Search Engine Optimization for Realtors often feels like dark magic performed with a keyboard. But in truth there’s a process and given enough effort anything is possible.
We’re going to examine the basic concepts in this article.
What do Search Engines look for?
Keep in mind this a basic starter article and that Google owns a lot of patents that describe how the specific algorithm works. So we’re concentrating on the most important elements. We’re going to break this down into two pieces.
1. On-site optimization – Things you do on your site which help the Search Engines understand what your site is about.
2. Off-site optimization – Things which are not part of your site such as links from other websites.
Let’s begin with On-site Optimization.
There’s one general rule I use here. If a person can see it, Google will use it to help decide what to rank your site for. So that includes the text on your website, pictures on the site and the Title Tag.
Let’s discuss the title tag. The Title Tag is a little piece of html code inserted just after the header tag. It looks like this (title)The title of your site(/title). You can see what a title tag is saying about a site by looking at the very top of your browser, directly above the File Edit View menus. This is perhaps the most important item on your site to optimize. Google uses this tag in the search engine results to describe your site and as such puts a lot importance on it when deciding what your site should rank for. So if your site is about Belleville Car Sales then your title tag may read, (title)Belleville Car Sales(/title).
When Google reads a title tag like (title)Belleville Care Sales(/title)what do you think it will think your site is about? That’s right “Belleville Car Sales”. Google does the same with the rest of the site, but the title tag is perhaps the most important piece of the puzzle and for most local Realtors it may be the only thing you need to concentrate on when changing something on your website.
Let’s move to Off-site optimization.
Again this is not as complicated as many people think it is. Think of trying to rank high in Google like a popularity contest. The person with the most votes and most important votes win. Ranking highly in the Search Engines is the same process. You need to have a lot of websites link to you, and the more important those sites are the better it is for you. What that means is that a link from the New York Times is better than your cousin’s dog’s facebook page.
Links from sites that are relevant to yours are better as well. A real estate focused site linking to a Realtor makes sense and helps Google understand you should rank for Real Estate related terms. So can you guess what the best link would be? Yep, a topic related link from a highly authoritative site. For a Realtor that would be a link from a site like RealEstate.com
The next piece to linking is something called the anchor text. Anchor text is the text you see in blue while reading a link. Your anchor text needs to be keyword focused. The more sites that use the anchor text, means more votes for you to rank high for that keyword phrase.
That’s it! Rinse and repeat, get more links from related sites, the more links you get the higher you will rank.
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