Tom Royce of The Real Estate Bloggers has always been a good friend to BloodhoundBlog. We talked earlier today about the New York Times article I cited this morning. Out of that conversation came an email I shared with all the BloodhoundBlog contributors. Not to hold out on you, I’ll post a version of it here.
Headlines make a huge difference in how weblogs entries are indexed. Many times I will write a long headline just because it amuses me, but something like this:
does this — just like that.
The post is insanely short and it doesn’t even mention Redfin in the body copy.
We don’t rank well where we don’t compete, but the single most important Googlegredient in weblogging is a relevant, noun-rich headline.
This holds true for static web pages, too, although they won’t be indexed as often. Expressed as a formula:
relevance ~= (title ~= headline ~= text)
If the title of the page corresponds to the headline, and both correspond to the body text, especially the text near the headline, then the page is going to index well for the keywords in the title. At that point PageRank, etc., are going to matter, but you can completely dominate long tail searches by wisely invoking the formula above in your local market. Like this:
What makes a Scripps Ranch home sell? Price, preparation, presentation — and a buyer
That should slay dragons on “sell a home in Scripps Ranch”. More of the same is better, and the right mix of content can completely kill the category. In other words, write enough about Scripps Ranch and you will score in the first three searches on anything Scripps Ranch-related.
I’m emphasizing headlines here, but my presumption is that the title tag will duplicate the headline. In some — but not all — WordPress templates, it’s done that way by default. If your theme is among the exceptions, I wrote a post in March that tells you how to fix the problem. When you write static web pages, copy the headline into the title tag. Read more
The most irritating blog topic on the current front burners is Realtor commissions being questioned. I’ve seen several commercials that have made me think that as a consumer, I should question ALL commissions!
