Morgan Carey's Blog: All Categories

Everyone seems to love contests. I know I do, so I came up with one where everybody wins, and two lucky bloggers win big.

The contest

It's pretty simple, actually — the person with the best REW Blog post wins!

The contestants

-Anyone in the real estate field (you don't have to be a Realtor) who is interested in free web development and improving their blogging skills.
 

The point

The purpose is to have a really fun contest (with some great prizes) and to encourage participants to learn about creating a great blog to promote themselves and their business. So, everyone who competes is a winner, because during the contest you'll be learning and developing the skills you need for reaching out to your prospects.

The prizes (more details at the…

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Why are template websites bad for SEO?

The funny thing is, they actually aren't - in fact there is absolutely nothing wrong with using a template website as a low cost alternative to a custom design while you are getting started and don't have the budget for a full blown custom. Users often operate under the mistaken assumption that because the source code (The html not the content) is the same, you can run into duplicate content issues. Not try at all, search engines are concerned with the content contained within the html, not the html itself.

A better question would be "Why do most SEO's say that template websites are bad?" - The answer to this question is "Because they are!"

Confused yet?

Here is (From an SEO perspective) why many search engine…

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Blogging brings real traffic

Earlier today, we were having a discussion on the forum about using tags in your blog and it was stated by one of the members that we should care more about the SEO benefits of our blogs vs. the actual benefit to our readers because this Realtor (and I quote) was "not convinced the general public is reading these things".

I already knew better and have been teaching bloggers and webmasters for years to always write and construct your content first and foremost for the benefit of the reader. Only after you have made sure that your writing is as good as it can be, go back and adjust where you can (without sacrificing quality) and tune for SEO. This btw mainly means massaging your titles and headings a bit to make sure they…

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According to Google Technologists PageRank Explained PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages' relative importance.

Basically what this means is that every link that points to your website from another website contributes to your…

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What took me so long? Oh I don't know, maybe it was the 50,000 other things I was working on - anyways who cares blog tags are now a reality at REW Blogs.

Now users can tag their blog posts with relevant labels that allow readers of REW Blogs to find other blog posts on the system that are related quickly and efficiently. The way we have set up these tags will also significantly improve the internal link architecture of REW Blogs which is a good thing for everyone!

So how does it work?

 

You post a new entry like usual - but now when you look underneath the wysiwyg editor you will see a text box titled "Blog Tags: Separate with commas" this is the Blog Tag box - here you will label your blog posts with a few relevant labels so that users can access…

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We have increase the number of characters shown as a summary on the default page of your blog, with longer descriptions (In combination with the new image hack) - this should help generate even more interest from your main blog page in each blog article you write. Read Full Post

Here is a picture of the REW corporate headquarters located in beautiful Nanaimo, British Columbia. This post is to showcase the new photo ability at REW Blogs, it's not really about our building - but it's pretty freakin sweet huh?
 


What this means is now when you post images in your blog, if they are within the first paragraph or so, they will also show up in the summary or main page of your blog as well as in the post itself. This was originally asked for by the Marin Modern team - Great suggestion thanks! Read Full Post

This post is for those of you with multiple blogs

As many of us have found out, there are many great places to blog and increase our online exposure and solicit new business. Often times REW members will not only have an REW Blog here at Real Estate Webmasters, they will also have an Active Rain Blog and a blog on your personal or company website such as Jim Olenbush's Austin Real Estate Blog.

Now "hopefully" users are not posting duplicate content on each of these blogs as having unique content is a bonus from a search engine perspective, but also at each website you post, the readership will be slightly different.

Ok so I have 3 blogs and I want to make the most out of them by getting myself some link juice, but how can I link to my other blogs… Read Full Post