"Your city real estate" is much more valuable that "your city realtor" because consumers are looking for real estate and not agents.  They'll eventually make a cyber connection with one but they start out looking for listings.  IMHO.

I've been lucky enought to be the only actual realtor to make it on the 1st page of Google for Ventura County Real Estate. 

If you do not have a Wordpress blog or what people on Active Rain refer to as a stand alone blog, you will not be able to move up the "organic" search ladder.

Hi Dean,

Quick question.  I want to make sure I understand your statement.  Is it your opinion that AR blogs cannot move up the organic search ladder?

Not Yet Licensed,  Active Rain has incredible SEO pull because it is based on a "user content" model. Simply put, your writing contributions drive Active Rain's SEO power thus their ad revenue. To set the record straight Active Rain blogs can and will move up the organic search ladder. It's up to you as to whether you want your top 10 positions on a page 1 search for your surname or business name to have a heavy presence from Active Rain.

A couple of key points:

1. If you are a Realtor with no technology knowledge and you do not have the willingness to learn how to navigate your own stand alone blog then Acitive Rain is the greatest tool and Realtors friend available. They provide the blog platform all you do is write

2. If you want your own "property" branded to your name and business and you are willing to learn then you should establish a stand alone wordpress blog

3. Active Rain has SEO power but it also has nearly 100,000 members with the majority being Realtors. Why bring your potential clients into a blog where they can easily click out and check out other competing Realtors for your area?

4. If you decide to go with a Active Rain blog and nothing else realize that the url that will show up for your Active Rain blog will be branded Active Rain first and then your name

The great thing is you have a choice to control your brand or save time by blogging here without the learning curve of a stand alone blog.

Hey Joe, Isn't that a song? Bad attempt at humor. Great point you make and thank you for bringing this forward. You are an expert in your area and I trust that you are correct in your posit that a search phrase most often used by consumers begins with the name of the "City" followed by real estate: example being "Sacramento real estate"

I would have to agree that more people begin with that phrase and only go to the "City Realtor" phrase if they can't find help in the first search. Well done!

dean

NYL, One last point. When I stated "You will not be able to move up the search engine ladder" in reference to SEO what I was referring to was You as in your surname or business name branding. The Active Rain url is their brand not yours. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

dean