Christian Real Estate Blog

Follow-Up Post on Building Incoming Links to Your Site

I received quite a few questions about attaining incoming links after my last article... so I will try to clear a few things up. I don't want to get into a complete SEO discussion as there is so much more involved that just incoming links. I enjoy SEO consulting, but hung that hat up a few years ago when our real estate business took off.

It seems like there is some confusion about Meta tags and what they are used for. Back in the 90's this was good tactic to get a solid ranking in the search engines since the SE algorithms weren't yet sophisticated enough to consider other factors. I remember people paying thousands of dollars to have custom written tags that "would be certain to get you TOP placement!!" lol

Since then, meta tags have become basically irrelevant when it comes to ranking a website. Yes, they can be useful to tell the search engine what the site is about (or at least what you say it is about), and the meta description is often used in the search results, but used to raise your ranking... no way. It is simply too easy to manipulate. This goes for many onsite factors that used to important, but in terms of ranking in 2006... not so much.

Today, the most important onsite factors include a search engine friendly site, good keyword rich content, and a healthy internal linking structure. And by the way, you don't have to be afraid to use pictures or buttons as links. The Search spider will still find them. But in general, if you are able to use text links, this is preferable because the keywords in the text link can be important in your ranking. Search engines do pay attention to pictures, and it can be a great way to get more keywords into your page by labeling the pictures on the html side.

To answer a question about quality links: In general, most links to your site will help your ranking unless the site they are coming from is totally unrelated in content. So, if you have a real estate site, and you are getting a link from a mortgage site, that is great. Whenever possible try to get links from pages that have your keywords in the title, body, and other outgoing links. Also, try to focus on quality sites with a high google page rank . And whenever possible, try to get your keywords into the text link itself that points to your site.

Hope this is helpful...

posted by Justin Smith @ 9/15/2006 08:39:00 AM