The modern age has proved that all businesses should have a strong social media presence. The buyers of today rely a lot on the internet to secure the things they desire. Therefore a striking online presence is can be a game changer for businesses.
An online presence in real estate cases is far more important. Real estate is one of the most competitive and high-value industries. To get ahead in line, it is essential to build a strong online presence so that your customers, sellers and investors are familiar with your company. This can be accomplished by superior quality real estate link building. Establishing strong backlinks with relevant websites can not only help with brand building but also play a crucial role in building credibility for your real estate website.
However, it’s easier said than done and requires a bit of work but we assure you, practising good quality real estate link building is surely worth your time. To put it simply, it can be accomplished with a great link-building strategy, along with ensuring that your website has top-notch SEO practices. It should also be kept in mind to create quality backlinks because quality backlinks can be of a lot of assistance to you, whereas inaccurate linking can tend to be harmful to your online brand identity.
What are Backlinks?
Before diving deep into the “do”s and the “don’t”s of how you can build superior quality backlinks, let’s talk about what backlinks are and how they play a crucial role for businesses. Backlinks, also known as inbound links, is the process of linking one website to a completely different website that comes under the same business niche category. Backlinking plays a crucial role in establishing the authenticity of your website. If your website has a high volume of backlinks, Google crawler bots run through your website content and certify your website as a credible source of information.
Even in the case of real estate business and website development, generating good quality backlinks with other prominent websites within the real estate niche can tend to improve the SERP ranking of your website.
Why do Backlinks Matter?
As we have already mentioned, backlinks can make or break your online business presence. With the implementation of good quality backlinks that are backed by rigorous research and a proper strategy, the website traffic can exponentially increase, along with improved website ranking, and better domain authority. Even the conversion rate will significantly increase if the target audience discovers your real estate website. If you’re looking for a detailed overview, here are a few reasons why backlinks matter:-
- Google has always used backlinks to rank sites. This is an important factor as this aspect is what determines the ranking of your site once the search result page loads. This ranking system isn’t going away anytime soon.
- Backlinks build up authority and trust for many search engines. This allows your page to appear in search results quite often.
- Quality backlinks accelerate your publicity. To put it simply, it brings new leads, customers and interested parties to your sites. As this specific clientele comes from the recommendations of verified and relevant sources such as media and trade publications, influencers and bloggers.
- Backlinks act as signals to search engines that verified, and relevant sources are vouching for your content. Therefore, it is beneficial in nature.
How to Build Quality Backlinks?
It may not be a believable fact, but about 97% of real estate buyers use Google to search for real estate. This is one of the easiest ways to get information as it doesn’t require a lot of legwork. Available houses, prices and virtual tours can be carried out from the palm of your hands. Therefore the smartest way to stay ahead in the competition is to backlink or link building. So that your website is on the top of search results.
4 Best Tactics to Build Quality Backlinks
Here are a few ways to build quality backlinks:-
1. Networking
Link building is a lot like making connections in real life. Moreover, the real estate industry is a lot like that. You need need to know people, and you need to make connections. In fact, it is considered that the” who you know part of the equation” is more important than the “what’s on the market part of the equation”. In other words, the real estate industry is heavily reliant on collaborations. It is impossible to gain success in the real estate business without collaborations. Therefore, it is suggested that you use this network to build backlinks. The easiest way to do this is to reach out to local sources, bloggers and websites by sending them a polite request via email. Your visibility in your local area will increase significantly, and local searches would frequently showcase your business. The additional benefit of backlinks is the fact that by linking to your content, a person or a business will assure others that you are a genuine and trusted brand. Moreover, try to gain as many quality links as you can, as the more links you secure, the more recognition your business will get. That eventually means that more customers would, be flocking to your website.
2. Geo-Targeted Content
The main aim of Geo-Targeted Content is to boost your exposure locally. It is the process through which location-appropriate content is shared with visitors online. This provides a better onsite experience for your target audience. It also results in better management and better returns on investments. This can be accomplished in many ways. Firstly, the content should put your business or website in your audience’s eyes. It has to be done in a subtle way where the content should be about a new real estate listing or trend. This content should be endorsed by influencers who can uphold your website in the eyes of the audience. However, it requires imagination to create this kind of content, but if you are aware of the things that your audience values, you can easily make content based on that. Once you have successfully created appropriate content, it will soon receive exposure, and it will be shared and linked. Even though a lot of your audience would technically just read past it, in the long run, when they require real estate assistance, your business would be their one-stop destination. Moreover, with the correct combination of geotargeting and IP exclusion, you can hide your ads from your competitors. This will enable you to stay ahead in the game.
3. Testimonials and Reviews
The reality of running a successful business in the 21st century has good reviews and testimonials. Testimonials are very effective in accelerating your conversion rates. How many times have you been quite unsure about a specific website? What did you do to resolve your query? You must have definitely checked its insights and domain authority to verify if the website is credible. This is exactly what most newcomers and users usually do.
You need to expand your network and connect or engage with other businesses. Try to leave good reviews for the businesses that have helped you. It can be either an online or a local business. Give them a positive review on yelp or on google. You can also leave your own profile link on their site. Make sure to ask them before leaving your own profile link. This will boost not only their clientele but yours as well.
Moreover, it will create goodwill between your business and theirs. Once this is attained, a lot of companies would be glad to provide you with a backlink. You can also ask your existing customers to write you a review. Customer reviews are very beneficial in nature as potential customers do trust the words of previous customers. Therefore the easiest way to go with this would be to send your existing customers a polite email to comply with your request.
4. Forums
Forums are an excellent place to promote your business. Buying or selling a property can be a very arduous job. To ease confusion, a lot of people rely on forums like Reddit, Quora and local sites. These forums answer a lot of real estate-based questions and can be an excellent place to promote your business.
However, just promoting your business might not solve your problem. It may have negative consequences. The best way to go with this would be to provide valid information and be genuinely helpful. Try to be systematic with your approach. Firstly help people find a solution and then use your credentials.
Lastly, build your links in these communities. It should seem subtle and shouldn’t seem forced. Once you have attained a reputation, it is probable that your links will get clicked. A good link delivers a significant amount of traffic as well as improves your backlink profile. It should be kept in mind that links work according to relevancy. Therefore make sure to put the links in conversations and topics where it seems naturally relevant.
Other Approaches to Real Estate Link Building
The above-mentioned ways are some of the most commonly used methods for building links. There are several other ways as well to build links, and some of them are briefed below:-
1. Studying Competitors
An analysis of your competitor’s website could be the push that your website needs. It is considered a great starting point and your strategy will evolve in time to suit your website. The systematic approach would be to google important keywords and note down the commonly used keywords and then the analysis of the competitor’s link should be done to plan out an effective strategy.
2. Create Backlinks From Already Linked Sites
It is an easy task to build backlinks from sites that have already linked back to your site. Your google search console and google analytics account will easily help you find out which of those sites they are. Moreover, it is also suggested to look at preexisting sites to check if they are working fine.
3. Uniqueness
Every brand is unique. Every brand has a different aim, mission statement, taglines and other aspects that make it uniqueTherefore while building backlinks, this uniqueness can be of significant value and can help you build up quality backlinks.
4. Start Small
It may be a difficult task to build larger links during the initial stages. The best way to deal with this is to take things one step at a time. Start small and gradually build big connections. This way you can systematically build up a larger network of links.
5. Guestographics
Another interesting yet creative way to get relevant backlinks is through the utilisation of Guestographics. Guestographics are infographic content that can be offered to other relevant websites of your niche in exchange for a backlink on their website. Instead of posting the original infographic on your website, network with other real estate websites and exchange guestographics to build a creative yet efficient backlink into your websites.
6. Interview Link Building
If you like interacting with people, this link-building strategy is made for you! Interview prominent experts from the real estate business and leverage this content to build a successful backlink to another website. These interviews are read frequently by viewers, giving your content a chance to be utilised by other relevant websites. Once they do it, they link it to your website, thus generating a superior quality backlink for your website.
7. Business Citations
Did you know that your business citation and your online GMB profile can be an excellent way to generate great quality backlinks to your website? Many SEO experts and digital marketers make great use of the business citation to increase audience traction into your website, boost the prominence of your real estate website, and in turn, generate a higher ROI for your business.
8. Skyscraper Link Building
If you’re a fan of organically boosting your backlinking game, the skyscraper technique will be the best for you! In fact, this technique has been known to bring the best quality backlinks to websites belonging to any niche. In order to successfully receive quality backlinks through the skyscraper technique, ensure that the content that you have generated for your website is impeccable. Use your networking strategies to reach out to relevant websites and ask them to link with your page instead. Implementing the skyscraper technique can be a bit tricky. However, it is preferred by most marketers owing to its excellent result-bearing capabilities.
Know How To Differentiate A Good Backlink from Spammy Backlink
There are instances where backlinks may work exceptionally well. There are also instances where backlinks do the exact opposite. It is a true fact that backlinks are very useful. However, there is one major defining factor which is quality. Backlinks from verified and reputed sources tend to do well. There are various ways to determine the quality of backlinks.
According to Google, these are some of the criteria that low-quality backlinks have:-
- The directory links may be of low quality.
- Comments from forums or vlog posts that contain links.
- Links embedded in a widget that are typically keyword rich, low quality or hidden.
- Paid placements that make content with links pass page rank.
Given below are a few features that ensure that the backlink comes from a credible website:
1. Categorization
To choose a potential candidate it is essential to see if the content on their site is relevant to the content on your side. The categories of the website should have some relevance to your website. It is also acceptable if the sites aren’t similar but have common aspects. If the candidate fits this criterion, the site can offer good quality backlinks.
2. Domain Rating/Domain Authority
It is extremely essential that the domain rating or the domain authority isn’t lower than 20 or 30. Anything below that won’t be considered a good quality link and will be of little to no use to you.
3. Site Traffic
It is extremely essential before building links to know the amount of traffic the website generates. Knowing that will allow you to prepare for it or reconsider. It is considered that a properly functioning backlink should bring in 1000 unique visitors monthly. However, it may take some time and increase over time.
4. Content
Content is a major factor when it comes to backlinks. High-quality content is required for a backlink to be successful. The content should also be relevant and should have some connection or relation to your website. Special care should be taken to find out proper website with appropriate content. It should seem genuine.
5. Sidebar Links
It is best to avoid sites that have links to casinos, adult sites, and scholarships. These sites are known to be spammy. Therefore these are considered low-quality backlinks, and it is best to not use backlinks from these sites.
Final Words
Having a well-developed network of backlinks will immensely affect your real estate business. It is one of the only ways to stay ahead of the competition. Whilst traditional marketing methods like print media and real estate brochures can be expensive, this method of acquiring traffic is one of the most efficient and cost-friendly methods. It can be done by you, or if you are unsure there are link-building companies that can be of assistance to you. To put it in simple words creating links is all about creatively using ideas and having the right mindset. It may look like a lot of work, but your business will be reaping the benefits of it for years to come.