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posted by: John Jantsch

Last week Google announced an official update to Social Search – something they’ve been playing around with for some time now. The idea behind social search is that if a Google account user does a search for something they will get the most relevant results according to Google now mixed in with results that Google determines are important from those in your social networks.

The news for anyone thinking about SEO is summed by this statement from Google – . . .relevance isn’t just about pages—it’s also about relationships. Google has officially moved from playing with social search to altering the SEO landscape with it.

While the newly socialized results are dependent upon the surfer being logged in to their Google account, the significance from an SEO standpoint is potentially game changing. As Google continues to advance this type of thinking when it comes to placement of search results it will bring the online acts of content creation, network building and social participation to new heights.

Consider the images below – the first is a search for the term “social media system” while logged out of Google and second while logged in. The results are dramatically different. (Click to enlarge)

Results while logged in 

Results while logged out 

I’ve been begging and pleading with small business owners for the last five years to create and use blogs, claim all the digital real estate and profiles they could and get active building social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. While this is behavior that has long influenced organic search results in a more mathematical way, social search highlights the direct impact this behavior has in ways that should open some eyes.

The good news is that people that have participated fully in social media, network building and content creation may have just received a very positive jolt in the search game. There is still time to adopt this behavior because it may be years before this social search function becomes fully realized, but there’s no way to deny the need to make online network building and participation a primary business practice.

Now, this doesn’t mean that good SEO practices of link building and content creation around keywords goes out the window – those factors will remain extremely important, but social network participation just got a raise in terms of becoming a ranking factor that isn’t controlled by traditional SEO practices.

Here are a couple unscientific initial thoughts:

• You can’t play without a Google Profile – if you have one go update it now and add more connections
• Sharing content from your Google Reader account seems to get high marks right now
• Twitter results are being adding pretty quickly
• With Google and Facebook locked in war for social, don’t expect Facebook results to matter as much

You connect accounts that you want to be part of your public profile using the Google Profile tool, but you can also connect account privately through your Google Account. (Google is choosing your networks through the Social Graph tool.)

Results will be spotty and odd for some time now, but it’s still time to rethink your entire approach to SEO.

In the theme of my blog posts the week of November 15th, I have invited a web designer as my Guest Blog Post. Scott Stadler is my “go to” guy for my web site and any questions I have when setting up Social Media for my clients.

written by Scott Stadler, web designer

When we think of blogs, many of us automatically envision a Blogger blog, or perhaps even a WordPress.com blog.  In other words, we think first of the kind of blog that is provided by a third party and is entirely separate from our own website.  It’s probably because this is how blogging started off (almost a decade ago, believe it or not).

Do you use Blogger for your blog?  TypePad?

The thing is, using these systems is just fine.  With active promotion, online and off, they work just like anything else when it comes to giving you a place to connect with your readers about topics you’re both mutually interested in.  In this case, real estate is the name of the game.

In fact, a stand-alone blog like this might even accomplish some hefty goals when it comes to attracting new traffic through organic SEO and really building up a solid trust-factor with your base of blog followers.  After all, there’s a reason blogging has become and still is so incredibly popular…it just works!

Linking Or Framing Blogs To Your Website:  A Good Start, But…

Well, the next point here is that what works well as a third-party service pointing to your site (i.e. these types of off-site blogging services)…they’ll work even better when integrated into your actual website with more of a cohesive, holistic approach.

This requires more than using a link from the third party, off-site blog to your website.  The bottom line here is that most of your blog’s visitors will never find or use that link from the blog to your actual website.  The path of least resistance leads visitors well away from finding one small link—it’s kind of like finding a needle in a haystack (and then using it to actually sew something).

But everybody already knows this…right?  Old news.

Enter the next popular trend:  Framing your third-party blog into your website.  This means having a dedicated page on your website set up to pull a copy of your off-site blog onto your website itself.  It seems to be a popular trend with real estate oriented websites—and many of the top real estate website providers rely on this tactic.

And sure, it works to some degree…at least it helps your website visitors find and read your blog.  But naturally, there’s a catch.  The search engines that crawl your site only see a snippet of code for that framed blog page—because it’s not actually a part of your site, but rather is just a copy pulled from your third party blog service, the search engines treat it as such.

They don’t associate any of the information within those blog posts you’ve worked so hard on as a part of your site.  When it comes to being a part of your website, your third-party blog might be visible to humans, but it’s invisible to the search engines.  With search being a very real portion of a good traffic generation strategy, this just won’t do.

Your Blog Should Be An Actual Part Of Your Website…

Your blog should be built into your website from the very beginning as a wholly integrated solution…not just as an add-on or framed-in third party service.

The benefits of making your blog a real part of your website are countless.

First and foremost, each and every new blog post you create will be seen by the search engines as a new page on your website.  There’s a little bit more to the story when it comes to optimizing and maximizing this benefit, but the overall concept here is that the more pages you have out there in the search engine’s index, the more visible you’ll be to search visitors.

Search engines love sites that have a regularly updated blog full of fresh new content all the time.  They’ll see your new posts as a legitimate part of your site and give credit to the rest of your website pages as well.  It’s almost like a snowball effect; the more great quality pages and blog posts you have under your website’s “umbrella,” the better each one of these individual pages will do when it comes to being recognized.

In Conclusion…

For what it’s worth, it’s really not any more difficult to integrate a blog correctly into a website from the very beginning.  It’s just a matter of doing it right the first time instead of going back and adding a third-party blog and trying to match it up to your site as an afterthought.  The benefits of building your site around your blog as one holistic solution far outweigh the tactic of using an outside blog for your posts.

Scott Stadler designed my website, ww.BildaBetterBusiness.com. Having worked with many designers for my clients and many real estate web companies, I found working with Scott extremely easy. I told him what I wanted and he designed it – and the first draft was exactly what I wanted! Scott also helped me use Organic Search Engine Optimization and creating a working website that I am proud to have clients come to. To find out a little more about Scott, visit his website, www.visule.com. When you want a great website which will work for you, contact Scott - Phone: 217.617.4610 or Email: scottstadler@gmail.com.

Scott says, “Programmers program. Writers write. Designers design. If you build a website focused on any single one of these different schools of thought, it will likely perform great in that specific area. However, for a website that truly works, it’s important to put them all together.

We have gone over what to post on your blog and possible ideas of where to get content.

Are there things you shouldn’t post on your blog?

I have mentioned several times –

DO NOT POST YOUR REAL ESTATE LISTINGS TO YOUR BLOG.

That is NOT what your blog is for. You have your listings on your website, MLS and Realtor.com ®. And it is FINE to point them to your listing web pages. However, Blogs are used to show your human side and your expertise. Facebook has a way to have a listings tab on your Business Page (which is different than your personal page). But don’t inundate your audience with your listings, price reductions, solds or new lists on your blog. There are better places than your blog.

Don’t post other people’s content or articles without their permission. That is Copyright infringement. As I mentioned before, do a “book report” of an article you read and give credit to the source of your book report. Don’t forget to hyperlink their article back to where you found it.

I know this seems OBVIOUS, but sometimes it seems you have an audience and get a little familiar with them and you start spouting about something that happened either with another agent or client. STOP. What goes on the world wide web stays on the world wide web – FOREVER. And as a Realtor® you cannot say anything inflammatory or degrading or erroneous about a fellow Realtor®. Also, if you post about a client (even if you don’t blatantly identify them), do you want your clients or potential clients fear they may show up on your blog sometime? That is not what you want your blog to be about. You have much more useful and interesting content to post about.

Have fun with your blog! It’s a great tool to add to your real estate marketing.

When you are organizing your blog post, you have the option to insert “Tags”.

Tags are short labels that group posts together by key phrases or single words. If used consistently readers can find similar articles. However, you do need your blog theme actually displays your posts’ tags at the end of each post. Depending on how you post your tags, tagging blog posts can also boost your blog’s search engine optimization (SEO).

WordPress has a great article about Tags, “MetaTags in WordPress”. Many blog sites have a place to insert your tags. Take the key words out of your article and insert as a tag. This is not a category, but lists more topics of what your content is about.

After you write your blog, pick out some topics and key ideas, inserting them into the tags section of your post. And that’s all there is to it. So not only is your content optimized for SEO, but your tags are as well.

Why should you write (post) on your blog?  One of the goals is providing valuable/useful content which attracts a following who  bookmarks, links to or subscribes to your blog. By creating content your readers like to read and find useful, they get to know you – see you as a friend; as an expert in your real estate business. There may be the one thing you have posted on your blog which sets you apart from the rest of the agents. That one thing may have a website visitor become your client.

The other goal is Organic Search Engine Optimization for your WEBSITE. Optimizing is not only for your blog – your blog should be either WITHIN your website pages or pointing to it. The goal of all this posting and pointing is to provide a visible presence on the world wide web. These links send visitors to your blog and/or website (or squeeze page/s) which introduces your visitors to your real estate business. Ultimately they will become leads and see value of what you offer to them. Ultimately, they use YOU for their resource for their real estate questions ( or best yet? ) use YOU as their agent.

Your website continually needs fresh content. Posting on your blog within your website, allows the Search Engines to see you have fresh content. They really like that – you will be seen and found!

Tomorrow – What to do after your blog is written.