While I usually focus on bite sized SEO tips for your real estate blog, I thought that I’d compile a list of the 5 most important and effective ways to boost your search engine positioning in 30 days or less. Think you that dramatically changing your search engine positioning is impossible in 30 days? Take the case of Ann Cummings, www.newhampshiremainerealestate.com – I sat down with Ann and Bear (the man behind the Realtor) and went over following SEO strategies with them back in late October. As of December 1, Ann’s blog went from Nowhere’s-ville to #5 in Google for her keyword, “Portsmouth Condos.” In this post, I am going to focus entirely on things you can directly do to your blog rather than on outside factors like backlinking which can take more time to affect your search positioning.

SEOmoz’s Search Engine Ranking Factors

Entrepreneur’s Journal’s 8 Top Tips to Search engine Marketing

1. Keyword Use in Domain

Read also: Real Estate Blog SEO Tip: Keyword Use in Domain

SEOmoz experts determined that search engines hold the inclusion of keywords or terms in the registered domain name, i.e. capecoralrealestate.com as important. So, be sure to include keywords in your domain name. Search engines love keyword rich domains.   Keywords specific to real estate are: your farm area, home, homes, home sales, house, condo, real estate, realty, rent, rentals, estates, etc. You can buy your name as a domain, but using it for your primary site isn’t useful from an SEO standpoint.   If you want a URL with your name in it use it as a redirect to a site with more SEO pizzazz so you can leapfrog out of the Google Sandbox and the domain itself is easier for the general public to remember.

2. Keyword Use in Title Tag

What is the title tag?

on your webpage is the title of the page that shows up in the top of your browser. See where the red arrow is pointing?

According to a panel of SEO experts assembled by SEOmoz a keyword rich title tag is the most important factor in search ranking factors. The panel agreed that keyword use in the title tag is of exceptional importance.

What kind of things do you want your title tag to have in it and what should you avoid?

Your title tag should have your farm area(s) and a term related to real estate like “home,” condo,” or “real estate.” You should avoid your name, your company name, some cutesy blog title and even your domain name (unless it too is keyword rich). Why? Simple, you only have so much space available and you need to load whatever space you have with those keywords… don’t waste a single character on a word you don’t need.

Read also: Real Estate Blog SEO Tip: Keyword Use in Title Tag

3. Keyword Use in Post Titles and Search Engine Friendly URLs

If you use search engine friendly urls and permalinks (urls that include keywords or article titles), you need to consider titling your posts with as many keywords as possible. Search engines heavily weight the url of a page into their ranking factors, so a keyword rich post title that translates into a keyword rich url will be of more value in the search results than one with a cutesy or metaphorical title.

EXAMPLE: See how the title of the following post, What are Search Engine Friendly URLs and Permalinks for Real Estate Blogs? translates directly into the url for the page – http://www.rsspieces.com/2007/08/14/what-are-search-engine-firendly-urls-and-
permalinks-for-real-estate-blogs

Read also: Matt McGee’s Synopsis of Search Engine Friendly URLs

4. Internal Link Relevance

Internal links on your blog are links from any page within the blog to any other page also within the blog. From a user standpoint, internal links help keep visitors on your site by suggesting other relevant pages within the site. You stand a better chance of converting a first time visitor to a regular reader if they read more than one article on your site in a single visit, so internal links are very helpful to users. However, internal links are also valued by search engines like Google. According to SEOmoz’ Search Ranking Factors Thesis, link popularity within a site’s internal link structure is of exceptional importance to search engine’s algorithms. 

Tip: Use Most Viewed, Related Posts and/or Most Recent Post Widgets to automatically generate relevant internal links on your real estate blog.

Read also: Real Estate Blog SEO Tip: Internal Link Relevance

5. Keyword Relevancy to Content

Keywords, those pesky little terms that visitors use to search you out in Google by, are critical to your real estate blog. But, the key to selecting quality keywords is not just to include those terms in your meta tags you’d like to be searched by, but to also include those terms in the body of your real estate blog posts as well. According to SEO experts over at SEOmoz, Keyword Relevance to Body Text (the topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords) is highly important to search engines. They consider that factor greatly when trying to determine how well your real estate blog will show in their indexes for common search terms included in your meta tags.

Read also: Real Estate Blog SEO Tip: Keyword Relevance to Overall Body Text

Read also: Formula for a successful blog post

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