SEO Advice

[Nicholas S.]

I'm not an expert at SEO, not by a long shot. The real problem with SEO is all the miss-information and superstition. In the most logical approach, you need to choose which search engines you're targeting and you need to learn how they gather information from your site and how they use it to rank results.

Using a platform like wordpress is a good start because they automatically make most information available to search engines.

Search engines want to display good results that bring value to their users and they are getting much better at avoiding sites that try to "hack" their way up the ranking. Google uses "more than 200" criteria to analyze and rank search results.

The bullet points I always see are:

• Valuable sites get linked by other sites, but don't just ask for links, build relationships with content creators(bloggers, youtubers, etc...).
• Update your site with new "original" content regularly.
• Make your audience more specific. Target the "Long-Tail"

These are the questions I would ask myself:

• Who is my audience?
• What value am I providing them?
• What barriers may prevent search engines from recognizing my audience and evaluating the value provided?

And Just to be overt, I hope this provides value so we can build a relationship.

If you have any problems, post them here and I'll do my best to provide possible solutions.

[Bruce Selin]

There are a lot of charlatans selling SEO who don’t know their *** from a warm rock. But that said, SEO is NOT a scam, and IF you follow the guidelines and understand the Google patent/algorithm, you can actually win the battle for leads.

Here is the #1 obstacle you MUST overcome when doing SEO to generate targeted leads and find people actively looking to buy a home. How do you compete with the big boys, Zillow, Yelp, Trulia, realtor.com & homes.com? These guys virtually dominate Page 1 for any real estate search term people use. Next come the big brands, Remax, C-21, etc.

Are you tired of these big players stealing your leads and selling them back to you? So how do you turn the tables and screw them before they screw you? How do you compete?

Here's some good news folks. Most buyers, after maybe doing an initial search, scroll past the aggregators- Zillow, etc., and look for local agents or offices. They want to deal with a person, not some faceless machine that requires an email and a pint of blood to get any information.

So where do you start? First, you need to really niche down, go for very local markets. Remember the age old advice- work a farm area! You will never be able to penetrate broad searches like Dallas real estate. Instead think neighborhoods, developments or market areas. If you are associated with a major agency, you have a real advantage if they give you your own page, or subdomain. Why? Because you can leverage the Domain Authority of your agency much easier than if you build your own brand new website. (Sorry, if you’re with a small agency, things are going to be MUCH tougher.)

Next, you need to build Page Authority for your subdomain. This takes some time, BUT you can do it systematically by building citations, social profiles and Web 2.0 properties. These need to all link back to your subdomain. Google uses over 200 pieces of data in their algorithm, but backlinks always have been, and always will be, one of the most important ranking factors. Find real estate blogs like Active Rain, Inman and BiggerPockets that let you include a link back to your website/subdomain. These 3 are high Domain Authority sites that give your site link juice, or quality and trustworthiness. Build lots of links!!! Create a Google My Business page and make sure you have previous clients give reviews. Google gives a lot of respect, and better ranking, to sites that have reviews.

Create LOTS of short 2-3 minute videos, every time you preview a house, and upload them to your YouTube channel. Include local keywords like “Poughkeepsie homes for sale” and a link back to your site.