4 Key Factors to determine search engine relevance. There was a great post on SEOMoz that I wanted to make sure I could share. It really helps break down the sometimes complex theories of the algorithms of the search engines into 4 simple rules. This post was done by Randfish and I definitely encourage everyone to take some time to review the post. Here is a breakdown of his 4 key factors:

1. Keyword Usage and Content Relevance - He breaks this rule down from the obsolete idea of keyword stuffing to ideas that relate to latent semantic indexing.
2. Raw link Juice - Here you get to understand how high powered sites linking to you has a dramatic effect.
3. Anchor Text Weight - Learn how the keywords that link to you affect how your page is found.
4. Domain Authority - In a nutshell, how long term domains that have been trusted can impact the success of your website.

Take some time to review his post for some wonderful imagery and a great set of detailed explanations on each item.

Labels: anchor text links, keywords, SEO, seomoz

Patience helps you see how your real estate SEO efforts are progressing. Often we make changes like updating content, adding new links to pages and then immediately check Google to see what happened :) Unfortunately it's not an instant world at this point so we have to wait a bit to see what the effects are of what we are doing. If you use some of the tools provided at http://www.seomoz.org/ you will be able to track your progress. Here are some of the results we have encountered on one our websites dedicated to homes in Long Beach.

Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Jul 26, 07 Position on Google: Pg 3, Pos. 2
Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Aug 23, 07 Position on Google: Pg 2, Pos. 3
Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Oct 04, 07 Position on Google: Pg 1, Pos. 8
Term: Long Beach Real Estate Date: Oct 21, 07 Position on Google: Pg 1, Pos. 7

As you can see from being on the 3rd Pg of Google results in July we have now come to be on the first page. In that time we have added extensive new content, have posted on many BLOGs, and continued to improve our internal links on our website. Lots of little changes and some pages have helped us to get to the first page. Our work isn't done (it never seems to be) but if you track your results using some of the great tools out there you can see how you are progressing. Good luck and be patient! :)

Labels: real estate seo, seomoz