As you may already know (or may find out soon enough), we here at Realzi make some pretty lean, mean real estate websites.  They’re clean, functional, and are deliciously addictive to search engine spiders, who just can’t seem to get enough of thoroughly crawling, indexing, and ranking our sites.  Realzi sites are perfectly able to function as a standalone website.

However, there are more than a few benefits for having a Realzi install on a subdomain of your main site.  For one, you get to keep complete control over all elements of your main site.  That means if your broker affiliation changes, or you’d like to update your bio, or you want to completely redesign your site, you’re able to do that at your own leisure.  You’ll also be able to treat Realzi as the lead generation tool it is, treating it as one element of many services your site offers.

Finally, and most importantly, Google treats subdomains as more independent than directories on a website, which means links between a subdomain and your main site carry more value than links between a child page and a parent page in a directory structure.  Did I dip too far into techie jargon there?  What I mean is, links between, say, http://rets.realzi.com and http://www.realzi.com are weighted more than links between http://www.realzi.com and http://www.realzi.com/real-estate-websites.  So a Realzi install on a subdomain of your main site can be pretty valuable, provided you link the two up appropriately.

Take note of the last clause in the previous sentence: provided you link the two up appropriately.  This is absolutely key, entirely crucial, of devastating importance, and so on and so forth, especially if your main website happens to have been around for a while and is indexed by search engines.  Thankfully, this process is exceedingly easy.  All you need to do is put a link on the homepage of your main site pointing toward your Realzi install.  There’s more, much more, you could do to notify search engines of the existence of your Realzi install, but this is the absolute minimum and it’s probably the most valuable step you could take.

The link can be anywhere—in the header, in the footer, in the sidebar, in the body.  Just make sure that the link’s anchor text is a keyphrase you’d like to rank for, such as, say, “Austin condos.”  It’s as simple as that!

Indeed!  Congratulations are certainly in order for the GoodLife Team for winning the 2010 Inman News Innovator Award for Most Innovative Brokerage or Franchise.

As you might or might not know, the GoodLife Team (you can check there website over here) is a truly innovative, quick-on-its-feet real estate firm.  They regularly publish   The GoodLife Team places a strong emphasis on utilizing a host of cutting-edge technological tools to enhance user experience when on their site, and they do a great job of it.  One example is their regular publishing of smart, engaging videos about properties they’re listing and provide loads of fresh perspective on current real estate trends. They also provide reams of useful information about neighborhoods and schools in the Austin area, served up with more than a dash of hipness and style.

A simpler way of saying all that?  These guys fairly ooze tech (and marketing) savvy.

The Inman site states,

The GoodLife Team, a boutique real estate firm based in Austin, Texas, takes an agent team approach to its brokerage. The small company has a focus on training and technology and is led by Krisstina Wise, principal and broker. The website features property, neighborhood and school details and information about area activities.

As you’ve likely guessed, another thing the GoodLife Team site features is a Realzi install (found at realestate.goodlifeteam.com; pretty handsome, no?).

Realzi is a perfect add-on to real estate websites of all shapes and sizes.  Nestled on a subdomain (though more than capable of standing on its own), Realzi provides search engine crawlers with exactly what they crave: thousands of pages of dynamic, search engine optimized content.  Realzi does this by generating pages of every property in your local MLS database and updates the listings as the information becomes available.

Our research shows that prospective homebuyers search for properties by using long-tail, address- or neighborhood-specific keyphrases.  With a specific, optimized page for each property, Realzi is specifically designed to capture these searchers.

We built Realzi from the ground up with the specific intention of it being able to work straight out-of-the-box.  It’s a turnkey solution in that regard.  However, just because Realzi sites are on-page optimized from the get-go doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from some off-site promotion.

Over the next few blog posts, we’ll discuss the value of several different things you can do to off-site to help boost your Realzi site’s rankings across search engines.  The first tip we’re going to go over is an oldie but a goodie: directory submission.

Directories are basically sites where collections of links are organized by content.  The Google Directory is an example of one.  As you can see, the site is basically a list of links that have been organized for perusal.  Submitting your site (and getting it listed) is a great way of getting links pointing back to your site.  And getting links pointing to your site is fantastic, because Google’s approach to ranking sites is heavily based upon how many (and what kind of) inbound links a site has.  A common phrase used to describe this is “links are votes,” and link-building methods are a way to cast several votes for your site.  Directory submission is one such method, and there are literally thousands of them to submit your site to.

Submitting to a directory is simple.  Simply navigate around it until you find the category that will best fit your site, then find a link somewhere on the page that says something like “Submit a Link” or “Add Site” or something along those lines.  You’ll be taken to a submission form, which usually should look something like this (clickable screenshot time!):

Let’s say we’re an Austin-based catering company called Awesome Austin Appetizers.  (Corny, I know, but the best I could come up with!)  Our supposed website is http://www.awesome-austin-appetizers.com/.  What follows is a description of what each field/area means, and what we’d fill out (follow the numbers for reference):

1. You might have heard that paid links are a major no-no.  You know what?  You heard right!  They are.  These particular paid options may or may not be considered out-and-out paid links, because the payment here seems to be based on the turnaround time and the placement of the link, not the link itself.  But why tempt Google’s wrath?  We’re going to go ahead and wait those three to four weeks and pick the free option.  (More on that third option, the “reciprocal” one, in step 7.)
2. This is the title you’d want for your link.  Some people would choose the name of their company and put that here.  We’re going to go ahead and recommend against that.  Why?  Get ready for a seriously in-depth explanation.  This field will determine what is basically the “anchor text” of your link, which is what the link reads, not where it goes.  For example, for the link real estate websites, the anchor text is “real estate websites,” but the link itself goes to http://www.realzi.com.  Having good anchor text is important, because Google associates it with the link.  The more links Google sees with a certain anchor text going to a certain site, the more likely it will be to associate the two.  Therefore, for your Realzi site, you’ll want your anchor text to be a keyphrase you want to rank for.  Do you specialize in selling South Austin Condos?  Make your anchor text “South Austin Condos.”  Chicago rentals more your thing?  Choose “Chicago Rentals” as your anchor text!  You’re probably getting the idea by now.  If we put “Awesome Austin Appetizers,” our official business name, in here, we’d associate the site with that name.  But here’s the thing: We’d rather associate the site with something people who don’t already know about our business are searching for.  Something like “Austin Catering,” which is what we’ll opt for instead.
3. This one’s simple.   We’re going to put our URL, http://www.awesome-austin-appetizers.com/, here.
4. A brief description of our site.  We’re going to start this off with the keyphrase that we used for step 2, just to further emphasize to Google that we want our site to be associated with that phrase.  We’re also going to avoid being too self-promotional, since we don’t want to annoy the directory editors with bizarre, bombastic pronouncements like, “THE GREATEST CROQUETTES ON THE PLANET!!!!!!!!!!!!”  So we’ll stick with something businesslike and accurate, like “Austin catering company specializes in hors d’oeuvres and lighter fare.  We’re the premier local option for catering parties, conventions, conferences, and more.”
5. This one’s pretty simple.  If you’re wary of getting spammed, you might want to consider using an alternative email address.  Be sure it’s one you check, though, because sometimes you’ll need to verify the listing by clicking on a link emailed to you by the directory editors.
6. Verify that this category is the category you want to be in.  If it’s not, here’s your opportunity to change that.
7. This “Reciprocal Link URL” thing is a sort of link exchange.  Directories will often submit your listing under more favorable terms if you agree to link back to them.  Since this can sometimes look spammy on your site and might, perhaps, be frowned on by some search engines, we recommend you don’t add this html to your site and don’t agree to any sort of reciprocal link exchange with any directory.
8. Here’s the CAPTCHA.  This is your big chance to prove, once and for all, that you’re not a robot!
9. Click this nifty button here and you’re done!

As you can see, this process is pretty simple.  It might seem like a hassle, but it’s really not too bad, and it’s definitely worth the effort when you consider you’ll be getting inbound links with quality anchor text to your site, which is one of the most effective ways to boost your ranking across search engines.

One last thing!  You’re probably wondering, after nearly 1000 words of explanation, just where exactly you find directories.  Simple!  You can easily find dozens of them through a simple Google search.  There are also sites that are “directories of directories” that make finding bunches of them much easier.  Just to get you started, though, here is a list of some good, high-ranking directories that we’ve been historically fond of:

FullCG
SVGUIA Directory (Gives great deep links for cheap)
SudaNow
Ceidis Directory
ABC Directory
Pravana Bid Directory (Again, more good deep links for a low price)
DMOZ (Open Directory Project) (Low approval rate and strict submission guidelines but free and one of the single best links your site can get; actually technically the same as the Google Directory, so don’t bother submitting to both)

That’s all there is to it!  Happy, er, submitting!

Today, we’re going to run through how to put together nice, optimized Craigslist real estate ads and link them to your Realzi site.  Using Craigslist can draw real users to the pages you link to, users that can then navigate to other areas of your site.  What’s more, inbound links from Craigslist may have a positive effect on your ranking across search engines.  Neither benefit alone is small potatoes; when put together, you have a potent weapon in the war against a traffic-less web presence.  (That war is a  tough one, but Realzi and Craigslist can help in spectacular ways.)

Eventually, we’re going to go over two types of Craigslist ads.  The first, which we’ll deal with in this post, will be a posting featuring a specific property listing.  The second, which we’ll address at a future date, will be more general, focusing on a specific area of a city.  We’ll break down each type with some typically gorgeous screenshots and some typically heady expert analysis.  Ready?  Here goes!

Postings about specific listings are generally posted in the “real estate – by broker” section of Craigslist.  (A brief note: When posting ads about specific properties, it’s best to stick with properties that you yourself have actually listed.  Things may get hairy from an ethical and legal perspective if you post someone else’s listings, so don’t do it!)  Here’s what an optimized post will look like (click to enlarge):

As you can see, I’ve gone ahead and taken the liberty of pointing out some elements that I’d like to mention.  They’re numbered, and here are the corresponding explanations.

1. Here, you put the entire address, which consists of the first two lines on the property page of the listing.  It’s important to do this, since this is also the title of the property page, which means search engines will associate the Craigslist post with the property page more effectively.

2. Put an accurate area that’s also something people will search for.  More people will be looking for “North Austin real estate” than “Majestico real estate” (especially since Majestico Lane doesn’t even exist), so opt for the former.  Make your area too broad, however, and you’ll be missing out on an opportunity to have a relevant keyphrase associated with your post.

3. Put an email address that you check here; however, make sure you anonymize it so that people don’t harvest your email address and spam you to high heaven.

4. Here, put the same address you used in the “Posting Title” field in <h1> tags.  For those of you who are HTML neophytes, this will make a nice heading out of whatever you put in there.  It will look big and assertive, and is a real attention-grabber (both for people and search engines).  Copy it exactly like how it’s written and you’ll be golden.

5. This is the HTML for the link we’re going to have in here.  If you’re starting to get scared because you don’t know anything about HTML, don’t worry!  This is all you’ll ever have to need for Craigslist ads, and I’ll show you exactly what all of this means.  Here’s a breakdown of what is going on here:

• The <a part lets Craigslist know that a link is about to be put in.
• The href= part indicates that the link immediately follows.
• The “http://www.vvvvvvvvvvvvvv.com/texas/austin/78723/5928-majestico-ln?id=1394294586″ part is the URL, copied and pasted from the address bar of my browser, in quotes.  Be sure to remember to add the quotes.
• The > part means the link is going to be named with whatever words follow.
• The 5928 Majestico Ln Austin, TX 78723 part represents the part of the link you click on.  That’s called the “anchor text” of the link.  For example, when considering the link real estate websites, the anchor text is “real estate websites.”
• The </a> part lets Craigslist know that the link is done being put in, and we’re about to resume our regular writing.

Fancy, huh?

6. Here’s a description of the property!  Get as lyrical and poetic as you want.  This is just to entice people to click that snazzy link you just made all by yourself.

7. This is some legalese at the bottom of your listing on the property page.  Each Board of REALTORS® may have its own legalese you’ll need to affix to the bottom of a Craigslist post.  This is ABOR’s version.  Be sure to copy it directly  from the bottom of the page, because the date changes daily.

8. The address of the property in question again, this time without the city, state, and zip, since that would be redundant in this field.

Aaaaaaand that’s it!  Pretty neat stuff.  This Craigslist ad will look like this, once it’s all published (again, click to enlarge):

Not too shabby!  Note how all that stuff into explanation #5 went into making that link (the one indicated by the “Huzzah!” arrow).  You could have just simply entered the URL there, but search engines like links with relevant anchor text much more, and we gave them one there.  Go us!

This post is wonderful.  It gives people searching Craigslist information about where the house is, who’s listing it, and directs them to our website, where they can find out (much, much) more information about this property.  It also gives search engines information about what website they should associate the keyphrase “5928 Majestico Ln Austin, TX 78723,” which, we’ll go ahead and say, should be our website, thank you very much.  Both associations prove to be incredibly useful.

Next time, we’ll break down the ins and outs of making a Craigslist ad featuring zip codes, neighborhoods, and cities.  Until then, so long, and happy home-selling!

To a neophyte internet user, the term domain registration is one of those dry, imposing terms that just exudes opaque user-friendlessness.  The phrase at once conjures up images of cascading Matrix-esque on-screen characters and cold institutional distance.  And yet, since it’s essentially the process of buying a domain (the “realzi.com” part of http://www.realzi.com”), it’s a crucial initial step on the road to having your own website.  You may fear it, but you can’t avoid it.

Thankfully, it’s really not all that bad.  Registering a domain is actually pretty easy.  In fact, we’re going to lay out a step-by-step guide (with screenshots!) to help make the process as painless as possible.

(A note: There are any number of quality registrars—the companies that sell domains—out there, so if you find one that you’re comfortable with, by all means, go with them.  To make these instructions as simple and clear as possible, however, we’ve chosen to describe the domain registration process with GoDaddy.  You ready?  Let’s go!)

First things first: navigate to http://www.godaddy.com.  This, as you might imagine, is the GoDaddy homepage (click on screenshot for a larger image):

On the homepage, you’ll notice login fields at the top.  Just under that is a “Create Account” link.  Click on that link.

You’ll be directed to this page, which asks for your contact info:

Fill out all the required info.  We suggest you use your business contact info, not your personal stuff, since this info might be publicly available.  In addition to your contact info, you’ll also be directed to authorize what types of emails you’ll want from GoDaddy.  After you click the “Create a New Account” button, you’ll be directed to a dashboard-type screen.  Here, you’ll be able to see info pertaining to your account, like which domains you already own (which, if you just created this account, will be blank), recent orders you’ve made, and so on.  There’s also some menus in the sidebar on the left of the screen.  Under the “Recommended Products” menu in this sidebar, click on “Domain Names,” shown here:

Type in the domain you want here!

…and…

Aww.  Apparently amazon.com is already taken!  Who knew?

At this point, you have a couple of options.  You can either type in a new domain in the search box, or select from one of the similar, suggested domains GoDaddy offers.  Since I have no real interest in any of the suggested domains, I’ll just type in a new one (maybe one that would make for a nice real estate website):

…and…

It’s available for a yearly price of $10.69!  Click on the “Add” button to add it to your shopping cart, then click on the “Continue to Registration” button.

Here comes the part where GoDaddy tries to market some upsells to you.  The first upsell comes in the form of a pop-up offering a discount on the purchase of additional domains.  Since we want “condosindowntownaustin.com,” would we maybe want “condosindowntownaustin.net?”  Not really.  Feel free to read through them, and if any of them appeal to you, go for it.  However, we typically avoid all the upsells when we’re registering a domain.  If you agree with us, click on the inconspicuous “No Thanks” link at the bottom of the pop-up.

Next, you’ll be directed to a “Customize Your Domain” screen, which includes four menus on the main area of the screen.  You’re already done with the first one.  Observe:

You’ll need to go through these other three menus to make sure that it has the info you want.  I’ll briefly run through what each one has.

Under menu 2, “Your Domain Settings,” you’ll see a list of your domain names, which should just be the one you selected.  There’s also a “Registration Length” drop-down, which basically asks how many years you want to pay in advance for.  Beyond that is your contact info, and a “Certified Domain” option which we’ll leave unchecked.  Click “Continue” after you’re done with this menu.

Menu 3, “Your Privacy & Domain Protection,” will slide up the screen.  Since you used your business info, not your personal stuff, there’s no need to hide anything, so just stick with the “Standard” option.  Click “Continue.”

Menu 4, “Activate Your Domain,” has some potentially useful stuff, but for most people these are just unnecessary upsells.  Don’t feel bad about skipping all of it and clicking “Checkout.”

You’re now in the payment section of the domain purchase!  So close.  There’s basically a few more opportunities to buy more stuff on here and alter your info.  You can also select your payment method and read the terms of service.  After you’ve done that, click “Continue With Checkout.”

Following that is a billing info page.  After you fill that out, click “Place Your Order” at the bottom of the screen and voila!  A shiny new domain is yours.

To help determine where you show up in search results, Google looks at the number of incoming links to your website. Why? Well, think of it this way: If a lot of sites link to you, it shows Google that others consider your site relevant and informative, so Google will want to put you ahead of similar websites that don’t have as many incoming links and/or aren’t as optimized. While Realzi real estate websites are optimized to rank highly for long-tail keyphrases (505 Blackberry Ridge Aurora, Illinois 60506) — research shows most home buyers search this way — we encourage everyone to build links for faster, better results.

First things first: Know what a good link is. Stay away from “bad neighborhood” websites and spammy sites. When a link comes from a site that Google doesn’t trust, it doesn’t reflect well on you. Aim for links on popular, trusted sites. When you link to your site, don’t use “click here” as the linked text. This is a missed opportunity, and we see it happen all the time. Instead, use a relevant keyphrase to help Google know what your site is about. If you’re an Austin Realtor, you’d probably want to use “Austin Homes For Sale,” or “Austin Real Estate Search” as your linked text. So the link would look like this: Austin Homes For Sale.

On to the link building tips…

1. Just about every social networking site has a place for users to fill out a profile with a link to their homepage. We’ve already written about search-friendly links on LinkedIn, but popular sites like Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm also allow a link.

2. Link within your blog posts. For example, if you’re writing about one of your listings, link the address to its listing page. It’d look like this: “Don’t miss 6735 S Sundown Dr Indianapolis, IN 46254…” On a related note: Blog often. Shoot for at least one post per week. Need some inspiration? Check out our 7 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Real Estate Blog.

3. Do you read other real estate blogs? If you ever comment on a post, don’t forget to include a link to your site.

4. Write an article about real estate — anything from an overview of your city’s neighborhoods to a list of things to look for when buying a home — and submit it to article syndication sites like EzineArticles.com and A1articles.com. ActiveRain is another good place (and it’s all about real estate).

5. Write a solid press release and submit it to a PR syndicate. We love PRLeap because they let you include a few links in the body of the press release, which is a great opportunity to deep-link to more pages on your Realzi site. We’ve seen impressive results from this.

6. Use social bookmarking sites like Delicious and StumbleUpon to bookmark pages on your site. Don’t forget to use appropriate tags like the name of your city, the Zip code of the listing, etc.

Indexable IDX solutions are the latest in a long line of hot innovations for real estate websites.  Though they’ve been around for a while, their appeal is really starting to catch on, and they’re getting blogged about left and right these days.

Also known as spiderable IDX, an indexable IDX solution builds out pages on your site that correspond to listings in the MLS.  (Sounds kind of like Realzi, doesn’t it?)  The resulting benefit is that you have a massive, easily indexable and searchable site that Google can crawl repeatedly.  This translates to results for more keyphrases, which means more traffic.

Prior to the advent of indexable IDX, a typical approach to the display of MLS data involved a framed solution that was hosted elsewhere.  An organization would buy access rights to RETS data feeds, build out a frame displaying that data, and offer it to real estate agents to put up on their personal websites for a fee.  The frame usually featured a searchable list of properties taken from the relevant MLS.  A map search was often included as well.  Prospective buyers could retreive MLS data for residences that interested them, which left them more well-suited to the difficult task of home searching.

The good old days might seem just fine at first glance, but if you noticed, there’s a little sentence we slipped in there that drives home the relative uselessness of framed, non-indexable IDX solutions: “This sort of solution worked well for users who stumbled across such sites.”  The fact of the matter is, many of these old sites, despite displaying an easy-to-use, searchable, framed IDX solution, were buried in Google search results for short-tail keyphrases and were completely absent for many longer-tail keyphrases.  That’s because the MLS data—those reams of fresh, up-to-date, relevant data that Googlebot craves—is actually nowhere to be found on the site displaying the frame, so the resulting SEO benefit of displaying it is virtually nil.  This can’t be underestimated, either, because the attractiveness/ease of use/utility of your site is worthless if nobody can ever find it.  You could plan what would be the best party in the world, but if you don’t supply directions, you’ll end up eating cheese and crackers alone when the big day comes.  And that’s just not very fun.

Contrast this rather somber picture with the benefits of an indexable IDX.  Think about it: with the frequently updated, extremely relevant, keyword-rich data that an indexable IDX brings, you’ll have a fantastic competitive edge over other real estate websites.

Dan Price is the first Realzi client to get more than 1,000 unique visitors per day. Congratulations, Dan! Broker and owner at Team Price Real Estate in Austin, Texas, Dan recently sat down with us to chat about his Realzi experience so far…

What made you decide to get Realzi?

Results. I knew another Realtor who was using Realzi, and I noticed that his website ranked extremely high for specific real estate keywords and addresses. I had the opportunity to meet with Realzi June/July of 2009 and understood why their sites rank so high. It was easy to make the decision and transition once I realized that if I didn’t, I would never compete with everyone who was launching a Realzi website.

How many leads were you getting before you got Realzi?

About 5 per month without using PPC (pay per click) and 10 or so per month with a $350 per month PPC campaign. I am no longer using PPC – all incoming leads are generated from organic search results.

How many leads are you getting now?

We’re averaging 7 to 10 leads per week, and about half of those are resulting in appointments. These are the best results I have ever experienced with any other website.

How has Realzi changed your business?

More leads = more business. As a broker, I assign all my website leads to my agents. It has changed their business dramatically. My goal is to assign one to two leads that will result in a closing per agent per month. So far, we are exceeding those goals.

Have you gotten any feedback from clients who searched for a home using your Realzi site? What did they think of it?

I tell all my clients to use my Realzi site, and they love it. The site allows them to save listings and searches, perform map searches, keyword searches, etc. I often see users email listings from my Realzi site to their agents.

Tell us about your daily schedule as a Realtor. How does Realzi fit into your schedule?

One of the nicest things about Realzi is that it’s designed to take care of itself — it updates every evening so when new listings are submitted it will automatically show up next day. When I want to email a client a property, I no longer email them from the MLS — I email them the property URL from my Realzi site. I do this for two reasons: 1. I want them to use my site and hopefully forward that link to their friends and family members. They’re excited about buying a home, so why not have them share a link to my site instead of the MLS listing link which does not drive traffic and visibility to my site? 2. The URL is easy to copy and paste — most Realtor IDX websites will generate a long and meaningless URL, but Realzi does not do that. Realzi generates a URL based on the State/City/Zip and address. It’s a clean URL and easy to email, upload to social networking sites, etc. It’s a URL that people feel comfortable clicking on.

What advice do you have for agents and brokers who are just getting started with Realzi?

Understand that it might take Google a few months to index your site. It took Google about 4 months to “notice and tag” my Realzi site. Not that much happened during that time, but after those 4 months I was very pleased with the number of leads the site started generating. I also make sure to send all my clients and contacts a press release that talks about the new site. Not only is Realzi a search-engine friendly site, but it’s also a great site for consumers and clients. They really like the map search and the keyword search.

Thanks, Dan! We’re thrilled to see just how much Realzi has helped your business.

We can’t wait to see who will be our next user to top 1,000 unique visitors. If you’re an agent or broker who’s ready to start getting more traffic and leads to your real estate website, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Link building from social media sites can be confusing. They all allow or disallow different things . . . some make links do-follow, some no-follow and others use redirects. Use of any of these can and will impact how valuable the link is. However, the #1 rule of link building always applies: Make sure you link to your site with good, search-optimized anchor text. Don’t link the word “click here”. Don’t link your URL. Link your target keywords to your website any and every time you can.

Link Building from LinkedIn

So, how do you get search-friendly links from your LinkedIn profile? It’s simple! When you’re logged into LinkedIn, hover over “Profile” and choose “Edit Profile”.

When you edit your profile, LinkedIn offers you a location to post links to your website, your blog, etc. If you choose the obvious selections they offer (My Website, My Blog, My Company) LinkedIn uses those words as the anchor text and doesn’t give you the option of writing search-friendly anchor text. The solution? Choose “Other”.

When you choose “Other”, LinkedIn adds a new field that lets you make the anchor text anything you want. Yay! Now, choose your most important keyphrase and type it in the box by the target URL. Note how I used all three links they give me to link to my SEO blog, my SEO website and my Yellow Lab‘s website with search-friendly keyphrases.  Oh, and I just did it again there. Sorry, I can’t help myself. As I said, NEVER pass up a chance to link to your website with your targeted keyphrase as the anchor text.

Value of a Search-Friendly from LinkedIn

The value of a search-friendly link from LinkedIn can definitely be debated. LinkedIn adds the previously mentioned “nofollow” tag to the link. See below (the strike through is from a Firefox SEO plugin I use that shows a nofollow tag has been placed on the link).

Some people say this makes the link worthless, while others say that it still increases the relevancy of the target page even if it doesn’t pass any PageRank. I say, regardless of whether it passes any “Google Juice” today, it might tomorrow. So you can never go wrong by following a policy of always using search-friendly anchor text.

Happy linking!

Name: Brian

Web Site: http://www.realzi.com

Bio: Brian Rutledge is Managing Partner at Real Estate Search Marketing Company Realzi, which he co-founded in 2006. Realzi specializes in lead generating Search Engine Optimized Real Estate Websites. Based in Austin, Texas, Realzi helps Real Estate Brokers and Agents worldwide with internet marketing campaigns focused on lead generation and home sales.

We can’t say it enough: Blogging is a great way to interact with your site visitors, easily create fresh content and increase your search engine rankings. Realzi real estate websites are already designed to rank highly and generate leads, but blogging will give you even more of an edge over your competition. Here are some tips for getting the most out of your real estate blog:

• Post at least once per week.
• Your blog posts should be around 300-600 words, and they should focus on one thing at a time, for SEO and readability reasons. For instance, you could do one blog post on Downtown Austin condos. Other topic ideas: Westlake real estate, a new and exciting listing, and even a quick story about how you got started as a real estate agent.
• Related to the tip above, choose one keyphrase (like “downtown Austin condos” or “Austin real estate”). Use it a few times throughout your post and link one instance of it to a relevant page of your site.
• When possible, use that keyphrase in the title of the blog post (“The 5 Coolest Downtown Austin Condos”). This is great for Google, since you’ll not only have the keyphrase in your title, but it will become the post’s URL. These are two important factors in determining relevance when it comes to SEO.
• Create and use relevant categories for your posts. The URL of each of your blog post should be set up to include the category of the post. Ever seen a blog post URL that looks something like examplesite.com/Uncategorized/name-of-post? You don’t want that “Uncategorized” in there — it’s a missed opportunity for site organization and SEO. Be sure to create and use good categories. For example, you may want to choose the category “Austin Condos,” “78701,” or “Downtown Austin” for that downtown Austin condos post. Each post should only have one category.
• Make it easy for leads to get in contact with you. This is especially important if you’re writing about a new listing. You may want to include a sentence at the end of your post that tells your readers how to best get in contact with you. Link to your Contact page and/or provide your phone number (“Want to see this home? Contact me online, or call me at…”).
• Spread the word! Once your post is up, tell people about it. You can use social media sites like Digg, Delicious, Facebook and Twitter.

We hope this helps you get the most out of your real estate blog. Good luck!