Pittsburgh Homes Daily

On October 11, 2006, two real estate bloggers planted the seeds for an idea that I would like to try to implement today.  On that day, Sellsius asked, “Got Blog Juice?“ and The Future of Real Estate Marketing queried, “Who Wants A Juice Fight?“.  Maybe I didn’t have enough juice to drink this past weekend, but I started thinking that it would be fun to find out which real estate blogger really had the most blog juice. 

I’ve always fancied myself as the type that waits for the first punch to be thrown, but in the case of a juice fight, I think I’ll make an exception.  So here is the opening salvo (the rules):

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to create the highest ranking blog post for the phrase, “Golbetatselaer Contest”, in a search of the major search engines (that’s Google, Yahoo, & MSN).  The search will be done in the search engines from a computer and location of my choosing, without quotation marks.

The contest is open to all real estate blogs whose first post was prior to November 1st, 2006 at 12:01 AM (EST).  That means that you can’t start a blog just for the competition; it has to be a preexisting real estate blog.  I’m willing to give some leeway to what is considered a real estate blog (a Realtor blog; a city blog; a wealth building blog). Basically, this rule was intended to exclude SEO experts who have never used the words ”real estate”, “building”, “house”, etc. on their blog, from coming and crashing the party.  There are plenty of SEO Contests out there for them.  This one’s in-house

Your entry has to be in the form of a blog post.  You can’t win by just adding the phrase on your blog’s home page.  You can’t win with a static website and it can’t be a forum.  A blog post.  Just to be clear: adding the phrase to every blog post in the hopes of ranking one of them would be bad form; so would adding the phrase to a blog post and then letting it sit on the top of your blog for the entire contest.

Updates to the contest will occur on Nov. 15, Dec. 1, Dec. 15, while the winner will be declared on January 1st, 2007.  A screenshot of each of the three search engines will be taken at 12:01 AM EST on the dates in question, or as soon thereafter as computer difficulties, car troubles, sleepiness, or New Years Celebrations allow.  Each update will consist of a post declaring the top 5 blog posts on Google, Yahoo, and MSN with links to the top blogs (i.e., not their contest pages!).  The owner of the top blog post on Google on Jan. 1, 2007 will be declared the winner of the first Real Estate Blog SEO Contest.  Hopefully someone with more Photoshop skills than myself will create a cool award graphic for them to put on their blog (hint, hint!).  I reserve the right to provide additional recognition to other categories as necessary (I’m thinking about also recognizing the top 5 blogs created in 2006).  Your thoughts are welcome.  While there won’t be any monetary prizes for winning, I’m open to putting together a prize package for a future competition if people enjoy this competition.

You don’t need to provide a link to be in the competition, but I would appreciate if you would consider linking to my site, Pittsburgh Homes Daily, at http://www.pittsburghhomesdaily.com, the contest page here, or Real Estate Voices at http://www.realestatevoices.com (which is run by Homethinking).

By participating in the contest, you agree that I am the king of the universe sole determiner of the winner of this contest, I am not responsible for your actions in this contest (please, keep it legal!), and you waive any claim that you may have to damages against me as a result of this competition (please, don’t sue!).

Now that I’ve thrown down the gauntlet, I’m stepping out of the way.  Pittsburgh Homes Daily won’t be eligible to be considered the winner of the competition, but it will be interesting to see how this blog post ranks (it will, after all, be the first website ever to use the phrase).

Good Luck!

Edit: Just to be clear, your blog entry with the phrase has to be posted between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31.  While you can build backlinks to your phrase however you want, you can’t win simply by adding the phrase to an old post that already has tons of juice.  I reserve the right to make other clarifications of the rules.