Please analyze my website and Help!

[russellmalibu]

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. I have a real estate business in Malibu CA and have been doing my own web marketing and SEO for some time now (after I learned that my web designer was screwing me over).

I have built quality back links and appear high in google for most keywords. I still, though, do not appear on the first page of google for "Malibu Real estate"(currently I am in 12-15 spot).

my website is malibu luxury realty.com (I don't have enough posts yet to do link. Sorry)
My main competitor is Brian Merrick.com and his website IMO is crap. Boring, high bounce, no traffic, etc.

What confuses me is that, according to online metrics and analysis I have better content, more higher quality backlinks and am constantly trying to update my site and yet I have not been able to break onto the first page.

If anyone can provide me with tips or insights on how to become on the first page, I would truly be grateful beyond words.

Thanks,

Russell

[travlinguy]

This might not seem important to you but I'll bet it's having an effect on the bots. Try hitting the spacebar after a punctuation mark. Right now you have a whole bunch of stuff up there that is confusing to both humans and crawlers. Good luck.

[russellmalibu]

Originally Posted by travlinguy

This might not seem important to you but I'll bet it's having an effect on the bots. Try hitting the spacebar after a punctuation mark. Right now you have a whole bunch of stuff up there that is confusing to both humans and crawlers. Good luck.

Thanks for that. For some reason when it posts it takes the space out. Unless, I add two spaces...

[russellmalibu]

Please help!

[Sojourn]

Russell - You realize many of us might have wandered over to take a look at your site and then got lost dreaming about which home we wanted to buy when we make our millions and then forgot what led us over there to begin with, right?

SEO-wise, there are some things the Merrick site has over you that might explain some of the difference in rankings:

• Domain age on his site is 11 vs. your 3
• Significantly more backlinks than you have - about 5 times as many based on Market Samurai Historical setting. I did not analyze the quality and PR of those backlinks but my guess is you have some room for improvement there still
• The other site is listed in DMOZ and the Yahoo directory, valuable backlinks from what I've read
• Your home page has several H1 tags and the first one is not for the phrase "Malibu Real Estate" nor is it for your site name. It's for the word "Home". What to do about that exactly, I'm not sure but it might be worth exploring. The last SEO studies I've read suggest only one H1 tag per page and it should be around the keyword that best fits that page.
• Your theme displays a ton of site code before you reach your content. I don't know how bots read that and whether or not it gets in the way of your SEO objectives or not but another something to explore.

Oddly, I can't right click on his site. Is that some sort of coding trick to keep us from viewing his page source? Interesting. I couldn't get to it on Firefox or Chrome. Anyone know what that is and how to View Source on a page like that?

He also has a lot of links out to Malibu businesses and locations which may benefit him to some degree.

Have you thought about hiring someone to do an SEO analysis or comparison for you? Probably some serious SEO warriors here who could give you way more than my few tidbits.

[russellmalibu]

Originally Posted by Sojourn

Russell - You realize many of us might have wandered over to take a look at your site and then got lost dreaming about which home we wanted to buy when we make our millions and then forgot what led us over there to begin with, right?


Haha! Well that's fine just as long as you call me if you ever decide to buy one!

SEO-wise, there are some things the Merrick site has over you that might explain some of the difference in rankings:

• Domain age on his site is 11 vs. your 3 - True.
• Significantly more backlinks than you have - about 5 times as many based on Market Samurai Historical setting. - I am not familiar with this. I have used opensite explorer and backlink checker and I have a bunch of toolbars on my firefox that brings up the information as load every webpage.
• I did not analyze the quality and PR of those backlinks but my guess is you have some room for improvement there still
• The other site is listed in DMOZ and the Yahoo directory, valuable backlinks from what I've read - True, I have tried to get on these but for some reason, I do not know why my inclusion has not happened yet.
• Your home page has several H1 tags and the first one is not for the phrase "Malibu Real Estate" nor is it for your site name. It's for the word "Home". What to do about that exactly, I'm not sure but it might be worth exploring. The last SEO studies I've read suggest only one H1 tag per page and it should be around the keyword that best fits that page. - This is an interesting not. I will look into this thank you!
• Your theme displays a ton of site code before you reach your content. I don't know how bots read that and whether or not it gets in the way of your SEO objectives or not but another something to explore. - Also a good point thanks!

Oddly, I can't right click on his site. Is that some sort of coding trick to keep us from viewing his page source? Interesting. I couldn't get to it on Firefox or Chrome. Anyone know what that is and how to View Source on a page like that? - You can click on this other pages, for example his about brian page, etc.

He also has a lot of links out to Malibu businesses and locations which may benefit him to some degree. - I have started doing this but takes time.

Have you thought about hiring someone to do an SEO analysis or comparison for you? Probably some serious SEO warriors here who could give you way more than my few tidbits. - Do you have any suggestions of people I could speak to?

Thanks again for your help!

[Sojourn]

Originally Posted by russellmalibu

Haha! Well that's fine just as long as you call me if you ever decide to buy one!

Consider it done! (Just give me a few years...)

Originally Posted by russellmalibu

Significantly more backlinks than you have - about 5 times as many based on Market Samurai Historical setting. - I am not familiar with this. I have used opensite explorer and backlink checker and I have a bunch of toolbars on my firefox that brings up the information as load every webpage.

Market Samurai is an internet marketing software that assists with a number of tasks. One of the modules allows you to analyze the competition of the first page, like one of those plug-ins you're using (SEOQuake, maybe?). However, the way it presents the information is easier to read, IMO.

All of these tools use different sources or methods for counting backlinks so they can be different. Probably the most important point is that this tool shows that the other site has more. MS uses Majestic SEO as their source for backlink information which I think you can join for free for some basic information on your competitor.

Originally Posted by russellmalibu

The other site is listed in DMOZ and the Yahoo directory, valuable backlinks from what I've read - True, I have tried to get on these but for some reason, I do not know why my inclusion has not happened yet.

Last I heard, DMOZ took FOREVER and I don't know that there's anything you can do to push this along. Yahoo may be the same way but I thought there was a paid listing and - intuitively - it would seem that should be faster but....

Originally Posted by russellmalibu

Oddly, I can't right click on his site. Is that some sort of coding trick to keep us from viewing his page source? Interesting. I couldn't get to it on Firefox or Chrome. Anyone know what that is and how to View Source on a page like that? - You can click on this other pages, for example his about brian page, etc.

Good catch. Didn't see anything outstanding about his on-page SEO. No H1s or H2s on those other pages. Maybe a broader distribution of keywords in his meta keywords but that's not a significant difference. Looks like domain age and backlinks are your major distinguishing factors.

Originally Posted by russellmalibu

He also has a lot of links out to Malibu businesses and locations which may benefit him to some degree. - I have started doing this but takes time.

Even if you outsourced and got the same volume or same quantity as your competitor, Google would take time to digest them and it may not move you where you'd like to be as soon as you'd like to be there.

However - when you can't beat them one way, beat them another. Keep in mind that ranking #1 for "malibu real estate" doesn't mean he's getting the most profitable internet traffic. There are probably hundreds of phrases people look up online where the searcher is closer to being a buyer. Someone looking up "malibu real estate" could be anyone who just watched their first episode of Two and a Half Men and decided to see what a home like Charlie's might cost. Those aren't going to be your best prospects.

And my guess is you're going to make money from prospects so that's the end goal, right?

While you're trudging along that path to #1 for the big phrase, do research to dig up all the long-tail phrases that indicate better prospects. Try to rank for those phrases on your site. Build backlinks for those phrases, too. Get enough of those long-tails together and you can reach more profitable business instead of just waiting for the future ranking. Make sense?

Originally Posted by russellmalibu

Have you thought about hiring someone to do an SEO analysis or comparison for you? Probably some serious SEO warriors here who could give you way more than my few tidbits. - Do you have any suggestions of people I could speak to?

No recommendations as I do my own SEO, but there's an SEO section of this forum and you might post something there asking for specific SEO feedback between your site and your competitor - maybe see if anyone could give you an idea of what strategy they might use to outrank the competitor. Also check the Warriors for Hire section but read reviews carefully and ask for samples. Do your due diligence before hiring as you would with anything else but there are some great folks here with lots of experience and certainly many with local business ranking expertise.

[russellmalibu]

Anyone else?? Thanks

[kposs]

Erica is right. When you're doing local phrases, there are a ton of phrases and combinations you should be shooting for that could result in better conversions. For example, when I search "real estate listings malibu", I'm showing your site at #9 on the first page.

When I do work for local-based clients, I am sometimes building links for over 200 keyword variations including "keyword City", "keyword City ST" and "keyword City State".

[russellmalibu]

Thank you for your comment kposs. I think that for the reason I have been getting a better conversion and traffic. My alexa ranking is quite high in comparison to my competition.

Does anyone know of any automatic syndication blog feed sites that are easy to feed to when I post? Currently, I use posterous, folkd, thoughts.com, etc.

[LifeIsGood]

Hey, Russell:

I want to live in Malibu; I like the Colony.
Got any Warrior Specials?

Best wishes with your site

LifeIsGood ~ It's About To Get Even Better!

[UMS]

Just had a quick look at your site and two obvious things are:

1. Poorly optimized meta description

2. Meta keywords could be seen as keyword stuffing (although Google ignores meta keywords). I would reduce it to about 6 keywords.

Currently your meta description is:

Coldwell Banker Previews International - Malibu Real Estate, Malibu Homes for sale, Malibu Real Estate Listings, Land for sale in Malibu, Malibu Rentals, - Russell Grether is real estate agent based out of Malibu, California.For a start, that's way too long. You should try to keep your description under 160 characters.

As your meta description is displayed (most of the time) in the search results, you need to make compelling so that it entices people to click on it.

You would be better off with something like:

We have the most extensive listings of luxury Malibu Real Estate and Malibu Land for sale available.

OK, the above is not great, but you get the idea.

[packerfan]

I'd clean up your Meta Description. If Malibu Real Estate is your most important keyword, I'd put it first in the description.

Something like Malibu Real Estate agent blah blah blah.

Honestly if you're trying to rank for a bunch of different keywords I'd structure the site much differently. But as it stands I'd focus on getting more links.

Issue press releases, guest post, etc. You have a real business so a lot of what you read in this forum doesn't apply to you.

Also, get social. I couldn't find your twitter or facebook stuff on your page. How about taking some videos of your houses and posting them on you tube, etc.

[russellmalibu]

[QUOTE=LifeIsGood;5286120]Hey, Russell:

I want to live in Malibu; I like the Colony.
Got any Warrior Specials?

Best wishes with your site



Hi LifeisGood thank you for the warm wishes! Yes I will certainly keep my eyes out for a Warrior special. It's actually pretty incredible with all the inventory how much prices have been hit. Lots of deals out there!

[russellmalibu]

Originally Posted by packerfan

I'd clean up your Meta Description. If Malibu Real Estate is your most important keyword, I'd put it first in the description.

Something like Malibu Real Estate agent blah blah blah.

Honestly if you're trying to rank for a bunch of different keywords I'd structure the site much differently. But as it stands I'd focus on getting more links.

Issue press releases, guest post, etc. You have a real business so a lot of what you read in this forum doesn't apply to you.

Also, get social. I couldn't find your twitter or facebook stuff on your page. How about taking some videos of your houses and posting them on you tube, etc.

Thanks for these tips Packerfan. I really appreciate it. I have tried integrating social as much as possible but have found that I get incredible amounts of spam when I enable comments on my WP site.

I will definitely rearrange my postings and work on my links. Do you have any good Press release or other sites that you know of?

Warmly,

R

[russellmalibu]

Originally Posted by UMS

Just had a quick look at your site and two obvious things are:

1. Poorly optimized meta description

2. Meta keywords could be seen as keyword stuffing (although Google ignores meta keywords). I would reduce it to about 6 keywords.

Currently your meta description is:

Coldwell Banker Previews International - Malibu Real Estate, Malibu Homes for sale, Malibu Real Estate Listings, Land for sale in Malibu, Malibu Rentals, - Russell Grether is real estate agent based out of Malibu, California.For a start, that's way too long. You should try to keep your description under 160 characters.

As your meta description is displayed (most of the time) in the search results, you need to make compelling so that it entices people to click on it.

You would be better off with something like:

We have the most extensive listings of luxury Malibu Real Estate and Malibu Land for sale available.

OK, the above is not great, but you get the idea.

Thank you so much for these tips! I really appreciate and will implement this right away. One thing that has always bothered me that I can't seem to figure out on my WP site is when the site shows up in google it is just "malibu real estate" which is fine but isn't a very alluring title. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[packerfan]

Originally Posted by russellmalibu

Thanks for these tips Packerfan. I really appreciate it. I have tried integrating social as much as possible but have found that I get incredible amounts of spam when I enable comments on my WP site.

I will definitely rearrange my postings and work on my links. Do you have any good Press release or other sites that you know of?

Warmly,

R

Use a real service. I personally use webwire .com. I use the $20 package. Considering you have a real business make sure you have a legitimate press release. I don't know much about real estate, but maybe something like...

Malibu Real Estate Agent Hosts Cancer Research Fund Raiser

That of course assumes you're going to hold such a fund raiser. See what I mean?