Top 5 tips for SEO and Keeping Google Happy….

One – Be Consistent

Consistency is becoming a must do. Before, it was enough to put up a hundred links or a hundred blog posts and then have a six week vacation, we sadly don’t get that luxury anymore. Google wants to see fresh content, fresh links, active participation, and a dynamic website that caters for changing times and opinions. Get blogging and get active, the fresher the better when it comes to Google and its rankings.

Two – SEOers and Web Designers

It’s becoming ever more important to work closely with web designers. We need a website that provides a great user experience, which people will want to share, visit, and talk about, while at the same time having enough content to get ranked. Some of the most common arguments are those between SEOers and web designers, arguments which seem never-ending, perhaps because it’s that troublesome chicken and egg scenario causing problems again. We want content, web designers want visual. Well we need to stop arguing and use a few tricks to get the best of both worlds.

Three –  Content

While content has always been called king, it seems the saying couldn’t be more true than now, but so long as it’s the right content. Anyone can be a king, but some last longer than others. Don’t come out with King Canute content that’s never going to withstand the great tide of Google’s new scrutiny. It’ll be washed away and swept under the carpet within minutes. Google wants content that’s genuine, unique, and of a high quality. If you’ve got this then Google would love to show it to people looking for topics relating to your work. And if Google would love to show it then you don’t need to mess about with backlink profile analysis, anchor text nonsense, and thinking up prolific schemes to trick Google into showing your work.

Four – Relationships
We all have relationships with people, relationships that many of us couldn’t do without. Well as SEO tacticians we need relationships as well. Building long term connections with people is perhaps time consuming, but it can pay off with some great quality link generation, social mentions, and recommendations. Have a look at Rand Fishkin’s favourite way to get links

Five – Social Media
It seems social media is fast becoming an indisputable accomplice to SEO, and really the two are no longer separate entities. In this new age of SEO, social media has become another part of SEO. While Matt Cutts has hinted at how Google already use social media to some extent, this use of social media is only going to increase in the future. What better way to determine a website’s popularity and trust than through using genuine social shares, likes, and recommendations? Surely these are much more trustworthy sources than 100s of shady backlinks that an SEO strategist has artificially conjured.

So there’s my list of top 5 things to do in this new age of SEO. Remember just because ‘SEO is dead’ it doesn’t mean SEO is actually dead, but rather crumby old methods like King Canute content aren’t going to work anymore. SEO is very much alive; it’s simply finding that set of characteristics which Google is looking for. Google’s looking for a new age of real content and social interaction, and we better make sure we give it to them!

About the author: George Stevens works at Nebstone Agency and is the main contributor to the Nebstone blog. He is interested in all areas of digital marketing, and specialises in SEM at Nebstone, and you can find him on Twitter or Google+.

Image credit: Happy Google – courtesy © pressmaster – Fotolia.com

© Lucian Milasan – Fotolia.com

It’s no secret that posting frequent blog articles is a key element towards stronger search engine optimization. Past studies have shown that small businesses that blog regularly get 55% more website visitors than those business who rarely add fresh content or don’t blog at all. The one thing almost every real estate agent in the business will tell themselves is that selling homes is a numbers game—eventually, someone they’re working with will either buy or rent a home and all that hard work will pay off at some point. Well, if that’s true, the numbers I’d want on my side are 55% more website visitors than the competition. And in order to see those numbers, it would appear that all I have to do is follow one simple rule when it comes to web marketing: BLOG!

But despite the proven advantages of blogging, many real estate agents still fail to take initiative and find one excuse or another as to why adding a new article to their real estate blog has somehow been put on the back burner. Not all real estate agents fall into this category, however. For every agent who doesn’t take web marketing and blogging seriously, there’s usually always one who does.

Earlier, I spent some time researching quality, frequently-updated real estate blogs from agents around the country; and despite coming across dozens of real estate blogs that haven’t had a new post since 2010 [or earlier in some cases], I was actually able to find a handful of blogs that I thought had quality content and certainly worth sharing. Listed below 20 real estate blog sites that stay current and up-to-date by giving readers fresh new takes on the local market, community happenings, and various other topics relating to the real estate market:

• The Saunders Blog – Sarasota, FL

• Chicago Metro Real Estate—Chicago, IL

• Louisville Homes Blog—Louisville, KY

• St. Paul Real Estate Blog—St. Paul, MN

• Albuquerque Real Estate Buzz—Albuquerque, NM

• Renee West Real Estate Blog—Newport Beach, CA

• Dearborn, Michigan Real Estate Blog—Dearborn, MI

• The Chicago Real Estate Local—Chicago, IL

• South Beach Real Estate Blog—Miami, FL

• Cincinnati Living Online—Cincinnati, OH

• Miami Real Estate Café—Miami, FL

• San Fernando Valley Real Estate—San Fernando Valley, CA

• Denver Real Estate Reviews—Denver, CO

• Boston Real Estate Blog—Boston, MA

• Arizona Real Estate Notebook—Phoenix, AZ

• The Malibu Real Estate Blog—Malibu, CA

• Miami Condo Ideas Blog—Miami, FL

• Live in Alpharetta—Alpharetta, GA

• Blog Charleston, SC—Charleston, SC

• Cleveland Housing News—Cleveland, OH

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working as a Market Research Associate and writing published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence in Chicago, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and is a managing partner at Real Estate Web Creation, LLC.

© alphaspirit – Fotolia.com

Even with this budding potential though, for your guest blogging strategies to work effectively you need to ensure that your online sales actually increase. This is to do with your conversion rate, of course. Many times SEO campaigns end up creating traffic increases substantially, while sales somehow lag far behind the potential, this is because a site’s  bounce rate is too high in many cases.

Keeping that in mind, read on to discover the top eight tips for increasing online sales via the utilization of guest blogging.

One – Finding the right blog

You need to make sure that you guest post for relevant blogs. After all, you need to generate targeted traffic. If you post on blogs which are not associated with the industry you operate in then you won’t benefit. Moreover, it is recommended that you go for high quality blogs with an editorial focus. These blogs are more credible.

Two – Quality content

It is surprising how many people overlook the importance of quality content. Of course you want to create links and promote your website. However, people aren’t going to be interested if your content is generic and of a poor quality.

Three – Build strong partnerships

Guest blogging gives you the potential to build up a strong partnership with other bloggers. Make sure you do this rather than posting a blog and then simply dropping it afterwards. After all, you can build up your reputation via other blogs and thus create several loyal viewer and customer bases.

Four – Find the right balance

Don’t brag about your company too much or try and shove your business down the viewer’s throat. You can mention it and you will have your call to action of course. Viewers want to read your blog to enhance their knowledge first and foremost, not be part of a sales pitch.

Five – Share

Make sure that you share the article via social media platforms. After all, utilizing Twitter and Facebook is via to search engine optimization these days. This is a great way to generate more targeted traffic.

Six – Respond to comments left

When people comment on a post you have wrote then you should take the effort to respond. This works well because you create a bond between yourself and the viewer. This is likely to turn viewers into customers.

Seven – Call to action

A call to action is a great way to generate traffic because if people are interested in what you have blogged about then they are going to be likely to want to delve a little bit deeper. The problem is that people are so eager to include a call to action so they post it as soon as possible – leave it until the end of your article.

Eight – Keyword quality not quantity

You need to use keywords which people are most likely to search to get to your website and you need to use them naturally. Do not use the keyword which gets the most Google searches and do not place it everywhere in your article. For example, if you sell custom made jewelry then ‘jewelry’ may pull in more search results but ‘custom made jewelry’ will pull in more relevant traffic and thus works better.

If you consider the eight points in this article then you will be assured to get the most out of guest blogging and to enhance your conversion rate. Guest posting is always considered to be an advantage if you are in a plan to develop your website or blog and enhance your reputation in the online world. If you are unsatisfied with the flow of traffic to your site or blog, you should start guest posting to other sites or blogs and have a look how your influence develops online.

So, this is how postings acts as a benefit for search engines in view of the fact that host bloggers consist of a link to your blog that, over the time, will be beneficial.

About Author : Lisa Jane is a freelance journalist. She used High Position as a resource tool for information on search engine optimization (SEO) for guest blogging.

The total percentage of sellers listing homes on websites could be attributed to homeowners doing it themselves or real estate agents doing it on their behalf. The numbers are shockingly disappointing given the growing importance of web presence and Internet marketing for all businesses.

As a real estate agent, there’s plenty of opportunity to add value to your businesses by promoting online. Evidently, search marketing proves to be a behemoth with long-term returns. Every real estate agent, however, has a learning curve. If you are looking to make your real estate website work for you, here are at least 7 SEO Must-dos for your website:

Preliminary Checks 

Before you spend a lifetime with SEO, your website needs a preliminary check. Google Webmaster tools provide you with everything you need to know about how your website is indexed by Google, how many links point to it, and how many pages are indexed. If you have too many pages but Google indexes only a few, there could be a problem of duplication of content or anything related. You may also use SEOmoz’s tools (free and paid) such as On-Page Analysis, Link Analyzer, Keyword Analysis, and Crawl test to get a diagnostic of your real estate website.  

Keyword Research and Content Inclusions 

Create compelling, industry-leading content for your real estate website. In time, your website should become the “go to” resource for all things real estate or perhaps gain local, regional, or national authority. Great content automatically leads to other websites and bloggers pointing to your real estate website as a resource which helps you to gain authority which in turns boosts the probability of your website getting found on search engines for keyword phrases or terms that pertain to your real estate business.

While you focus on developing great content, fish out keyword groups or key phrases that customers are most likely to search for and include them in your posts, articles, and other content you are likely to publish. Ensure that you don’t overuse keywords to the point that your posts don’t make any sense for humans.

Google already provides you with Google Keyword Tool. You may also use third-party keyword tools such as the Free Keyword Tool from Wordtracker.

For instance, if you are a real estate agent in Ohio, Athens, U.S., some of the keywords that relate to your business could be:

Condos in Ohio

Apartments for rent in Athens Ohio

Homes for sale in Athens

 Find ways to insert these keyword phrases creatively into your content. The keyword tools help you find the exact keyword phrases and also many “opportunities” – in essence, many other keyword phrases close to your search – which you can use.

 Get linked, the right way 

As relevant links point to your website appropriately, it gains authority and relevance – a few of the many parameters that search engines value. As a real estate agent, you also have more enterprising opportunities available to hasten link building for your website apart from creating content that’s automatically shared on social media or linked to by bloggers and other publications.

For instance, start with your local chamber of commerce and have them link to your website (you might even want to pay them a visit as it’s well worth it). You could become a member of local real estate associations and have them list your website on their membership guild or leader board. Create a buzz, have local bloggers mention your business, launch innovative schemes, launch a walking tour for potential customers, and use contests. Get them talking online and you’ll build links faster than what seems possible.

 It’s Real Estate. So, Go Local 

Google Places allows you to take advantage of the local search scene. More often than not, Google Places listings precede normal search listings. Google Places Support pages are a great place to start with the basics. Follow Rand Fishkin’s post on Google Places SEO if you’d like a more technical explanation. Real estate makes a resounding case study for going local and using the “local search” advantage since the nature of business is such.

Dress up every page 

On-page SEO is where you could stumble and swagger. Yet, it’s crucial to make sure that a few wrinkles are ironed out:

• Avoid too many links on your web pages. Instead, judiciously choose which links are to be displayed on your website or blog since Google search bots (also called as crawlers or spiders) cannot possibly visit every link on every page.
• Link to every important page (originating from your home page).  Links are the only way for crawlers to find your pages.
• Your important content should never hide behind “Sign-up Forms”, “Contact Forms”, or other page elements such as Flash, JavaScript, jQuery, etc. That is unless you purposely want to keep it that way (for premium information for members, for subscription-based sites, etc.).
• Every page or blog post should have its own title (along with a meta title). As such, every page or post should also have tags, a specific category that this content relates to, Meta description, and search-friendly URLs.
• If you use images for your real estate blogs or web pages, include keywords or relevant descriptions while uploading every image.

Press Releases (Every real estate listing is news)

Press releases are great for your SEO efforts as they are search engine fodder. Since search engines always look for new information, sending out press releases helps promote your brand, increase exposure, allow you to capture new audiences, and gain massive traffic windfalls to your website.

Further, since press releases are published on news aggregator sites, PR sites, and even picked by Google News, you’ll create a rich group of inbound links from these authority news sites to your website.

Now, many business owners and real estate agents think that press releases make sense only if you have to publish something that’s “newsworthy”. Every new property listing on your real estate website is “news”. Likewise, new real estate services, updated property listings, etc., will all make for great content to publish as press releases.

To be social is plain nice (and potentially profitable)

 Create accounts on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any of the other leading social media platforms. Create a content schedule (separate from your blogging, Press release, and other content creating schedule) and post content on your social media sites related to your real estate business.

You can share news, comment on published articles, and share information on everything that relates to your business. Search engines also capture social media signals, although no one’s sure as to how social media contributes to search). The rising importance of Google+ and the fact that Google includes Google+ posts in searches is a strong clue that social media also adds to your SEO efforts.

Are you doing enough justice to your SEO efforts? Do you invest in long-term search engine marketing? As a real estate agent, does SEO work for you?

About the author: Pratik Dholakiya is the Lead SEO Strategist and VP of Marketing at E2M Solutions, a fastest growing internet marketing startup providing post panda/penguin era SEO services to their clients. Get in touch with him through Twitter @DholakiyaPratik.

Welcome to Internet marketing: the final frontier for real estate or any other business.

Create Usable Content

On the web, it’s all about content. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise to you since offline marketing is about content too. Think about it. The best advertising you’ve ever had has been word of mouth, T.V. and radio interviews, and an op/ed piece in your local paper. Maybe fliers, postcards, custom pens, fridge magnets, and plain old business cards have worked too, but these are just more forms of content – mini-content pieces, if you will. You might not think of word of mouth as content, but it’s the best kind of content there is: viral content.

Whether it’s print, audio, or video, something that tells your story to your target market is content and you’re going to need a lot of it. Consider writing articles and essays aimed at your target audience that solve problems unique to your market. For example, let’s say your ideal market is made up of 20 to 30 year olds, with families, who make over $75,000. Furthermore, you find that your best clients are professionals – people who are either in the medical, legal, or financial industry. Write articles directed towards those people. What kinds of problems do they face? What types of problems can you help them solve?

Create videos with useful tips or advice directed towards your target audience. Consider creating podcasts too. You could interview other industry professionals, or professionals in a related industry if there is some way their services might benefit your clients.

Create a Usable Website

By far the best resource on the web for usability is Jakob Nielsen’s site on usability (nngroup.com). It should go without saying, but a website that is slow, hard to navigate through, and links that get in the way of users trying to discover information are going to kill the user experience. People are going to leave your site faster than you can say “lickety-split” and you’ll be left wondering why your sales are in the toilet.

Basic principles of usability include minimalism in design, an intuitive navigation menu, usable and engaging content on the homepage that demonstrates what the purpose of the site is. If your web designer isn’t familiar with Nielsen’s principles of usability, ask him to get familiar. If he (or she) doesn’t seem interested, find another designer.

Be Careful With Subdomains – Try Not To Use Them

You might work for an agency, but you don’t have to get lost in the crowd. If you are competing with other agents in your area (i.e. you work for a company like ReMax or Century21), using subdomains might be standard practice. You might have an “agency page” that you’re encouraged to use. If at all possible, try to get a page where you can brand yourself. Don’t use free domains. They look cheap and unprofessional. Having your own website will do wonders for differentiating yourself from your peers – especially if you have control over the content on the site.

Also, which do you think looks more professional on a business card: www.yourname.com or www.yourname.yourcompany’sname.com or www.yourname.blogspot.com? Obviously, the personal web address makes you look more professional and independent.

Do Local Targeting

It’s unlikely that you’ll be doing business all over the world, or even across the country. Hire a marketing firm that specializes in local SEO. The company should be able to help you optimize your website for local search – which is what prospective home-buyers will be using when they’re ready to buy. If you come up first in the search engine, and you have compelling content that sets you apart from your peers, you’re probably going to be considered first.

A Few More Tips

• Don’t get suckered into signing a contract with a web developer or marketing agency that makes outlandish promises. No one can guarantee placement in Google, Bing, or any search engine (unless it’s a paid listing, and even then “guarantee” is probably not the most accurate word to use).
• Don’t pay a web developer for work that’s not done. Like any other business, you should require a schedule for site completion, milestones for progress, and progress reports in case something changes during the design process.
• Stay away from most marketing blogs on the Internet. There are a few really reputable companies and blogs on the Internet. There are even more “me too” companies, blogs that make wild and speculative statements about how to market online, and folks that have no clue what they’re talking about. Generally speaking, you can trust the stuff that comes out of places like searchengineland, SEOMoz, and Search Engine Journal (as well as anything these folks explicitly endorse). Obviously that’s not a comprehensive list of trustworthy sites, but it will keep you in the right neighborhood.

Photo credit: © queidea – Fotolia.com

Image courtesy optimizare-seo via flickr.com

So with little or no web presence, the chances of you succeeding in the real estate industry long-term will eventually become smaller and smaller as each year passes and technology becomes even more accessible, mobile, and mainstream—if that’s even possible.

Let’s face it, simply having a real estate website or blog isn’t even enough anymore. To really make an impact and generate your own quality leads on a regular basis, real estate agents must now learn the ins and outs of building a website that ranks well among all the major search engines and produces a high PageRank for the specific keywords relating to your business. And if you’ve spent any time researching or investigating search engine optimization techniques, you likely already know that reaching and sustaining that high Google rank is an on-going process that requires constant content building, blogging, social media marketing, and various other web marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, many real estate agents out there are way too busy scheduling showings, meeting with clients, and actually selling homes; so the extra time it takes to keep up with the evolving world of search engine optimization can often be hard to come across. Lucky for all you agents however, plenty of helpful SEO blogs are available to give you all the latest developments and information you’ll need to keep you well informed and 100% up-to-date when it comes to how to evolve your lead-generating real estate website.

So if you’re looking for a good read or have some extra time in between showings, check out some of these best SEO blogs:

1)      GeekEstate: Origianlly founded by Zillow.com, GeekEstate.com offers not only informative and current SEO tidbits, but also acts as a terrific resource for real estate agents wanting to keep up with all forms of technology in the industry. This one is definitely a must-read for all agents choosing to use the WordPress platform for their primary real estate website.

2)      SEOmoz: As perhaps the most common provider of SEO software and tools, the folks at SEOmoz certainly have extensive knowledge of how search engines operate. Through helpful webinars and the SEOmoz Daily Blog, real estate website owners are able to get endless instruction and guidance on the best strategies for optimizing websites and achieve a higher ranking among the major search engines like Bing, Google, and Yahoo!.

3)      Search Engine Land: Posting several blogs a day, Search Engine Land is the perfect blog site for quick reads and the latest updates in search engine optimization. What makes Search Engine Land so unique, however, is that many of the posts are contributed by outside professionals working in the industry with widespread knowledge of SEO and how it works.

4)      Data-Based Ads, Inc: As CEO and the lead blogger at Data-Based Ads, Inc, Mike Scotty provides followers with insightful SEO and web marketing tips that range from how flickr and social media can boost real estate SEO to providing some useful ideas for your own real estate blog. Although posts aren’t as frequent on the Data-Based Ads blog, it’s definitely worth the time to check out when something new is published.

5)      HubSpot: The HubSpot blog is a comprehensive resource for not just search engine optimization but internet marketing as a whole. Whether you want to learn how to use social media sites such as Pinterest or Facebook to drive business or read about tips for optimizing your landing pages for long-term lead generation, HubSpot has you covered. This blog really covers everything when it comes to various web marketing techniques and tactics, so definitely use the categories when navigating the website to determine which posts may satisfy your interests.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working as a Market Research Associate and writing published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence in Chicago, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and is a managing partner at Real Estate Web Creation, LLC.

Link juice is essential for ranking real estate sites on Google. Image by Mark Kens via flickr.com

Link building, however, is one of those search engine optimization practices that many real estate agents fail to understand and misuse entirely. If your real estate website has been live for an extended period of time or you’ve explored search engine optimization services with third-party companies, there’s a good possibility you’ve seen numerous advertisements and spam e-mails for effective, low-cost link building.

Of course I certainly understand that everyone has a budget when it comes to web marketing and everyone loves a great deal. But before you risk all the hard work you’ve already put into your real estate website and the ranking your site has already achieved, you need to be absolutely certain the link-building strategies you implement are legitimate and follow white-hat search engine optimization practices. So what exactly does that mean? Here’s a comprehensive explanation of everything you need to know about real estate link-building:

Link-Building Basics

Real estate link building is the process of obtaining relevant, high-quality, inbound web-links to your real estate site, which ultimately help your website achieve a higher ranking among major search engines. In this simplistic definition, take note of the words “relevant” and “high-quality.” This doesn’t mean writing poor quality articles with links to your site and submitting each to an article directory. In addition, this also doesn’t mean constantly spamming blog comment sections with opinions, suggestions, and links back to your site. Instead, real estate link-building starts with writing quality content for both your real estate site and outside websites and building relationships within the internet community!

Proper Link-Building Practice

When I explain to real estate agents that writing quality content and superior blog posts will eventually translate to relevant link-building, it isn’t long before a confused look of disbelief is starring me right back in the face. The logic behind writing engaging, noteworthy content and blog posts is that other professionals, website owners, and media personnel might eventually take notice. How does that help?

For starters, if you write an interesting piece about the unique history of a listing or special features of a home for sale in your local market, there’s always the possibility someone else may find that topic interesting as well and write a follow-up piece on your original article, including a link within the context of their work back to your site. Don’t believe me? Believe it. This actually happens more than you think; but in order for someone to be motivated enough to share your post or link back to your original content, it of course has to be worth sharing—i.e. interesting, engaging, unique, funny, or significant.

Image by HubSpot via flickr.com

Is it a definite possibility you’ll have success with outside parties sharing or linking your content? Simply put: no. But that’s where building relationships comes into play. Obviously, the likelihood of someone sharing or linking back to your real estate website is much greater if you know or have established a rapport with that individual. Quality link-building doesn’t just happen overnight and it rarely occurs randomly. So think of link-building as virtual networking. Start including relevant links in the content you write and the blogs you post, and you never know who might contact you or return the favor.

Guest Blogging & Link Building

Waiting for someone to mention your website or article isn’t enough when it comes to real estate link-building. If you’re serious about generating quality backlinks to your real estate website, be proactive. Find high-traffic real estate blogs and news websites and request to be a guest blogger. Guest blogging not only helps advertise your services as a real estate agent while providing backlinks to your website, but in doing so, you’re also supplying content for the blog or news site itself, which will benefit that site as well.

But before you jump at the opportunity of becoming a guest blogger, be absolutely certain you’re capable of providing engaging, well-written articles that people will want to read. Website owners don’t want to post low-quality articles, and even more importantly for you personally, it’s your name attached to the article, so make sure it’s something you can be proud of and will want to share with the rest of the internet world.

Create Your Own Links

A common misconception regarding the link-building practice of creating your own links is to buy a domain name, throw together another quick real estate website and link it back to your primary real estate website. Unfortunately, the process of creating your own backlinks is much more involved and quite a bit more time consuming. Instead of simply throwing together a handful of cheap, low-quality real estate websites and inner-linking each one, pick out your top 3-5 market specializations and build a substantial web presence for each.

Whether it’s several high-end condo buildings or a group of highly-desirable subdivisions in your community, make the determination that you specifically want to rank for these market segments. Next, buy a relatable domain name and create a high-quality, comprehensive website and include every piece of information about that community from the history and original builder(s) all the way down to home features and pricing. Make sure these websites are the go-to sites for any buyer considering a home or condo within that community. Regularly blog about events, units for sale, and community happenings and dedicate just as much time to these sites as you do with your primary, lead-generating website. Over time, all of these sites will gain authority and you’ll have a useful group of websites that will not only help generate more business, but can also be used to inner-link and help significantly boost your core search ranking.

Real estate link building is perhaps the most involved and complex search engine optimization technique around. It requires a lot of effort, focus, and even a little bit of luck. But doing it the right way will ensure an increase in traffic and an improvement in how your real estate website is found on the web via search engines. So stop relentlessly commenting on blog posts and start your journey towards high-quality link building today!

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working as a Market Research Associate and writing published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence in Chicago, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and is a managing partner at Real Estate Web Creation, LLC.

© itsallgood – Fotolia.com

The days of Google and other major search engines falling for tricks that will artificially get your site a higher PageRank in a shorter amount of time are long gone. Spamming and other black hat search engine optimization is unethical and will no doubt bury your website over the long haul; and these days, it’s takes a lot less time for Google to catch on to such behavior.

So instead of taking short cuts to get instant gratification out of your real estate site, I urge you to try and avoid the following negative S.E.O. strategies and set your website up to be a strong lead generator and have long-term, sustainable success.

• Link Farm: A link farm is a basically a cluster of websites that link to one another. Search engine algorithms look at page links to determine a site’s relevance and overall authority, so the idea behind a link farm is to fool a search engine into thinking certain sites are of significance because of the high number of inlinks. This practice was used years ago, but should you try it today, your site will be considered spam and you rank will steadily drop. Don’t do it.

• Keyword Stuffing: Most people with basic web knowledge understand this is something you don’t do. But many people not familiar with website principles still think jamming keywords throughout a website and inflating your keyword density will help achieve a higher rank. This is not the case, however, and as search engines see an unusual amount of repeat keywords, your site will more than likely be penalized for it.

• Cloaking: The purpose of cloaking is to feed search engines certain text, while giving users something entirely different to see when a website is viewed. How it works is that web masters will input misleading meta tags into the coding of web pages, while what will be seen on the frontend of such these pages fails to correspond with such tags. What makes this practice especially frowned upon among search engines is that if web users come across a site totally different from what search engine bots sees, the effectiveness of these search engines greatly diminish. For that reason, some search engines have even banned sites that use the cloaking technique.

• Duplicate Content: Many real estate agents around the country who rely heavily on web leads have more than one web site. In fact, it isn’t uncommon for agents in larger markets to have up to 20 domain names that relate to specific neighborhoods, buildings, or subdivisions. So with an abundance of websites, it’s sometimes hard to find the time to write unique, quality content for each. As a result, some agents will cut corners on generic “About Us” or “Our Policy” pages and use the same content throughout all their sites. Bad idea. For every website you own, take the time to write out unique content for each. And if you have generic pages that will contain the same information over and over, simply redirect each back to one page on your main site.

Building a proper real estate web site the right way is a lot of work. Sure, it may take a bit longer for you to see positive results in terms of PageRank and web traffic, but over time, I think you’ll be glad you followed the white hat S.E.O. trail as opposed to using some of the practices mentioned above. Most usually are, at least.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in market research and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and is a managing partner at  Real Estate Web Creation, LLC.

© Tim – Fotolia.com

Each blog post or web page you write should follow some very basic guidelines; and in following these guidelines, you can dramatically increase the chance of more page views and a higher ranking among Google, Yahoo!, and various other search engines available internet users.

1)      Choose a keyword or phrase in which you’re trying to achieve a high ranking. For example, if you’re writing content for a web page detailing the John Hancock building, your keyword phrase may be “the John Hancock condos in Chicago or “175 East Delaware Place condos for sale.”

2)      If possible, include your keyword or keyword phrase in the URL, Page Title, Heading 1, Page Description, and Image Alt Attribute.

3)      Incorporate broad keyword usage throughout the body of your content. Going back to #1, if my keyword phrase is “John Hancock Condos in Chicago,” a good rule of thumb is to try and incorporate this phrase 2-4 times throughout the page.

4)      Follow appropriate keyword density. Although certain S.E.O. experts vary in opinion, you should generally strive for a keyword density of between 3 and 5 percent. And in case you aren’t sure, keyword density refers to the percentage of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used among your page content. So, if you have a total of 100 words and you used your main keyword 4 times, you would have a keyword density of 4 percent.

5)      Write the preferred minimum amount of content. Search engines want to see machine-readable pages that give visitors adequate information on what they’re searching. In general, a sufficient quantity of content for a web page or blog post is 300 characters, or around 50 words in most cases.

So the next time you’re writing content for your website, take the extra time to do it right. While you may not achieve the best ranking right away, using the proper methods while writing quality content will most definitely benefit your real estate website long-term.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in the market research sector and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and is a managing partner at  Real Estate Web Creation, LLC.

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I know what you’re thinking. Writing content is time consuming and may not give you the results you’re looking for immediately in terms of traffic and incoming leads. This may be true, but retooling your content now will only set you up for long-term, sustainable success with your real estate website. The idea behind Penguin is to reduce spam and reward web sites that do all the right things and writing quality content with relevant keywords is arguably the most important aspect to a great website.

However, before you start cranking out fresh content, understand that quality content doesn’t mean spinning old content in a new way. What I’m talking about is totally new, re-written copy that is interesting, creative, and properly uses the keywords you’re using to hopefully get a good ranking among various search engines.

If you have a blog or a ton of web pages with already existing content, slightly changing up the words or the feel of the article isn’t going to accomplish much in terms of search engine optimization. Instead, I challenge you to get involved with each article and produce something that you can be proud of and share with all your friends, clients, and colleges. Because once you’ve published your new and improved content, sharing it via Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Linkedin is the very next step.

Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working in the market research sector and authoring published Market Snapshots for Hanley Wood Market Intelligence, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and co-owns Real Estate Web Creation with his partner, Ted Guarnero, a 25+ year real estate veteran.