Real Estate SEO

Archive for December, 2008

The vitals of success for inbound marketing are (1) well-written and relevant content, (2) in-bound links, and (3) fans, friends, and/or subscribers. The first two figures are largely covered by SEO, but once you throw blogging and social marketing networks into the mix you open up a whole new realm of possibilities. We already know that Google is looking more closely to see if your efforts incorporate all of these things, and so good marketing practices should incorporate all three.

We recommend using social networks like stumblepon.com, twitter.com, linkedin.com, facebook.com, etc. Stepping into the social media realm also means making yourself more public via the use of online videos, webinars (online video training or web seminar) and podcasts (like a radio broadcast), and don’t forget to go Mobile (stay tuned for more on this).

Social media really isn’t the next big thing anymore, but it’s not too late. Like with all good things it’s best to get started later in the game than not at all. What is new, however, is the way that it’s being used in conjunction with the tried and true search engine marketing practices.

Ever curious about what people are saying about your business? When you become part of these larger networking communities you’ll start to get more of a sense as to what is being said, and in the event that someone has a negative review about you (she said what?)… now you have a means by which you can counter and respectfully disagree. Of course you’ll also want to promote yourself in a more flattering way any chance that you get. And, don’t forget, all those fans and/or friends that you are gathering will help you promote your content as well.

Ultimately, you want to become more engaged with others, and in turn engage others in your community. Beside publishing good content you will want to monitor not only what people are saying about you but also what is being said about your field (hint: your key words). Sure you can use Google Alerts, but why not give Twitter a try. Hubspot recently published a good article on “how to use Twitter for marketing“… so use it. Through Twitter’s search application you can actually see what people are saying about things and/or you, and then you can subscribe to a feed for your query. It just might be your next lead!

As Twitter and other social media services evolve, they are becoming a key part of search engine optimization strategies. All of your efforts should work together; (1) SEO (plus PPC), (2) your blog, and (3) your social marketing network. These efforts, combined, help to increase the number of inbound links and spread your content through more and more channels … all of which makes for a highly efficient inbound marketing strategy as you head into the new year.

Hi all,

I wanted to let our readers know that I’ll be teaching a course on Website optimization and new media for the New England Association of Realtors. The classes are being held in Chelsford, MA. Follow this link for registration information. If you’re in the MASS/NH/ME area and you want to learn more about real estate seo and it’s role in your marketing strategy. This is a good opportunity.

The course is divided up into 4 sessions. Dates are: Jan. 12, Feb. 2, Mar. 16, and Apr. 13

Here’s what we’ll be covering in each:

Session #1: Web-based Lead Generation

• Overview of the online real estate lead generation process
• Essential tools to successfully incubate and close online leads
• Understanding conversion rates
• Search engine marketing basics
• Email marketing basics

Session #2: Web Presence Management & Optimization

• Search engine marketing strategy, beyond the basics
• Search engine optimization
• Pay Per Click marketing
• How to make your website easy to edit
• Blogging basics

Session #3: Online vs. Traditional Media

• Understanding ROI
• Conversions
• Transparency
• How to know which media is working and which is working better
• Budget allocation

Session #4: Tech Trends & New Media

• How we got to where we are today
• Blogging, why it’s so popular, why it works
• How to leverage social media
• The impact of video
• Why working together is so important

If you’ve been reading our Real Estate SEO blog and want to really gain a larger understanding of internet marketing and how it affects the real estate industry, this is a great opportunity. I promise that you will learn a lot.

Some of you are using WordPress to run your blog. We use wordpress quite a lot around here for our own blogging and for our clients. In fact, you’re reading a Worpress blog right now. I wanted to share with you some of my favorite plugins for WordPress and tell you how they will help your Real Estate SEO. You can find these buy searching on the WordPress.org site.

SEO All in One Pack – This package makes having good title and meta tags easy. Also, it comes with some great configuration features. It’s quite flexible. So, you’ll have free reign in the back end. For good real estate seo, or seo on any site, the very most basic thing you can do is optimize your titles, descriptions, and, if you want, keyword tags. Google pays little attention to the keywords tag, but most SEO professionals still use the tag, for good measure.

Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin rocks! When you install, it automatically creates and updates your XML sitemap. Then it takes over updating the xml sitemap for you and does so every time the site updates. When it updates the sitemap, it also resubmits to Google, MSN, and Yahoo. You can’t ask for much more than that. Keeping your XML sitemap updated will help the search engines find the pages that you post faster and ensure that more of your pages get indexed. This is critical for good SEO. If you put up a post and the spiders don’t notice, well, it’s not helping your real estate website rank better. This plugin will help.

Sociable – Sociable adds social bookmarking links to the pages of your site. Take a look at the bottom of any post on this blog and you’ll see a bunch of icons for sites like Stumble, digg, and redit. The more people who bookmark your site using these tools, the more inbound links you’ll have and the better your SEO will be. Lot so us use these sites simple to mark where we’ve been on the web and share with others what we like or don’t like. It’s a pretty good idea, if you’re shooting for superior Real Estate SEO, to make sure that every page of your site includes ready access to these sites.

I’d love to hear more about which plugins you are using to achieve better Real Estate SEO? The WordPress community has created about 3600 plugins. I don’t claim to be an expert on each of them. Please let us know if you have some favorites? Thanks.

Here are some great ways to improve your real estate seo. They’re not technical, they’re not hard to do, they just take a little charm and some tact!

1. Make friends with other bloggers and real estate website owners. If you’re in a metropolitan area or a busy real estate market, there are bound to be other realtors who are focused on real estate seo. They probably have well placed websites and they may be blogging on a regular basis. It’s a good idea to make friends with them. Your goal will be to get links from their sites pointed at yours.
2. Guest blog – Lots of bloggers would love to have you provide content to them. They know that with more quality content will come better real estate seo. So, all you need to do is give a little to get a little. Offer to be a guest writer. In exchange, all you want is a link back to your site. Another benefit is the opportunity to market one of your own listings. If you’re representing a unique property or a development, other blogs can be a great way to get some more marketing impressions.
3. Trade leads and links – Lots of other real estate agents have sights. On their sites, there are lots of real estate listings. All of these listing pages help your SEO. So, most real estate agents and brokers just show every property they can, these could be in areas that they cover and some in areas where they don’t. They will probably be willing to give you their lead spillage if you provide the same in return. While you’re setting up that partnership, exchange links too. Why not?
4. Make friends with local real estate writers. No you don’t need a PR agent, just use your personal network to befriend a writer for your local paper. Make sure they write about real estate. Take them to lunch or buy them a beer. Offer to provide quotes whenever they need one. They’re likely to publish your name, your company’s name, even a link to your site. This will certainly help your real estate seo ranking.
5. Real Estate SEO is a lot like the industry itself. Referrals are a great source of business. Similarly, links are a great source of visitors. Remember that inbound linking is important to all SEO. I don’t know many people who would forget this. In fact, I know folks who think this is what it’s all about. Well, that’s not true, but it’s crucial to remember that Real Estate SEO is just like the business itself. It doesn’t work in a vacuum.

If you’re well connected, your real estate seo will go a lot easier, your career will progress faster, and you’ll be more successful in this game called real estate. SEO is not unique, it’s just a part of how you build your business.

I’ve read a few blogs out there say that successful blogging means NOT blogging daily. I’m gonna come right out and say it. I think that’s weak.

The reasons they give all center around running out of steam. Again, that’s weak. If you’re going to blog, do it whenever you can and as often as you want.

If you’re trying to achieve superior real estate seo, and you’re going to blog, do it when the inspiration comes. It could be twice today and then another post 3 days from now. I don’t much care when you blog, just make sure you do it regularly, blog about engaging interesting topics, and stay focussed.

Also, if you think that keeping your real estate blog current is going to be tough, get some help. Team up with someone who will write for you. Invite guest bloggers to write posts for you. Get a team of bloggers together and ask each of them to submit one post a week. If there are 7 of you, then all you need to do is blog once a week.

You’ve heard me say it before, If you’re going to blog, you have to be a writer. If you’re not someone who can come up with a few paragraphs on a regular basis, then your blog is a waste of time and money. If you want to achieve good real estate seo and blogging is part of your plan, then you need to be prepared to post content regularly. Someone does have to write it.

Lastly, if you’re in the real estate business and you work all day in this industry, you can’t really tell me that there’s nothing to write about. We write about real estate seo. If you think Real Estate SEO is a focused topic and we might run out of things to talk about, you’re half right. There’s certainly a lot to write about. Our clients come to us with issues, we read other sites, blogs, newsletters, you name it. Also, we interact with real estate brokers and agents all day long. So, we always have new stuff to include in this real estate seo blog.

That’s about it. I know this has been a bit of a rant today. Sorry about that. I’ll probably write something more technical tomorrow. :O)

Dave