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Today there is a blue moon…

To fully understand my sentiment you really need to read Robs entire prose.  But if you are short on time or terrible ADD. (guilty as charged) Let me sum up for you the paragraph that raised my cockles and sent the “that is the exact opposite of how I feel” feeling down my arm, through my fingers and ultimately out to my keyboard…  Here is the flawed opinion…

Rob Hahn says “Plus, please recognize that Twitter inherently assumes that you already have a relationship of some sort; it’s the only way in which a 140-character text message makes sense. If we don’t have a relationship, or a distant business relationship, I really don’t care what you’re having for lunch.

If we’ve embarrassed ourselves at karaoke together one drunken night, then I actually care that you’re doing laundry. Probably. Maybe. Sort of.

So, want more followers on Twitter? Go out more. Throw parties and events. Want to maximize your investment in Twitter? Go make more relationships — you know, away from the keyboard. Then use Twitter to maintain and expand those existing relationships.

This just is not right…  and I was forced to respond…

Rob,

Hey my, “did he really use his YALE education to come to that conclusion?” dearest friend…

You are missing the point as duly expressed within this pearl of wisdom…

So, want more followers on Twitter? Go out more. Throw parties and events. Want to maximize your investment in Twitter? Go make more relationships — you know, away from the keyboard. Then use Twitter to maintain and expand those existing relationships.

Look, if you WANT to use twitter as a toy, go for it. No rules, no holds-barred. Go ahead and sling it around like a toy gun at a shooting range. If it brings you friends, maintains relationships or destroys your existing ones… who cares, its a toy.

But if you WANT to use twitter as a sphere of influence building tool? (the SOI is still the number one quoted source of biz for agents) then have a strategy. A strategy means, decide WHO you are going to invite into your SOI, decide how to convert them, and go about it in a systematic method.

Look Rob, if you and I didn’t know each other, and JeffX and I were best friends… and you and JeffX were best friends… You probably NEED to be in my SOI, and I, yours. I may be an asset to you both socially and professionally and visa versa. But outside SM, I cant just call you and say.. Hey Rob, I know a guy you know…etc. etc.

It breaks my social contract with MY friend, JeffX… (this is the Seinfield equivalent of “worlds colliding.”) But with the SM space and Twitter I AM allowed to contact you, reach out and talk about Jeffx as our mutual friend, and common interest. We share this in common. Much more meaningful than a bad song in a Karaoke bar.

Imagine, now if I reached out, deliberately and systematically with all my current friends of SOI. These are people who I have a ton in common and the only distance between then now, a total stranger and members of my SOI? (which they will soon be)One conversation.

Twitters’ relaxed social nature facilitates this type of conversation. I ge the opportunity to reach out and meet new people with whom a have a ton in common and my SOI grows strategically and exponentially. Most important is these are people who have a valuable third party reference of my caring and trust worthy character. (which makes them perfect SOI members and possible future clients)

Now ask your agent clients this question. What woould it do to your business if you could use twitter to reach out to people just beyond your current SOI, and increase your SOI by 3 times… or 5 times.

What would this do to your business?

Now, instead of meeting people over a course of “you make me feel like a natural women,” and inviting them to hang with me ONLINE.. I will be meeting people in a designed manner and inviting them to meet me OFFLINE..

This is how you build friendships and future clients.

PT_site.skitch (801 KB)

Over the last few months I have been creating websites, Social Media Strategy and support, etc. for a COOL new brokerage named Partners Trust.  These guys are big hitting LA Realtors that are forward thinking and GET social media…  I cant wait to talk more about their progress and success stories as time goes by… Stay tuned and I will keep the info coming…

Jim Marks | jimmarks@virtualresults.net | 949.436.6106

Ping me here Google Talk: jimmarks551 Skype: virtual.results

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Read VR's Latests Blog Post 10 Fave Twitter Tools for Realtors

Posted via email from jimmarks’s posterous

This is step two on your journey…  Have Fun!!

1. TweetDeck is a desktop Twitter and Facebook application. Like other Twitter applications it interfaces with the Twitter API to allow users to send and receive tweets, view profiles, and organize your Twitter friends into groups.

2.HootSuite is the professional Twitter client. With HootSuite, you can manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success.

3. Twellow’s web site has huge database of Twitter users sorted nicely into categories! Very good way to follow and get some related followers. There’s many categories 3, Tellow is the Twitter Yellow Pages. If you haven’t registered your Real Estate Twitter account on Twellow, it is time to do so.

4. Nearby Tweets monitors the buzz on your business and local markets.

5. Twitter.com Search Yes, Twitter search.  Learn all the ways to search for prospects.  For example, if you enter in the twitter search box…  near: 92660 house, you will get everyone who lives in that zip that has used the word house in their tweet.  A valuable tool for agents.

6. TweetLater is really great tool where you can automatically follow people that follow you and you can submit tweets to be published at specific times. Very good and very effective tool for all Twitter freaks for sure.

7. Demand Spot is a Twitter mining tool that allows you to search (by keyword) and tweet people who are looking for homes to buy or rent in your local area.

8. Bit.ly allows you to shorten share and track your links.

9. Twext.Me is a cool service by Jeff Turner that sends your Twitter mentions to you via SMS text message. Go about your day and never miss another conversation!

10. BubbleTweet adds a personalized video to your twitter account.

There has been a disturbance in the force…

Over the last few days, some the brightest people I know.  People I really respect have taken positions on both the effectiveness of Social Media as a lead generator and whether a blog was lead generation or branding.  These conversations irked every fiber of my being.

I mean, I do this for a living…well.  I have copious clicks to prove that Twitter and FaceBook drive traffic to Virtual Results websites and these sites, painfully configured to convert, create leads. So if my clients use Social Media to drive traffic to their VR website and the website convert this traffic to leads…  This is not an opinion…This is MATH.  I will not argue whether or not SM is lead gen, again.

se·man·tics Pronunciation: \si-?man-tiks\  the study of meanings: a : the historical and psychological study and the classification of changes in the signification of words or forms viewed as factors in linguistic development.

Yeah, semantics.  You see, I believe that a Brand is a promise that you make to your audience.  “I am the hardest working Realtor in California” is a promise, a brand.

Here is the wiki on Personal Branding…

Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. Further defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual; this includes but is not limited to the body, clothing, appearance and knowledge contained within, leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable. Personal branding often involves the application of one’s name to various products. For example, celebrity real-estate mogul Donald Trump uses his last name extensively on his buildings and on the products he endorses (e.g., Trump Steaks).

So how is blogging branding?  Well Rob Hahn, here gives the impression that any marketing created that does not target a key group of prospects is branding.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I have MAD respect for Rob. I hang on his every word…  (and you should too.) But in this case? I disagree.

Branding is a concerted effort to make and keep a promise to your audience.  If a Realtor blogs about his community, the parking, stores, community issues, etc.  If a Realtor blogs about everything except the Realtor, how can this be branding…

Is simply Being, now Branding?

Blogging is an effective marketing tool for agents, here are its benefits.

1)      Long Tail Serp results (lead gen)

2)      Content, Google Loves Content (lead gen)

3)      Blogs create Authority (branding?)

4)      Blogs create relationships. (branding?)

5)      Blog contain Call-to-actions. (the focal point for you SMM efforts) (lead gen)

Most of the benefits are either to help with Serps, create call to actions, or establish a relationship with your reader.  Establish a Relationship… hah…branding? Lets dive in.

Scenario One:  If I am a door to door vacuum cleaner salesperson, and I knock on your door…  I hear and see your 6 Persian cats…  My conversation turns to, “I love cats.  How many to you have?”  Over the 20 minutes, we speak about cats, our lives, my job, your job, etc…  I am creating a bond. I am creating a relationship. I am being me.  Even if you tell me you are not in the market for a vaccum cleaner, and I come back every day for a year to speak to speak to you about your cats, until you are in the market…  AM I BRANDING?  NO.  I am selling.

Scenario Two:  I tweet “We have had 93 days in a row of perfect weather in Laguna Beach.. You really should move here…”  You go to my blog and see my post on Laguna Beach Weather.  It has a call to action, “you really can afford it here… check out these homes for under $500K” Branding? Nope.  Sales.

So creating conversation, is not branding.  And creating Business from that conversation is not Branding..  What is Branding?

Best I can tell, this is the new description…  Being You. But only if the person reading is not in the market for what you are offering.  If they are?  Lead Gen.

Just Not Buying this.  Here is my advice.  Stop Branding.  BE Honest, BE Transparent, BE Consistent…  BE.

If my Page has $20 worth of PR and 20 links, we can assume the each page linked to will get one PR dollar.  If I then NO FOLLOW 10 of those links, the balance of the PR cash will just average onto the rest of the links.  Therefore the 10 links that remain as Follow will get $2PR each.

With this theory, and thousands of PR points to invest, I can “sculpt” my page rank to drive traffic and indexability to pages that might not otherwise see the Google light of day.  It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, because as these pages index, rank and create traffic patterns, (and inbound links) THEY earn PR points which in turn can we sculpted off to other pages in need…  The entire site can be boosted, as it will have more indexed pages, a higher PR in general, more traffic, etc.

BUT NO MORE…

In a statement that rocked the SEO world, Matt Cutts, at SMX Advanced on June 3rd, stated that it is no longer effective to nofollow some pages in order to flow more Page Rank to the remaining followed pages.  Basically, Matt stated (this is an example) that if your page has $20 worth of page rank and 20 links, 10 of which are no followed, the no followed links will still receive NO PR, but the remaining 10 followed links will only receive the $1PR each.  In other words, nofollow links usurp PR, they just don’t pass it…

Here is a quote from Rand Fishkin, owner of SEOMoz,

“I’m saddened to say that given this change, we, as SEOs, are going to have to also recommend the best practice that comments (in all forms of UGC) no longer accept links. While Google has said that linking out to “good places” provides some value, that merely suggests that webmasters and site owners should select good resources editorially and link to them with live, followed links. Comments that contain links, unfortunately, will actively detract from a site’s ability to get pages indexed… ”

So who does this effect and does it effect you?

IMHO,  this by and large only will effect those with moderate or low-level SEO experience.  If you do not do SEO on your site, or have hundreds or thousands of pages with PR to pay with  then this change will have little or no effect on your site.  On the other hand, If you are a LARGE site with 1000s of pages and have, or are a talented SEO, you will simply revert to the practices of old.  Unless this policy changes, I will start creating my outbound links in a manner the robots can’t see or follow (in Flash, external Javascript with blocked calls, in plugin content,etc…)  My gut tells me there is a WP plugin on the way that will do this. (Developers get busy)

But if you have a decent sized site, with lots of PR and don’t know SEO really well, this conceivable could hurt.  Frankly, I just dont understand why Google would do this. It seems really counter-intuitive to me.

Commenting and sharing community traffic IS web 2.0.  If I can engage this community and leave a link that explains my credentials, that is cool.  If I can carry the conversation back to “my place, even cooler.  But a comment, without a link feels less authoritative to me.  It loses some of its street cred, whuffie, social currency.  I want to give the link to my commenters.  I want my readers to know who is commenting on my site…and their authority within my community.

But until I hear a change in this policy, UNFORTUNATLY, my advise to my clients may have to be…  “You just cant allow comment links until Google figures out the ramifications of this decision to our social media world, (and hopefully) reversed this decision.

“O.K. if an agent could only use one, which should they use? Zillow or Trulia?”

She had very little idea (or did she?) what an inspired discussion would commence.

As it is with Twitter, both David Gibbons, Community Director of Zillow and Rudy Bachraty, Social Media Guru of Trulia were listening, and what transpired over the next hour or so was a spirited discussion on SOME of the merits of Zillow and Twitter.

Now, this discussion fell quite short of discussing the ENTIRE difference and benefits of the two (although consider this a formal offer for VR to host that discussion…  TokBox, maybe?) between the two sites and concentrated mostly on the Search benefits of both.

Having a passion for SEO, this is what caught my attention and this is what THIS post will concentrate on.  He

re is the transcript, best as I can assemble it…without any additional interjection..below I have included a video of the discussion as well…

davidgibbons: @TBoard LOL, do you really wanna see @trulia & me get into it or what? Ur listings should be on BOTH but Zillow offers more traffic, leads & SEO

• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia after painfully sitting through Francis & Sara’s cage-match, it’s honestly not something I relish …
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons @tboard - No offense, but your stage isn’t big enough T- How about Inman SF David?
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Touché - Speaking of leads - http://cli.gs/trulia-top-lead-generator
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia LOL, now you know this “I can link to stats that say I’m number 1″ thing could go on forever …
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia Sara/Francis convinced me no good would come of it but would love to see u explain nofollows to the icsf crowd, that may be worth it
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Why wait for icsf? nofollows on listings are a non-issue - listings are not permanent = no long term seo value - case closed
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia LOL, are you REALLY saying that no-one searches for listings by address? I have a few million folks a month that say you’re WRONG
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia nice try dude, but you’re gonna have to get honest about this one
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons who said that David? Whether follow or not - Agents listings on Trulia still have great SEO and get ranked well on Google
• 
  davidgibbons: @TBoard as I said, @trulia is going to have to get honest; many RE Pro’s are smart about SEO and that “not permanent” line is BS
• 
  trulia: RT @davidgibbons: @trulia nice try dude, but you’re gonna have to get honest about this one - You’re boring me - what else you got?
• 
  trulia: RT @jbern: How about a @trulia vs @davidgibbons cage fight at ICSF? Could be fun… [Sounds good to me ]
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia “you’re boring me” is Trulia’s answer for “why don’t you give SEO credit to listing agents???” … that was over fast, next …
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia … but we can move on to this if you really want to … http://tinyurl.com/48acp5 (expand)
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons How so David? If The listing is sold and off the market? Where is the value then?
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia I’m not sure why you’re talking about solds??? The question is why slap a 302-redirect on the links to listing agents’ websites?
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons so agents want a dofollow link to their listings David?
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia agents I speak with will take every link they can get (and they should)
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Well, they can on Trulia - When agents claim their listings, they’re listings are dofollow on their profile = juice…and….
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons …..they also can add 5 dofollow links on their Trulia Profile to the site of their choice…..
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia interesting … but got you beat there too; there’s no limit to followed links (for Pro’s) on Z profiles … next?
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Pro’s on Zillow who pay get unlimited links?
• 
  davidgibbons: @trulia nope, it’s free - pro’s get unlimited followed links from Zillow profiles @TeriLussier can’t do this on T http://tinyurl.com/d9ccxb (expand)
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Thank you.
• 
  trulia: @davidgibbons Don’t forget Facebook “Quantity vs. Quality”…..the debate continues…….have a great night all!

And for those of you who are “Twitter Challenged, ” Jeff Turner put together this VERY cool video of the exchange…”

Zillow Vs. Trulia - David Vs. Rudy (The Movie)

Now, that you have read the tweetalogue, (just made that up) you probably understand why this is of interest to me…  SEO.

Within this spirited discussion, there where QUITE a few statements concerning the SEO of both sites.  I would like to first create a series of questions from these statements and hopefully provoke a discussion on the benefits of both.

1) Do temporary inbound links, help your website… (and why don’t BOTH companies just mark the property “SOLD” and let the link live, and grow old and VALUABLE.”

2) Do links from profile pages help your website and how can you best MAXIMIZE this feature. (Proper Anchor Text, Multiple links, Deep Links, etc)

3) Do links that do NOT have favorable anchor text matter.  In other words, If the anchor text is an address, and not a keyword you are trying to rank for.

4) Is the address search, a valuable search.  I believe David when he states that he has a few million searches a month by address. But WHO AND WHY is someone searching by address and this really a home buyer?

5) How valuable is the long tail in Real Estate.  I see analytics all the time showing the QUANTITY of long tail page views, but is a searcher searching “Restaurants in Laguna Beach” or “Laguna Beach Architecture” really a valuable page view? (Bloggers get involved here…)

6) And a little “pet peeve” non-SEO question.  I have always taught that Realtors should create listing pages for their websites, because the MLS descriptions should be written to help OTHER REALTORS sell the house.  Realtors should be able to edit ANY outward facing listing page to appeal to the consumer.  I am under the impression, that neither Trulia or ZIllow allow this.  Am I correct, and how come?

I absolutely have my opinions on ALL these questions…  and will back them up with analytics.  Lets here your answers and opinions…  Please forward this post to anyone you think is interested in the SEO value of these two popular websites, and be sure to subscribe below to keep up to date on the conversation…

Now, I am NOT speaking of the “I followed 5000 people that I know have auto-follow to get a bigger follow base” type of Rockstar..  That would be too easy.  I want to be the “I have 5000 followers that love me, engage me and hang on my every word” type of Social Media Rockstar…” You get it, the “other social media rockstars will fly thousands of miles to attend a conference I am attending…  NOT because I am speaking…but because I am THERE”  Rockstar…  Are you getting my point?  I want to be the “people are SO engaged in my life, they take the time to learn that my wife is awesome too!” Rockstar…  Yes,  I was possessed to become the “I am sooo loved that any charity I touch becomes blessed, just cause I am involved and so incredibly passionate and sincere…”rockstar.

Yeah, thats the type of SM Rockstar I want to be…  So how did I figure it out?  I am tricky…

Step One:  Find someone who IS this type of Rockstar…

Well, I looked, and looked, and looked…  and I found him…  Well, to be honest, he wasn’t actually hiding…  he was freakin’ everywhere…  filling up my facebook, my Twitter, My LinkedIn, Speaking at every RE engagement known to man, etc…(he is a SM Rockstar , after all) but I found him…  My unassuming, social media uber-rockstar patsy to be?

Jeff Turner…alias @ResPres (look at that face?  This is gonna be easy!!)

Step Two: Befriend him (Sh-h-h)

This, surprisingly enough, was not that difficult either.  I emailed Jeff… then Facebook friended him, tweeted a tad…  invited him to lunch under the pretense of “some crazy business idea” and just oozed my self-serving, sucrose-enriched charm…  The funny thing was, it was almost TOO EASY…  It was like Jeff….  ACTUALLY CARED about what I had to say…  no, no… it was much stranger than that…it was as if Jeff actually cared WHO I WAS…  He listened, and engaged me, and respected my opinions, and shared important ideas freely.  He almost made it too easy…

WOW, this guy is goooood…  but I found the chink in his armour…

He was the same way to EVERYBODY…  Nobody can be that interested in everybody… can they?

Step Three:  Learn all his tricks

This is where my plan derailed a bit…  I paid attention, I really did…  but I just couldnt figure him out, what was he hiding?…  how did he do it?…  puzzling.  Then it hit me like a ton of bricks…  This super great guy… This caring, engaging, thoughtful, social, guy…  This killer communicator, charitable, funny, guy…  Yeah, this pensive, warm and downright AFFABLE guy that everyone SHOULD want to communicate and be social with…  HAS A VERY UNIQUE AVATAR!!

How could I have missed this!!  Could this really be it?  What else could it be?  Let me take inventory one more time…

Is he smarter than me?  Well, probably, but that cant be it..

Is he more successful than me? Well, I think so, but that cant be it either…

Is he better looking than me?  HELL NO!

Nicer, more engaging, thoughtful, caring, INTERESTED…  of course, but who cares.  IT HAS TO BE THE AVATAR!  I ‘VE GOT IT!!

Step Four: Use this new found knowledge to conquer the SM world!!  So, here it is, my fool proof Social Media Strategy.

@jimmarks…  be gone.

Introducing…@vrpres

Wait…  where are you going…  arent you gonna follow me?   Hello!!  Did you see my AVATAR??  (happy april fools day!)

Probably not the message YOU want to send to Google, now is it…

So today, we will speak about the robots.txt file…  in a week or so, (probably not next week, as two robots posts in two weeks would even bury my eyelids…) we will talk about robots commands, another sure fire way to increase slightly, or DECREASE GREATLY your SEO.

So, What Is Robots.txt?

Robots.txt is a text (not html) file you add to you root directory that tells the  Search Engine Spiders which of your pages NOT to visit. Search Engines do not guarantee they will abide by this information, but typically they do.  Most spiders will not go where they are told not to go.  A robots.txt is a strong suggestion to a search engine not to index your page.  However, it is not a rule…  It is a bit like asking someone not to go in a room while you are not home…  the room is unlocked, but you trust they will not.

Just as you would not leave VALUABLES in that room, do not PROTECT sensitive information by adding it to your robots.txt file. There are way better ways to secure pages.

The location of robots.txt is very important. Search engines will not search your site for it. They simply scan the main directory and if they don’t find it, they assume that your site does not have a robots.txt file and they proceed to index everything they find.

So HOW do you write a Robots,txt file.

Well the simplest way, is to open NOTEPAD and create the file there.  robots.txt is exactly what it says, it is a text file named robots not an HTML file.  So, notepad is the logical choice.

The structure of a robots.txt is pretty simple, but frankly NOT very flexible– it is an endless list of user agents and disallowed files and directories. Basically, the syntax is as follows:

User-agent:

Disallow:

“User-agent” are search engines’ crawlers such as Google Bot or Yahoo and disallow: is a lists of the pages or directories tyou wish NOT to be indexed. You may also see lines of text proceeded by #.  These are simple comments and intended for human eyes as opposed to the spiders.

For example, if I did not want the spiders to index my wp-admin page (something I do on all my sites to keep from leaking link-juice to meaningless pages) I would write it this way…

# All user agents are disallowed to see the /wp-admin page

User-agent: *

Disallow: /wp-admin/

The first line is for me, the second states “OK, this is for all spiders and bots” and the third line, “Pretty please, don’t index my logon page.”

The concept and structure of robots.txt is a decade old, and there are plenty of resources, such as http://www.robotstxt.org/ or you can go straight to the Standard for Robot Exclusion

Robots.txt files can get lengthy and the exact syntax, punctuation and SPELLING (most of the errors I see are mis-spelling of user agents, directories or missing colons, slashes, etc.) is of great importance. So be careful…

Here is an example of Virtual Results robots.txt file.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /wp-admin
Disallow: /wp-includes
Disallow: /wp-content/plugins
Disallow: /wp-content/cache
Disallow: /wp-content/themes
Disallow: /trackback
Disallow: /comments
Disallow: */trackback
Disallow: */comments
Disallow: /*?*
Disallow: /*?
Allow: /wp-content/uploads

Dont be totally discouraged if you dont get all of this, as you will have another chance.  In coming weeks, look for my Wordpress SEO for Real Estate Websites post on wordpress DUPLICATION,  a pretty large SEO issue with Wordpress out of the box.  WIthin this post, we will give tips and tools to use wordpress plugins to create robots.txt to reduce content duplication…

Next time?  Creating Great Wordpress titles for SEO