Hello Everyone,

Today I took a trip out to Advanced Access which is dangerously close to where the Corona / Yorba Linda fire is currently blazing away this weekend.  This Southern California fire is currently being called the Triangle Complex Fire.

The media has been calling this fire one of a kind because of the way it is behaving.  The fire is jumping from one area to another and in some cases completely skipping other areas.  In recent updates the wind has changed and the risk is that the hop scotch pattern of this fire will go back and get buildings that were previously skipped in the last 24 hours.

The air is absolutely horrible and I still feel as though I've been sitting around a camp fire with the wind blowing the smoke directly back in my face.  Eyes are itchy, throat scratchy and I have a slight headache.  Needless to say the air is absolutely horrible regardless of the semi blue sky pictures I am going to show you.

Advanced Access Back Parking Lot

Advanced Access Front Parking Lot

Green River Exit Heading to Advanced Access

Gypsum - The Cascades is down this street which is an apartment complex where many apartments were burned.  Was not able to get a moving shot of all the cars and people lined up on the right hand side but my heart and prayers go out to all of them that lost their homes and are waiting to get back in to see what, if anything, they've lost.  This is probably less than a quarter of a mile from Advanced Access.

From Riverside

Down the road from Advanced Access is a Starbucks where many of us frequent.  There is also a park near by where Advanced Access holds its annual employee picnic. To the left of the park is a fire station and the following pictures are of the Fire Trucks

These are pictures from the carwash right behind Starbucks.  It absolutely amazes me that these people are wasting money AND precious water by washing their cars.  Only in California!

Note:

I've been listening to 24 hour coverage of the fires from KFI 640 AM.  Tune in on your car or visit http://www.kfi640.com.

Mutli view Traffic Camera shots along the 91:  http://www.incorona.com/traffic.htm

Up to date official information on the Triangle Complex Fire: http://www.ocfa.org/pages/ocfa.asp?filename=freewayic.asp

Advanced Access has posted news about office closures at http://www.advancedaccess.com/blog/.  They have also reminded customers that their servers are housed in Irvine within a fire and earthquake safe room.  There should be no interuption to Advanced Access websites.

Have any of your own photos?  Send them to me and I'll add them to another post later today.

Finally please re-blog this post so that information and pictures spread across Active Rain.

Today while in the break room at lunch I took a FROZEN Diet Pepsi out of the freezer.  Whoever put it there mustn't be aware of the fact that cans & bottles when frozen have this expansion thing to deal with and often result in exploding soda cans / bottles.

I put the can in the sink to chill out but apparently it couldn't handle the preasure.... Roughly 20 minutes later i'm finishing up my lunch, someone is at the sink using the other side of the sink when all of a sudden we all hear a LOUD bang.  Something, I'm sure, hit my eye but only ever so slightly.  Before my life flashed before my eyes I could have SWORN I seen something fly to the other side of the break room with break neck speeds.

Two minutes later I look on the floor by where I am sitting and sure enough the can top was laying at my feet.  It was what hit me when the can exploded.

Thankfully I can still see out of both eyes, I'm not bleeding and I do remember when my birthday was... I think.

I've kept the top as a souvenir as a reminder that I was very close to an early retirement or at least a couple days off of work while the docs pull out pieces of aluminum can from my body.

I'm writing this list based on my own experiences dealing with Realtors® as both a consumer and someone that works with them on an every day basis.  These are my personal gripes about what I've experienced so far and reasons why I would never work with a Realtor® on a consumer level who falls into any one of these bad habits.

1. Responding to me as a consumer is extremely important.  If I have to e-mail you two weeks after my initial e-mail repeating my questions about a particular property then you are wasting my time and are surely not demonstrating that you are looking after my best interests.
   
   Note:  Two years ago I contacted a local agent asking about some land that is for sale near my father-in-laws home.  I did have to e-mail them again about two weeks later and I have still not received a response back; I even provided my phone number and a detailed e-mail.  To this day that property is still for sale by that same Realtor®.  I'd be furious if I was that home owner and found out that my representing agent wasn't working the way they should for me.
   
   
2. Don't forget about the people who have contacted you about a property in the past.  If that property was in escrow when the interested buyer contacted you; go out of your way to find another home for sell that might meet their needs.  Today we live in communities where there are many homes with the same floor plan that could possibly be on the market and right up that consumers way.  If the first property falls out of escrow and the property is placed back on the market be sure to make that other interested buyer the first to know.
   
   Note:  There is a home in my neighborhood with the exact same floor plan that I am renting right now. I'm interested in the home for investment purposes due to a convenient floor plan.  I contacted the Realtor® in April and they informed me that the property was in escrow.  Last week I decided to contact that agent again because the for sale sign is still in the yard and the house is empty.  She informed me that the home had fallen out of escrow but is currently back in escrow.  She could have had a serious buyer in June instead of October if she had just remembered that I was interested in that particular property.  She could have done a little research in April or done a drive around our neighborhood to discover the other two properties on the market with the same floor plan too.  At the very least she could have ended up with a referral paycheck if my wife and I had bought either of those properties.
   
   
3. Generic non personal auto responders saying, "Thanks for contacting me; feel free to call if you have any questions." are just plain retarded.  Didn't that consumer just contact you through your e-mail or contact form?

How much time someone spends on your website can impact the likelihood of rather or not they will contact you in regards to a home.  Have you ever wondered just how much time someone spends on line at any given time looking for a product or service?  Regardless if someone is looking at buying a car, web hosting or real estate there is probably one safe assumption...

Most Consumers Spend Roughly One Hour at a Time Product Researching & Purchasing

• Many people will check their e-mail in the morning and take care of other on line tasks right before they head off to work.
• During work if a potential client works in front of a computer all day they may be inclined to do their research on their lunch break which might be 30 minutes or up to an hour.  They may also be inclined to do this research when their boss is at lunch and there is no one to look over their shoulders.
• After work before the husband or wife gets home.  This could also be the time before dinner and other regular responsibilities kick in.
• After dinner while children are doing homework or the husband or wife is watching a show or doing some on line work themselves.

Today I was forwarded an e-mail from one of my co-workers that his client sent.  The e-mail was a marketing tip on domain names and stop words.  After the first two paragraphs I was a little heated and felt that the post was a little... a lot misleading.  So I am going to review the two paragraphs that heated me up and explain why.  I've renamed some of the URL's in the quoted paragraphs and will be keeping the name of the author private but if you've seen this already then you'll want to pay some attention to my reasoning and then decide for yourself what to do if anything.

"Okay, raise your hand if you have your name or company name as your domain name . . . Ouch. Why is having your name in your domain name (such as JaneDoe.com) not good? Because your domain name is one of the first things that the major search engines look at (even before your Title) to see how relevant you are to the prospect's search. In other words, if a prospect types in "Sacramento luxury homes" into the search engine, and my website domain name is SacramentoLuxuryHomes.com, it is a directly relevant website and is given high value in the search engine rankings."

The name of the URL is something Google considers when reviewing a website and of course being lucky enough to own the URL directly associated with your primary keyword is always a good thing.  However that doesn't mean someone with an existing URL should jump ship from their current URL to a new URL just because the keyword as a URL is readily available.  Here are just a few clients I work with and next to the URL the number of keywords ranking in the first two pages of Google:

• CallMike.org - 356 keywords
• EstelleBrown.com - 129 keywords

Lets not forget websites like Trulia that rank for well over half a million keywords related to areas and real estate.  None of these sites have any problem ranking well for many of their primary terms and none of them use any kind of keyword in the URL.

Ok on to the next paragraph...

"Before you say that all the good keyword phrase domain names are gone, you've obviously not included "stop words" such as "my", "the", "best", "site", etc. Of course you know that "SacramentoLuxuryHomes.com" is taken, but did you know that "TheSacramentoLuxuryHomes.com" is available for $9.99/yr. (yes, it really is available, as most locations like this are). Also, "SacramentoLuxuryHomesSite.com" is also available for the same fee. The magic of using these "stop words" are that the major search engines don't index them, and so they are invisible to the search engines. Thus "TheSacramentoLuxuryHomes.com" has the same impact as "SacramentoLuxuryHomes.com". Want to test it? Just type this search into Google and take a look at the results line that shows how many competing websites there are. You'll note that the word "the" is black and not underlined. Thus it is not a hyperlink. All the other words are."

Ok a little confusing at first so let's break this down...

What this individual is saying is that if you were to go to Google and search for: "The Best Realtor in Sacramento" that at the top right hand side you'll see the following:

Now what this means is that before Google would display the same results if you typed in "Best Realtor Sacramento" or "The Best Realtor in Sacramento".   I  did say BEFORE though because you'll notice that if you tried both of those searches in Google that the results change to some extent.

If stop words were a deciding factor when purchasing a domain then based on this persons statement that they are not indexed... I'd love to see someone explain these searches I just conducted in Google:

1. http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=inurl%3Athe
2. http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=inurl%3Asite
3. http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=inurl%3Abest

Best Buy (BestBuy.com) doesn't seem to be suffering for using the word "BEST" in their URL do they? Three million pages indexed in Google is pretty impressive to me.

You might want to take a quick look at http://www.seofaststart.com/blog/stop-words-are-dead.

The rest of the article has some decent advice but could be summed up in a couple of sentences and not paragraphs.  Here are the core highlights that have value out of the entire post this person wrote:

1. If your URL is long and complex, pick up an easy to remember URL and redirect it to your complex URL.  Then when printing business cards, flyers, street signs and so on; use the easier to remember URL over the more complex URL.
2. If you already have a website with strong rankings & decent trafic; don't rush out to change your domain name just because a URL with a keyword in it becomes avaliable.
3. Buy URL's for the maximum of 10 years when you purchase them.  One of the many factors Google considers is how long your domain is going to be around.

For those that don't exactly understand external and internal links and how they affect your website or how Google looks at them then this article provides a nice visual example and a really simple to understand introduction to the two link types.

Recently I wrote a few posts that have resulted in several people ask me, “What exactly is it and how does it apply to me?” This post is an attempt at explaining the use of something called Twitter as a marketing tool. This post is also going to explain what an RSS feed is and why you should be promoting YOUR RSS Feed.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro blogging platform.  It allows you to let anyone following you know exactly what it is you are doing in under 140 characters.  It is quick and easy to set up and you can even take Twitter with you on your cell phone.

In order for Twitter to be successful for a Realtor you must have a large group of other Twitter users following you.  Not just anyone mind you but instead other local Twitter users.  If for example you are in Tucson Arizona then you might benefit by following the Twitter user with the username of tucsonactors.  They in return have 33 followers of their own that might be other Tucson locals that you can follow.

Once you have a decent amount of people following you then this is where the real value comes into play.  Let's say that you've worked hard at getting 150 local Twitter users following you.  You've just posted a blog post on your AR blog about a controversial development being planned where you've stated the facts and then your own opinions.  You can then Tweet the following, "Sunnyside Community Development; Good for Business or Bad?  You Decide!  Http://www..."

Or you can simply announce, "Open house today from 12 - 5.  Come and see the house and meet a fellow Twitter user.  123 Applewood St."

You can also use Twitter to follow other Realtors both in your area and nationally.  You'd do this to further expand your own education.  Let's face it, one Realtor may be doing something you've never thought about but now that you've seen that Realtor Tweet a blog post about it you can learn something new.  Further, establishing connections with Realtors around the nation may increase the chances of one of them contacting you when they have a referral to pass along.

RSS Feeds

An RSS Feed is kind of the equivilent of signing up to receive an e-mail alert whenever someone writes a new blog post.  However it isn't quiet as bothersome because the person subscribing to the RSS feed chooses when s/he wants to browse their feeds.  One of my feed lists looks like:

I subscribe to five different RSS Feeds with this particular Google Reader.  These feeds are from blogs I visit the most often to keep sharp on Internet Marketing strategies, content writing advice and so on.  These websites provide such great informtion for my every day work that I chose to follow via RSS.

Your blog has  its own RSS feed.  If you have an Outside Blog with AR then it is going to be; http://www.yourURL.com/rss.  If you use other blogging platforms then you may need to do a little investigating to find it. 

My blog rss feed is http://www.weeklyseo.com/rss.  Take a look at it and you'll see a bunch of code that might make you think you messed up somewhere.  However that is far from the truth because when that URL is added to a feed reader like Google Reader it shows up like what you see in the image above.

The idea is to promote your blog.  You want as many people as possible subcribing to your blog so that they can keep track of your posts out of a million other bloggers.  Adding a link to the bottom of each blog post that reads, "Subscribe to my Blog via RSS" is one such way of encouraging people to subrcrive.  Adding the link to e-mails that you send out is another way to encourage people.

Now not everyone is going to know what the heck an RSS feed is or what to do with it... your reading this e-mail after all right?  This is to be expected but there is a growing number of people who understand what to do with them and a growing number of websites that use them.

If you have a Google account and want to add your blogs RSS feed to a reader then log into your Google account and go to your igoogle page (http://www.igoogle.com).  To the right hand side you'll see a link, "Add Stuff>>".  Click that and do a search for Google Reader.  When the results come back the Google Reader gadget should be the first on the list.  Add it and return to igoogle.com.

Now click on 'Google Reader' which is the header for the gadget and you'll be taken to a page where you will see a link, "Add Subscription".  Looks like this:

Click on 'Add Subscription' and enter in the RSS feed url of your blog.  Or for practice purposes you can add mine which is http://www.weeklyseo.com/rss (hint hint).

Going back to igoogle.com will now display my most recent blog posts.  Do any of them look catchy to you?  Click on one and see what happens; might end up looking something like:

This is real basic stuff.  The idea behind this part of the post is to give you some insight on why you should try to promote subscriptions to your RSS Feed.  There are so many more uses of RSS feeds that are far more complex that I wouldn't be able to generalize for everyone.

Start by trying to subscribe to other people's RSS feeds.  If you have a favorite blog or two that you follow every day then add their feed to your newly created Google Reader.  Add your own feed to the reader even if you don't need an update for when you write a new post.

Once you feel comfortable subscribing to feeds then I think you can move forward with promoting your own feeds and building a userbase that follows your postings.

Finally please remember that in all of your posts you should be including...

"Subscribe to my Blog via RSS"

Most Recent Featured Post:  13 Steps to Effectively Promoting Your Blog

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Http://www.weeklyseo.com
Http://www.bloggingmothers.com

I noticed today and over the last week that my Active Rain posts are capping out at about 100 views before the views start to trickle in.  Further, I'm ranging anywhere from 40 - 50 click through's to each post I write and roughly 4 - 5 comments on average per post.

So how does one break through the glass ceiling and succeed at getting 500 views and 100 - 200 clicks to each post?  Many people will want to say, "Quality & Catchy" content but I must say that some of my posts have taken a great deal of time and in some cases creativity so I am thinking that for the most part I have covered quality and occasionally catchy.

The answer comes in many different ways and several combinations of these methods.  Here are just a few ideas to jump start your views, clicks and comments.  I cannot possibly cover all potential ways to promote your AR blog but I'm sure that others will be able to provide other creative ways.

1. Add a very visible link to your blog on your websites main navigation.  Many major companies that have blogs make sure to announce the fact that they have a blog and so should we.
   
2. With every e-mail you send out, be sure to add your blog URL to the signature line.  This is what you should already be doing to promote your website so why not your blog?
   
3. Take the time to submit your blogs RSS feed to feed based directories.  About a week ago I wrote about 45 sites that you can submit your RSS feed tofor free.  After I wrote that article and submitted some of my own RSS feeds to these directories I did see my numbers jump a little and stay fairly stable at the new range.
   
4. Promote other posts you've written within new posts.  If something you wrote in the past is relevant to what you are writing about now then be sure to provide a link to it.  One perfect example is the link I included in item #3 on this list and in #5 below.
   
5. Get in the habit of ending all of your posts with something like a "Previous Post: The Professionals I know"
   
6. Take the time once a week to write a post titled something like, "End of the Week Round Up" where you briefly recap on the posts you've written during the week and maybe even some other posts you've commented on.
   
7. Take #6 as the basic principle and apply it to a monthly post titled something like, "Monthly Conclusion"
   
8. Get active on Twitter or Plurk and join hundreds if not thousands of other Realtors and even locals in your area.  When you write a new blog post simply announce the post if you think those following your profile would appreciate the information you have to provide.
   
9. Write posts that others might want to Reblog about.  A link back to the original post is provided each time a post is reblogged which means you'll get some foot traffic that way.
   
10. Ask other AR members that subscribe to your blog to ReBlog, Tweet, Plurk or otherwise pass on the post to others if they enjoyed the article.
11. Building consistency in the style of your writing and with the posts you write to keep people returning to see whats new. (Contributed by Ron Moore; a Florence South Carolina Realtor)
12. Reciprocation and participation in others blogs via commenting directly and even referencing can build up an interest base directly to your own blog but make sure your reciprocation is genuine and your contributions helpful.  (Contributed by Ron Moore; a Florence Realtor)
13. Promote your blog via your print media such as business cards. (Contributed by Diane Aurit; a Lake Norman Realtor)
    

What other ways can you think of that will help promote your posts and help you reach your next level with your AR blog?  Share your strategies below with everyone so that we can each test different concepts out.

By the way, if you ReBlog I'd appreciate a Reblog of this article.  If you are on Twitter I'd appreciate if you would share this with your other Realtor connections that might be on AR but don't catch this article and of course if you have any other strategy to promote blogs I'd appreciate your help in helping me get to my next level.

What a week of posting I have had!  This is by far the biggest week of posting I've ever had and the amount of posts I've written this week alone may be more than I've ever written through out my time on Active Rain.

This is a recap of articles I've written starting from the oldest to the newest this week.

Website Review Friday - 45 sites to submit your rss feeds to

Submitting your blog feed to different feed directories could increase the traffic to your blog.  This post speaks about the potential benefits of feed directories and then provides a link to a blog outside of Active Rain that has a list of 45 rss feed websites that you can submit to for free.

Taking Advantage of Link Bait

This post talks about link bait for a website that I've been working on.  To be more specific it is talking about how I turned a 95% bounce rate into a 49% bounce rate and average time on site of twenty seconds to three minutes.

Clarify Marketing Strategies with Visual Aid

This was a plug post but the person I plugged is an SEO in Wisconsin who has a very useful image right on his home page and now added to this post.  Worth taking a look at if you are working on improving your link building strategies.

Active Rain on Twitter.com

Twitter is a micro blogging platform that i've discovered many other AR members utilize.  This post outlines benefits of utilizing Twitter and invites you to follow my AR Twitter profile.

Active Rain on Plurk.com

Plurk is another micro blogging platform that handles grouping of mini converstions rather well.  So far I've not seen a huge turn out of AR members but if you'd like to know more about Plurk then this is a good place to start.

What I Say to New Clients

This post outlines the three core concepts I practice with my Internet Marketing and why.  They are: SEO, Site Appeal and Call to Action.  Read the post to find out why these are my primary focus when marketing a website.

Communication Patterns with Your Clients

There are many stages of communication with your potential clients even before you pick up the phone or send a personal e-mail.  This post outlines a single combination of events that could possibly occur with new clients and I'd encourage you to see just how much of this path your visitors are taken down.

Sunday Morning at Starbucks…

Random thoughts at Starbucks about the number of homes for sale within my neighborhood and new developments.

Passing Referrals and Increasing Your Blogs Subscription Base

A post about writing blog posts announcing that you have a potential referral to pass along instead of utilizing AR's referral system.  Quick and easy way to build your blogs subscription base and AR points if you get a lot of out of area referrals to pass along.

Localism Land Rush for Nevada - Clark County

This is a list of areas still available in Clark County Nevada.  I randomly selected a county for this post and thought it would be a good idea to continue on but let's face it; the United States is awfully big!

As a Realtor, why should you utilize Twitter?

From a professional point of view why should a Realtor use Twitter?  This post was written to simply pass along a great article that makes a case for the benefits of using Twitter for business purposes.

The Reason for Fewer Home Buyers

A humor post that actually sparked several interesting comments about Starbucks and other splurge expenses.  Also included from a commenting contributor is a little history about Starbucks that you might not have known.

One Blogger all Realtors Should Follow

This is a plug that goes out to Wendy Piersall and SparkPlugging.  A world of resources and business advice at your fingertips through the team of bloggers.

A Little Order in Life with Firefox

Have too many browser windows open?  Constantly mixing personal and work related internet usage?  This post shows you how to create Firefox profiles so that you can have a little order in your life. (Don't mind the video; it is one of my first and very poor quality.)

The Professionals I know

We all know people that have one skill or another.  This post is about a couple of people I know that really stand out in regards to what they do.  If you are looking for a content writer, wordpress developer, layout designer or a Virtual Assistant then you might want to start by reading my brief recommendations of each of the people in this post.

Promote the Post

This post is still a post in progress.  It is published but my goal is to continually update it to provide more and more strategies that will help you promote your individual posts.  In fact this "This Week in Review" post is a concept addressed in this post.  I welcome you to comment and add your own input or simply take advantage of what is already listed.

Website Review Friday - SEODigger.com

Every Friday I review a website.  This morning I am taking a look at SEODigger.com and the advantages of utilizing this tool for keyword research or to see just what Google thinks your website is relevant to.

--------------------------------

This concludes this weeks "This Week in Review".  I'll write one of these every Friday for those of you that have missed any of the above posts.  I invite you to subscribe to my blog and keep track of the posts I write from week to week if you like what I have to say.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Http://www.WeeklySEO.com
Http://www.bloggingmothers.com/candy/

Website: http://www.seodigger.com
Area:  N/A
Highlights: Keyword Research, Website Relevancy, Search Engine Optimization

This website provides a unique service in that it answers, better than any other service I've seen before, the question of, "What does my website rank for?"

Essentially what this tool does is pick up the first 20 results of Google or MSN SERPS for about 60,000,000 keywords.  Then when someone wants to see what they rank for they simply enter in their domain name and the service scans for any instance of your URL and returns which keywords your website came up for.

The service is not all inclusive and is not picky either.  There is a very real chance that it will not pick up every possible keyword your website might be ranking for.  60 million keywords is only a small percentage of the over all pie when it comes to keyword combinations.  It will also return results for keywords that make absolutely no sense to your specific website but because of what content is found on your website, in your metas and in links from other websites, don't be surprised if you end up showing up for something completely useless.

This is what you don't want to see:

What you do want to see is something like the following:

Obviously the more keywords your own website ranks for the better off you will be at attracting traffic from all sorts of different words.  However you want to look over the keywords that SEODigger is reporting back to you because you can use that knowledge to determine what Google THINKS your website is about.  For example, if you were in Riverside California where I live and had a real estate related website but spent more time writing about the Riverside economy, local events and traffic jams then don't be surprised if the majority of the keywords returned were terms that people looking for homes are NOT searching for.

Then again you can use this tool on the number one website ranking for your most desireable keyword to see what other keywords that website might be ranking for.  You might uncover a hidden treasure of keywords that you didn't think of before and now can take advantage of.

If you have a well ranked website and you have someone in the office wanting to contract you out to sell their home then you can use SEODigger.com to show that potential client just how many keywords you are ranking for in Google and in MSN.  This data and traffic statistics from your website make for an awfully appealing marketing strategy.

Note: I find a few dozen sites each month to review. However you as the Realtors are the ones who receive all the solicitations from many website owners. Because of this I am inviting anyone curious about a website to send me the website address and any questions you might have. I won't be able to review all links publicly due to only so many Fridays in a year but I will at least review privately and provide information I dig up on the site itself.

Note:  I'm looking for specific feedback on a post that I wrote yesterday.  The post is titled, "Promote the Post" and shares several ideas on how to get more traffic to your individual blog posts.  Initially I included 10 suggestions on promoting posts and have since added a few more.  I'm looking to build this list to 20, 30 and maybe even 50 different strategies and need your help and feedback to accomplish this.  Will you please read over the post and see if anything could be added to that post?  Simply include a comment with your addition and i'll add it to the list and give you credit for the contribution.  Thank you in advance for taking the time to give to the AR community.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Http://www.WeeklySEO.com
Http://www.bloggingmothers.com/candy/