Real Estate SEO

Posts Tagged ‘blog’

You may have wondered what you can do to optimize your WordPress blog for real estate seo…

If you are using WordPress for either your entire web presence or as a blog which is part of your larger website you will still want to make sure that it is fully optimized. Even if you already have an optimized website you still need to optimize my blog. Yes you do. What if you have the overall blog optimized, do you still need to optimize each page/post? Yes you do.

A great simple solution in WordPress that makes all of this much easier for you is the “All in one SEO pack” which you can install with one click through the “Plugins” section.

All In One SEO Pack

10 steps to optimizing your blog

1. Custom Permalinks: Permalinks, essentially your URLs, are now a basic part of WordPress that you can easily edit. Based on what your title is, your permalink will appear as such. My recommendation is to try to keep it short when possible and to have your keywords as they relate to your post included.

2. Meta Titles: Your meta Title, or Page title as it’s also referred to, is another essential part. It’s what ends up being the text in the blue bar of your search browser and also the text that is the first line of your site in the search results. You want to make sure that it is clear and relevant to your post otherwise you may turn readers away without knowing it.

3. Meta Description: You meta description is another part that appears in search results as text below your page title that is in essence descriptive information about what your site holds in store. You are limited by 160 characters so be sure to be precise, informative and whenever possible don’t copy text directly from your content.

4. Titles and Subtitles: Aka Headers; H1 and H2 etc. An H1 Header is your primary header. Within WordPress your post title will always be your H1 header. This further helps shows your readers and search engines what you’ve written about. Headers also help establish a hierarchy of your content. Typically your H1 title will be the largest and increase in size from there on. Makes sense right…You can easily format the type of header you want by choosing a different “class” or within the code source/HTML enclosing your text within <h2> … </h2>.

5. Content which includes your Real Estate SEO terms: I did not place this list within order of importance but more so order of flow from the top of a page to the bottom. If I had ordered it by importance “content” would probably have been first. Your content is extremely important because it sets you apart from all others (aka your competition). Your content should reflect your business, your services, goals etc. What you have to write about is precisely why people come to read your blog over and over again…you will establish loyal readers.

Once you’ve determined the focus of your blog, obviously something to do with “real estate” then you should stick to that. While you should have fun with it, please remember that you should incorporate your keywords in a natural way whenever possible. Incorporate news about neighborhoods in which you do business, your local involvement, featured properties, opinion pieces etc. People like to hear what you have to say and they certainly like knowing that they are getting the inside scoop from you (a trusted source) first.

6. Links: We have talked about getting inbound links for your real estate site before but this is about links within your blog. Including links like I have throughout this post, from a certain topic to a related topic/post within your blog or website is an important part of any site structure. You should also link out to other trusted sources/sites. This shows your readers and search engines that you get your information from trusted sources and share your information with those sources.

7. Images and ALT Tags: Really this should read “images must have ‘alt tags’”. Images are an important and rather engaging part of your blog post. Whether you include one or multiple images it’s a good practice to include unique images to help break things up visually. Since search engine robots (that crawl your site regularly in search of new or updated content) can’t see images, they need to have a “clue” of sorts…and that’s where “alt tags” (sometimes referred to as alt attributes or alt text) come into play. As you add new images WordPress will give you the option to optimize your “alternative text”…make use of that option and name your images according to what they are and not something like picture 1 and picture 2 etc.

8. Category Names: Categories are used to arrange more than one article into a common label. Similar to tags, they help organize content, both are used to label or name articles and arrange them. A good practice is to include broad keywords as part of your categories.

9. Tags: Tags are descriptions that will associate an article to various topics. Typically one-word descriptions of the most important aspects of the article with the most prominent keywords or commonly recognizable words are used. It is the tags attributed to a post that lets visitors search your site and then find relevant posts.

10. Call to action – pose a question: Similar to a sales pitch you want to have some kind of call to action in your articles. I recommend not using a “sales” approach where you try to sell your services by saying something like “if you need a realtor then contact xyz” because your content should be empowering enough so that readers will want to know more and either come back or contact you to learn more about how you can help them. You can’t twist someone’s arm and you should not beat them over the head with information. Instead you should close your posts by asking engaging questions. Remind your readers that you value their input and engagement.
Are you employing any of these strategies on your blog (even if it’s not WordPress)? What other kinds of things would you suggest to optimize that I may not have listed here?

Related Articles:

• Top reasons why you should have your own blog
• Top 10 sites to submit your blog
• Answers to common Real Estate blogging questions
• How long should my blog post be?

Are you one of those that thinks having your own blog is too much work and, well, what do I get from it anyway?

Here’s a list of reasons why you should have your own blog:

• It’s good for Real Estate SEO.
• Your blog should be part of your real estate website i.e. http://www.domain.com/blog.
• Blogs offer great link bait.
• Blogs attract visitors.
• Blogs will help generate leads.
• Having your blog as part of your own website (rather than only ActiveRain or Trulia) will give your site credit for inbound links.
• Inbound links are of a huge value in calculating Google’s PageRank.
• Blog posts will help your website rank for terms.
• Whether hosted through a blog platform or part of your website’s CMS each new blog post/article acts as a new page to your website, which means it’s new content added, and thus a new page to be crawled by search engines.
• You can write content and safe drafts and thus publish at a later date.
• You can have multiple people write for you, or someone else all together if writing is not your thing.

To sum it up, blogging = more fresh (optimized and relevant) content = more inbound links. All of which = more relevant traffic = more sharing, commenting and more links, and finally LEADS.  Remember: Anything that you put quality time into will give you quality results. Individuals now more than ever are jearning for trust and thus will do their research prior to buying…what a better way than through you blog to present yourself and/or your company.

Happy Blogging.

As part of your real estate seo link building is an essential task. For the most part links will come naturally, but a portion of your links and traffic can come from sites/directories where you have submitted your blog. Submitting your blogs is critical to gaining exposure in the appropriate forums and with your appropriate niche that helps support increasing inbound links, traffic, reader engagement and ultimately your overall site or blog goals.

You do not want to have your real estate blog exist in a vacuum. Here are 10 sites to help you start to gain exposure:

1.    Google’s Blog Search
2.    Technorati
3.    Best of the web
4.    Blogged
5.    Blog Catalog
6.    Blogmarks
7.    Bloggapedia
8.    My Blog Log
9.    Zimbio
10. LinkedIn
11.  Search specific local niche sites where you can submit your blog and have it publish your posts automatically.

You will want to make sure to create an account on most of these site and remain active. Find a specific group, niche or topic that relates to your business and then watch the links and traffic come in from those sites.

Here are some answers to everyday questions about blogging and managing your agents’ outside blogs:

How can I persuade my agents or other agents to blog? David recently wrote a great post about the SEO army. Put that army (aka your agents) to work. Learn how to by reading more in that post.

Is it ok to have multiple profiles or blogs out there? Yes, it’s a good thing to be visible in multiple places. They offer more means through which potential customers can find and reach you. You just want to make sure that those other sources (profiles, accounts, blogs etc) link back to your site in some manner.

What are some basic things I need to know before blogging? Blogging is basically an extension of your personality, so keep that in mind as you write. It will vary from author to author. If you have multiple authors you will want to divide some of the writing workload, which also helps maintain consistency in terms of volume and style. Also keep the basics in mind, meaning good grammar and spelling.

Shouldn’t all communication come from one source? It is my professional opinion that if your agents are already spending quality time writing good posts, then those posts (if relevant to your business) might as well go up on your site. However, that varies from business to business. You will want to establish a ground rule from the onset. But keep this in mind, it’s a great and inexpensive marketing medium for your agents.

I already have agents blogging. What can I do next?Assign someone to manage some of this communication. In all likelihood you have some kind of office assistant or manager who can surely spend a little time tracking some of this communication (really it can take as little as 15 minutes a day).  A quick and easy way to do this is to either follow up with agents directly or (if you are one of those saying, yeah right) sign up with Google Alerts and track what gets published through there. Obviously if your agents are all blogging at the same place then this won’t be much of a problem.

How do I SEO my blog posts and incorporate keywords? Read this great article about the basics of SEO and you will be well on your way to a successful blog.

How can I help promote my agents’ blogs? A great way to promote your agents’ blogs, personal site or other outside profiles is to link to them, whether from your broker blog, a dedicated page on your site or some sort of other profile page.

What else do you want to know? If there any questions that I’ve left unanswered please let us know by asking the question through the comment section.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Why Monitoring Your Name is Important (ariwriter.com)
• How to use Google Alerts (itfreakszone.blogspot.com)
• Smart Realtors Use Search Engines for Marketing (stompermom.com)

How many ways do you think Social Media can contribute to good real estate SEO? Jot down a list and then compare it to mine. If I left off any major ones, please let me know. Here goes:

1. Blogs are social media. Blogs only get read when there’s new content. New content helps your search engine placement.
2. You can syndicate your content (let’s say from your blog) to social media sites. You could even feed your real estate listings, by RSS to your twitter and Facebook profiles.
3. Many social media site pages are public. These pages are bound to have links back to your site. Linking will improve your SEO.
4. Social bookmarking links on your site will produce back links from those sites (Digg, Reddit, Stumble, etc.) to your site. Again, these links will improve your SEO, your rank, and bring you more traffic and more leads. Remember real estate buyer and seller leads are the goal, not just ranking!
5. Users spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media sites. The referral traffic will help you gain more visitors, more clients and sell more real estate.
6. Promotions have more power with social media. Post a promotion on your site, edit your PPC ads accordingly to drive clicks, broadcast the promotion to your Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and LinkedIn connections and watch your traffic spike.
7. Remember that real estate SEO is about leads and customers. What you care about isn’t always ranking but leads and real estate transactions that come from those leads. Use your analytics system, like Google analytics,  to look at the social media sites that are driving traffic and leads to your site. My money says that you’ll see a good conversion rate on this traffic.
8. Chatter on Facebook and Twitter can fuel your blog. Look at what the people are saying about your real estate market, your real estate business, even you as a real estate agent. You’re likely to get inspired and find a topic to blog about. Also, here’s another post about blogging inspiration that could be helpful.
9. Social media is all about linking and showing the world what you’re up to. As a result, your friends and followers are likely to check out the stuff that you’re pointing them to. So, engage your community, send them to your site – full of great resources and information – and they’ll convert into leads.

Ok, that about exhausts my list of how Social Media can improve your Real Estate SEO. I’m sure there are many others that I forgot, but I have to get back to SEOing a couple of sites today. I look forward to your additions to my list. Leave them as comments please. Thanks.