Off-page SEO – building real estate links
SEO practices can be categorized into two sectors; on-page and off-page.
On-page SEO refers to tactics you use on your own site to build search engine visibility, the most basic of which are using descriptive terms in your titles, URLs, headings and copy. The operative advantage is that you are in total control of the changes you make to your own site pages.
Off-page SEO is completely centered around the quantity, quality and diversity of inbound links to your website from other sites. Off-page SEO is not only more of a challenge, but can be much more important in helping your site to rank well on the search engine results page.
Inbound links from authoritative sites build your site’s credibility in the eyes (crawlers) of the search engines. What determines the authority of a website or a web page? – the quantity, quality and diversity of sites linking into it.
The concept is not hard to grasp – a linking site is handing your site a vote of SEO authority by linking to you, saying that you have something relevant to say, or something that will enhance the topic or discussion at hand. The amount of authority in the inbound links coming into the linking site will determine just how much authority that site passes to your site. And so on.
So the eternal question people ask is ‘How do I get other sites to link to me?’ And the answer is ‘Create good content’. No one will link to your site unless you have something great to offer the linking site’s readers. Here are a few content strategy suggestions:
Developers – video your neighborhood and talk about what’s great about living there – you want your future residents to be enticed – but you could also create interest with local neighborhood organizations who might link to your video page – especially if you ask them.
Property managers – video and/or write about events you hold for your residents. Ask local organizations to link a photo or give you a short write-up in their calendar with a link to your story.
Agents – Offer your services as a guest blogger on a local real estate platform. Most often you will need to qualify your expertise and contribute substantial market data, but you most likely will be able to inject a couple of relevant site links.
Anyone can create useful guides to one of the many facets of buying and selling real estate, which tend to generate links by sites that discover them. Most web publishers are looking for good content.
Once you create your content, don’t be shy about touting it. Part of your link strategy has to be about getting seen. Share by email, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – you know the rest. At the very least you’ll gain traffic to your website. Best case you’ll also generate some inbound link juice.