The following articles have been added to BlogEasy for use by BlogEasy members:
Wind Power for Your Home – Is it Feasible?
Green Tips for Homeowners
Why Use a Real Estate Agent?
Real Estate Advice
Why Home Ownership Makes Sense
Real Estate Advice
Advice for First Time Home Buyers
Real Estate Advice
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BlogEasy articles, reports and summaries are added daily.
We are now accepting subscribers for BlogEasy, our new blogging “wireservice” content and publishing system.
You can sign up for a Free Trial here.
BlogEasy gives subscribers regular, unique content to publish in their blog(s). New content is added to BlogEasy on a daily basis, covering topics such as Real Estate Advice, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Green Tips for Homeowners, Renovation Tips and more.
What can you do with BlogEasy?
1. You can use BlogEasy pre-written content (articles, summaries, reports) for blog posts, web pages, tweets, etc.
2. You can publish articles directly from within BlogEasy to as many as 5 different blogs.
3. You can use BlogEasy to create and publish your own blog posts to your registered blogs.
BlogEasy has spin capability which means that each article can be generated in many different versions – so each published article is unique.
BlogEasy also allows you to localize your posts. You can add as many as 3 different location variables and these will be used in the title and body of your post in specially designated places.
For example, a post about “home renovations” becomes “Toronto home renovations” or “Tampa home renovations”. A post about “first time home buyers” becomes “Orange County first time home buyers”, and so on. You just tell the system which location names you want to insert and BlogEasy does the rest.
Within days we will be launching beta testing of a new blogging program we are calling “BlogEasy”.
BlogEasy is meant to do just what the name implies: make it easy to create and post to a blog. Apart from a lack of traffic, the biggest problem with having a blog is creating and posting content. That is what BlogEasy is meant to (at least partially) solve.
We will be providing blog content in various categories – real estate related categories to begin with. These will be short articles – approximately 250-300 words – focusing on specific key words relevant to your area of interest.
The system will “spin” various components in each article so each downloaded version contains unique wording. Articles will also contain “location variables” so they will reinforce the local relevance of the article to your local area.
Subscribers will have access to approximately 20 unique articles a month drawn from our article library. The library will grow each month as new articles are added.
Current AgentMapIt members will be able to sign up for the beta program which will give them free membership for some time period between 3 and 6 months (depending on demand). Interested members can sign up by leaving a comment here.
As you can see from previous posts in this series about local web search and Google Local Business Center (GLBC), “citations” are important to your ability to rank in Google local search.
In fact “citations” along with inbound links are generally considered the second most important ranking factor after the actual content of your GLBC listing. Some local search specialists consider citations and links the most important factor – outweighing even the contents of your actual GLBC listing.
A “citation” is not the same as a link. It is a “web reference’ found on some site other than your own which contains information about your business. According to David Mihm , a citation “always contains your business address and/or phone number.”
The most important places to get citations are major directories such as
– Online Yellow Pages
– SuperPages
– Local.com
and many others, as well as well recognized local directories and websites specific to your local area.
To find out which directories and sites Google considers important for citations, do a local search for the keyword you want to rank in (for example, “Kitchener Real Estate” and then look at the current “more info” tab of your highest ranking competitors to get an idea of what resources are referring to them.
Having a consistent business description (address, phone number, website, email address, description) is important. An effective way to spread your standard business listing information to a large number of online directories is to use the submission service available from Universal Business Listings ($30)
Here are some additional sources on information on the topic of Local Business Search. Most of these are blog posts written by local search SEO specialists. Try not to get bogged down in the technical details.
The bottom line, generally, is to make your Google Local Business Center listing as detailed and as “optimized” as possible. Inbound links and citations (reviews) are next in importance.
David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors – May, 2009
Anatomy of a Local Search Listing – Chris Silver Smith
How to Launch that Small Business Website” – Lisa Barone
10 Likely Elements of Google’s Local Search Algorithm – Matt McGee
Local vs. Traditional SEO: Why Citation Is the New Link – David Mihm
Local Landing Page Best Practices
Google local ranking factors – Andy Corp
Google local Ranking Excel file – Andy Corp
Google wants to become the source for local business information, and one of the services they offer in order to entice local business owners to sign up for various services is Google Local Business Center (Google LBC). You know those Google maps that come up when you search for local services in Google Maps. You’re not going to be on that map unless you register with Google LBC.
In order to take advantage of Google LBC you need to first get listed with them specifically. This is not the same as having your website indexed. You actually have to register your business with Google LBC.
Here’s how you claim your listing at Google Local Business Center:
Once you have claimed your business you will need to go in and edit your listing. This is where you will need to make your profile stand out to the search engines. The most important thing is to be as detailed as possible, and be sure to use the keywords and categories you want to be found for.
1. Write a good description about yourself or your company using the keywords you want to rank for. You have 200 characters to work with.
2. Fill in all the contact information such as address, email and phone numbers.
3. Fill in all the categories. If you are a realtor, fill in Realtor, Real Estate, Realtor, Realty for starters.
4. Add appropriate photos. The more the better (they give you 10).
5. Add a link to a Youtube video if you have one (or as many as 5).
6. Add testimonials (reviews) if you have any.
Optimize your listing for local keywords, and optimize your site as well and Google will be glad to send you more targeted traffic.
