Off-site marketing and promotion is the single biggest thing that can help your site’s rank and traffic. It has mattered since the beginning (and is how the “big guys” got the way they did), but matters even more these days even for a self-built, small website. Since the search engines are focusing less on the technical things that used to go into search engine optimization they are using your “online reputation” to figure out who is actually worthy of attention. If they keep hearing about you from other reputable sources, if it looks like you are already networking and have popularity online with specific circles, then the search engines want to keep up with this as well and will increase your presence in search result pages.
How do you build an “Off-Page SEO”
There are a few different ways to do it, but the gist of it is that you need other websites to link to yours. Not all links are created equal, though. The sites have to be related to yours in some way.
Factors that Google and other search engines use to evaluate link quality include:
Speed
to avoid “link farms” the speed is important to authenticate the websites importance.
Popularity
online directory and popular websites carry extra weight
Relevance
Needs to be relevant to your website
Getting Started
Having colleagues link to your site
particularly if you are in related fields (like having a home inspector link to an agent). It shows you’ve got a “circle of business trust” built up. Promote local businesses and have them do the same. You’ll be helping each other’s rank by doing so.
Getting your site linked on professional directories
LinkedIn, Yellow Pages, Google Places, local and state lists of agents, the chamber of commerce, and other websites will also benefit you because you are then showing up where other agents are expected to show up.
You should also show up where other real estate agents show up, such as on Trulia, Zillow, Craigslist and other listings syndication partners or real estate groups.
It’s not just about getting your listings exposure – your website benefits as well since the search engines keep seeing your company name, your name, contact info and website address on websites that are already seen as great real estate resources that visitors look at before anything else.
Social Media
Posting links to your website through Social Media is a perfect way to reach potential customers and drive them to your website. A Business Page, or account, should have 3 to 5 new post a week; a personal account should only have business related post around 1-2 times a month.
Need help on social media?
The right (and wrong) way to use social media for real estate
Real estate agents should NEVER post these things on their professional social media