SEO 101 for Real Estate

SEO Basic TermsKEYWORD: This is the word (or words) someone types into a search engine when looking for something. What keywords is your target audience are using? When they search for those keywords, you want your site to pop up as high as possible on the results list.

BACK LINKS: Links back to your site. Links behave like votes for your site. The more votes you have, the better your rankings will be.

SERP: Search Engine Results Page

SMO: Social Media Optimization

SEM: Search Engine Marketing (Marketing on 3rd Party sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

ALT TAGS: A description of an image. If an image cannot be displayed on a site, the user will see only the Alt Tag. Or, If a disabled person visits your website, then their screen reader will use Alt tags to describe the layout and content of your website to them.

ANCHOR TEXT: Anchor text is the visible characters and words that display a hyperlink when linking to another document or URL.

Anatomy of a SERP

Anatomy of a Serp

SERP Facts & Stats

•Over 70% of clicks go to organic results.•75% of people don’t click past the first page.•The top 3 results get up to 60% of organic clicks.

Choose Your Keywords1. Use the Google Keyword Tool to find keywords and phrases2. You should have a list of dozens of keywords – any one page can rank for numerous

keywords and phrases.3. Think about the words and phrases your audience would use to search.4. High volume keywords aren’t always the best. It’s much harder to rank, and they attract a

wider (possibly less affective) audience. Long-tail keywords and geographic combinations usually bring you the most qualified traffic.

5. Choose phrases that will drive sales, not traffic!6. Choose keyword phrases that will be easy to create content for.7. Ranking on several long-tail keywords seems to help you achieve higher rankings on the

high volume keywords.8. Try using keyword modifiers:

1. How to2. Solutions3. Tips4. Reviews5. Ways to6. Best

Additional Keyword Tools

1. WordStream Keyword Tool2. Keyword Niche Finder3. Twitter Search4. YouTube's Keyword Tool 5. Google Trends

How to Optimize Your Website1. Submit your website to search engine directories. A free tool for this is: Free Web Submission2. Choose a URL that includes keywords3. Use keywords relevant to your business when creating your title tags.4. Every page should have a unique title, keywords, and a meta description that includes keywords

and phrases, but does NOT include the page title.5. Create Headings — within the content of the page, put keywords in the section headings.6. Lots of pages with lots of keyword loaded text.7. Create a Google Analytics account and place their tracking code on every page of your website.

This is very easy to do in WordPress 8. Obtain a free Google Places listing for your business. Include keywords in the Business title. Add

photos, videos, and back link to your site.9. Optimize all of your images for the web (72 dpi) and have ‘alt’ attributes with your keywords.10. Add a Facebook Like button and Facebook, Google+ and Twitter SHARE buttons to all of your web

pages.11. Incorporate your blog into your website.12. If you use Wordpress, there are a few fabulous plugins:

1. All in One SEO2. Platinum SEO3. SEO by Yoast

How to Optimize Your Meta Descriptions

1. Keep your meta description to 150 characters or less. Any longer, and some search engines will cut off part of it.

2. Keep it front-loaded with good keywords to give readers a sense of what they'll find on the page.

3. Each meta description on your site should be unique. The goal of the meta description is to set the searchers' expectations about what can be found on that page.

4. Your meta description should not include the page title. Use the meta description to elaborate on the titile.

5. Keywords searched for are still bolder in the SERP, drawing attention to your entry and not others.

How to Optimize Your Website Photos1. Include keywords in the file name (before uploading). The search engines cannot

“see” photos, so they rely on the file name.2. Use Alt Tags - The file name will help Google to categorize the image, but Alt tags

are even more useful. Create a description of the image that includes keywords.3. Use a descriptive title for every image, and add keywords if you can do so in a

natural manner. 4. Use Watermarks on your own images - If you allow people to re-use your images,

and have watermarks on them, then each person that re-posts your images is essentially giving you free advertising.

Use Anchor Text & Linking

1. Search engines index Anchor Text, and with each instance a word or phrase shows up in an anchor text, it improves your ranking for that word or phrase.

2. Google’s algorithm gives a VIP priority to anchor text.3. So use anchor text and link back to your own site/pages. 4. Linking to other high ranking sites can also boost your own ranking.

Optimize Your Blog

1. Integrate a blog into your website – they should both sit on the same URL.2. Use keywords in your blog title and body. Keywords in titles are worth more to

Google than those in the body.3. Use keywords in post tags and categories as well.4. Use keywords in the FILE name and description of all photos/images you use.5. The Search Engines like TEXT, so write often, using keywords.6. Google likes Formatting – headings, bullet points, lists, bolded text.7. Google likes fresh content – blog about hot topics8. Use lots of Outbound links. Links to your own posts, and links to other sites.9. Use lots of backlinks (Inbound)10. Google loves location information, so always include that in your posts.

Back Links 101

1. Remember, back links behave like votes for your site. The more votes you have, the better your rankings will be.

2. Make sure all your social media sites include a link back to your site.3. Use a variety of sources which your backlinks come from. This means creating backlinks from

videos, audio, pdfs, powerpoint presentations etc.4. A VERY good and popular way to get more back links is through social bookmarking websites such

as Digg.com. Bookmark every page of your site on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Diigo, Reddit etc. (ask your friend to exchange back links with you – you bookmark their site pages, and they bookmark yours!)

5. Blog Commenting is wonderful for back links. Visit popular blogs (the higher ranking the site, the more powerful the back link is) that your audience would be interested in.

6. Search engines value the relevance of the link highly. Links from unrelated sites don’t hurt you, but they don’t help nearly as much as links from a relevant site.

7. Answer questions on "Yahoo! Answers" and other "answer sites".

Content Creation for SEO1. Write/Blog2. Video3. Photographs

• Establish yourself as an authority• Place content on your website/blog• Create lots on in-bound links to your website.• Tag content with appropriate keywords to increase ranking• Backlink content on bookmarking site and social sites• Create social friendly content that people will want to share

• How Tos• Tips For

• Add share buttons to your content• Place calls to action with your content – “please share this post”, “please click the

like button”, “comment below with your answer”, etc.

Optimize Social Media Sites

SEO and Social Media have steadily been moving closer together and becoming more related. But Community should always come before SEO.

1. A recent study by HubSpot shows that LinkedIn is the best social network for boosting search engine results! (study compared LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter)

2. Use strong keywords and phrases in your bio – on Twitter, your ‘bio’ is actually the meta description for your Page, making it an incredibly important aspect of SEO.

3. Use bit.ly to shorten links – it creates permanent 301 redirects to your content, meaning that your original url benefits from the SEO juice, and not just the bit.ly url itself. (double down!) But hide them on Facebook!

4. Use Keywords and Phrases in your status updates.5. Add links to your website/blog in numerous places within your bio and information.6. Photos - Use relevant keywords in the photo name and description text. 7. Google will index the first 27-40 characters of a post as the title tag – so use

keywords in the first 27-40 characters of your posts. 8. Claim your Authorship! https://plus.google.com/authorship

Create a Mobile Strategy

If predictions are right, in 3 years more people will be searching on mobile than on desktops.

• People shorten their search phrases on mobile devices. • Long-tail search terms may become less affective.• Voice search using “Siri” like platforms will become more

prevalent.• Voice search is more “conversational”.• The mobile user is not usually doing “research” - As a result,

mobile search skews heavily towards immediate needs: Finding a store, booking travel, finding products, and placing orders. Siri indexes Yelp and Google Places.

• Create “bite sized” pages designed for mobile users. Mobile users want answers fast. They won’t scan a page with multiple resources, tons of links, several videos...

Measure & RefineI recommend Google Analytics

1. Check your Search Engine Rankings2. Compare Conversions & Search Engine Rankings – are you

ranking high, but bringing the wrong audience to your site?3. Has your traffic increased? Always a good sign!4. Check Bounce Rate - Bounce rate is the percentage of

single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. High bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors.

5. Know where your traffic is coming from. Check referring sites & search engines.

6. Track the success of your keywords and phrases. Which ones are sending are traffic? Which ones aren’t working? There may be some you aren’t even working at – look for new trends!

Summary of 6 Basic SEO Steps

1. Do a complete keyword research for your website.

2. Enhance the overall Website Performance and Structure.

3. Define the content strategy and optimize it.

4. Make a strategy for Link Building.5. Attract traffic from Social Networking

websites.6. Measure the results and refine your SEO

strategy

Marci JamesMarci.James@Obeo.com

www.Facebook.com/SayObeowww.Facebook.com/Marci.JamesTwitter: @Obeo & @MarciJames

www.Obeo.com/blogObeo Training Center: www.Obeo.com/Training