When you first consider your path into marketing your real estate business online, one of the items at hand is how to get to the top of the search engines.  Reviewing the competition online often scares many real estate professionals and prevents them from starting.  The reality is that you can get to the top of the search engines when you apply the right methods and have the focus on getting to that top spot.

The process of getting to the top of the search engines is known as search engine optimization.  I invite you to consider that with your business that you are actually going to be doing real estate search engine optimization.  This means that your focus will not only be to get to the top of the search engines but also generate business for you each and every month.

Getting to the top of any of the search engines won’t happen overnight however when you take the time to follow the steps outlined below it will happen much sooner than you think.

1. Have a plan – Starting with the right plan will ensure that each step you take is one that pushes you closer to the top.  Your plan doesn’t have to be complicated, but it should outline different action items that you will need to accomplish to hit your big goal of getting to #1.  Items to include in your plan can be the number of pages that you are going to create, how often you will update your website, number of websites to reach out to for new links, etc.  Keeping your plan simple to begin with will make it easier for you to stick with it.  For best results start slow and work up to doing more and more work online.

2. Your keyword foundation – Once your plan is in place, it is important to understand how people are looking for help with their real estate goals in your area.  Keywords are what people are typing in the search engines and when you know what they are searching on, you can tailor your content around those searches.  There are some great keyword tools out there like WordTracker and Keyword Discover, but just take the first step and ask your past clients what they would search on if they didn’t know you and you will have plenty of work to do.

3. Pick a website vendor – Whether you have a website currently or not it is important that you understand how your website will help you fit into your real estate SEO strategy.  Your website needs to be flexible and allow you to easily update content so it can be exposed to the search engines.  There are many great real estate website companies out there so before you get out your credit card look online and see who the agents at the top are using.

4. Start writing content – This is the first major step into getting to the top.  The search engines (and your visitors) crave content so start writing.  You don’t have to be a good writer, just write around the keywords and what the needs are of those who are looking for real estate in your area and you will start to see the results.

When you keep the focus on creating content that is valuable to your next potential client it will allow you to have more fun with your SEO work.  As you can see doing your own real estate search engine optimization work does take time, but when you get to the top and start getting leads every day you will soon forget the efforts that went into it. 

By James Bridges of Online Real Estate Success

Online Real Estate Success offers training and coaching programs for real estate professionals who want to succeed with online marketing.  Programs are step-by-step and cover everything from real estate SEO, pay per click marketing, real estate blogging, socoial networking, and even converting leads into fresh appointments that turn into sales.