“What if you knew something that nobody else knew about the behavior of people who are about to buy your product?” How does this question relate to SEO? more later…

Descartes, are you saying SEO makes the unseen visible?

Let’s talk about an important concept and question in reaching your audience: Do you even exist? The philosophical tenets of solipsism are certainly skeptical about our universe, transforming Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” to “Something exists only if I observe it.”

While that may be a philosophically indefensible or even silly philosophy, there is a truth not to be missed here when it comes to marketing.

We think of the sun as something white hot, burning, searing and unsurvivable, but the sun “calmly” does what it does. If an asteroid falls into the sun, neither the sun nor the asteroid cares and the effect is as if nothing happened. There would be no “history lost” or “population annihilated” For all the explosive energy produced in unimaginable quantities by the sun every microsecond, there is no sense of it anywhere but in the minds of scientists and people like me who might discuss it for a while, but in general, from nearly every perspective in the entire universe, the sun is not a stunning vortex of energy. It’s a pinpoint that cannot even be detected from the next door neighbor galaxy. In the universe in general, stars collide in stark silence and darkness. Without anyone to observe them, there is no difference between light and other levels of radiation, it is all just ebb and flow of energy “particles” as they interact.

How this relates to SEO

Likewise, In the minds of your leads, you don’t exist. You can be projecting as much energy, light, display and heat as the sun with great explosive force for a long time, but to a lead that doesn’t observe you, it is all like nothing. Like a man sitting in a desert at night millennia ago, who thought the sun dies every night, and a new one comes out in the morning, your leads have no concept that you are there to solve their problem. They do not know that you were there yesterday or will be there tomorrow.

Until you appear.

It doesn’t matter so much when or where you appear, but it matters greatly how they feel when they observe you. If you’ve ever rounded a corner and come across a mirror unexpectedly, you know how the sudden emergence of unexpected information can make you feel. You, for a moment, see a stranger in the room and then, almost but not quite instantly, that stranger becomes you. That moment just before your recognition of, “It’s me.” is the kind of moment you want for people when they discover you. An unexpected and powerful moment when a revelation takes place. One that says, “This person can improve my lot.”

What if you knew something that nobody else knew about the behavior of people who are about to buy your product? Suppose that a week before they start a search for your product, they type into a search something that only you know they are going to look for? You would have the opportunity to reach everyone who will be getting your product or service ahead of competitors that spend millions trying to reach those consumers first.

When researching, planning, promoting and everything else for SEO, this is the essence of what you must do.

Reach buyers first.
Create an experience in their very first observation of you that compels them to take action.
You need to create a compelling call-to-action in the mind of your readers. This is important because this is where you present to the public that you can solve their problem.

You must create content that will simultaneously find its way to people who need, who badly want, what you offer (what is that?) and motivate them to choose you to provide it. That is your simple challenge and that is what I always stress to my clients that they must find out.

In my Orange County SEO business, I follow this same concept, striving to figure out what kind of information people start researching who are early-on candidates for a product or service. Often that niche, when discovered can propel a campaign far faster than the traditional back-link contest against competitors who are miles ahead of a new participant in the race to page one.

content, niche, problem, public, research, SEO

The real video SEO school is the one where you’re engaged in SEO for video and finding out first hand by experience, research and good old fashioned trial and error, what works, what sometimes works and what doesn’t work at all.

I’d be foolish to claim that I’m any kind of expert in SEO for video but I can say that I’m enjoying the experience and have reached a few basic assumptions about Video.

1. Video sites, especially YouTube and Vimeo outrank a lot of competition- not all, but more than you would think. This denotes a class system with video as a separate class from organic search. This is especially true for YouTube. Besides, Vimeo officially doesn’t allow commercial content, especially for the likes of real estate, etc.
2. Video has far less competition in most markets. First, people are skittish about appearing on video or appearing amateurish. The entire idea is dismissed outright, much to the benefit of those willing to go the next step. Even when people in business post video, they do it in ways that add little value to their marketability. Embedding video in your blog may make it a little more entertaining but it doesn’t always leverage it in terms of inherent SEO value to search engines. Think about it, it’s just an embedded object so search engines already are aware that the content comes from elsewhere.
3. Video requires far less offsite SEO than traditional web pages. The blend of a little offsite search optimization and the intrinsic value of video gets you up to warp speed right away. You’re competing on a whole different level with video.
4. Carefully planned video and onsite optimization can yield spectacular results. Paying attention to the thumbnail image (think “call to action”) and the text you’re allowed to place in the description and tag fields make all the difference. I even pay attention to the name of the video file and, of course, Title, keywords and tags. All these work the same as any other web content. Make it count when you write up the text content for your video. That’s all the search engines have to go on- they can’t watch your video. That’s its own advantage and disadvantage so you want to leverage that element as well.
5. Your video content should be valuable enough to attract viewers, Even if it’s short. Cheating with a static image is going to turn off viewers and maybe even get you a few 1-star ratings. (I think that would be bad)

My latest experience in SEO for video revealed another factor that requires a little patience. YouTube, the second most searched website on the Internet, gets millions of uploads a day. It really should be no surprise that indexing isn’t perfect. I posted some videos on Sunday and they didn’t index until Tuesday. I learned quickly that Google thought more of a video it found later than the one I’d optimized offsite for earlier. I’d recommend holding off on offsite SEO until everything you post is either indexed or deleted.

The result for video SEO is spectacular when it works. Your target is often the only link on a search page with its own thumbnail image and the promise of something to look at- not just read.

For real estate, don’t just do a virtual tour and expect it to rank high for your business. There are millions of virtual tours on YouTube, some several years old (why don’t the authors delete them? Are they still on the market?) Make a video that has a message that’s relevant to your business and your audience like “I’m the right agent to choose for your search for PGA National homes for sale.”

SEO For Real Estate in Orange County and anywhere by Dave Keys

real estate, video, Video SEO, YouTube, YouTube SEO

Orange County SEO is now in the summer season! If you’re considering your business advertising and marketing for summer and you plan to invest in search engine optimization and marketing, now is the time to get started in your SEO strategy for Orange County and all geographic markets. Typically, a solid placement in a competitive environment such as Orange County SEO markets are, requires anywhere from one to six months (sometimes longer) depending on the level of competition.

I specialize in SEO for real estate and other small business. You can see that I rank #7 on Google for small business SEO expert, and around position #4 for Orange County Photography (a very part-time endeavor) Although I’m far from the top ten or even fifty photographers in Orange County, my capabilities in SEO place me in the top ten for Orange County photography related searches.

Contact me today for your spring and summer SEO needs.

The best cars and best SEO are both built by hand.

Marketing, online advertising, Orange County SEO, real estate, SEO, SEO Expert, small business, Summer

An aggregate of not too much optimization has landed my video for La Cresta homes on page one of the keyword search. This result lends to my developing theory that three factors make video an easy target compared to traditional websites for SEO:

1. Anchor text on back links
   The exact phrase being optimized along with a mix of related keywords can do a lot for propelling your video to page one, especially in niches. The result can be seen within days or even hours.
2. Optimization on the video page, especially on YouTube, including a file for CC (closed captions or captioning) even if it doesn’t render as expected in the video, I suspect it still gets read by Google
3. Relative competition – you’re not going to get a video on page one for “California real estate” without a whole lot of major effort and influence online. If competition is relatively low for the video, you’ll sail past a lot more competitors than with SEO on web pages alone.

La Cresta homes for sale

Orange County real estate photography

Next steps: Take on a more competitive environment in Orange County for real estate photography. This search already yields two other real estate photography videos, both from youtube with prominent positions. The competing videos are about six months old. This could be a long time in terms of assessing age for videos on YouTube.

This is still a learning process, but an exciting one. For now, video seems to be a vulnerable exploit that many competitors won’t be engaging in for a while yet.

Update – One of my real estate clients has rocketed to page one for a coveted high value real estate area in just 24 hours using YouTube video and offsite SEO. Twenty Four Hours. Search Google for “BallenIsles real estate for sale” and you’ll see it there, ahead of competitors that have invested plenty of time and money into SEO activity.

La Cresta Homes, real estate, video

Before you start any kind of SEO campaign, do what the SEO experts do first. Research. Steve Wiideman, the number one SEO expert calls this the Analyze layer in his fourfold SEO model. Analyze what your market is. That’s likely already done on an informal basis- you know what you’re selling or providing as a service and you know where you’re offering it, right? Next is a little bit of art and applied intuition. Your market may or may not be typing your product or service directly into search engines. What if they aren’t? You have to be creative in tying together, your product or service to their need and then present it where they are looking for a solution to that need. A person who needs to sell their home is probably never going to type listing agents into Google. My office is on the border of the city of Fullerton. You may think people in Fullerton who are selling their home may be typing in something like best real estate agents in Fullerton or any variation of agents in Fullerton, but you can check the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and quickly find out they are not. In all of Orange County with a population of 3 million, people aren’t looking on the web for listing agents. They are doing research on the market, however. People are looking at what’s trending all the time. The results in the Keyword Tool show that people are typing in one phrase more than many others for the Fullerton market, “Fullerton homes for sale.” Agents who have done their homework know this, thereby competition for this phrase is high. Agents who have not done their homework erroneously choose the phrase, “homes for sale in Fullerton”, a phrase that has around 5% of the search volume of the previous version of the same words but a different order. The former phrase has a global monthly search volume of 22,200 while the latter has only 1,300.

Keyword research matters. As an agent, you have to stay connected to the buying side if you want to use the web to locate listings. Believe me, people are checking things out on the web long before they take the relatively tenuous step of actually contacting an agent.

If you don’t hire an SEO expert, make sure you do as much as you can to become one on your own behalf before undertaking a keyword campaign that isn’t doing you much good.

By contrast, sometimes you can discover a niche keyword, a long-tail keyword that nets close to 100% paying customers for your business. In real estate it could be something very specific such as a search term I recently saw that brought a person to one of my client’s websites. The term was simple and to the point with no competition but definitely found someone looking for a specific kind of agent to work with. What was that term? It was, “realtors in that spend time with you.” My client has made a point of letting customers know that they’ll get the face time they need and it shows in their web pages and blogs.

The Google Keyword screenshot below illustrates the importance of keyword research as described in this article. Be an SEO Expert on your own behalf and give plenty of thought to your keywords for both long term and short term SEO strategies in Orange County and anywhere you are marketing.

Looking for PGA National real estate? Check out PGA National Homes by Jeff Lichtenstein.

Keyword research, Orange County SEO, Orange County SEO Expert, Orange County Web Design, SEO analysis

Orange County SEO and the Advantage of Geo Marketing for Small Business

Web strategies on a local level, Orange County SEO for small business, is my focus and it’s your advantage wherever you may be geographically located. SEO for large companies and SEO for small business have much in common but also differ in very important ways:

• SEO for small business can capture local market share
  Large companies have to dominate the web globally. This may be possible for a niche product or service but it becomes increasingly difficult to impossible for small business to compete with large SEO campaigns. Conversely, a specific product or geographic target, such as La Cresta Custom homes, can land you on page one and in position one for a Google search: proof- La Cresta Custom Homes – check for my photography back-link at the bottom of the first website. Also, this client owns the first several results- not just the first one. If someone is looking for nearly any search term on La Cresta Custom homes, or even La Cresta homes for sale, they will find this target home on page one of Google. They will be exposed to the message about this home ahead of many thousands of competing web pages.
• SEO for small business can enjoy faster results
  Since competition is smaller, effective analysis and keyword research (see my article: Orange County SEO Expert | Finding the Right Keywords) can mean faster access to high rankings in Google. My example of La Cresta homes was achieved in about six weeks, with page one results appearing within three weeks. Dominance- multiple showings in high positions is possible depending on competing SEO efforts and site traffic.
• SEO for small business can be inexpensive. If you’re a do-it-yourself type, you can learn from studying and applying basic SEO techniques and for the cost of web hosting (Bluehost offers the best cheap web hosting plans from $6.95/month) and the time spent setting up and posting to a WordPress blog, a small business can make a quick impact on search engines and place high in search results with little other work.
• Small businesses know their target and it can be more easily reached.
  This is even true for individuals. Example: My wife and I collected several Thomas Kinkade prints- but after two moves, we have one that doesn’t fit our decor- the one that my wife always liked least. It’s the Clocktower Cottage print. I’m selling it, but the demand is low for Kinkade is low. I created a WordPress post for this painting and titled it, Private Sale: Thomas Kinkade Painting – Clocktower Cottage Streams of Time $779 Kinkade Paintings. This post always shows up on page one when the title is mentioned in a search, and in position one when “for sale” is mentioned in the search too. I get little traffic for this term, perhaps three or four hits a week. What I’m assured of is that, when someone wants to buy this painting-print and looks online, they will see my offering. It’s over-priced a bit so it hasn’t moved. That’s fine because it gives me the advantage of this illustration. There are countless methods of capturing the buyer that only a small business owner that knows their audience can leverage. Local people start typing locally oriented phrases into Google when they’re closer to buying.
• Geographic specificity is your biggest advantage.
  A large business, like Canon, for example has to take a completely different strategy toward brand building. Even a page one result means little more than the sense that they might be a bigger name than Pentax. A small business that serves a locale has tremendous advantage by being on page one. There is a greater sense of relevance and authority for that business. Often, the first link with a good call to action, direct or inferred, in the title or even the description will get the first click. The title, Orange County SEO small business advantage that I used here immediately communicated, “there’s something in it for you” to those who are reading this post.

Always remember that SEO should always be SEM, Search Engine Marketing. You’re not just trying to get on page one. You’re marketing a product, a serviced and a brand. That is why the keyword research and analysis I mentioned earlier is vitally important.

Orange County SEO, Orange County SEO Expert, Search Engine Marketing, SEM, SEO for Real Estate, Small Business SEO

The typical small business can do well with relative simplicity in their web design– if they can be found on the web. The purpose of a website for most small business owners revolves around the idea– and the hope, that potential customers will find their products and services on the web and purchase from them.

This means that web design isn’t nearly as important as web exposure. Not only that, but overreaching web design, especially the very crowded arena of Orange County web design, can actually work against the small business owner’s effort to be discovered on the internet by customers. A great looking website that is not oriented toward acquiring new business is about as useful as a Van Gogh on a street corner.

Web optimization is what is important. It’s a mix of formula and art. The formula is straightforward: Analyze, Optimize, Develop and Promote in the words of foremost SEO expert, Steve Wiideman (just type SEO expert into Google- he’s number one). The art is in determining during the analyze phase, just what your potential customers are typing into search engines as they’re trying to solve a problem. Sometimes this is not necessarily the words that describe your product, but rather, the words that describe their problem.

Example: A person is trying to figure out how to build a garden shed to hold his tools. He knows the materials are potentially expensive and he may not have all the tools he needs for the job. He may then type something like “tools for building sheds” into Google, still knowing he may or may not do it himself. A local business has determined that a high percentage of their customers come from the ranks of those who considered doing it themselves first but then decided they’d rather purchase a ready-made installed shed. This business then optimized their “Ready-Made” brand sheds website toward do-it-yourself types with keyword optimization for phrases that are tied down to specific article titles like “Anaheim Shed Building Supplies and Tools Too Costly? Our Ready-Made® Sheds Cost Far Less!” While that is a narrow range of searches, it will catch the eye of everyone who is looking for information on proper tools and supplies for building a shed, especially if they are looking for suppliers in Anaheim, but who may actually be making a decision about whether to build or buy.

Result: The 5 or 10 percent of web searchers on the topic of sheds that find this article are exactly the segment of consumers who are poised to purchase right now.

My specialty is providing this kind of optimization for your small business website in Orange County and elsewhere so that your website design is a design on maximizing profit.

Dave Keys

Orange County Web Design, small business

Orange County SEO Pricing

Though it is not necessarily the most critical part of a successful SEO campaign, the optimization phase is the one most familiar to clients and business owners.

Dave Keys: basic optimization pricing for Orange County SEO

Keyword results with Google rankings is something everyone is after but the mistake most often made is that business owners often think in terms of how they perceive their business, not what the most likely buyer is thinking when they go to a search engine. That is both the science and art of effective SEO and search engine marketing. What is a person who is ready to buy your product going to type into Google? There are tools that enable an accurate analysis of what people are searching for- that’s the scientific part. Analysis with various tools will show you exactly what people are typing into Google. The art is predicting what your next customer will type into Google. Someone who actually needs your product may not even be aware of your product as they are trying to solve a problem.

Orange County SEO, SEO, SEO Expert, SEO Expert Dave Keys

Unless you’re particularly oriented toward art or a really intense branding campaign like Coca Cola or McDonalds, your web design choice is likely to be higher on your priority list than it should be. Your priority should match your business. Don’t make your web design into an Orange County electronic brochure that may never be seen. Get your message direct to the people you are most likely to serve. I can help you with that endeavor and you’ll be pleasantly surprised how little an effective web presence in your local market actually costs.

The purpose of this website is twofold:

1. To educate non-technical small business owners, especially those in Orange County locations, about the effectiveness of search engine marketing for business results at minimal cost.
2. To support my clients in their SEO efforts by providing relevant back-links from my trusted network.

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Perhaps some of the best deals in Southern California on real estate are in La Cresta, a community of custom large acreage lot homes in Murrieta, CA. La Cresta homes for sale range in the high 900s to around $2 million. La Cresta homes are in 5 acre minimum lots and most are horse properties. The homes are uniquely built rather than tract style that is common to the recent housing boom. La Cresta homes for sale are discounted far from original prices but not as much as smaller tract homes. The properties retain greater intrinsic values regardless of market trends.

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