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| WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 24: National Association of Realtors President Maurice Veissi testifies before the Senate Banking Housing and Urban Affiars Committe on Capitol Hill May 24, 2012 in Washington, DC. Veissi and other experts testified during a hearing about the proposed Responsible Homeowner Refinancing Act of 2012, whose sponsors say will 'help millions of responsible, struggling homeowners refinance at lower rates.' (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife) |
These are the currency Search Engine Optimizers deal
in. The trick, which is much more difficult than it may appear at first,
is to get high quality inbound links to your site from sites that are known as
authorities in your field.
If your web site is about Chicago real estate, you'd be very
happy with inbound links from the Chicago Tribune's real estate guide. Or
maybe the local board of REALTORs has a web site or blog that references your
site as a "best of breed" site.
Our strategy is to first
build unique, forward thinking content. It is quite time intensive, and doesn't always work, but it pays huge dividends that lasts for years down the road. We spend most of our time
doing that. Secondarily, we find opportunities to attract links and
publicity from outside sources that we believe are of high
quality. This is the path to building a reputation as a leader in
your field.
For instance, I've had one of my blog posts published as a
standalone article in Chicago Agent Magazine. Recently, I was
interviewed as an expert in the field of online marketing for REALTORs,
and that interview will hopefully become part of a somewhat regular real estate
marketing podcast. But most recently, I was interviewed by REALTOR.org for my thoughts and abilities
on driving repeat viewers to my web sites. And what may be the coup-de-gras
in promotion or our business, is a possible upcoming segment on HGTV's
House Hunters. Stay tuned for that!
Ideally, without our help, great content will continue to be well known in the real estate industry, and will continue to generate links years after being made. Usually those links don't go away either, and are a permanent method of driving relevant visitors to your website.
These are all excellent ways of driving traffic to your web
sites, and reinforcing the idea that you are an expert in your field - online
real estate marketing. But be careful - content creation ALWAYS comes
before promotion and link building.
