Lots of fun at the Bloodhound Blog lately! Unfortunately, I had to miss Unchained, but was able to catch enough on Youtube to realize that I missed out on a lot – not the least of which was a great networking opportunity. I’ve been enjoying BHB more and more, though, and I know it has to do with increasing the level of my participation.
I think it just took me a bit to get warmed up, and to find a topic that I could really sink my teeth into. As much as I love real estate, I’m a relative pup (5 years) compared with most of the ol’ dogs here, so it took the introduction of a pretty serious SEO debate to reel me in. I’m not here to grind this topic in. In fact, I think we’ve done a fine job getting the word out about a practice that bothers us. However, during the debate, the statement “No one really knows how Google works” was thrown out a few times. Because of this, I wanted to write a quick tutorial on one basic concept that we know Google uses, and that has been proven time & again to be correct.
Page Rank, or “Google Juice,” was developed by Larry Page & Sergey Brin in the mid 1990’s while students at Stanford. The algorithm utilizes the inherent democracy of the web, counts the links to different websites as votes for those particular sites, and so measures the relative importance of each website.
Rand Fishkin, of SEOMOZ, put together one of his fabulous illustrations demonstrating the very basic function of the Page Rank system:
Obviously, the algorithm is much more complex than this, but this gives us a very fundamental understanding of how Page Rank works, and why inbound links are so important. The web, according to Google, is one big popularity contest, with the authoritative sites (like BHB) holding a lot of the juice, and less authoritative sites (like my dinky search blog) carrying less juice.
The easiest (but not always the most accurate) way to measure the importance of a site/page is by looking at its PR on the Google Toolbar. (We’ll leave the difference between true PR & toolbar PR for another day.)
Really authoritative sites have lots of juice to give out, and so help the sites they’re linking to increase their own PR, and their own rankings. How does Google measure the PR that’s passed from these sites? Again, Rand has a great illustration.
Bloodhound Blog carries lots of juice, and Greg links to TONS of sites. This does nothing to hurt his own rankings (unless he accidentally links out to a bad neighborhood) but it does affect the amount of juice he’s giving to the sites he links to. However, BHB isn’t in the business of selling links, so who cares? The links are helpful to the end user, and they’re still helping out the recipient in the way of traffic and PR.
This is the fundamental basis of Google’s ranking algorithm. It is by NO means comprehensive – Google has gotten very good at determining the quality of links through other metrics. For more reading on SEO topics, I suggest checking out SEOMOZ, Sphinn, Matt Cutts blog, or hitting up my boy David for his great beginner’s guide to SEO.
Greg Swann says:
Utterly excellent. Thanks for doing this.
May 22, 2008 — 7:19 am
Teri Lussier says:
Eric-
I’ve been the big fish in a small pond with my blog, so I’ve not worried too much about SEO. All that is beginning to change as more realtors find their way online.
This is good meaty stuff that I can put to use now. Thank you for this solid information.
May 22, 2008 — 7:38 am
Barry Cunningham says:
Eric an SEO question I have been seeking the answer to is this: (if it can be answered as simply as I hope it can)
What is the single biggest factor in pushing a site to the top of google for a particular search term?
I have recently seen low PR sites ranking highly so what’s the deal. What’s the best way to rank first?
May 22, 2008 — 7:59 am
Vlad says:
@Barry Cunningham,
Barry, from my experience one of the most important factors are good quality incoming links.
Nice article Eric. I have been reading SEOmoz for last few years. Rand has written a lot of interesting stuff. I have to admit though that the page strength widget works like a magnet on me. 🙂
May 22, 2008 — 8:21 am
Malok says:
Great article on the basics of how things work, Eric. Its put in terms that most newcomers that are considering doing a bit on their own, can actually understand.
May 22, 2008 — 8:33 am
Eric Bramlett says:
Barry –
IMHO, there are 2 “most important aspects.” On-site SEO, and as Vlad said, links. You can’t rank without both.
With that said, on-site is relatively easy, so the more difficult aspect is quality, relevant, high PR links from on-topic sites. If I want to rank for “Austin Real Estate,” I want links from sites about Austin real estate w/ the anchor text “Austin real estate.” Make sense?
May 22, 2008 — 8:44 am
Vlad says:
Barry,
Something just popped into my head. If you ever used PRWeb in the past consider Eric’s suggestions as far as “links anchor text” go.
PRWeb is not cheap I believe the top level press release comes at $300+. PRWeb offers a great chance for your press release to be picked up and archived by some times major online news outlet.
Again this is something I would not do every month. But maybe twice a year or if budget permits every quarter.
May 22, 2008 — 8:52 am
Eric Bramlett says:
If you’re going to use PRWeb, make sure you have really compelling content to send out. Barry, you write content that is pretty controversial, so it shouldn’t be too hard. 🙂 You want people to repost the press release, or make their way to your site, and then link directly to it. If you send out press releases on PRWeb that are crap, you’re just throwing your money away, and spamming up the web.
Barry, for your site, I would recommend using some of the social bookmarking/voting sites out there like digg, reddit, propeller, stumble, etc… Those audiences will lap up your content.
May 22, 2008 — 8:57 am
Vlad says:
Barry,
Just added your blog to my little silly list called “Top 100 Real Estate Blogs”. I has only PR 2, but hope it will help you a little. You can e-mail me at “vladzablotskyy @ gmail dot com” and I will send you the link to that list. It is updated by Tuesday each and every week.
I have left a link to that list on at least two other occasions here on BloodhoundBlog and don’t want to spam again. 🙂
May 22, 2008 — 10:20 am
Joseph Bridges says:
Eric,
Thanks for bringing Rand’s diagrams great. It is also nice for everyont that BHB shares links and does not sell them. Focusing on quality content being the first priority linking to high quality content creates long term SEO results.
May 22, 2008 — 11:58 am
Barry Cunningham says:
Whoa Guys…this is not for our Radio show..we slam those serps on that.
I am talking strictly about Real Estate. Press releases have worked GREAT for us. We use PR Newswire. More expensive but worth it.
No I am talking specifically about things like West Palm Beach Real Estate, Raligh Real Estate…that’s the searches I was referring to. I am sorry for not being clearer.
May 22, 2008 — 4:08 pm
Barry Cunningham says:
Vlad..I thank you very much..I will email you later about some things we may be able to do together.
May 22, 2008 — 4:09 pm
Vlad says:
Barry,
As far as the other keywords are concerned the same strategy applies as well there. Of course the more competitive keyword is the more links (with juicy anchor text) it will require to raise your position in search engines.
Look forward to your e-mail.
May 22, 2008 — 4:36 pm
Colorado Mortgage Rates says:
Barry,
A lot of sites rank well that have low PageRank. Yes, you need on-site optimization as well as as many links as you can get. However, I have noticed that old sites rank well despite having low PR, few incoming links and so-so on-page optimization. I think the age of a site is huge as far as Google is concerned.
May 22, 2008 — 8:03 pm
Mike Thoman says:
“What is the single biggest factor in pushing a site to the top of google for a particular search term?”
Barry, rather than answer your question, I’ll refer you to the 90% solution.
“I have recently seen low PR sites ranking highly so what’s the deal.”
What’s ‘low PR’? PR3? PR1? PR0? There’s 2 things you can do with PR:
1. Use it to sell links.
2. See #1.
What’s the best way to rank first?
Quick answer: See the 90% solution. Long, non-answer: That’s such a broad question – rank first for what? Rank first for ‘real estate’? – good luck getting that one. Realtor.com has that base covered. That question is sort of like calling the doctor and asking you to give you a prescription before diagnosing you or knowing what your symptoms are. I will tell you this – ranking for those short tail, competitive terms may be out of reach for ‘you’ (depending on what those terms are) but the long tail is much easier to rank for and most likely makes up the majority of ‘your’ (search) traffic. Analyze what people are searching for and how they show up to your site, and write content to match. That’s a much easier/better DIY approach.
May 22, 2008 — 8:41 pm
ideal4investors says:
The more I read, the more I realize I know nothing about blogging. Thanks for this– it’s a great starting point.
May 27, 2008 — 6:14 pm
Sue says:
Yes, thanks for this post Eric, very interesting. As you know, I’m still learning this so please forgive my questions if they sound a little dumb. I’m looking at this from a less experienced perspective. One thing that confuses me, I understand how linking back to my site from other sites about Morristown real estate would help, however wouldn’t they be competitors for the most part? Also, I see alot of Number1 sites ranking well with few backlinks, so I guess domain age can be a strong factor??
May 27, 2008 — 6:47 pm
Ben DeBell says:
Eric,
Great stuff man, you make this really easy for people to understand. Keep it up.
June 16, 2008 — 10:06 pm