than anything else. If there is a problem with your home that a buyer was unaware of before they signed the contract, it can throw up red flags. Also, some inspectors are known for alarming home buyers unnecessarily by scaring them about minor repairs. To avoid a surprise inspection, many home sellers will obtain a pre-inspection to sure up any problems that may arise during the sale of their home. If anything comes up, you can take the necessary steps to fix it, or let the buyers know about the problem before contract negotiations. You can then negotiate those items into your asking price to satisfy a buyer. One thing you should be aware of with a pre-inspection is; you have to disclose any items within the inspection report whether you fixed them or not. You can’t hide these problems from buyers, and if you do, you will end up facing a lawsuit. Missed Deadlines And Bad Communication Once a home goes under contract both buyer and seller must perform the contracts stipulations in order to close. Deadlines and contingencies must be met within the contract terms or the contract will be null. People seem to get in the way of a home purchase more than anything else. Lazy Realtors and uneducated home buyers and sellers each have a major role in deals that fall apart. You can avoid this situation by using a Realtor that shows great communication skills, and keeps communication lines open between buyer and seller. Having a plan to keep in contact with all parties is crucial. Something as simple as marking deadlines on a calender and printing off copies for each party involved can help avoid missed deadlines. Scheduling a day every week to get together with your agent is a great way to stay informed. As you move closer to closing, you should be in contact with your agent every couple of days. Every real estate deal has something come up during the process. The reason why I have a 99% close rate is communication, knowledge, and an understanding of the real estate process. Don’t let your deal fall apart because of laziness or uneducated parties. Take it upon yourself to ensure your home closes. Get involved with the process, ask your agent questions, and stay in constant communication. If you follow these simple steps, you can be confident when selling a home. Good Luck! Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Calling All RAIN Friends of Zack...He Needs Your Vote!!

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:01:21 -0700

Please help my good friend Sharon and her daughter win a photo contest. Let's use the power of ActiveRain to get her to the top!! :) Calling all RAIN friends of Zack...He needs your vote!! Zack's mom, my daughter Jaime, has entered Zack's photo in The NH Dream Vacation Photo Contest, and he needs your help to win a prize. We would appreciate any and all votes we can get. Those of you willing to click the link and vote for Zack's picture...we are sincerely grateful!! Those of you willing to add the link to your favorites and return every 24 hours to vote...well you have our undying gratitude and a special place in our hearts forever! You can only vote once every 24 hours...contest ends September 6, 2010. CLICK HERE TO VOTE NOW Here is Zack's entry: ______________________________________________________________________________ Professional Home Staging services for the New Hampshire Seacoast Portsmouth Rye Greenland Hampton North Hampton Exeter Dover Stratham 603.661.8524 Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/

Are Cutthroat Home Buyers Causing Home Values To Decline More?

Lisa Udy, Logan Utah Realtor ( Platinum Real Estate Group) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:15:45 -0700

Question: Are Cutthroat Home Buyers Causing Home Values To Decline More? While you're working with a buyer, when they write an offer, do you just let them write it where they want? Do you let your buyers write low offers just to get that desperate seller to give their home away? Are you writing multiple offers to see which sellers are desperate? If you're the agent that plays the multiple low ball offer game with your buyers to get the best deal, did you know that deal just caused all the neighbors properties to decline in value? Does your buyer care that he just set the first domino in motion of a large decline in neighborhood values where he/she just purchased their "investment" property? Does he/she realize when they try to flip and sell that home in six months, they to will lose money because of this domino affect? Does buying a home at bargain prices really net you more money? When a buyer pays a bargain price on a home, the next seller in that neighborhood has to use that comparable when they sell their home. The lower price the buyer gets, the lower price the seller has to sell for. And since they had to sell lower, the next home seller in that neighborhood will have to do the same thing. And the dominoes start to fall, and fall, and fall. How does this affect the value of the property you just bought? Should we be educating our buyers on this domino affect? Do I even know what I'm talking about? What do you think? What about you home buyers? Are you cutting your own throat by pressuring a desperate home seller into selling below market value? Lisa Udy Platinum Real Estate Group http://www.lisaudy.com/