Aniston

I've been in the Real Estate business for over 8 years and never optimized my site...I didn't know...stupid, stupid, stupid! Anyway, now I am, and I hired a company to do it for me. It's been over 1 month, and we are not even listed in the first 10 pages of the search engines. Is this typical? I am paying a monthly fee for 45 terms. My business is tanking hard and ppc has become a killer for us, plus with all the competition, we are paying an arm and a leg for hardly any leads. So if the seo doesn't happen, I would have to file bankruptcy...I am that desperate! I don't know what to do. I thought you all could give me some advice, or a hard kick in the rear.

Thanks for your help.

AdHustler

what are you paying this company to SEO your site.....PM me your sites URL

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MrStitch

Did you sign a contract?

What's the URL?

To answer your immediate question, there is no 'quick fix' when it comes to ranking.... especially in the real estate market. Not in it myself, but I hear it's extremely competitive.

What's the URL of the company that's doing it for you?

RuDeDoGg

PM me it and I'll take a look

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Aniston

Ok...thanks guys...for helping me. I will pm you the site, and the company I hired is linkworth.com. We are supposed to pay $1145 a month for 45 terms (I think that is too much the more I learn. Plus can I really get enough business for those terms? I mean I have over 10K terms in Yahoo PPC and I don't get enough leads, so I am really freaking out. My husband and I own this business, and this is our only source of income. My affiliate marketing is new and not profitable yet.

Really I can't thank you enough for your help!

emp

Sure hit me up with a PM and we will take a look.

Some terms might also be of help.

::emp::

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emp

Also:

End the contract if they can not provide proof they did anything and that it has helped.
Cut down on the PPC keywords, they should be able to provide tracking which ones are converting.

::emp::

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Aniston

Ok...Linkworth sent me an email yesterday:

Everything is going great with your campaign and is up and running. We will be running ranking reports all day tomorrow and will send that to you once it's complete. Over the course of the next few months you will begin to notice the websites increased rankings. We will make the adjustments to the campaign as needed.

Shouldn't I see results by now? They promised me, I would be ranking within in 2-3 weeks and it's been about 6+ weeks. My Alexa ranking has gone down, and through Alexa, I don't see any new backlinks created since I hired them. The big kicker is we have no leads and we are not listed on the search engines. I handle our ppc, so they don't have anything to do with that. Should I go ahead and fire them?

RuDeDoGg

Alexa doesn't matter / mean anything so don't go off that. But, you should ask for a report of new links they have acquired. Have they done anything on page? I looked at your site and the link structure is crap, I can tell that without even knowing your keywords.

About your links. The site has ~412 links, which is total shit. Most seem to come from one domain too You could get more links paying $65 to someone here for 1,000 directory submissions. That many links could be good for local real estate terms, but they don't seem to be of quality or targeted. You need to quit working with them and find someone new.

I'm no SEO guru, but I have outranked pages with millions of links. I'm just assuming things, their links may not be indexed yet. But ask them for a report on what they have done, ask yourself if that's worth what you're paying, then go from there.

PS: if you send me your search terms I'll gauge the competition and maybe give you some more info.

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pocketrockets

SEO takes time and I wouldn't expect much for results in just over a month no matter what terms you are trying to rank for. There are waaaay too many unknown factors here to help out without knowing the exact keyword phrases you are targeting and what the competition looks like.

If you PM your URL and keyword terms I can take a quick look.

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AdHustler

ok....my opinion....I can't vouch for the SEO job here. I'm not sure what terms you are trying to optimize for. You're main page doesnt even have the state or city in the title tag. You have virtually no links to your site.

1) Optimize your title tags
2) Get links
3) Fire your SEO company. If they are ok with the title tags you have they suck balls.
4) Your PPC sucks too, so get on that.

You are missing out on tons of traffic on PPC terms that should be obvious. PPC clicks should not be costing more then a buck or 2 for those types of terms. If your getting slaughtered on the PPC it might also be because your landing pages suck. They are busy and amaturish and your asking for too much info on your form.

Theres the kick in the ass you need.

If you have questions you can PM me, i do local search for a living.

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dogfighter

Aniston--

PM me your URL and (if you're willing) some of the 45 terms. $1145/mo isn't bad for organic seo... most charge $1500+, but it really depends. There's a big difference between a company that goes out and builds you links, and a company that just does some article marketing and social bookmarking or directory submissions.

Edit: I'm just going to look through and let you know if you're getting taken for a ride, I'm not trying to steal your business from them. I do local search specifically in real estate markets though so I know what I'm looking at.

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pocketrockets

Btw, if you do fire them and are looking for a new company I'd suggest going to SEOmoz's list of recommended SEO firms.

SEOmoz Marketplace | Recommended List of SEO Consultants, Experts, Firms & Service Providers

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Aniston

WOW...How did you find the 412 links? I thought I had 4, but yea...that's crap! I just sent you a pm with the terms...thanks!

Deliguy

Edit: too harsh i'll post something useful when i get a chance.

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MrStitch

I took a quick peak at linkworth, and the first thing I noticed was that they don't even have a meta description tag.

Though, it has little effect on ranking in some engines.... it's just plain common sense to use it, imo.

Second, it looks like a company that you buy links from, and they have all these nifty sources. Problem with these services, is the fact that it wouldn't take a whole lot of effort on Google's part, to just swing in there every once-in-a-while and see who's selling links. Which then leads to link devaluation.

A year from now, when the smoke clears, every single penny you spent on this SEO company is going to be a complete waste.

DomainRealty

Aniston: PM me the URL and a few of the terms that you are trying to rank for, and I'll see what advice I can offer you from there.

Jason

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RuDeDoGg

Looked at your keywords, there are a lot :o I would decide to only work on organic SEO for a few. Have the SEO firm choose them, going for the easiest to rank for, and the highest number of searches. Definitely choose a new company though, they will look at it more and give you better advice. All you need to worry about is finding someone experienced. Know them, trust them, and let them do it.

Judging by your past posts you should basically request this from the new company:
Tell them the real estate markets you are after (city names), let them choose what keywords to optimize for, and bid on. Tell them about your business and how it works.
Ask for a monthly report on what they are doing, I would guess that most provide this anyway.

Don't take what I say as fact, that's just how I would do it. These large firms probably have more resources than me, and will end up doing a better job

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RuDeDoGg

wish I could delete my last post, but here:
Top Five Ways to Choose an SEO Consulting Firm

Just do that, hang out and read a bit around here and understand what they are doing with your money. Choose a good firm, analyze everything they do and focus on your end of the business.

Good luck, I need some sleep (ignore my rambling posts)

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pocketrockets

Ok, after checking out your site I have to agree with narsticle and RuDeDoGg on their comments.

Definitely fire them if they told you they optimized your site. You need to at least have the city names in your title page if you want to rank at all. Also, that is a ton of keyword phrases to go after. The 2 word terms are going to be more difficult than the rest of the longer tail due to the competition from a few big names.

I'd suggest a lot more content for the site and re-do the site structure. Three of the four main links at the top aren't even working.

As far as links pointing to your site, you have very few and most of them are coming from one site. The one positive in all this is your domain/site is nicely aged at almost 8 yrs old and should start to rank pretty well once you make the necessary changes.

Like I mentioned in my other post above, I'd start contacting a few of the SEO firms from the SEOmoz recommendation list... ASAP!

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Aniston

All of you have given me great advice! Thank you so much. After reading your responses, I'm F*****...aren't I? This is going to take too long to start all over over again and by the time the seo is completed, I'm afraid my business will be long gone. In the meantime I guess I need to focus on ppc. Even though I have handled it for 8 years, ppc has changed, Google is a nightmare, and msn sucks. Should I hire a company to handle a local ppc campaign for me? Is there a company out there? I need a min. of 100 new customers a day to stay in business. Thanks again!

AdHustler

100 new customers per day to stay in business? That seams like a hell of a high number for LOCAL search targeting apartment seekers in the metro texas area. Lets say you can convert the vistors to a lead at 10% which im sure you cant with those landing pages, you would need 1000 unique LOCAL apartment buyers per day to visit your site. Seems like your expectations may be unrealistic.

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MrStitch

Agreed

Aniston

That's too high? I used to get this conversion amount or more, back in the old days of ppc....now it's a fantasy...I am getting about 15 leads a day.

AdHustler

the landing pages just don't seem well optimized to conversion. If you are currently getting 15 leads a day on this I do think you will have a hard time getting to 100 unless you are going to seriously increase your spend.

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dogfighter

FFS do not hire a local search ppc firm.

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If you can't make money with these offers, SELL YOUR $&%@#*! COMPUTER!

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-Marc Bojanowski

Aniston

Ok...good to know..I've been doing it for 8 years, so I'll keep bleeding the slow death of ppc. One of my competitors uses Search Engine Optimization Dallas Web Design Marketing Promotion Texas
My competitor is on the 1st pages for 650+ keyterms, and they employ 60 agents which is huge in this business. Can anyone look at this site and give me advice about them? Thanks.

AdHustler

i dont see them ranked for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimization texas" so they suck

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shishasem

It concerns me that the search company told you that you would get results in 2-3 weeks. SEO should be considered a long term prospect, it can take a while to make any gains in the rankings. First step is to remove any technical barriers that are preventing your site getting fully indexed, then move on to clarifying your site themes and content / backlinks etc.

Someone mentioned SEOMoz... not sure if it's on the members area or not but there are some in depth articles on SEO, pretty much giving you a SEO101... it's not a bad starting place and will also help you decide if your SEO firm is giving you good advice or bad advice.

Drake

Not to be a distraction, but the real estate market is a mess in most cities. The only houses that are selling in some sunbelt states are distressed sales.

You also need to be considering the changing market. It might be fixed in a few months but it might not be. Maybe that is why conversions are way off.

Is the Dallas market like this? Only foreclosure prices get offers?

Fuzzo

I work for a real estate company.

Firstly what you need to do is get rid of the SEO Firm.

Secondly you need to develop your company branding. Make people search for your company, not what your company does - I find this works wonders for estate agencys. People trust a brand more than they trust a listing on a page.

Another method I have used to relative sucess is feeding your home data onto a 'Sell Your Home' type of website. Not only does this increase backlinks but can be invaluable when the extra residual cash starts coming through for advertising.

Think outside the box and stop hiring firms to build links!

Aniston

Thanks again for the continued advice. I guess I should have been more specific about my business. Our site is for apartment locating and we cover the state of Texas. We dabble in houses but it's rare. Yes...the market all across the board is terrible right now. Yes...there are foreclosures all over the place and even huge management companies that own multiple properties are foreclosing too...I have never seen anything like this before. So, lately it's been really hard to make a living because if the apartment community forecloses or the complex doesn't have good cash flow, we will not get paid. My business, well heck all business, is a numbers game...the more customers we have, the more we will make (or at this point stay in business). So, to maintain our business, seo is very important. Just a side note....Linkworth has not responded back to me from yesterday after numerous calls and emails....I am so upset and feel like a wasted 3 months for nothing! UGH! Can you tell I'm frustrated!?!?! Thanks again for everyone's advice, emails, etc. That's why I came here....I knew I would get truth and I did!

WebGambit

Listen, the guys at Linkworth are super great when it comes to links. But from what I've seen, that's all they know. They're not great at on page optimization. And to be honest, they're not all that good at hiding from Googleslaps either.

I had several sites with Linkworth (as a publisher) and was making decent coin selling text links through them. But I got spanked by Google for paid links. I've since removed all Linkworth paid links from my sites and they're slowly starting to recover. What this means for you is that you need to find out which sites they're putting your links on and make sure those sites still have juice to pass. There's a good chance they don't and your pissing away that monthly payment.

At this point, I'd advise that you look through your contract and find a way out. Then put that money into PPC to keep you afloat until you can get some real SEO work going on your site.