Hello Everyone,

I am new to the whole SEO thing and I need a dummied up version. I've been reading the forum and it says do this but not this, this only on tuesdays, and something about bad neighbhors. I feel like a baby in a topless bar, overwhelmed. Can someone please explain where to find PR's, how to tell who's good to link to and who's bad, and put me on the right track?

Thank you kindly!

Part of the problem is the source you've selected to question. Google is the top search engine on the internet, best ask them what they like;

http://www.google.com/intl/en/webmasters/

You can ask a SEO expert, but now your into voodoo and the sales pitches to promote patrinage.

Ask Google?.....surely you're kidding

Google is not very forthcoming in explaining their algorythms in any meaningful way....ever And by all means...stay away from anyone that studies and performs seo for Real Estate companies for a living....

By the way...can anyone tell me how to sell my home for top dollar without using one of those Realtors that will try to sell me their listing agreement .... Not trying to start a flame war but just making a point. Your host here, Doug, can provide all the help you'll need

Ben, these days good old common sense may get you further than studying seo Do what you think makes sense. I'm serious about it, too. If you like a site, link with it. If you can buy advertising somewhere for a good price, do it. Don't get too caught up in the seo game. And btw, if you really want to learn, there are about 1,000 threads in here about related subjects

Mike

P.S.: Welcome to Agentsonline

Ask Google?.....surely you're kidding

...all those SEO experts staring blindly at Google's 'for web designers' page, thinking, what happened?...

Back to the question ..

SEO = Search Engine Optmization = taking the steps to improve your ranking on the search engines.

There are a host of companies that sell services designed to improve your rank. Most focus on refining your key words in your meta tags (every web site has a header where you can specify the relevant key words), making your content key-word dense (repeating your key words in the copy) and obtaining incoming links to your site.

I broker an agency with several web sites and many agents with individual web sites. I keep a close tab on our positioning and here are a few observations:

* The key to good placement is good content. This is where most of the template sites fall short. You need to take the time to write about your market in detail, not only on your home page but on the other pages.

* Most folks' meta-tags are very poorly done. The vast majority of real estate searches are in the following form: "place name + real estate". Yet, most folks only put in their major community. Consider incorporating zipcodes, key subdivisions, and surrounding communities --- and add your state also.

* A web site is an ongoing process. Stale content, ie. not changed for 6 months or so tends to be penalized. I try to modify and improve our agency sites every month or so.

* Pay-per-click helps to get a site recognized intitially. But, it doesn't guarantee position. If you are doing the job right, you can restrict your pay-per-click once you get on the first page of a search engine.

Anyway, these are my observations. My personal belief is that most of the "tricks" don't help that much.

I speak from the perspective of having the #1 site on google/#3 on yahoo (top local site) for my primary market for the past 4 years. And, the web sites for my other two offices are rapidly moving into similar positions. My agents' sites in one of our markets have 4 of the top 10 positions (and only 2 others are local).

Anyway, my thoughts.

Steve Taggart
Broker
CENTURY 21 Advantage
"Southeast Idaho's Real Estate Leader"

I have a couple of suggestions for you. As it has been stated Seo is common sense. I would recommend that you do read up on Seo in a few Seo forums. There are several you can take a look at to get started.

I hope I will not upset the Mods or Admins for this. Take a look at Digitalpoint forum, Seochat forum and Webmasterworld forum. These forums will give you a little insight to the basics of Seo. After this I would also follow Matt Cutts blog, he is the head Google Engineer and offers some good advice and a little more insight to what Google looks for in sites. You can find all these by searching google, sorry I do not want to add urls to these sites out of respect for this site.

Some general things you need to start with for common sense Seo.

1. H1 + H2 Tags
2. Title Tags
3. Meta Tags
4. Navigation Structure
5. Write Lots Of Content
6. Maintaining acceptable density levels for your keywords.
7. Create Sitemap
8. Get Backlinks
9. Setup Blog write articles and create backlinks to portions of your main site.
10. Submit press releases, dont just write to be writing, create an article that readers will find interesting, do not create press releases for self promotion.

These are just some common sense Seo practices. Follow these guidelines and it will take you time but as long as your site stays clean you will acquire rankings in the search engines. Sorry but one last piece of advice..Content Is King, write lots of it. The more real estate content you have the better. Word of warning though do not copy someone elses content, that can land you in court and cause your site to get ban by the search engines.

Plain english....

SEO is this dude you give a little money to and he screws around with your site... if you get a whole bunch of traffic you give him a lot more money. If he pisses off Google, nobody ever sees your site ever again and he changes his phone number.

Simple as pie.

There's some good info and some outdated and old info so far... SEO for real estate sites is a unique animal and can vary litterrally by market. Definitely by far the most competitive area for those seeking ranking.... besides the gambling and viagra sites that is...LOL

There are so many variables it's nearly impossible to answer intelligently without seeing your site and knowing exactly what keywords your seeking to capture so lots of analysis can be done before you start doing anything at all... I know that's a pretty vague answer but being more specif without more details is pointless... .... oops...gotta go call the phone company now

Hi all,
SEO will allow you to get business. Unfortunately it is not an exact science. Many people try to optimize their site with no sucess and many SEO guy's are don't know half of what they should. To find a good SEO, try first by analyzing results of what they have done in the past and in how long they produced theses results.

Kamal
Miami Beach Real Estate
Miami Real Estate

Ben,

SEO is really just looking at the sites that rank above you, figuring out what they are doing to rank well, and then incorporating that knowledge into your own site. The list given by MyGoRealty is a good list of things to look for to begin your comparisons.

The best thing to do of course is to do all of this BEFORE you have a website designed because trying to optimize a site after can entail making major changes to your site.

For competitive commercial keywords Google has simplified all of this for us though. If you look at the site that has been #1 in your area since the Florida update in November 2003 you will find that the reason is that they have "traded" lots of links over the years. The thing is that they really have not traded at all as their own links pages actually reside on a different website - meaning they have all one way links pointing at their site. Google thinks they must be a great resource because so many people have linked to them without getting a link in return.

Your job is to do the same as they have (without being called a cheat)

Here is Search Engine Placement we can all understand:

Remember those cool kids in High School? Well, they were only cool because the other kids thought they were cool. And to be cool it took one of two things: appeal or money.

If you want high search engine placement, then you have to appeal to other "cool" sites so they exchange links with you or you just buy your position like the rich kid whose father gave him a corvette for his 16th birthday (fair warning: This can also backfire for your site just as it did for the "snotty" rich kid).

Since most agents don't have tons of money to waste on online marketing (and most of it is wasted), your best bet is in getting other cool sites to link with yours by increasing your online appeal. Make sure you use key terms in the text of your site, not just the metatags: homes, houses, sale, buy, your city, neighborhood names, etc. Make it easy to use by adhering to the unofficial 3-click rule: get visitors to the information they want within 3 clicks or they'll find a site that will.

I suggest finding the highest ranking site of your competitors and then track down their links. Exchange your links with the same sites that list your competitors. Rule of thumb: Don't pay for simple link exchange.

And whatever you do, do NOT exchange links with sites not in real estate. Remember, if the band geeks thought you were cool, that didn't mean squat to the in-crowd, did it?

PS: Before you hire a SEO "expert", get references and then check them out.

SEO making a site rank high in major search results and be able attract users or visitors.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/search.php?searchid=1108225

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seo

This ebook (SEO for dummies) is always a good place to start :
http://downloads.zdnet.co.uk/0,39025604,39114402s,00.htm