Step 1: Get a good website

Bells and whistles are one thing, but ranking well in search engines requires a website that:

• is designed correctly with good URL and Title structure
• can be easily updated

Step 2: Target your keywords

This is the interesting part – and DON’T GET INTIMIDATED. If you want to target “Chicago Real Estate” or “Vancouver Real Estate” then go for it. Just make sure you’re willing to wait a little longer (8-12 months) before you make it into the top 10.

Step 3: Optimize your meta tags

Make sure your front page title tag contains your targeted keyword(s), and not much else.

Step 4: Optimize your content

Make sure your targeted keywords appear in your content frequently but logically. Going out of your way to “trick” search engines won’t get you anywhere.

Step 5: Get good backlinks

Here’s the most important part. Make sure you get backlinks that:

• will last a long time
• have your keywords in the anchor text (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT)
• are on high page rank websites, or root domains

5-10 backlinks per day should do it, with 3-5 high quality links per week.

Step 6: Keep content fresh

People often forget this one. Search engines measure two content factors:

1. Is it fresh on this current analysis?
2. How often is it fresh?

If the answers to these questions are “yes” and “often” respectively, then you’re good to go. A fresh blog post every week ought to do the trick.

Step 7: Repeat steps 5 and 6

Believe it or not, that’s it! Most people over-complicate SEO so dramatically they convince themselves that only professionals are capable of achieving a good ranking. I can say, from personal experience, that it’s well within anyone’s reach. Success is determined by only two things: consistency and commitment. Stick with this approach for 10-12 months and your website will be producing more business than you can handle.

“So what should I do?”

I get asked this all the time, and the answer is simple: contract it out.

Ghostwriters

If you’ve ever read a Hardy-Boys novel then you know how good ghostwriters can be (you didn’t really think it was Franklin W. Dixon writing all those books, did you?).

Many REALTORS^™ now use ghostwriters to create their online content for them. Prices for hiring ghostwriters vary dramatically, but it’s possible to get good content written for an entire website for as little as $100-$200.

Advantages to Using Ghostwriters

• Saves time
• The saved time will likely save money
• Get a better ranking in Google

Potential Disadvantages to Using Ghostwriters

• The copy can be bad… really bad – if you don’t find the ‘write’ person (write – ha!)
• Cost. Yes, without shopping around it can get expensive.

How to find Ghostwriters

Here are some places:

• http://www.seo-writer.ca/freelance/ghost-writer.html
• http://www.find-ghost-writers.com/seo_ghost_writing.aspx
• http://www.wordsofvalue.com/articles/posts/seo-article-writer-why-get-an-article-ghost-writer-2

But my best success has come from posting on the local college or university job board and asking students to write copy.

For the record – I write all my own articles for RealPageMaker. And my real name is Sam. (Though this article was mostly written by Tristan. Thanks Tristan.)

• “huh?”
• “canned”
• “hard work”
• “High-school English” (with shudder)

For me there’s only one association:

• “Money”

Here’s why

In 1996 Bill Gates said:

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.” (full article here)

Since then, little has changed. The best performing websites – the ones that make the most money – have good, unique, fresh content. Period. Here’s why it’s important:

1. Search Engines Love Content

A website without good content will likely never rank well in search engines. Don’t believe me? Here’s a graph showing just how important good content is:

Importance of Content

The graph represents the ranking of a website for an extremely competitive search phrase (60,000,000 results). As you can see, the website jumps in the rankings every-time we add new, unique content.

2. Clients Love Content

For a website to be productive it needs to attract customers. Imagine Google.com not having an obvious search field. Would it still be successful? No.

Is the content on your site representing you? Remember that a customer’s first interaction with you will likely be on your website. If you think that settling for the default content your web designer provided you is good enough, think again.

Creating Good Content

Creating good content is simple:

• Start writing it
• Use a spellchecker
• Have someone close to you read it over

That’s it. And if you can’t do it yourself, there are plenty of contract writers you can hire to help you out.

Search Engine Traffic Based on Result Page

The obvious next question:

“ok – so how do I do it?”

That’s the trick isn’t it. It’s not rocket science, but does require substantial work. Check out this article that tells you how to do it:

• http://www.realpagemaker.com/2011/01/31/what-seo-companies-do/

“But I DID try it, I just never saw any results, so I gave up.”

Unfortunately I hear that from many REALTORS^TM. The problem is that results from blogging can take a while – months and years, not days and weeks. Here’s a step-by-step guide to blogging effectively that will build traffic to your website and leads for you.

Step 1: Select Article Titles

Blogging effectively requires that you select the right topics to write about by ensuring people search for them in Google.

“How do I do that?”

Let me explain: The process involves close examination of “long-tail” keyword phrases in your market. Consider the following graph:

Long Tail Keyword Graph

The graph represents the search volume in Google for certain keyword phrases. More popular phrases, with fewer keywords, are on the left and represent the highest search volume. As you move right, the keyword phrases become less popular and generate less traffic.

As expected, competition for keywords on the left is generally MUCH higher than those further right (though not always… I’ll write another article about this at a later date).

Examples of keywords that would be on the left:

• Nashville Real Estate
• Nashville Homes
• Nashville Realtor

Example of Long-Tail Keywords:

• Nashville Real Estate Blog
• Nashville Real Estate And The Flood
• Nashville Houses In Foreclosure

The trick is to use your blog to rank for as many long-tail phrases as possible, and use other means to rank for the first few high-power keywords. You can use the Keyword Tool (from Google) to discover hundreds of “long-tail” keyword phrases. After you’ve selected a few, simply use these as your blog article titles.

Step 2: Write Good Articles

This is the hardest part for most people, but don’t worry – if you can’t write good articles then consider out-sourcing to qualified writers in your area. Posting on Craigslist or Kijiji (in Canada) for a copywriter takes only a few moments and will save you tonnes of time. A professionally written article of 500-800 words shouldn’t cost you more than $50-$80.

Step 3: Write Consistently, Write Often

Many people know that Googlebot will look at the freshness of your website content, but most people forget that Googlebot also looks at how often your content is fresh when it visits your site. Consistent writing is better than binge writing.

We generally find that writing one article every 7-10 days seems to be optimal.

Ever wondered what keywords to target with your website? Why not go straight to the source and ask Google directly? The traffic estimator will give you a good estimate of traffic you can expect from pay-per-click advertising:

“Chicago Real Estate” – 60,500 monthly searches in the US
“Vancouver Real Estate” – 49,500 monthly searches from Canada

2. Keyword Tool (from Google)

Google has a great tool that allows you to find “trailing” keyword phrases for any advertising target area. Simply type in keywords you are targeting… that’s it! You’ll be able to find hundreds of different keywords you can target, each with estimated monthly traffic.

3. Site Explorer (From Yahoo!)

This is an extremely underrated tool that shows you ALL backlinks to your competitors’ websites. WOW! It basically defines “keys to the kingdom” doesn’t it!

You’ll need to sign up for a free account with Yahoo! before you access this unbelievably useful tool. Anyone not using this is at a serious SEO disadvantage.

4. Webmaster Tools (from Google)

If you’re trying to rank higher in Google, then you won’t be able to do it without webmaster tools. Use this simple, free tool from Google to analyze keyword density, see site errors, monitor backlinks (though you’ll need Yahoo!’s Site Explorer to see ALL backlinks), and localize your website.

5. Your competitors

Companies make a lot of money selling you information about your competitors, but using your competitors websites with the tools above, you’ll be able to see exactly what they are doing for free. After-all, if you know what your competitors are doing, then you’ll be able to do it yourself!

“We are interested to increase traffic to your website, please get back to us in order to discuss the possibility in further detail. We are an SEO company that can bring huge amounts of traffic to your website.”

RealPageMaker receives several emails like this every day from SEO (Search Engine Optimization Companies) attempting to solicit business from our customers. I’ve been asked hundreds of times what these companies do, so here’s a brief explanation:

Keyword Analysis

Most of these companies will perform a simple keyword-analysis of the search terms you are trying to target. For example, if you’re a REALTOR^® in Vancouver, they may attempt to target the following keyword phrases:

• “Vancouver Real Estate”
• “Vancouver Realtor”
• “Downtown Vancouver Condos”
• etc.

These companies will likely tout this as “highly complex” or “extremely involved” but really they are just using the free Google keyword tool.

Website Audit

After determining which keywords you are attempting to target, SEO companies will then perform a “website audit.” Essentially this means that they will analyze your website for keyword/keyphrase density in content and meta tags. Though they will probably sell you on how their tools are proprietary, they are most likely using an inexpensive website auditor tool like this one.

Backlinks

Some SEO companies attempting to solicit you through email might offer backlinks as part of their services. Backlinks are important if your website is to achieve a reasonable ranking for your targeted keywords and search terms. Here’s the problem: getting backlinks is fairly easy; getting GOOD backlinks takes work. It’s unlikely these companies will offer anything of quality.

Content

Some of these SEO companies might even offer to write some copyright content for you (though most won’t). Typically this content is canned, contains spelling and grammatical errors, and might even be copied from online publications like www.ezinearticles.com.

My problem with these services:

They charge too little to be of any use to you. Here are some SEO truths that most people don’t realize:

• SEO takes a lot of upfront work and usually costs several thousand dollars just for an assessment
• SEO is a continuous process: a one-time submission of your website to online business directories is not going to produce any noticeable results
• SEO is extremely competitive. There are lots of people investing significant sums of money to achieve the rankings you are competing for.
• SEO involves a customized and targeted strategy that companies charging a one-time flat fee will not be able to deliver

Your website can achieve a high ranking in Google, but it likely won’t come from someone attempting to solicit you via an anonymous form on your website. Good SEO companies are expensive, but justify their expense by generating tremendous results.

Step 1: Go to Google.com, Select Google Account settings

Go to Google.com and log into your Google account. If you don’t have one just follow the links to sign up.

Once logged in, roll over “Settings” and click on “Google Account settings.”

Google.com Front Page

Step 2: Navigate to your Adwords account

Once in your Account Settings, click on the AdWords link. If you don’t have one you’ll need to add AdWords to your Google account. Do this by clicking on “AdWords” under the “Try Something New” Section.

Google Account Page

Step 3: Navigate to “Opportunities”

Once in your AdWords account, click on the “Opportunities” tab.

AdWords Account

Step 4: Navigate to “Keyword Tool”

Once in your AdWords account, click on the “Keyword Tool” link.

AdWords

Step 5: Use the Keyword Tool to find what people are searching for

Google’s Keyword Tool is one of the most useful tools on the internet. Now that you’re here, enter a keyword phrase into the “Word or Phrase” box, then press “Search.” A long list of results will appear.

Interpreting these results will take some time, but the main things to notice are the global searches and the average cost per click (CPC).

Keyword Tool

Final Note

I strongly recommend investing some serious time and effort into using this tool prior to implementing a content strategy for your website. Choosing extremely popular keywords means LOTS of competition, often with deep-pocketed companies and search engine experts. Though it’s not impossible to compete with these folks, it’s MUCH easier to target keywords that aren’t quite as popular, but still provide you with good volumes of traffic.

Translation of the main points:

“Get the listin’ in the top position” – Get your website ranking on the first page in Google for search terms of your choice.

“Start with your content, I said it before” – It’s all about content. Some other critical points he makes:

1. 250 words per page
2. Use section headers in your content – header 1 for the article title, header 2 for sections
3. Use lists for your main points (bullets)
4. Make sure your content has the correct keywords in it
5. Cross-link your content (link from one page to another within content)
6. Make sure to put your most important links first (some speculate that Google will only go to a certain number of links on a page and imply that your most important intra-site links should go first)

“I call it link sculpting” – He’s referring to putting your most important links first (in your menu and throughout your content) because it’s speculated that Google will stop after a certain number of links per page.

“All text links should include key phrases” – This means that links on your website and back to your website should look like this: Real Estate Websites, and not this: RealPageMaker.

“Gotta have great information” – That’s right – crappy content isn’t going to cut it. Good content will be interesting for visitors and will encourage more people to link to your website.

“Yahoo Directory” – This is a directory offering you an opportunity to buy an inbound link. These links have high “pagerank” and will raise your rankings in google – only catch: it costs $300/year (a small price in my opinion).

“Inbound links” – These are links from other people’s websites to yours. Make sure they’re good quality links – bad quality (link banks, link exchanges) they might actually damage your ranking.

“Keyword Stuffing” – This refers to the practice of putting lots of keywords into your content in an effort to confuse Google: it doesn’t work.

“Meta information for all the pages” – Don’t worry about exactly what this is – just know that you need it. On RealPageMaker sites it’s available on every page for you to edit and configure.

Step 1: Determine your niche

Every successful Realtor® has self-reflected and chosen their particular area of specialty. Here are some common niches:

• Rental property sales
• Multi-family building sales
• Land parcel sales to developers
• etc.

Successful Realtors® will only choose a niche that meets the following criteria:

• There is a big enough niche demand
• it is not over-filled with competition
• it has entrance barriers (connections, training, experience) that will prevent competitors from entering
• it can be easily advertised (doesn’t require long explanations)

Step 2: Profile your customer

With a niche in chosen, it’s now much simpler to zero-in on potential customers. To profile a niche customer, begin by asking the following questions:

• What is the customer’s income?
• What is the customer’s age?
• What are the customer’s extra-curricular interests?
• Where does the customer spend his/her time?
• What does the customer search for on Google?

Successful Realtors® take their time with this – and are often be surprised what they come up with.

Step 3: Target your customer

One of the most successful Realtors® I know targets doctors who like golf. He’s from humble means, and needed to save up for over a year to pay the $15k membership fee at an exclusive central golf club. It took a few months and a little networking, but he managed to work his way into their circles and sold several large, centrally-located houses to some of the most exclusive customers in the city.

This is an excellent example effective customer targeting.

Step 4: Provide a point of reference

When you enter your niche, you’ll be amazed at how referrals start coming to you. It’s at this point that your website begins to play a critical role as a point of reference for this inbound business. Make sure your website achieves the following:

• Ranks at the #1 spot on Google for your name
• Provides your niche information on your front page
• Provide hot-links to other key sections of your website (MLS® Search, contact page, blog, etc.

Step 5: Give them a reason to return

A good website is one with fresh information. Here are the must-haves on a good, up-to-date website:

• Latest MLS® data
• Market statistics
• Market news

Visitors MUST be able to consider your website as the gospel about your niche. Make sure to invest adequate time in keeping your information current, and relevant.