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.

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.