My wife is a Real Estate agent - I'm a web dev guy....I'm pretty well versed in SEO/SEM but I know of a company that does something, and I'm not sure how...

They charge my wife $75 per month for ONE keyword phrase (4 words). If you enter that phrase EXACTLY on Google, her site comes up #1, every time - and NOT as a sponsored link, as an ORGANIC link....!

I know they charge more for "better" keywords, etc.....

Now, how are they doing that? Since it's NOT a sponsored link, it's not PPC/Google Adwords.....I didn't think Google had "Paid Inclusion"....

What's going on?!? How are they doing that??!!??

Any ideas??

Thanks!

what is the 4 word term and have you checked it for results on others searches outside your area

Actually, it was a 5 word term:
"lehigh valley homes for sale"

Any variation in the words, she wouldn't come up at all...

She no longer comes up, since she stopped paying them....

did you track how many times people used that keyword to get to site?

No, I didn't....at the time, I thought she just fell for some slick marketing....but in hindsight, I'm wondering how they did it.

She never did get any sales from it - but traffic, I'm not sure.

I guess it's not possible - my memory must be in error - it must have showed up in the sponsored links - but I'll be darned if I don't remember it in the organics....

Oh well....I guess I'll never know....

if they used such a long tail in a few links and it is in your title tag of home page and gets pointed to from your other pages it will get reinforced for the specific term

The term should be high bid sponsored link, which displays above organic listings and not at the right side or an organic manipulation as I heard some, which I don’t believe still :)