Search ranking & placement.

[Kevin VanderWarf]

I was told by a client the other day that she chose me because when she searched for an inspector in my area, I was all over the first page of Google.
I don't even have a web site,
but I have listed myself on every free or cheap listing site I could find.
Could we all share that kinda of stuff here (Brian?) or would that be like free advertisement to other sites?

A funny side of that is a tell-a-marketer called the other day and said for $160 per month she could send me all the leads I could handle.
She asked me to log onto Google and enter Aiken home inspector, like I've never done that before.
I clicked "go" and said Ok, she said "oh, there you are at the top, now you have randomly rotated into that position". I said, nope, been there for about 3 years now. She didn't have a real good come back and kinda lost her direction.

But back to the question, I would like to know about all the little freebe listings or cheaps leads sites, so I can stay at the top. Maybe there are some I haven't heard of or haven't found.
Unless we just couldn't go into that here, I would understand.

[Rick Bunzel]

Kevin,

What your talking about is link farms or link exchanges. These are pretty dynamic, coming and going like the tides. Recently I noticed a bunch that will only do the free exchange if you post a link on your own site. I have a bunch here Links From Pacific Crest Inspections (http://www.paccrestinspections.com/links.htm) and some on my home page.

If the keywords people are search with are fairly unique then you will pop up. However if the words are more competitive (more sites with the same words) then you will be pushed down in the ranks. I would start building my site now because Google will automatically park your site until it has been around for 6 months. Recently I have been participating in Active Rain. Active Rain is regularly searched by Google and with all the real estate words being used, is ranked very highly. Active Rain is also free and easy to use. I highly recommend it to increase your web presence.

//Rick

[Kevin VanderWarf]

I'm on Active Rain as well, I think another that pretty good is Service Magic. I signed on with them becuase they don't charge after the set up unless you get a lead. I started to drop them until I noticed, that right near the top of Google was my co. name and Service Magic, so I figured that's worth about $12 per lead.
I wish there were more like active rain. That's a pretty neat site.

[Brian Hannigan]

:) I'm setting up the InspectionNews Reciprocal Link Network for all InspectionNews members as we speak (type).

I'm hoping to have it on-line in two weeks. That should (should) give me enough time to set up the categories and do some testing.

They will all be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) pages to add to the 3,000+ InspectionNews pages that are already indexed by search engines.

I believe this will be a great benefit for all that use this site.

More details to follow later.

[Bruce Breedlove]

Cool! Looking forward to it, Brian.

[Brian Hannigan]

Me too.

I'm still up working on it but sleep is sounding real good right now.

[Brian Hannigan]

I worked on it all day and things are looking good.

I'm still thinking two weeks before I get it all sorted out and tested.

I'll keep you posted.

[Bruce Breedlove]

Thanks for all your effort, Brian. Looking forward to it.