Flicking through the threads in my rssreader today, I found a post at Matt Cutts Blog (Google Engineer) regarding BMW. Now as many of you know Google is the Search Engine to aim for when looking for volume of traffic. However the days are gone when it was easy to rank in the top ten and using a few questionable techniques would almost guarantee you a top spot. These techniques are known as Black Hat and there are still many companies and individuals who practice these. Google has been cracking down on “Black Hat” and the following case has the largest media coverage so far:

Matt found the BMW site was violating Google’s Webmaster quality guidelines; specifically the following “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users.” As such they have now been kicked out to the index and will have to do a re inclusion request once they have cleaned the site up and find out who created the doorway pages!

So what was the issue?

As he explains in his Blog, search engine ‘bots’ arriving at the following www.bmw.de/bmw-neuwagen.html would see a page full of keyword-loaded text, which had been optimised to ensure a high search engine ranking. But what the googlebot saw and what was shown to the visitors were two quite different pages, as a piece of JavaScript would immediately redirect visitors to a completely different website. (See Blog for illustrations).

Keyword-optimised ‘fake’ pages created purely to attract search engine robots are known as ‘doorway’ or ‘gateway’ pages and have long been employed by many seedy industries to boost the rankings.

Are you at risk of being dumped by Google?

So you have taken the route of SEOing your site or have employed a company/individual to do it for you. Here are some points to note below: 

Costs can vary immensely, so do your homework of the going rates.
Make sure you don’t have duplicate content on your site, this can dampen your rankings or if it is really bad get you delisted!

Don’t use any of the following techniques:

Cloaking, redirection, doorway pages, keyword stuffing, anchor text stuffing, hidden text, spamming link directories or Blogs to name a few. 

If you have employed someone, check the work; ask to see what he or she has done for their money! 

It is a long road these days and there are many pitfalls along the way, so don’t get sucked into all this GUARANTEED rankings rubbish it simply isn’t true IMHO.

If you stick to the Google guidelines you will rank well in Yahoo and MSN too (in my experience) it just may take a long time, so be patient.Contact me if you feel you are being duped and I will try and point you in the right direction.

2006 has begun and life in the Internet marketing world is already buzzing with the noise of what Google will be up to this year. For those whose businesses are solely Internet based, Google is the largest volume provider for market exposure. As such many people rely on good organic rankings and/or PPC campaigns to promote their products/ services. It can be dangerous to play this game as you can lose your rankings quickly and end up with a lovely looking site that no one can find!

For those in the real estate industry, who are starting on the long road to Internet Marketing success, here are a few points to bear in mind.

What is SEO and can it help my Property business?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of getting good rankings in the search engines (top three engines are Google Yahoo and MSN). You should be aiming for good listings in all three. If you run a property business, Internet marketing should be a good part of your marketing mix. Many potential clients now surf the web to look at property before entering the marketplace. If you create a website that is interesting and has appropriate properties for clients you will find that lead generation is relatively simple. A good place to start would be Real Estate Webmasters, as they have many resources and forums, which discuss property topics in detail.

What are Organic Listings/Rankings?

An “organic” search engine listing is a free listing of a site, usually found by a search engine’s spider and then ranked by relevancy according to the search engine’s algorithm. In the good old days it was relatively easy to get a good ranking and it cost very little. However in today’s marketplace be aware that you need significant investment to start the road to good rankings. You are also up against the darker “Blackhat” side of the business, which are always trying to beat the system and a lot of the time they do! Google closes a loophole, but they will find another one!
Be careful in enlisting the help/services of SEO consultants as many will try and guarantee you top 10 rankings etc…If this is the case my advice would be to stay clear. If you do go down this route expect it to take time, go for niche areas to your real estate market and write informative content. Nothing is guaranteed!!

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Once you get there, the rewards are huge as you effectively have the most visited storefront for your keywords. Pick the right ones and your business will explode.
Expansion into other sidelines businesses should also be straightforward once you are riding high.

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Nothing lasts forever and you have to be constantly up to date. It’s a bit of a guessing game and the quality of information can sometimes be poor.
The higher the popularity of your chosen keyword the more expensive it will become and competition increases.

What is PPC?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is a quick way to test your market and can bring your products/services to market instantly. It is a great way to get exposure to your potential clients and with the release of Google Analytics can be combined to really drive excellent ROI.

It can be costly and if you outsource to a company expect them to take at least 10%!

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You set the budget, find your keywords and analyse the results. Ask yourself are you getting a good return on investment? What other marketing medium allows you to do that?
Instant market visibility

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Time consuming
Need good industry knowledge, if you contract out can be costly.
Doesn’t help towards organic listings!

If you have any questions regarding this topic send me an email.

This is the first post of our property blog. We have been working in the property industry for many years now and have followed internet technology along the way.

After researching different blog software packages we have decided on Word Press as it seems to fit most of our criteria.

In the US many property professionals have embraced the blogging phenomenon, but many agents in other Overseas markets have not been so quick on the uptake. I believe that blogging allows the property industry to push information to its audience quickly and allows individuals to write a REAL perspective on their markets and projects. IN the coming few weeks I will add some interesting links to other real estate bloggers…