So you want your real estate (or other) website to rank high in search engines. You have the basics down. Your page titles are on point. Your content is good and provides value. Your navigation is seamless. Any user would have a fantastic experience on your website. But there’s one problem: Your site’s having a hard time ranking in search engine results pages.
Some in the SEO industry don’t want to talk about rankings. You’ll hear this phrase a lot: “It’s not about rankings; it’s about the user experience… and everything will fall into place.” Although I believe wholeheartedly that there is truth in that approach, I also believe that you can help yourself by improving your rankings.
Who wouldn’t want to be on the first page in search results organically? That’s one of our main goals as online marketers. Some 75% of searchers never going past the first page during their search, so it’s imperative that you be on the first page, or that you at least strive to be.
Various ranking factors contribute to ranking your website and content high in search results, but the one that is seemingly ignored among them in the real estate industry is consistently identified as the one with the biggest impact: links. Top influencers in the search industry say links are one of the main contributors to higher rankings.
Just to clarify: I dislike the term “link building.” For the rest of this article, we’ll call it “link earning.” Earned links will have a serious impact on your website, your business, and eventually your rankings.
What is a Link and How Does It Help My Website?
We could get all technical with this, but it can get boring. So in my own words I’ll explain what links are and how they help your website.
What Links Are
A connection. Simply put, links are a connection between your website and another site. That’s it. The fun part is why they’re important and how they help your website.
How Links Help Your Website
A link to your site is a vote for your website. It’s kind of like the popularity contest in high school. When you’re not popular and you start dating the popular kid, everyone takes notice. When authoritative websites start linking to you, search engines start taking notice.
Links establish your authority. If websites start using you as a resource in their content, search engines start to recognize your content as valuable for the user.
Links reaffirm your content’s value. If you create a piece of content that starts earning links, it’s evidence that the specific piece of content is valuable and useful for the user on that specific topic.
Links help drive traffic. If you earn links on the right websites, you will see an increase in traffic to your site, which we all want.
Links improve domain authority. This is basically a measurement of trust. The higher your domain authority, the more trustworthy you are—somewhat like a credit score. Quality links help build that authority.
How to Earn Links for Your Real Estate Website
Earning links for your real estate website is not something that is going to come easy. It takes hard work and commitment. It’s doable, absolutely, but only if you’re willing to commit.
Earning links for your website is no different from earning links for any other website in another niche. You can earn authoritative links in various ways, and we’re going to discuss most of them—not only what to do but also how to do it, so you can get out there and start earning links.
Create Linkable Content
I did say it was going…
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