Recently I’ve teamed up with a few of my colleagues to help Washington homeowners with short-selling their homes. Many people don’t know about the short sale option available to them. A short sale is a sale of real estate in which the proceeds from the sale fall short of the balance owed on a loan secured by the property sold. Many times a short sale can help home owners avoid a foreclosure and minimize the impact on their credit score.

If you are a home owner who may be facing foreclosure, or have had a recent reduction in income and need to sell your home; please feel free to contact me or one of our other short sale specialists. You can also visit our newly launched website www.short-sale-home.org for additional information.

Came across this clever video the other day and thought I’d share it.

I’m unofficially launching a Seattle Business Directory to my friends and colleagues in hopes you’ll help me work out any major kinks before an official launch. This site is Search Engine Optimized and will without a doubt give your Washington business some great exposure in due time.  Please feel free to link to this site from your business or personal web pages. Ultimately, the more people linking to this website will result in more exposure for your business.

If you just want to add the bare basics of your business, I’ll go in and fancy it up for you – including adding some imagery. You can add two free business listings per account. Let me know what you think?

www.SeattleWebDirectory.net

Before you begin an SEO project, make sure you know the statistics! As you can see from the 2008 top search engine list, optimizing for anything other than Google first is not really sensible. My recommendation is to always optimize for Google first, because that optimization alone will most likely increase your rankings on other search engines anyway. 

This list features the top 4 leading search engines based on US Internet usage, ranked by volume of searches for the 4 weeks ending December 27, 2008.

Source – Hitwise – December, 2008 – based on volume of searches.

I’ve been using Inmotion Hosting for just over a year now, and I can say they are definitely the best company I’ve used so far.  Thier prices are low, they have great tools available within the admin control panel, and their support is top-notch! My only complaint is they don’t offer reseller accounts.  Here is a quick list of features offered in thier business level accounts:

Web Hosting by InMotion Hosting
Plans Starting at Just $6.95/mo
• Unlimited Disk Space • Unlimited Data Transfer
• 90 Day Money Back Guarantee
• True 24/7 Support
Rated 3 Out of 3 Stars by CNET.com!

I finally did: www.twitter.com/wesleylefebvre. After several months of procrastination I’ve finally joined the wave of Intenet entrepreneurs twittering online.  With so many different social networking sites I just didn’t see the point in joining yet another online community. I have to admit I’m glad I finally have. You should check it out. Twitter micro-blogging allows friends, family, and co–workers to easily communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

 So what do you think about Twitter?

It’s a great time of year to work on those home remodeling jobs.  If you’re looking to remodel your home, and don’t feel like taking on the project alone, my friends at PSCI Remodeling & Construction can take on most home remodeling projects large or small.

Well we are finally getting some nice weather, and more people are taking on those large home projects they have been putting off. If you’re in need of a new roof or some roof repair and live in the greater Seattle area, my friends at the Metropolitan Roofing Company do great work. They are a family owned business and have been in business since 1991. They can take on most residential and commercial projects. Visit Metropolitan Roofing for more information.

If you have an email address, then I’m sure you’ve received numerous emails or cold calls from companies claiming to get your site ranked at the top of major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search.  Be sure to do your homework before forking out the dough.  Since increasing your search engine ranking doesn’t take place over night, you could end up paying for several months before realizing the company working for you isn’t delivering real results.

Typically there are a couple of stages to search engine optimization.  First, if you already have a website, the SEO company will make suggestions your webmaster should make to properly optimize your site to receive targeted search engine traffic.  This stage, if done correctly requires extensive research to properly determine the most commonly searched keywords and key phrases related to your site.  After the research is done, implementation takes place which primarily takes place behind the scenes (in the html code of your website).  Then, once your site has been properly optimized, link builing will need to take place, this should be done on an ongoing basis.  Most companies charge a monthly fee for this.  Typical peak search engine ranking increase takes place between 90-180 days.  

Without a monthly Search Engine Marketing campaign, site maintenance and updates, you search ranking can easily be lost.  Any good SEO company understands this and provies a monthly SEO service which typically costs around $300.  For some smaller companies that might seem like alot of money, but if you compare this to other forms of marketing/advertising on the web, you will see this fee is cheap, and gives you the best exposure by getting your site ranked in the #1 most visited website people go to for finding information, products and services on the web.  My company Seattle Web Services offers search engine optimization services, and we deliver results.  See Below:

My SEO Blog Ranks #1 in Seattle by Google for Seattle SEO Consulting and Seattle SEO Consultant.

Hey all, I just wanted to show you some positive results from my own SEO efforts with no outside help whatsoever.  Yes of course I have studied SEO and Internet Marketing techniques for the last couple of years, but that is why I am building this website, to share my knowledge and expertise with you.  On 1-4-08 my agent profile page http://www.johnlscott.com/wesleyl, was listed #2 out of all websites in Google’s index for the search term John L Scott Real Estate agent.  #1 was JohnLScott.com itself. On that same day I was listed #1 on both Yahoo and MSN.  Just this last weekend my partner and I have a new listing which came from an internet lead as a result of the work I have done. By using the techniques I outline in this site, you too can capture leads in your area with just a few hours work each week.  The great part is you don’t even need your own website.  If you have your own profile page on your brokerage’s website then you’re set! Sincerely, your best Seattle SEO Consultant.

Listed #2 out of about 268,000 websites for the search term John L Scott Real Estate Agent on Google:

Listed #1 out of about 2,670,000 websites for the search term John L Scott Real Estate Agent on Yahoo:

Listed #1 out of about 3,140,000 websites for the search term John L Scott Real Estate Agent on MSN: