Despite the significant move towards "quality" as the key driving force in Google's ranking algorithm over the last few years, backlinks are still key. Indeed we believe that upstream "link equity" is still the primary driving component of Google's ranking algorithm, once you have the basics of a decent website foundation sorted.
So, given the importance of this, the question becomes, how do I build upstream links pointing at my agency. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Before you set out on any concerted link building effort, step 1 must surely be to understand where you are, so that you can benchmark your progress. There are two or three things you can check, to track your existing position, and your progress.
Now then, once you've done that preparation, you'll may want to set yourself up with a simple spreadsheet with some of these measures for you, and your key competitors (especially those that appear in the results above you). You'll want to check back in on this spreadsheet once a month or so, to track how you are doing. Sorted? Right then, let's begin...
Google's main advice can be summarised as follows: "don't do anything for me, just worry about creating a great experience for your end customers, as that's what I'm worrying about and you can count on me to work that out sooner or later, so you just focus on that. Furthermore, if I catch you trying to game the system, I'll slap your naughty wrists." The very fact you are reading this article means you are flying dangerously close to the sun. So tread very carefully.
Don't go buying any links from blogs. Don't go signing up for any SEO consultants that sound like they might be doing any forced, or unnatural link building. It's fine to build links, but only build natural links, that would occur in the wild. Just go carefully. And don't force it too hard. Got it? Ok...
This is the old school basics here, but you may as well sort them, and they can't do you any real harm. There are various local directories, trade publications, internet directories etc. that you can use for a start. Have a google for business directories and business directories in your town, or website directories. Try the Yahoo! directory, etc.
Having exhausted the easy directories that take submission (and probably have relatively low value anyway) you'll need to start the hard work - indeed there's no real substitute for hard work. However, here's the good news: you don't need many good links from editorial articles, on high authority, and ideally high relevance (property industry) sites, to make a big impact. It may be that 5 really good links sorts you out.
And it will lead to more people finding you and more instructions as the practice of emailing for an "estate agent in XYZ town" is incredibly common, even if they are just looking for phone numbers of agents they already know. You want to be at the top of those lists.
When asking people to link to you, it's best not to be too prescriptive. Broadly you'd like the links in editorial articles, nearer the top of the article if possible. But you want a scattering of positionings, and you want a variety of words. Let the people linking to you chose their own link wording. If you force it, and get caught, you'll get knocked out. Remember, you want to be natural, so just let it happen.
If your godson is the town's biggest blogger, or your mate Dave is a local architect, then ask them for a link. Charity starts at home.
And if charity doesn't start at home it definitely starts with people you pay money too! Your board supplier. Your website supplier! Your favourite solicitors, and IFAs. Your office furniture supplier. You name it, ask them for links. Write them case studies. It all adds up.
If you advertise with them, they'll be keen to help, as the world moves online and they want to hold onto your business. Ideally you would link this to writing interesting content for them, and link naturally from it. But it might be as simple as asking them for links when you supply them interesting properties for features they write, or local market comment, etc. Take the journalists out for lunch, get to know them, offer them interesting local stories when you are in the know of interesting properties coming up for sale.
This may sound far fetched, but if you sponsor the school fair, or if you sometimes work with the council on property or planning matters or whatever, then a link from a government site or school, is extremely valuable. Even more so a university. The theory goes that .gov domains and .edu domains, or sites of that ilk, carry much higher trust, and hence link authority than a run of the mill site. 1 link here, could be worth 10 from random local sites.
At the heart of all of this is content marketing. It's a huge shift in the way marketing works at a fundamental level. In many ways, the irony of reading this article right now, supports this point. The internet has lowered the barriers so that anyone can be a publisher, anyone can start a blog on their own website, and everyone has something interesting to say to one audience or another. You could write articles with advice for your vendors for example.
Articles that are really good attract their own links. They travel. They get retweeted (see below). People blog about them, respond to them, reference them. And that all builds links. The same goes for infographics, local market data and stats, great photos, or interesting videos. But even where the articles don't travel by themselves, you can write them and send them out there. You can email them to your clients. Or write them for your local newspaper or magazine (in return for that crucial link even).
One quick rule here though. It sounds too good to be true to have inexpensive content, that gets hawked around by various suppliers (automatic newsletters, centralised content that you can rebrand etc.) - it can actually bedamaging from an SEO perspective. It's "duplicate content" and Google understands this. Think copying your homework and getting caught by teacher. Google will punish you for regurgitating sections of content provided externally, so make sure if you are taking newsletter content anywhere near your site or brand that it is original, and written only for you, in it's entirety.
Finally, once you've written all this interesting content (which has other SEO value beyond just the link bait by the way), you'll want to get it out there actively. You'll have set up your social media channels by now, so make sure you use them to distribute your interesting new articles / area guides / featured property case studies, etc. Social media has value well beyond the links it generates, and there is a school of thought which says that your social heartbeat is increasingly a direct factor in the ranking algorithm.
