Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO) For Your Real Estate Website Part 1

August 11, 2010

The internet is like a continent sized forest, and things like search engines and social networking sites are like park rangers or guides.  If these people can’t find your website, then your website is like a billboard in the middle of these woods.  No one will know it’s there.

Search engines endeavor to have the true authorities in any subject matter at the top of their search results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a many faceted discipline that includes unique, compelling content, listings, blogging, press releases, article submissions, and other activities. Consequently, with so many options you must build a content strategy.

For most real estate professionals creating original content is one of the most difficult aspects of having your own real estate website.  Common objections to writing site content include:

“I can’t write”

“I don’t know what to write”

“I don’t have time”

and so on.

This guide will help you recognize the importance of your website’s content and help you create a plan that only involves working on your site 3 hours per week yet will still help you steadily move your website toward page one ranking in major search engines.

A critical thing to understand is how search engines assess and rank a website’s content.  Search engines have rules for determining how good a site’s content is and you must follow those rules.  The more you follow those rules, the more likely your site will rise in search engine rankings.  However, not all approaches to SEO necessarily follow these rules.  Consequently, there are 3 basic approaches to SEO and each is defined by how well it follows the SEO rules:

1. Black Hat SEO

These are SEO techniques that break search engines rules and regulations with the goal of getting better SEO sooner and with less effort and expense than if the rules were followed.  Black hat techniques are deceptive ways of creating site content aimed at trying to fool search engines into ranking your site higher than it truly deserves.

Black hat SEO practices often provide a fast track to high ranking, but if the search engines eventually discover you’ve been using using black hat techniques on your site then you risk getting penalized with lower ranking or even banned from the search engine altogether.  SEO is like the tortoise and the hare: “slow and steady wins the race”.

Filed under: SEO For Realtor Websites

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