RSSClaiming the blog
By Ryan Ward | March 19, 2008
I hereby claim this blog on Technorati!
Category: Testing | No Comments »
Internal Linking and Anchor Text
By Ryan Ward | March 4, 2008
I’ve been doing some testing recently to test the effects of different anchor text on internal linking and whether or not it affects SERPs for targeted keyword phrases. My Atlanta real estate website was created when I knew absolutely nothing about SEO. Admittedly, today I am still quite the amateur, but, I have been learning and testing and some of it has been very helpful.
Each internal link in my main navigation used to say “city real estate” and it made the navigation bar look cluttered, but, I was afraid to change it for fear of losing rankings. So I changed one link to only “city” and waited…and waited. After about a month (plenty of time for everything to be recached, my position did not change in the search engines.
I would never recommend something that I have not tested so before writing this post, I changed a few more of the navigation links and found the same result – no change in position in the search engines.
The one caveat here is that I am only speaking of results in Google.
So, if you were curious, but, afraid to make a change, I can tell you that my experiment and testing showed that it did not affect rankings. Perhaps Google is simply smart enough to see the internal linking and follow the title tags and metas along with offsite optimization to discern the page.
Category: Testing | 2 Comments »
Using PHP Instead of SRG Clean Archives
By Ryan Ward | February 12, 2008
I had been using SRG Clean Archives on my blogs in the past to help keep all of the posts indexed, but, I stumbled across an idea while editing one of my themes one day and discoverd that a small piece of php code could be used instead to do the same thing and have a slightly cleaner look. So here is the code. I have tried several code plugins and have yet to make one work so an image will have to do. Sorry:
Depending on the css of your theme, you may or may not need to place this code inside of the unordered list. Also, I have mine set at 200 posts, but, you can make that whatever you want.
Category: Testing | No Comments »
Format Test
By Ryan Ward | January 7, 2008
h1 H1 Hyperlink
h2 H2 Hyperlink
h3 H3 Hyperlink
paragraph
addresspreformatted
blockquote
blockquote within quote
Category: Testing | No Comments »
Which Page to Link to for Your Main Search Terms
By Ryan Ward | December 9, 2007
One of the main areas that I service on my real estate website is the city of Alpharetta and for the last year, I have pushed all of the links to that page on my site to try to rank that page for that term. I was stuck around the middle of page one and couldn’t seem to get any higher. I had an indented listing for “alpharetta real estate” with my internal “Alpharetta” page above my homepage.
I had a thought that because my homepage would naturally have more PR than an interior page, I would go through and point those “Alpharetta real estate” links to my homepage and use my “Alpharetta” page to rank for a slightly less competitive keyword that actually applies more to the page – “Alpharetta homes for sale”
So what has happened? Well, it’s been about 3 weeks since i made the change. My position has fluctuated on page one since making the change which I anticipated, but, the only change that I have seen noticeably is that now my homepage is above my interior page in the indented listing and still fluctuating.
So what did I learn so far? I’m not really sure yet because the link changes will take more time to adjust, but, the fact that I didn’t drop off of the first page may be a good sign.
The part that concerns me about this is that I may be affected user experience somewhat because they may land on the homepage instead of directly on the desired city page. If i did not have an indented listing, I would not have made the switch.
Category: Testing | 2 Comments »
Creating Featured Listings For Real Estate in WordPress
By Ryan Ward | November 26, 2007
I have struggled to find a good solution that allows real estate bloggers to post our listings on our blogs and until now, I have not been able to find a resonable solution. Thanks to Dave Smith I have been able to create featured real estate listings using nextgen gallery. It’s not hard to do so I will post the steps that I used to create this featured listings page. A little primer on the hows and why’s of it first. The plugin works by allowing you to create galleries of photos. You will use one gallery for each listing. Next you can take each featgured listing gallery that you create and create an album. I named my album “listings”. Finally you will create a page called “Featured Listings” or whatever you want and place the album containing each featured listing gallery onto that page. Here is what mine looks like. This is a test blog so I won’t be posting every listing here, just enough to show how it works. Here are the steps to make it happen and it should look like this:
- Follow the steps to upload and activate the nextgen gallery plugin.
- Create a gallery.
- Go to “Manage Gallery” and edit your gallery.
- Add titles and descriptions to your gallery.
- Create a new page (top right side of page).
- Under “Page Link to:”, select that new page.
- Select a preview image, again, at the top right of the page.
- Save Changes.
- Go to “Album” and create a new album with the name of your choice.
- Add your gallery (by dragging it) to that album and click “Update”.
- Write a new page named “featured listings” or some descriptive title of your choice.
- Go to “manage”, “pages”. You now need to edit each gallery page and make it a subpage of your “featured listings” page.
- Now go to your “featured listings” page and place this code:
You should now have a “featured listings” page that contains a rectangular bordered table with your selected thumbnail for each gallery that links to a new page with your gallery. Now you just need to edit your gallery page to include the details that you would like to display such as MLS number, beds, baths, and a detailed description. Make sure that you include a link back to the featured listings page, your phone number and a method for a buyer to contact you via email. A simple code to use for them to email you is this:
<a href=”mailto:you@youremailaddress?subject=Property Address”/>Email</a>
Once you have done this with one gallery, you can set up a new featured listing in about 5 minutes. Simply upload a new gallery of images, move it into your listings album, update your album and it will show on your page. Since you have already set up your descriptions from your first listings details, copy and paste that into your new listing and change the details.
If you are having trouble, check these settings under “options”
-
Under options, gallery – make sure that: The album will not link to a gallery subpage. The gallery is shown on the same page is unchecked.
If you have any additional problems setting up your listings, please reply in the comments below and I will do my best to help sort out the issue.
Category: Testing | 12 Comments »
AboutUs.org
By Ryan Ward | November 18, 2007
Has anyone used this? I just found myself there, and the information is accurate, but, I didn’t put it there. Here is a view of my profile:
http://www.aboutus.org/RyanWardRealEstate.com
Anyways, if you come across this blog and know who writes these things, I’d love to know. Apparently it’s been there for a few months. Kind of neat.
Category: Testing | 3 Comments »
More Trackback Testing
By Ryan Ward | November 17, 2007
I have an open house this Sunday and I need to see if my trackbacks are working so I am using this as a test. It’s in my Atlanta Open Houses Category…
Category: Testing | No Comments »
Turning a WordPress Blog into a Website
By Ryan Ward | November 12, 2007
So it turns out that WordPress can be used for so much more than a blog. Many people already know this, but, I’m still learning. I have turned what was nothing more than a blog about the city I live, Alpharetta, into a full on Alpharetta real estate website. The best part about this is that they don’t cost any more than the hosting cost and you can create a really high quality website and blog that ranks extremely well. The first thing I did was to create a static front page and name a new page “blog”. Then I created a seperate side navigation system to be used witht the pages and off it went. Now, it’s a fully functioning website with all of the features of a WP blog built right in
Category: Testing | No Comments »
Testing How Trackbacks Work
By Ryan Ward | November 12, 2007
I’ve never used them so in an effort to try to be a better blogger, I’m going to test out a trackback. So I had some clients that I took out this past weekend and we literally drove 500 miles in 2 days to view 15 houses. you can read about the article on my Atlanta blog. I’m also going to trackback to that article and see what happens. The internet real estate world seems to have more to learn the more I learn!
Category: Testing | 1 Comment »