The real estate sector is very competitive; gaining traction, visibility, and generating business online requires multi-marketing strategies. You need the right tools to get the proper formula for a synchronized plan. All digital marketing devices work towards optimized traffic to your site and convert this to actual clients.
Link building is one digital device that you should employ to – (1) build credibility, (2) be more visible to potential clients, and (3) sustain relevance.
Link Building 101 for Real Estate
For a better understanding of link building, here is the basic step-by-step process on how it works for your advantage in getting traffic.
- SE (Search Engine) spiders comb through the internet to find new and relevant real estate pages.
- One of the parameters/variables used by the spiders in looking for good content are links that point to and from sites related to the searched topic, e.g., someone searched for “pet-friendly neighborhoods” or “real estate in San Diego”, and your website has content related to the searched topic. In addition, if there are sites linking you to it, your page will be ranked as one of the relevant pages/searches.
- The sites linked to your page contents are part of your backlink profile. The SE keeps the profile, which notes the quality, value, and connection to searched topic/s, in this case, “pet-friendly neighborhoods” or “real estate in San Diego”.
Backlinks used to be paid adverts, through online directories. It was the easiest way to acquire backlinks but this backfired because it also resulted in poor-quality sites ranking on the SE first page. Moreover, it was too disadvantageous for small to medium scale entrepreneurs and businesses that painstakingly exerted effort in producing quality content and used organic ranking. They used organic ranking because they could not afford to pay to be in online directories.
To level the playing field, and set things right as far as low-quality content was concerned, paying for backlinking, including online directories, stopped. To ensure this, SE such as Google’s programmed algorithms became more progressive in searching for quality content, penalizing unauthorized linking and paid directories. Website owners practiced more organic link-building strategies to improve credibility and remain relevant.
That brings us to the present day, and you’ve decided to start link building. Here are seven tips to get you started.
1. Define your goals in starting your link building plan
Clear, practical, and measurable result objectives make link-building efforts manageable and dynamic. What are the key reasons for starting? You want to improve keyword ranking, domain credibility, or authority, increase traffic to specific web pages such as listing pages or blog pages, establish, or improve community relationships, or want to advertise yourself as an expert in your niche. These easily measurable reasons to link building give a clear sense of direction to where you are going with the plan. Be aware that, like most organic digital marketing tools, it takes a while – three months to one year – to see results. Do not let the duration deter you. Incremental results produce lasting rewards.
2. Content is king
As always, in any marketing endeavor, content still holds the number one spot in promoting and providing positive output. Creating and posting high-quality content is the best way to receive backlinks with high quality. For example, you wanted to increase community relationships for your listings and particular niche, so you started a series of blogs reviewing the top 10 best pet grooming services in the area. You posted snippets on your social media, mentioning the 10 best grooming services. These establishments in turn mention you and provide backlinks to your website, particularly the page where you’ve mentioned them. You can also compile previous blogs about a specific topic and make an e-book. Other agents can pick up this e-book as a reference to their posts. Thus, creating a backlink back to your e-book and establishing your place as an expert. Another proven strategy is guest posting on high DA (Domain Authority) sites, by contributing content to someone’s blog, you get an external backlink to your own website and wider exposure.
3. Leverage your local community
Community outreach has been a time-tested way to build a reputation on and offline. Being an active participant in the community leaves a good impression on prospective clients. Posting your participation or promoting community events on your social media accounts is a link to your site and builds brand/agent awareness. Let’s say that you posted pictures of the annual pie festival at the town square for the benefit of the local animal shelter. Posting content, whether with pictures or videos of community events that you actively participated in, brings you credits. Once a user searches for the event, your post will be included in the search page, and SE references your site whenever such activity is searched.
4. Quality trumps quantity especially in link building
Check your current backlink profile through traffic analytics tools. Look at the websites that are presently linked back to you, update them, fix broken links by emailing the businesses that linked their posts to yours, and giving them updated links to your pages. Look into the websites linked to yours. If there is anything that looks like spam, unscrupulous or low quality, ask these enterprises to remove the link to your site. Your present profile is your starting point in creating more backlinks that suit your goal. Safeguard this profile because SE uses this whenever end users make relevant searches.
5. Diversify your link portfolio for a healthy-looking SE profile
Being linked to different sites and platforms across various sectors means you’ve spread your reach and shows the popularity of your real estate site and market listings. Do not limit the source of backlinks to just one. Target as many real estate links as possible across blogs, directories, other websites, and social media. Search engines prefer real estate websites cited from different sources across various platforms. Also, do not limit links to just a few choice keywords. Linking to particular keywords repeatedly is another red flag for SE, so alternate your keyword linking.
6. Optimize your about page
Your About Page is important in link building for real estate websites, despite what you think. The About page is the third most read page on a website. It should mirror your story including mission and vision, to build trust with visitors. Backlinking to your About page builds credibility and trust, as your mission and vision clearly state your expertise to the niche.
7. Build hyper-focused landing pages
Create a definitive landing page featuring your prime listings and engaging content via text, pictures, and videos. A landing page that links to other websites gives you an edge on what you have to offer and is a direct CTA for subscription, email, and social media following. Asking websites to link your landing page or from your social media accounts to a landing page will boost your backlink building for real estate efforts.
Remember that backlink building for real estate agent sites is progressive and takes time to gain momentum. It doesn’t happen overnight. If it did, then SE would flag this as spam or paid links that would be subject to penalties and could mean suspension. That is not something that you want to experience because all your efforts would go to waste. Be patient and consistent with your backlink efforts with high-quality content and get creative.
