Archive for Link Building
Real Estate SEO Exposed!!
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SEO – it’s a necessary evil. If you want to be found in the search engines, you gotta have it. Or, more accurately, do it.
And, there are a lot of folks out there just waiting to help you. And, some of them actually might do that! But, too often it’s a crap shoot. So, what’s to be done?
If you want to become your own “general contractor” for SEO on your real estate websites without the pain of a learning curve or trial and error, you can take advantage of our real estate SEO Coaching service.
I have helped out by adding an SEO and Link Building category to this blog. And, there are some pretty good posts in there, if I do say so myself!
SEO does change in its subtleties, but the basics are still the same. You can get a competitive advantage by using this blog’s 8-part series on Real Estate SEO. You can use this knowledge to better manage an SEO firm that is working for you, or to do some of your own SEO!
- Introduction to Real Estate SEO and Glossary
- Do It Yourself or Hire an Outside SEO Firm
- Think Like a Search Engine
- Selecting Keyword Phrases
- Plan Your Real Estate Website Content
- Real Estate SEO: On-Page Optimization
- Real Estate SEO: Off-Page Optimization
- Real Estate Blogging and SEO
Sign up for free updates from the BRER Blog for more tips on real estate SEO, real estate marketing, real estate brands, real estate logos, real estate websites and more.
There’s a website called Tynt that can help you, if not stop Internet theft, at least make those thieves think about what they’re doing. And, for people who just like the information you have on your website or blog, Tynt’s service will help them keep track of where they got the information, and establish incoming links to your website, too!
I heard about Tynt from Mr. Internet, Michael Russer. If you read Michael’s post, you can watch a short video explaining how Tynt works.
I tried adding the (at-least-for-now-free) Tynt code to our main site at BuildRealEstateResults.com. Then, I copied a paragraph from one of the articles on that site to this post. You can see what happened in between the 2 lines below:
_____________________________
Tynt automatically added the information starting with ”Read more” to the text I copied.
Now, this service won’t stop a determined Internet thief from stealing your content. They can very easily delete the attribution that automatically appears after the content or image that has been copied.
However, for copies made by people who aren’t trying to build a website or blog by stealing the content from other places, this could be an interesting way to get some incoming links to your website or blog.
If someone copies something from you to go in an email, the email recipients may well follow the link back to your page. If someone copies something and places in a public place such as a blog or Facebook page, that incoming link could help your SEO and bring more visitors to your site.
And, I would hope that when someone who just isn’t aware of the laws against Internet theft sees the link, they will leave it in place – or decide to write their own content!
There are some Tynt options. Here are just some examples. I chose to show the Creative Commons license which applies to my copyrighted material. You can also connect Tynt to your Twitter account – anytime someone does a copy/paste from a protected site, it will show up on your Twitter account.
Tynt will also provide activity statistics. You’ll notice that the URL referenced in the Tynt attribution has some coding after the .html for the page. That coding allows Tynt to let me know things about what is being copied.
Just as an FYI, when I copied the Tynt-attributed text to this blog post, every paragraph I entered after that copy was placed in a <div> which eliminated the white space between paragraphs. So, if I hadn’t really wanted to show that example, I might have given up on copying the information. Tynt, if you’re listening, please tell your code to stop doing that! Also, it would be nice if you could set up multiple websites in one account. Right now, it looks like you need a new account for each one.
In any event, it’s an interesting capability to play with!
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This guest post was written by Sam Chapman, a Lake Travis real estate agent,
who has lived in the Austin-Lake Travis area since 1987.
People talk all the time about the number of inbound links to a site being important to a website’s Search Engine ranking. And, I’ve found that the quality of the site pointing a link to you is huge. Here are two examples.
The Real Estate Center at Texas A&M is one of the most respected real estate information websites on the planet. They send out a weekly e-newsletter, and recently held a “a vote-for-your-favorite-real-estate-blog contest”. My blog made the top 10.
A link to my blog, using appropriate anchor text, was on a PR 4 page from this site that has tons of respect from Google. That one link had enough juice to get my blog on page 1 of Google for the term real estate blog. Not Austin real estate blog, but just real estate blog. It is difficult to get links from exceptionally well respected sites, but if you can, the result can be huge.
On another note, I am a writer for the Austin Post, a relatively new online newspaper. It is very local, has lots of posts, and a Page Rank of 4 after just 90 days. It has risen to be quite an authority site for Austin. I think the sandbox effect wore off after 90 days and link juice kicked in.
After writing for this online newspaper, my website went from ranking around 13-15 on Google, to number 6 on Google for the term Austin real estate. I have linked sparingly in writing for the Post, but I do include a link back to my home search page in the author bio.
This shows the power of links from a non-real estate, but city-specific, website.
Looks like finding opportunities for establishing powerful real estate or geographically-related links to your real estate website is worth the effort!
From the Web: When Google’s Done You Wrong
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I don’t usually get into the nitty-gritty of battling the search engines on this blog, but I came across an outstanding article that is, for the most part, written in English.
The post was written by Tom C over at SEOMozBlog.
A very interesting part of Tom’s post is that it includes a flowchart showing what you should do if your rankings on Google have dropped.
The author reasonably admits that he is extrapolating from his own experience. As has been said on this blog before, SEO is just as much an art as it is a science.
Also, keep in mind that when Tom talks about paid links, he’s not referring to links that you acquire from places like RealEstateABC or other real estate directories. The paid links he’s referring to are from sites that may not even be related to real estate, but where the site owner sells space on their website or blog.
Real Estate Websites: The Parable of SEO
· CommentsI am continually amazed by the fact that people who have real estate websites, those who help people build real estate websites, and people who do SEO for a living, all seem to have a limitless capacity for arguing over what should be done to get websites ranked well in search engine results.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that in the world of SEO (search engine optimization), there is no concensus. It reminds me of the parable about the blind men who wanted to “see” an elephant. Here’s the short version:
The Blind Men Describe an Elephant
- The first blind man felt the elephant’s broad side and said: “The elephant is very much like a wall”
- The Second felt the elephant’s trunk and said: “The elephant is very much like a spear”
- The Third touched the elephant’s trunk and said: “The elephant is very much like a snake”
- The Fourth reached out to the elephant’s knee and said: “The elephant is very much like a tree”
- The Fifth felt the elephant’s ear and said “The elephant is very much like a fan”
- The Sixth grasped the elephant’s tail and said: “The elephant is very much like a rope”
You’ll find a very similar situation in SEO discussions. There are some things that – I don’t think I even dare say everyone – almost everyone agrees on.
But, everyone involved also forms their opinions or theories based on their own experience. Some people say you must blog. In my experience, that’s not true, by the way. Other people say linking is key, and the list goes on.
I think that each person touches a different part of the SEO equation, just like the blind men with the elephant, and latches on to something that worked for them. Then, many of those people decide that the technique they latched on to is the final answer. The silver bullet that is going to shoot everyone who follows along to the #1 spot on Google for their keyword phrases.
Keep in mind that it just ain’t so.
This whole problem stems from the fact that the search engines themselves carefully guard their algorithms for ranking sites. In the absence of clear direction, we all run about trying to make sense of the SEO universe.
So, the next time you see SEO experts arguing, or you read someone’s rant about blogging being the only way to have a successful Internet presence, take ALL of it with a grain of salt.
As a whole, real estate websites are notoriously ill-prepared to be ranked on the search engines. There’s a lot of opportunity out there to drive traffic to your website by being found on the search engines.
Whether you’re doing your own SEO or hiring someone to do it for you, do your due diligence. Evaluate the advice you get and do what makes sense to you, or hire a company you trust.
Remember, once you’ve achieved ranking and have traffic to your site, the next thing you’ll need to concentrate on is turning traffic into leads.
So, don’t expend all your energy on the SEO wars!!!
Learn more about real estate website SEO and link building.
