When performing search engine optimization for Real Estate websites, there are a few difficult challenges to face right off the bat: Incredible competitiveness of most key phrases containing the term “Real Estate” The diverse geo locations often requested by real estate clients The number of other real estate companies actively using SEO to boost rankings The number of sites using blackhat techniques to achieve rankings Online Real Estate Competition Online competition for Real Estate companies... more

It recently occurred to me that the education industry has a rather love/hate relationship with search engine optimization and online marketing in general. Online Colleges such as Devry University and the University of Phoenix have picked up the importance of SEO quickly. However, very few brick and mortar schools seem to recognize the importance of the internet to their marketing campaigns. Some of the most common reasons that post secondary schools give for not integrating SEO campaigns are that: None... more

Online reputation is a buzzword that gets bruited about a lot lately. But what exactly is it, and more importantly how can it be managed? A successful online presence is composed of many different elements. Online Presence: When someone types your brand name into Google, what results do they see? What they SHOULD see is your website followed by a few social media profile pages (like your profile on Facebook, Linkedin etc.) and maybe a couple review sites with reviews. What they should NOT see is... more

When visiting Google today you may notice a slight change. The search box and buttons is much bigger than it normally is. Is this Google trying to appeal to senior citizens? more AKPC_IDS += "753,";Popularity: 2% [?]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Google Offers Bigger Search Box and Buttons", url: "http://www.eyeflow.com/blog/google-offers-bigger-search-bar-and-buttons/" }); Read More →

Consumers no longer go to the Yellow Pages in order to find services that we need or businesses they want to find.  If you’re searching for something, you’ll likely Google it, or go online and use some other search engine to find what you want.  That means that businesses absolutely must invest in online marketing, to make sure they reach potential customers before their competitors do. This is not to say that traditional marketing has fallen by the wayside.  Newspaper ads, billboards, radio... more

Online Real Estate Competition If you are a realtor, a landlord or a real estate management company or investment company, you’re well aware of how incredibly hard it is to get your site ranking up there with all of the real estate lead generation websites and directories.  Many webmasters in the real estate industry find themselves resorting to pay per click campaigns and affiliate programs in order to drum up web traffic to their site.  This is a very costly and very inefficient way... more

As an SEO in Pittsburgh, one of the most common things I hear from clients who are disappointed with their website performance is “I thought I was getting SEO with the design.” Sometimes, the claim in somewhat substantiated. There are some Pittsburgh web designers that actually do know how to set up a site in order so that it can be easily optimized. Most of them, however, only offer SEO as a sideline to their packages, and this is simply not enough to get the rankings and traffic most business... more

There is a wealth of information out there about search engine optimization and internet marketing, but most of it is rather general.  Dealing with clients every day has taught me one thing: everyone wants to know how the general information relates to their industry specifically.  After all, there is only so much theory you can learn before you want to put it into practice. To answer the question “what about me” I’m going to start writing a series of blog posts concerning specific industries.... more

A few days ago, my co-worker Chris pointed out a really well written blog post by SEOMoz.  It wasn’t just well written, it was perfectly formatted, and had all the earmarks of a webpage that both search engines and users would love. All of the elements are perfect in this page.  Relevant keywords appear in the title, the meta info (sans keywords tag because they don’t believe in using outdated methods,) the header tags and the body copy.  There are pictures all of which have alt tags which... more

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of sitting in on Stephan Mack and Dave Moser’s presentation about the value of LinkedIn links at a Pittsburgh SEO meeting.  He and his colleagues at EDMC did a study on the value of adding keyword rich anchor text links to your public  LinkedIn account. 7 EDMC employees, randomly chosen, added a link with the anchor text Design School and pointed the links at the Pittsburgh Art Institute.  According to the results of the study, the Art Institute’s rankings for... more