Straight from Google: SEO advice for real estate agents

I don’t need to explain why search engine optimization (SEO) and real estate agents should be friends.  Based on some of the questions I get asked, agents already know that showing up on page 1 of google’s results for popular search phrases will drive traffic to their lead generation systems – aka websites.  What I do need to explain is how real estate agents can improve their rankings/show up higher on the results page.  Since there are lots and lots of other people that know a whole heck of a lot more than I do when it comes to this search engine optimization concept, I’d rather find one of them to explain it to you, maybe an employee from google perhaps?

So there I was, dorking it out hardcore last night, watching a bunch of videos that google has posted to their webmaster help youtube channel when I ran across this gem.  In this video one of the google employees (Matt Cutts – thx @maxchirkov) answers this ever popular question, “How does someone begin to SEO their site on a small budget in an overwhelmed industry such as real estate?” Perfect – just what every real estate agent with a website wants to know.

Now that you know starting with a smaller niche is the main secret to seo success on a budget, read this Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide google has published.  This will enlighten you with the best practices moving forward.  It’s a 20 page pdf that is designed to get everyone up to speed on some of the basic concepts of seo.  You don’t have to be an expert, you just have to pay attention to the fundamentals.  It really isn’t rocket science, you just have to know which details to pay some attention.

If you listen to what Matt says in this video and understand the concepts of the starter guide, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to move your real estate website higher up on the results page for your particular niche.