How to Get Top Rankings for Your Real Estate Website

For those of you not receiving it, the regular SiteProNews SE Optimization newsletter is one of the best information and news update services on Search Engine Optimization out there.

I received my most recent copy today, and instantly devoured a post by Titus Hoskins of BizwareMagic.com, called "How Much SEO Do You Need to Get Top Rankings? (also available via Ezine Articles here).

In this post, Titus provides some of the salient SEO tips I've read, so I wanted to share them with you here.  I'm sure he won't mind the link love, so the bulk of what he says can be found below.  Be sure to check out his Internet Marketing Tools site, as well as his FREE 7 Day Internet Marketing Course.  I'm sure you will gain a lot of very useful tips on how you can increase website traffic from what Titus has to share.

Of all the myths perpetuated byleading SEO gurus out there, the one that says you must practice perfect SEO strategies to get top rankings is perhaps one of the biggest.  Does it help to follow standard proven SEO practices when optimizing your website?  Sure.  But, there's no magic bullet.  What you'll need to do is test, test, and then test some more to be sure you're achieving the results you desire.

True, there are some big SEO mistakes you should steer clear of.  Things like keyword stuffing, keyword spamming or linking out to bad neighborhoods such as link farms, pharmaceutical or gambling sites may get you blacklisted. (Note, while you cannot control who links to you, you should always be careful about who you are linking to.)

(Read the rest of Titus' Intro here... )  Now on to the tips!

Understanding that you may or may not be fully gung-ho about your site's SEO effectiveness, you may want to implement some of these steps now and save some for later.  However, here are a few things you can do if you want to go into the SEO battle full-force.  (Warning... Follow these steps ONLY if you want to see marked improvement in your Google page placement!)

1. Download SEOquake and place this free SEO toolbar plug-in on your Firefox browser. (Kevin's note: I use it, and it's awesome!)

2. Go to Google and type in the keyword or keyword phrase you're targeting with your site or content.

3. Click on the number one ranking and observe how many pages it has indexed, PageRank, how many backlinks it has, age of the site... and so on.

4. Then click the page info button and study all the on-page factors this site has and notice what it's doing with its page and keyword density lay-out.

5. Check all the backlinks this site has in the different search engines. Copy or try to get the same backlinks for your site that your competitor has acquired. Then get more backlinks and/or higher quality backlinks than your competitor.

6. Watch your rankings rise...

Titus then goes on to explain that some keywords are just too tough to compete for.  Other times, keywords can be won, but it will take you a long time to do so.  What you should pay special attention to are the long-tail (multi-worded) keywords that are relative to your site but have little competition.  In doing so, you can greatly increase the speed at which you rise in the search rankings. As always, it's advisable that you locate and use a solid search engine optimization tool or resource as you progress with your blogging.

What most people don't consider - and what Titus rightly calls a "Sweet Detail," is that long-tail keywords are often what brings folks to your site.  For your Real Estate SEO efforts, I'd add that this is especially true when targeting long-tail phrases with localized geographic information (city name, state, etc.).

Work outside the box here.  If you specialize in the Orlando, Florida real estate market, or Clearwater Beach real estate, think of phrases that folks might search for and then test them via one of several available keyword research tools, like the Google Adwords Keyword Research tool.  Wordtracker.com also provides a great write up on long-tail keywords.

An example might be: homes in Clearwater Beach Florida, Clearwater Beach Florida condominiums, condos on Clearwater Beach,  Sandpearl condos for sale, etc.  (Notice, you'll find our good friends and Clearwater Beach Real Estate Pros Jack and Cyndee Haydon ranking pretty high on several of these searches!)

For in the final analysis, you don't want just SEO, you want smart SEO. It won't take you long to realize that, most times, you can often out-smart your competition, even if you can't out-rank them.