In part two of our series of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips for commercial real estate professionals we will explore additional tips for optimizing your web site for the search engines and increasing your web site’s traffic. If you have not yet read part one of this series, you can view it here.Tip #1: Include targeted keywords in your link anchor text
One additional place to add targeted keywords to your web site is in the anchor text of any links that point to other pages of your site. The link anchor text is the actual words that are hyperlinked within the text. For example, in this sentence “LoopNet is #1 in online commercial real estate”, the words “online commercial real estate” are the anchor text. The search engines use the keywords in a link’s anchor text to help them determine the content of the linked page and use this text as a factor when ranking sites in the search results.
Tip #2: Regularly update your web site with unique content
Search engines love new content. So, it is important to keep the content on your site fresh and updated. By consistently adding new content to your web site, you are giving the search engines a reason to return and index your site, as well as adding additional pages that can appear in the search engine results. When adding new content, is important to make sure that it is relevant to the targeted keywords you are going after. For example, a San Francisco commercial brokerage may want to create a page that gives data on the local commercial real estate market.
Be sure to include links within this content (where it makes sense) to other pages in your site using your keywords. Also, avoid posting the same content in two different places on your web site. Search engines tend to penalize for duplicate content, and you will see the most benefit if the content is unique.
Tip #3: Add a site map
Adding a site map to your web site will help the search engines to find and index your most important web pages. A site map is a basic web page which contains text links to the important pages on your site and creates a central place where search engines can find these pages. Click here to view an example of LoopNet’s site map. Be sure to make all links text and to include your targeted keywords in each link’s anchor text.Tip #4: Get links from other relevant web sites
One of the major elements of Google’s search engine algorithm is the number of links that a site receives from other web sites. It is important that these links come from relevant web sites (for example, a commercial real estate brokerage would not benefit from a link from a travel web site) and that the links direct to relevant pages that contain targeted keywords in the anchor text.
Link building can be a very long and tedious process, as many web masters are reluctant to link out to other sites. To get started, add your site to relevant directories (Yahoo directory, DMOZ, etc.). Make sure when adding your site to these directories that they are reputable and not link farms (define). You may also approach various web site owners and ask them to link to you, but be prepared that you need to offer a compelling reason as to why they should do this.
Tip #5: Don’t abuse Search Engine Optimization tactics
Search engines have become very good at spotting sites that abuse the various techniques we have mentioned. When optimizing your site, make sure that any changes you make are useful to the user as well as the search engines. After all, if users do not find your site helpful, then any traffic you gain from applying these techniques is wasted. When adding keywords to your site, only do so when it make sense, and avoid keyword stuffing, or adding the same keywords into a web page multiple times so that the text no longer makes sense. By keeping in mind both the needs of the search engines and those of your site visitors you will be able to create an optimized site that is relevant to both.
Lastly, when implementing any new SEO techniques, make sure to do your research to ensure you are not harming your site. For example, adding hidden text on your website using the same font color as the background so that search engines can see it, but visitors can not, may seem like a good way to add additional keywords to your website. But, search engines consider this spam and will penalize your site. You can research any new SEO techniques you come across by running a Google search or by visiting the sites below, which are all well known resources of Search Engine Optimization knowledge:
The High Rankings Forum: http://www.highrankings.com/forum/
ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com/
Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/
Webmasterworld.com: http://www.webmasterworld.com/
These tips should give you a good base in order to begin optimizing your web site. We hope that you found them useful. Please post and comments/questions that you have below, and we will be happy to respond.
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7 comments - Post a Comment:
Great article. The curreny economy provides for some great opportunities for organizations that embrace web 2.0 marketing tactics. Some more information can be found here on the subject.
http://blog.buildingenginesc.com/?p=42
Great post. Many SEO guys think that a little bit of content and then loads of back links will rank you higher, this may have been the case a long time ago, but those days are gone.
Content is king! Create good content on your site and the traffic will come your way.
It takes time and effort......... do not steal content from other sites either! Big No No!
Hello,
Thanks for sharing such useful tips, as i am also
in this real estate so
these tips are very useful for me.
Great info. I have been researching backlink software. It's a frustrating process in that they do not clearly tell you what and how their software works. So far, it does not seem like a good idea to use it since many of the links are probably not relevant. Does anyone have recommendations for how backlink building.
Thanks for the great tips on optimizing real estate websites. I will try and implement them.
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