Search Engine Optimization continues to be one of our most important tools for being found by home buyers and sellers online.  Google recently published an excellent resource for internet marketers getting started in the world of SEO called The Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. The guide was originally created for Google employees, but is now available to anyone looking to improve the way the search engine spiders are crawling their web pages.  

• Create unique and accurate page titles. Also, have a unique title for each of your pages.
• Don’t skimp on the “description” meta tags.
• Use words in your URLs. Avoid URLs that are too lengthy for users to remember and avoid using generic page names with no keywords (such as “page3.html”).
• Create content primarily for your users, not for search engines. Make sure visitors to your site can comfortably read and understand your content!
• Write anchor text that explains where users will be taken to if they click on your link.
• Don’t forget to submit your mobile site map to Google if it isn’t appearing in Google’s mobile search results.

  

This guide is fantastic because it addresses a variety of SEO topics in a concise document with helpful illustrations. Bonus: there is a glossary with additional links to visit at the bottom of every page! 

SEO – we seem to hear the term so often nowadays, but do we really understand what it involves?

Truth be told, SEO, short for search engine optimization, involves a vast internet landscape.  It begins with on-page content (content on your website) and branches out widely to off-page areas, such as a blogs, relevant real estate directories, and presence in such places as Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. 

SEO works at getting your website high on the search engine results pages SERP’s, so that you are easy to find where most people search.  As mentioned, it begins with your website content, which should be relevant, clear and focused.  Without that healthy beginning, the off-page factors will falter as contributors to your position in the search engines.

Let’s just assume your website is SEO’d well.  Now, why not ask what is one of the most prominent off-page environments today?  I’d suggest Twitter. 

 While Twitter is often associated with a casual, chat environment, and often referred to as a micro-blog, it is quite adaptable to business-focused use.  Once you set up an account, (which is pretty simple), you can use Tweetlister.com.  Tweetlister allows you to advertise listings through the Twitter platform.  Suddenly now, you have another, very popular environment you can promote real estate in.  Wow, Twitter just became a lot more interesting, and think of the exposure!