While I promote this particular blog to Home Stagers, most of what I write here is equally applicable to Realtors and other local based businesses.

Thus the other day, I was happy to begin working with OC Signature Properties of Villa Park California – one of Orange County’s premier real estate firms.

Seems that despite their long history in the community, they were not showing up in the Google listings for the towns they serve. What was worse from their perspective is that others were, some of whom had little established history in their market.

Now, I have set out to do a number of things for them, that will in time make a difference in their visibility in the local market. One of which is to grab them some Google juice using Squidoo.

In this case, I have set up six Squidoo lens focused on some of the target communities we want to rank for. I used Squidoo standard introductory module, and then what they call a “text – plexio” module. That was followed by a plain text module and then a final module in which I list some of my favorite links. In this case my favorite links are new pages I added to OC Properties Existing web page focused on each of their target communities.

This will provide them with backlinks from Squidoo which has a high authority standing with Google and will help build their standing as individual pages.

The text plexio page is what I want to share here though. It’s an idea you could use in your home town and the surrounding communities you serve.

With a Plexio, viewers to your Squidoo page can add new categories and rank the various possible answers to what ever question you ask them. In this case we are asking residents of the community to rank what they like most about living in their respective communities.

People like lists, and they like being given a chance to share their opinion and rank things. In our case they are also likely to suggest other good reasons to like their home town.  We will eventually put the results on our main site as the top reasons people like to live in each city.

It’s a good free way to gain exposure and do a little market research as well. While no one backlink will make a huge difference by itself, it will also boost our SEO campaign.

The six pages we created are:

Villa Park California Homes Squidoo Page
North Tustin California Homes Squidoo Page
Orange California Homes Squidoo Page
Santa Ana California Homes Squidoo Page
Anaheim Hills California Homes Squidoo Page
Tustin California Homes Squidoo Page

If you live in any of the cities, please feel free to visit your site and participate. If you don’t live in the area, please visit one or another of the sites, and check it out. If you think, this is a good idea, do me the favor of giving me a Thumbs up or “Like” on the top of the lens.

If you really like it, be sure to “Favorite it “: as well.

Technorati Tags: Villa Park California Homes, North Tustin California Hoemes, Orange California Homes, Santa Ana California Homes, Anaheim Hills California Homes, Tustin California Homes, Squidoo, Backlinks, Google Juice, Orange County, Realtors, home stagers, OC Signature Properties, plexio, seo

Technorati Tags: Anaheim Hills California Homes, backlinks, Google Juice, home stagers, North Tustin California Hoemes, OC Signature Properties, Orange California Homes, Orange County, plexio, Realtors, Santa Ana California Homes, SEO, squidoo, Tustin California Homes, Villa Park California Homes

My long time readers know that I like to use Squidoo as a tool in my internet marketing.  I have often suggested it to others as well.

Why?  For two reasons mainly, in addition to it’s being a free service.

First Squidoo is relatively simple to do.  Once you know your way around you can get a “Lens” or Squidoo page up in about 10 minutes, even if you have no technical expertise.

And it only takes a little while to learn the basics to know your way around.

This makes it easy for people who do not have any type of web presence to create one for themselves.  What separates Squidoo from many of the other social networking sites out there like Facebook, Myspace and others is that they welcome commercial content.

So it’s perfectly okay to create a lens on Homestaging in MyTown, USA and talk about your business and solicit customers.   You can get banned from other sites for doing so, if you are not careful.

(Another site similar to Squidoo that is fairly open to commercialization are Hub Pages.)

The second reason I use Squidoo is it’s value as a source of back links.

Backlinks to your web site, blog or individual blog entry are one of the key criteria in how high your site ranks in the search engines.  I counsel my clients to set up Squidoo lens with this in mind.

If you are in business, you want to be on top of the search engine results when someone searches for home stagers in your community. The more backlinks you get, the greater the likelihood that your page will appear in that top position. And you want to be there.

Now Squidoo has what’s called a high page rank. And what that means basically is that search engines like Google consider a link from a site with a high page rank to be more important than a link from your cousin’s occasional blog posting.

There are ways to enhance that value further by joining groups within Squidoo of other homestagers.  It seems the groups, add to the weight of the link, because they represent links from similar types of lens on related topics.

That relevancy is another of Google’s criteria. In this case the theory is that a link from a site about home staging or perhaps real estate is more relevant that a backlink from someone’s blog about dog training.

Now both of these reasons are good reasons to spend some time learning about Squidoo.

Some quick tips.  You are probably better off from a Search Engine Optimization point of view to create several related lens on your topic than just one long one.

Thus you may want to do a short lens called Homestaging, your town and another called Your town, home stagers: and perhaps another on Selling Your House In Your County.

In each of these lens, you will want to insert a link to your main web site that you want to rank high.

I recommend that you include your geography in your lens titles. If people use different terms when thinking about your area, consider creating lens that highlight each of them.  That way when they search for information on home staging, they may well find your lens.

Your lens then should provide a soft sell on how exceptional your services are and encourage people to go to your site.

If you are interested in learning more about Squidoo and how to put it to work for you, you might want to invest in a Squidoo eBook.

There are also people who will create Squidoo lens for you. The longest running such service is offered by Squidoo experts Tiffany Dow and Lewis Smile. They will build your lenses FOR YOU!
Dow & Lewis

A newer resource and cheaper is available here. SEO Ninja & Squidoo Queen

I’m a do it yourself type of guy, but I recognize most homestagers are more interested in doing home staging than they are in creating web properties.

There’s a lot more to Squidoo and even more to getting a good ranking on the search engines. I welcome your questions or comments.

If you are new to Squidoo, you can sign up here for Free.

[tags]Squidoo ebook, Squidoo, SEO, Backlinks, Search Engine Optimization, page rank[tags]

Technorati Tags: backlinks, page rank, search engine optimization, SEO, squidoo, Squidoo ebook

Getting to the Top of the Search Engines XI

Squidoo – Who ever came up with this name?

Getting Backlinks Using Squidoo

We have established that to advance up the search engines your site needs to be set up properly in terms of on page factors, and also needs to get Back Links from other sites to boost your credibility. Ideally these backlinks should be in the form of anchor texts that highlight the specific keyword you want your page to rank for. For most locally based businesses, it also makes sense to have these keywords and anchor texts include your specific geography such as Home Staging Atlanta or Minneapolis Best Meat Market, etc.

One point I should have made already and didn’t is that these back links need to be one way backlinks. I’ve used the term “Link Juice” before. Imagine that a web site by linking to you is passing on to you some of their Link Juice. If they are a high value web site the back link may be a gallon jugs worth, if it’s a lower ranked site you might just get a pint. That’s if the link is one way to your site from theirs. If you return the favor, you have a hole in your bucket, dear Liza. The Link Juice leaks right back to where it came from. Now if you have a higher ranking than the person linking to you, you may actually loose juice in the process.

At one time it was all the rage to build reciprocal linking arrangements, and one of our readers reported just that after my last post. Unfortunately these are no longer wise moves in terms of search engine ranking. That said, they may still make sense if they send traffic and business from one market to another as part of a referral system. If that’s the case, you may well want to keep them even if they cost some “juice.” But don’t build reciprocal relationships hoping they will help out your search engine ranking. They won’t.

Nor can you set up a circle, where A links to B and B links to C and C in turn links to A. Such circles are readily detected by the search bots, even when inadvertent. So pals we may be, but mutual admiration societies are not the way to get ahead on the search engines.

So how do we get these one way links? There are a lot of ways actually. I mentioned a few to you last time and today we will take a closer look at one of my favorites, Squidoo.

Squidoo is one of many so called Web 2.0 sites, which merely means it is part of the recent wave of sites that allow visitors to interact with the site rather than just read it like a static web page.

There are four primary things I like about Squidoo. First it’s Free. Second, it allows you to put blatantly self promoting commercial messages on it. And thirdly, it’s relatively easy to use. A fourth factor is that is has a high page rank of 7, which means that back links from Squidoo to your site send you giant economy size bottles of Link juice, which is very nice indeed.

To get to Squidoo just go to www.squidoo.com. Once there, sign up for an account. It’s free and easy.

Once you have your account, you are going to create your first site, which Squidoo refers to as a lens. Perhaps the most important thing to remember when setting up your first lens is that what you name it is critical.

For my Minneapolis Meat Market, I want to name the Lens “Minneapolis Meat Market” – if that is the phrase that I want to rank for on the search engines. Now every lens on Squidoo needs to have a different name, so your favorite term may already be taken. If that is the case try adding hyphens between words, or an extra relevant word before or after your desired name.

Some times it is easier getting your Squidoo lens ranked high in the search engines than your main web site due to Squidoo’s high page rank and its tens of thousands of pages, many of which are new every day. The search engines are crawling all over Squidoo constantly, and they will find your new lens very soon after you publish it.

Once you have created your title, you need to fill in the introduction module. Here you want to repeat your keyword/title in anchor text with a link to the page on your web site you want to drive traffic to.  So if you are Shar Sitter, one of my Home Staging Clients you may introduce your lens as: “Rooms with Style is a Minneapolis St Paul area Home Staging firm specializing is serving the South Metro Area etc etc…”

If you did a good job creating your web site’s meta tag description, you may want to use that here. It should have your keywords in it, and be a pretty good sales pitch while including the key geography you serve.

By using HTML code to create a link on “Minneapolis St Paul area Home Staging” as I did above, the search engine bots learn that the end link is about Minneapolis and St Paul Home Staging and they have good memories. This is called anchor text and we went over how to set up this  HTML code a few messages ago.

This is one of the advantages of Squidoo.  Since you are creating the link yourself, you can control the way the link is created. You always want to use anchor text links.  The only exception is when you are specifically letting people know what your web site address is and even then, make sure you use anchor text elsewhere in the posting.

If you go to Shar’s site via the link above, you will see it doesn’t go to her home page. It could have, but instead I set it up to link to her page titled “services.”   This is called internal linking because it links to an internal page on her web site. Google in particular likes this, and you get a little extra juice for your overall site because of it.  Since you have control of the link creation on sites like Squidoo, it makes sense to create these internal links whenever you can.

At any rate, the goal is to use anchor text right away in the introductory portion of your Squidoo lens.  That will serve as a powerful back link to your web site. Complete the first module with what other introductory material you feel appropriate.

I’m already at book length for this post. So let me quickly say that the rest of the lens can be simple or complex. It’s up to you. Squidoo uses modules. I tend to use their text modules and fill them with text and pictures. To insert pictures you will need to learn a tiche of HTML code, which is not difficult. You can search on Squidoo for a lens on HTML, there are several good ones.  Alternatively, I publish an inexpensive ebook called HTML in Simple Terms for under $10. The advantage of the ebook is that you can print it out and keep it handy by your computer. I find it easier to look things up in print than online.

I also publish an eBook called Squidoo Basics. It costs $17 and will help get you acclimated to Squidoo quickly.

The thing to keep in mind about Squidoo, is that you can publish as many lens as you want.  For link building purposes they don’t need to be fancy or even complete.  But spend a little time on them and focus on one topic about your business.  Create another lens to discusss another aspect. If you serve more than one town, you can be DryCleanersOmaha and OmahaDryCleaners or SouthOmahaDrycleaners. Etc.  Each additional link of this sort will help increase your ranking for Omaha Dry Cleaners.

If you are a home stager, you might want to create a lens just for Realtors, and use the Lens as the place you make your special pitch to them. Just be sure to link back to the Realtor page on your main web site.

Once you get the hang of putting up pictures, and I promise you that learning the little bit of HTML code to do that is not difficult, you may want to create a before and after lens for each of your projects.

Just be sure to include back links in each new lens to your web site’s various pages and in no time you will discover than not only is your web site on the top of the search engines, so too will be a number of your Squidoo lens.

When your prospects find you not just on the top, but also number 2, 4, 6,7 & 8 on the listings, they get pre-sold pretty fast that you are the dominant player in your community.

Yes, it will take a little work. You may need to learn a couple new tricks, but with a bit of persistence you can do it.

Next week, we will look at a similar site called Hub pages and maybe a couple of others. If you have questions about today’s post be sure to leave a comment. As I did today, I will incorporate any questions into the next posting.

Technorati Tags: anchor text, backlinks, squidoo

One of my clients for the WART Analysis mentioned that she has benefited from my past advice as well. She sent me this testimonial about how she took my advice and is top ranked not once but three times by virtue of her Squidoo lens.  It’s one thing to appear on the first page of the search engine, but when you are there three times, it really improves your credibility with prospects, don’t you think?

Here’s her comment,

—

—– Original Message —–

From: Earl Netwal

To: Kelly Heaps

Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 8:55 AM

Subject: Kelly, Homestagers should use Squidoo.

Getting your web site to be top ranked on Google and the other search engines is a complicated task.  Particularly, if you are one of many homestagers within a given market area.

A little known tool to most home stagers is a web portal called Squidoo. It’s similar in many ways to sites like Facebook, and Myspace in that it allows people to create a web presence easily, but unlike the aforementioned it unabashedly permits commercialization.

That means you can put up sites that advertise your business. The easiest way to do so is to reuse much of the content you have on you web page now, and/or items you have just taken down, or not yet put up on your main web site.

Squidoo calls its pages, lens. There are a group of modules that you can create and edit in minutes once you get the hang of their system.

The most critical point when setting up your first lens is what you call it. Pay attention now. Call your lens, “Home Staging in ______” Fill the blank with your top geographical reference point in your market.

If you do, you will often find that your Squidoo lens will get higher ranking than your own web page, even if you have optimized your meta tags geographically as I do for my Market Maker Clients. That’s because Squidoo itself has a high PR or page rank in the eyes of Google.

Now what you want to do is include links in your Squidoo Lens to your web site’s home page and to additional pages within your web sites. This helps raise your web sites ranking in Google’s eyes as well. It sees Squidoo as an “authority” site and gives more credence to links coming from it.

When I say you want links from your Squidoo lens to additional pages in your web site, I am suggesting that if you have a separate page on your web site for Realtors (and I think you should), then somewhere in your Squidoo lens you have a section about Realtors in your home town, and link not to the front page of your web site, but rather to the page about Realtors on your web site.

Do this with other pages as well. Google likes these links to internal pages. There is a lot more to internet marketing than having a web site. And that is one of the reasons the Market Maker Program includes a monthly seminar on internet marketing.

While Squidoo is easy to use, like everything, there is a learning curve. And once you master the basic mechanics you also need to learn the strategies to make it work for your particular needs. There are a number of eBooks about Squidoo out there. I publish one called Squidoo Basics. It is a general introduction to Squidoo and not specifically directed to home staging, but worth the $17 to get a handle on the Basics.

There are other formats beyond Squidoo, like Hub Pages, but Squidoo is probably the best place to start building a broader internet presence. To get started all you need do is open an account at www.Squidoo.com

In due course, you will not only get your web site on the top of the Google Rankings in your home town, you will also have a Squidoo page there as well. When prospects see you listed not once, but twice, in the top of the local listings, they will begin to understand that you are the person to go to locally for home staging services. And that’s where I intend my Market Maker members to be. On top of their local markets.

Best wishes,

Earl Netwal

http://HomestagingBusinessTips.com/MarketMaker/index.html

Technorati Tags: Internet marketing, Market Maker, squidoo, WART Analysis

Squidoo: A Great Supplemental Marketing Tactic PodcastSquidoo: A Great Supplemental Marketing Tactic

Getting your web site to be top ranked on Google and the other search engines is a complicated task. Particularly, if you are one of many within a given market area.

A little known tool to most home stagers is a web portal called Squidoo. It’s similar in many ways to sites like Facebook, and Myspace in that it allows people to create a web presence easily, but unlike the aforementioned it unabashedly permits commercialization.  That means you can put up sites that advertise your business.

The easiest way to do so is to reuse much of the content you have on you web page now, and/or items you have just taken down, or not yet put up on your main web site.

Squidoo calls its pages, lens.  There are a group of modules that you can create and edit in minutes once you get the hang of their system.

The most critical point when setting up your first lens is what you call it.  Pay attention now.  Call your lens, “Home Staging in ______” Fill the blank with your top geographical reference point in your market.

If you do, you will often find that your Squidoo lens will get higher ranking than your own web page, even if you have optimized your meta tags geographically as I do for my Market Maker Clients.

That’s because Squidoo itself has a high PR or page rank in the eyes of Google.

Now what you want to do is include links in your Squidoo Lens to your web site’s home page and to additional pages within your web sites.  This helps raise your web sites ranking in Google’s eyes as well.

It sees Squidoo as an “authority” site and gives more credence to links coming from it.

When I say you want links from your Squidoo lens to additional pages in your web site, I am suggesting that  if you have a separate page on your web site for Realtors (and I think you should), then somewhere in your Squidoo lens you have a section about Realtors in your home town, and link not to the front page of your web site, but rather to the page about Realtors on your web site.  Do this with other pages as well.

Google likes these links to internal pages.

There is a lot more to internet marketing than having a web site. And that is one of the reasons the Market Maker Program includes a monthly seminar on internet marketing.  While Squidoo is easy to use, like everything, there is a learning curve.

And once you master the basic mechanics you also need to learn the strategies to make it work for your particular needs.  There are a number of eBooks about Squidoo out there.  I publish one called Squidoo Basics. It is a general introduction to Squidoo and not specifically directed to home staging, but worth the $17 to get a handle on the Basics.

There are other formats beyond Squidoo, like Hub Pages, but Squidoo is probably the best place to start building a broader internet presence.  To get started all you need do is open an account at www.Squidoo.com

In due course, you will not only get your web site on the top of the Google Rankings in your home town, you will also have a Squidoo page there as well. When prospects see you listed not once, but twice, in the top of the local listings, they will begin to understand that you are the person to go to locally for home staging services.

And that’s where I intend my Market Maker members to be.  On top of their local markets.

Technorati Tags: Market Maker, squidoo, Top Ranking