SEO for Real Estate Website

Hello,

I have just been tasked with doing SEO for a brand new real estate listings website. The site is not yet created. In my plan, I have already put the basics like Meta Tags, Title Tags, H1 Tags and Alt Tags. I am not sure how their copy will be structured but I am recommending a high keyword density.

What else can be done to help the in-site SEO?

As for off-site, I am recommending Article Marketing, link exchange with partner websites etc as well as PPC and Banner ads.

I'd really like some advice on this. Thanks.

(If you're offering your own SEO services, please stop, as this is a small job that cannot be outsourced)

 

Since I have dealt with this same situation, I can tell you what I did.
First off, you need to take charge and let them know the layout of the site for content and etc...You are the expert and they need to listen to you.

As for off-page opt, you should start setting up their Social Media Profiles and get everything ready for the launch date.

Definitely look for other big websites to link to you if possible, try to get a Press Release written about it. Try to get some local and national papers and magazines to write an article about the site. PPC is something you should start to work on now since you should have directed them of how their architecture should be layed out. Meaning you are the one who told them how everything should be done/layed out including URL Structure. You should be able to know the landing pages already and what keywords to target. If you haven't done so yet, setup the ppc campaign to be nationwide or geo-targeted...depending on the type of real estate they do. An idea is to setup a blog and do some Affiliate Marketing as well.

I hope this is a good start for you.

I kind of just re-read your post and you need to take the initiative and lead this whole campaign.
Site/URL Structure, Landing Pages, etc....Everything!!!

 

Basically, get lots of backlinks and make sure to create lots of unique content...

 

Thank you for your input, this is really good stuff. Currently, all they have is a domain name. The site has not yet been built. I will find out in a couple of hours what is going on since I haven't yet met the client.

So how does one do SEO for pages with dynamic content? Since they will be adding listings over time, how do those get optimized? Or do we even optimize those? Should we just concentrate on the landing page?

I like the idea about the Press Release and media coverage. That is definitely something that we'll recommend. Same for social media.

 

Terrible idea IMO. This is so 1997 SEO. Build a GREAT site that has good content. Don't even look at keyword densities.

If you're going to reciprocal link, then do so ONLY with relevant sites... their buddy that does mortgage pre-qualifications and closings for him, home inspectors they use for their clients, handymen they use to make repairs to homes they are selling, etc. (i.e. other sites that are complementary, not competitors).

Focus on ranking for local terms only. In other words, don't try to rank for "real estate"... It AIN'T going to happen. Try to rank for local phrases like "real estate agents in Atlanta, GA", "REMAX real estate agents Atlanta, GA", etc.

 

This is terrible SEO advice.
SEO is Search ENGINE Optimization, not Search HUMAN optimization.

Unless you know that machines can understand quality content?

 

Whatever... Keyword density is not going to make their URL rank... There are a LOT of other things you can do on page and on site to help a page rank that will yield a MUCH higher ROI without cheaping your content, increasing bounce-back rates, and hurting conversions. Spamming the same word over and over to obtain high densities leads to crappy content which people don't want to read. Pages with high keyword densities read like spam and don't attract links.

There is a balance that must be reached w/ SEO... the balance between doing what's right for users and what is right for SEO. If you spam pages with keywords just to get it to rank and someone does manage to find your page, when they click on it and start reading if you don't have good content they are going to hit the back button and never return. If you manage to rank crappy content and can't deliver what people are looking for once they click on your link... you've really accomplished nothing more than if you rank #1 for a keyword phrase that no one ever searches for...

Contrary to popular belief, SEO is NOT just about rankings... Meta descriptions don't weigh into the ranking algorithm at Google but you should STILL optimize it so that it shows often as your snippet and convinces people to click-thru to your site. So a lot of SEO IS about human optimization as well.

When people ask, "how do I make my site rank?" I am the LAST one here to say build great content and you'll rank. There is a hell of a lot more to it than that. But for a local real estate agent, they have a chance to rank for lots of local terms with minimal SEO efforts, so I would focus on getting people to convert with content.

SEO is like a resume... Resumes get you the interview. It's the interview that gets you the job. SEO brings people to your site. But content gets you the conversion (whatever it is you consider a conversion).

 

The beauty of language is that it describes different things with different words.

We are talking SEO, you are talking marketing.

 

Do blog posting / commeting with your back link
Also if you are targetting specific audience do use Yahoo Answers and Social networking in your region / area
More or less focus on people to visit your site (Traffic) and have conversions

 

They ever increasingly can. Keyword density is useless metric. "Write for your visitors not the SE's" is not something I made up. Its been prevalent for quite some time now.

Nigel

 

I will recommend better resolution picture...but it may make your site heavier ..so do in optimization..

 

Great discussion, thanks all.

From the thoughts here and my little experience in SEO, I think that Keyword density is still important but not as important as it used to be and certainly not important enough to sacrifice the quality of content. I typically look for keyword density and quality of content as well.

Now the listings page itself will have dynamic content. So how do we do SEO for that? After my first meeting, it seems like the home page will have some static content but the rest of the site will not. It will pull listings from certain databases. (To which we have legal access. )

 

well you should do social media optimization because it very useful and easy way website promotion..

 

You can also consider advertising your website on free classifieds, like craigslist, kijiji or mine. Just make sure to advertise under appropriate category, like small biz ads. Some classifieds also allow placing links, but it is not free (and also not expensive).
In addition you can think of creating some know of affiliation with other real estate websites. You can contact real estate agencies and offer them your services (if applicable) and as favor back they will link to you.
Also try free web directories to create as much as possible back links.

 

Not the best thing to do for real estate sites, but can help, create a few landing pages. Since you are new to SEO then you gain some knowledge when creating landing pages. Have those landing pages link to the pages that are important. For ranking dynamic pages, you need to be more knowlegeable in SEO. If you can come up with a general rule for your pages and content, then you have a chance, but other than digging deeper....try to do what others are saying in this forum. Social Media, it will definitely help drive traffic to the site, and like canonical said, GEO-TARGET!!! You need to customize your PPC Campaign too; to be geo-targeted. Not sure how much PPC you know, but you can customize the area's you want to target. By geo-targeting your ppc campaign, the bid pricing will be lower than if you went nation wide. For now, the best advice I can give you since you are new to seo, don't worry about the dynamic pages, your main focus should be on the home page which will have to be static. Make it clear to the client that the homepage has to be static.

Do some competitive analysis to see what other companies and local companies are doing....take notes and find out what is working for some companies and what can make you boost even higher.

 

I have been doing SEO and Social Media marketing for a couple of years now. When it comes to Social Media, I am pretty good and have done a lot of projects.

As far as PPC is concerned, it is part of the plan and I'm pretty experienced in that too.

As far as SEO is concerned, I am good at regular sites with static content and have had several rank high on search engines, but am completely new to sites with dynamic page content, so I was hoping to get some pointers on that. Any advice on that would be helpful.

 

The most important factor will be determining the keywords you want to rank for and mapping them to the site. Depending on the size of your area I'd say go for the low hanging fruit first and then build up to the largest volume keywords over time.

Don't forget to incorporate calls to action on the site itself - all the traffic in the world won't matter if this realtor doesn't get additional calls and inquiries. Give site visitors a reason to call or contact the realtor.

 

What do you mean by mapping the keywords to the site? Are you talking about the meta tags? If a page has content that is dynamically generated, how do you set the meta tags for it? Sorry if I sound ignorant on this, but this is the first dynamic content site that i'll be working on.

Thanks.

 

I think he means determine which keyword phrases you want to rank for... Then create a page on your site for each of those phrases. Optimize each page for a different keyword phrase so that you have multiple ways for people to find your site in the search engines... multiple entry points into your site.

It's much easier to make 1000 pages each rank for 1 keyword phrase than it is to make a single page rank for 1000 keyword phrases.

PS: Meta elements (meta description and meta keywords) do absolutely nothing for your rankings at Google. The meta description can influence your click-thru-rate in the SERPs if it gets shown as the snippet so it's still important.

 

If you need to ask, then how can you claim to perform SEO?