Well, Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World competition is about over, and this is the last post I will write about the contest. My original post has been running at #1 and #2 for most of the competition. At several points during the competition I have had two of the top 10 spots between the post noted and this post.

What we were supposed to learn was that some people are really good at getting attention by writing good content (not that I’m proud of either of my posts on this topic and all the screwing around I’ve done with them). And other people are really good at getting the attention of the Search Engines because they are good at getting the attention of the Search Engines.

In the true spirit of the contest, I’m going to name my chosen winner.

Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World I’m giving to Kevin Tomlinson and his blog efforts as to content, and Brad Caroll of Dakno Marketing who provides the technical support for Kevin’s site and his blog.

Why do I choose them as the winners of Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World? Because I can’t tell which is most responsible for the success of Kevin’s blog.

Is it Kevin’s writing style and good content? Is it Brad’s ability to gain the favor of the SEO God’s through other means? Is it Kevin’s great website that creates what it takes to pull the blog up with it?

Or maybe it’s just because Kevin IS a great agent and so everything he does, he does just as well as he does his real estate activities, including hiring the best people and directing them to their best efforts on his behalf and on behalf of his clients.

And that’s the real success story and the real lesson about SEO placement. It takes a great team. Simply being a great agent is often not enough. Simply being a great blogger is often not enough. Hiring someone to toy around with the Search Engines to bring a mediocre or bad site to the top of the heap, is not going to help you if what readers find at the top of the search is not worth reading, or the agent isn’t worth hiring.

Kevin is the winner because he has it all. No one should have to fight over whether it was Kevin’s talent or Brad’s talent that makes the package work.

It shouldn’t be EITHER content OR SEO knowledge. It should be the best marriage of both worlds.

…is some kind of SEO contest.

The prize looks kind of bogus to me.

“First place winner receives ummmm lets see – Ok a free REW template website ($740 value) Free hosting for a year on the new V 2.0 REW platform ($480) and throw in our $2500 CORE IDX and the $360 yearly fee on top of it – that works out to ummmm – let’s see about $4080 for first place – how’s THAT for a prize :)”

How do you read that prize?

I’m seeing the winner gets to pay at least $480 to them for hosting the “prize” for every year after the “free” year. The winner also gets to pay them another $360 a year ad infinitum for Core IDX services.

Who exactly is the winner in the long run?

******UPDATE****

It is my understanding that as a result of this post, the prize has been changed to include free hosting indefinitely.

***UPDATE***

I have a special request to update this post. I generally don’t do that, but at someone’s urgence that I expand the initial topic, I will.

Search Engines are trying very hard to serve a purpose on the internet. That purpose is to seek out and display good and valuable content. That is good for everyone, if allowed to perform its function.

However, some will try to trick the Search Engines into thinking that they have good and valuable content. They think this is a smart thing to do. Some even think it is great to charge people money to help them trick the Search Engines. This is a sin against not the Search Engines, but the general public, who rely on the internet to perform well. When someone searches a topic they are happy to find good and valuable content as the Search Engines intended. They are not happy to find a trickster who fooled the Search Engine into thinking they had good and valuable content.

Gaming the system is not good.