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I love this idea. I think anyone with a good lead generator on their blog with differing ids on their sites can measure ROI for each site. I know we track the traffic numbers and how much of that traffic converts to leads and I know our Realtors are tracking how many of those leads convert to sales. Blog: www.rsspieces.com
Jay, Oddly enough, I nor RSS Pieces charge for any SEO help. We sell blogs that's it. All the SEO help we offer is free. For example when Cyndee Haydon's WP blog went from a PR4 to a 0 and was bounced from the SERPs for linking and keyword spamming, etc. We were the ones who helped her regain her PR and get her to PR5. All for free. just helping out a Realtor that needed it. So, there is no benefit to me saying to focus on SEO. I do believe that having it in mind is a very good idea when you start your blog. There are too many people that start their blog without considering what they want to eventually be searchable by. You need to know your keywords and their value. You also need to make sure your blog is listed in DMOZ and possibly the Yahoo Directory. Those are pretty basic things related to SEO that do not require a deep knowledge of the subject. I recommend any newbie blogger do those simple things and of course write good content focused on real estate. I look at it this way- you don't decide you want to win the Gold Medal in Swimming without knowing how to hold your breath underwater. It's not the bread and butter, but it sure helps. That's what SEO should be: some simple stuff that supports all your efforts to get your content seen. I agree with you on one thing- people getting bogged down with SEO is ridiculous. I see a lot of Realtors worrying about higher level SEO stuff that really doesn't even apply to them. Just knowing your keywords and keeping them in your head when you write is good enough. And Jay... as for backlinks, you were a champion commenter back when no one had the nofollow tag turned on comments... you built some serious backlinks back then, perhaps not with the intention of it, but you did it none the less. I think recommending people build backlinks naturally through commenting or directory listings, etc is a wise move. It paid off for you and I. As far as you standing by your feelings: I would expect nothing less! You are always a pleasure to spar with.
I totally disagree. You should concern yourself with some SEO if you want to get found by Google. These are 3 very easy things you can do: 1. Know your keywords (use keyworddiscovery.com to do full research - focus on one term that has ovr 1K searhces for example: your farm area + real estate) 2. Use your keywords in post titles and the body of posts 3. Start building some backlinks so Google will begin to trust you. Try high quality directories that do not require reciprocal links.
