Recommended links/strategy for ranking realtor + city?

[stymie]

What up all. I had a real estate company for a client about a year ago, and was using a combination of niche guest posts and high authority links from here. We were making really good progress, but they couldn't afford to continue, and flaked on me after a few months.

Now, I have a potential client that wants organic traffic for realtor + the city for several U.S. cities....obviously no small task. My first thought was to employ the same plan that I used for the real estate company, but wanted to pick the brains of those that have experience in this niche. Any recommendations from the BuSo experts? Case studies, etc. online that I can check out?

 

[jstover77]

Pretty typical for realtors, even the ones who do well. I was in the niche for a few years and had 25+ realtors as clients. In the end, I only have one left. We liked to joke that realtors are a step above used car salesman. The barrier of entry is so low, so it attracts a lot of short term thinkers, who expect everything for nothing.

One of the main reasons I got out of the niche is, Google started favoring all the large aggregator websites like Realtor.com, Zillow, etc... over local realtors. I forget which update it was, but it cleared out the top 10 for many of the high level local keywords in favor of the big boys. After that, it became a fight over long tails and hyper-targeted local keywords..e.g - "luxury condominiums in Franklin, TN".

Not that you can't be successful, but they better come with a correct budget, and understand it's not going to be overnight. I worked with some of the top realtors in the US, who had globs of organic traffic. Here is what separated them from everyone else:

- Many of them had websites, which were 10+ years old. Authority goes a looong way in the real estate game, especially in big markets.
- Many of them had links from giant websites. One of my clients had a homepage link from the Tennessee Titans homepage (he was their sponsored realtor and cost him a shitload), but that one link seemed to put him in another stratosphere with with organic rankings.
- They had many pages on their website. A big part of the game is building out lots of categories and sub categories + geo locations. Ex - Property Types>Condos & Townhomes>City/Town. Each page specifically targeting a keyword set + geo. If you are in a big city, you can target parts of the city. Even in smaller towns, you can target surrounding areas. It can get pretty silly.
- They used a high quality CMS. When I was in the game, Real Estate Webmasters was the big one, but they started shitting the bed and were overpriced. There are better ones out there, which aren't using the same themes and making other huge SEO mistakes.

If you ever have any questions, feel free to hit me up on Skype.