“Backlinks are important for SEO” – you’ll hear this often as you delve into online marketing for your real estate business. And it’s true. When other websites link back to your website, the Google algorithms recognize you as an authority on the subject.
More links translate into more traffic (because you rank higher in the SERPs), and this boost will bring you more leads that you can turn into closed deals. Everyone is after real estate backlinks because of this. Unfortunately, real estate investors have a very hard time getting backlinks – even businesses that are in the same industry, like realtors, don’t want to link back to real estate investment websites.
When done right, backlinks organically divert traffic that is worth the equivalent of thousands of PPC dollars. The only catch is that you need to invest serious resources (time, skill, and some networking) to get them. There aren’t any shortcuts – you have to do all the hard work. No matter how difficult backlinks for the real estate investing niche are, piling up irrelevant or poor backlinks will not establish your authority, it will only get your site penalized.
We are going to share 9 ways to do backlinks properly, but before we do that, let’s examine the dangers of adding bogus links.
Real estate professionals have an entrepreneurial mindset and prefer to focus their efforts on working with people to close deals: phone calls, face-to-face meetings, open houses, contracts – that sort of stuff. When it comes to presenting their business online, many delegate the task of setting up a website, creating content, and managing social media accounts or online ad campaigns to others. Real estate investors in particular are used to getting a ready made website that can be optimized quickly (through services like Carrot).
If you go for ready-made solutions for the backlinks to your website, like if you use templates to create the site in the first place, you can easily make a mistake. There are many offers for “building backlinks” which are aimed at real estate websites, but some of these offers are shady. Often, black hat marketers will create poor websites whose sole purpose is to provide links for paying customers. Even if someone offers a large number of links, you, as a real estate investor, will have no benefit from these poor-quality, low-authority links. Do your best to avoid them, because if you don’t, your website will end up getting penalized.
If you (or the person you hire) use poor links to artificially boost the authority of your website, this is considered a black hat SEO technique, and, sooner or later, your website is going to get penalized by Google. This sort of frowned-upon technique is usually used by marketers who are trying to exploit a blind spot in the ranking algorithms.
We reiterate this because we know real estate investors who hired marketers to do their backlinks, these marketers used black hat techniques, and the real estate website was penalized as a result.
The marketers in this instance delivered thousand poor links from a private blog network (PBN) – a network of low quality posts that are linked to each other and to your real estate website. If you want to learn more about this, you can listen the #30th episode of REI Marketing Nerds podcast.
One of the principles of Google is to allow internet users to decide which are the quality websites online. This is done through a process that resembles a popularity contest based on the links a website receives from other websites, i.e. the total backlines leading to it. The assumption is that if people link to your website, then, in a way, they cast a vote for your website and regard it as an authority on the subject.
In the past, marketers could yield great results in terms of ranking and traffic through black hat techniques like those we mentioned above. However, Google has improved their algorithms since and a number of metrics were introduced to monitor backlinks:
Despite backlink monitoring, there are still black hat offers on the market. No one expects real estate investors to keep track of the latest developments in this cat and mouse game, however, we can give you some advice on spotting shady marketers. Look for two red flags:
In real estate, you should be lucky if you build tens of backlinks in a year, any other offer should be scrutinized. It takes time and hard work to earn authority, and no shortcut can replace that.
Let’s turn to good links now.
There are a lot of high quality real estate backlinks, you simply need to know what to look for. A good backlink has the following features:
Are you already wondering where to find good backlinks for your obscure niche in real estate? Finding a relevant, non-reciprocal link from a trusted source that drives traffic to real estate investing websites is not easy. You can use a number of techniques to overcome this issue.
Anyone would welcome backlinks that come without even asking someone for it. The safest bet to get these types of links for your real estate website is to produce great content.
Putting out good content on a regular basis is not an easy task, especially in real estate where most of your competitors are probably pushing similar articles. A long-term strategy is required, and this will bring benefits to your business that are beyond link building.
If you are struggling with your content strategy, keep in mind that good content helps your visitors make a decision – it solves their problems and educates them. Publish posts that are well-researched or based on your experience, and add a human touch to your website to increase engagement.
Pro tip: create a free resource that is valuable to motivated sellers or investors, like a breakdown of the current real estate market, and people will link back to it.
Content is a very broad term – it covers blog posts, podcasts, videos, slide share presentations, infographics, etc. If you repurpose a piece of content in several different mediums you will effectively increase the likelihood of getting more backlinks.
For example, a well-researched blog post on current opportunities in the real estate market can be transformed into an informative podcast episode. You can also make a video presentation (YouTube), an infographic (Pinterest), slides (Slide Share), or repost on other platforms (LinkedIn).
When you do this, keep in mind that engagement on social networks (Facebook, YouTube and others) doesn’t affect your SEO directly – likes, shares, and comments are important only for the platform where this engagement happens. However, by producing content and sharing it on different mediums, you make your website accessible to a wider audience, like users who don’t want to read, but would listen to a podcast rather than read an article.
Get your articles published as a guest blog on sites with a higher domain authority than your website. This is easier said than done, but if you reach out to a large number of outlets, you will definitely land some guest posts. You get two types of backlinks through guest posts: the link in the author’s bio at the beginning or the end of the post, and links to your website in the body of the text.
While it may seem like there aren’t many websites which would accept a guest blog from a real estate professional, if you think creatively, you can find a way to secure a backlink or two.
Journalists are always looking for original news pieces because they simply can’t come up with great, newsworthy articles every single day. There are many angles:
Those who have experience in the business can join a public debate and share their opinion – if the opinion piece opposes widely accepted ideas or processes, and the arguments are laid out in a way that is easy to follow, the article can get a lot of traction and bring backlinks.
Finding someone who is willing to publish your post on their website is a process. Marketers who specialize in white hat link building call this a natural outreach campaign. It consists of determining target websites, writing a template email, and sending your guest post pitch. The success of natural outreach campaigns for real estate backlinks is mixed and it depends on the websites you target and the quality of your email. It’s like a combination of cold calling and networking, but some report a response rate of up to 40%.
Pro tip: the links you will get through guest posts are better if the article is ghost written (i.e. the name of the author is not mentioned) because this is an indicator of a unique backlink. Alternatively, you can add a link in your bio below the article, however, in this case Google knows that you push your own website and this backlink is not as valuable as a unique backlink.
You can feature posts by other real estate entrepreneurs on your website. The best option to do this is when you do it with their permission – you are practically asking them for a guest post on your website, the only difference is: their article was already published elsewhere.
Also, you can quote someone else’s article. Don’t mistake this for plagiarizing someone else’s work. You are not stealing the article, rather you are simply taking the first paragraph, linking to the original source, and adding your take on the issue.
Reposts can’t replace original posts and should be done with moderation.
Yes, we noted above that reciprocal links are not the best for your SEO, however, they are much better than not having any links at all. Also, these types of links are easy to obtain from the business you collaborate with on a daily basis.
For example, if you are a house flipper, you can exchange links with the contractors that do the remodeling work. If you specialize in deals on properties in probate, you can ask your go-to attorney whether they are willing to exchange links. Those who operate in local real estate markets can ask all sorts of private businesses in the service industry for links – coffee shops, restaurants, entertainment venues, etc.
Chances are, most of these businesses are trying to find backlinks for their websites too, so they’d be happy to oblige.
Consider becoming a sponsor for a charity, a club, or a social event. Sponsorship will get you a backlink without much effort and it’s a sort of an SEO hack for real estate businesses.
The contribution itself doesn’t have to be substantial, like a donation of $25. For example, if you sponsor a school production of a classic play, or support local choir, sports club, social club etc., you are likely to be mentioned as a patron. If you choose clubs that are within the school district of your real estate market, you will get exposure, both offline and online.
Same applies to supporting charities. Some charities issue badges for socially conscious businesses (or something to that effect) and this will improve your ranking.
Referrals and testimonials are very important in real estate. To build backlinks as a real estate professional though, you should turn the tables and start giving testimonials to products and services that help in your day-to-day operations.
It’s mutually beneficial: you provide social proof and marketing for them, and the least they can do in return is to include a link to your website. This not only adds weight to the social proof testimonial for them, but it’s also good for building backlinks.
The list of products and services that you can review depends on your business processes. These days, most of the processes are digital, so you can review a number of companies that provide you with software: your CRM system, call tracking system, online marketing agency, social media management company, content writers, etc.
This is another typical SEO hack for getting backlinks. In essence, you are checking whether some of the links in a popular real estate investing blog post are broken, i.e. don’t lead anywhere. You can use free tools to find broken links and once you find them, you offer your article as a replacement.
It’s a great opportunity to do what someone in the industry has already done, but better. And, in real estate, a lot of companies go out of business each year, so chances are, you will score backlinks with this method.
When we say high-authority backlink, we are referring to a link from a well-known and trusted – source with ‘.gov’ and ‘.edu’ domain extensions. Bear with us before you write this off as impossible for real estate websites.
Your county is a local government and you cross paths with many of its employees. Sometimes, county officials reach out to the community to tackle an issue like crime rates, job opportunities, emergency preparedness, etc. Be creative and you’ll find a way to secure a backlink.
For example, you can interview members of law enforcement on house safety, or a code violation officer on fire fighting. You can find many topics that are relevant both for your business and for the community – speak to someone who manages a youth employment programme about careers in real estate.
Also, you are probably a member of professional associations like the chamber of commerce, your local real estate investing group, and similar entities. Backlinks from these organizations are relevant and with high authority.
You’ve probably grasped the amount of work that goes into natural link building for real estate websites. If you are wondering whether backlinks are worth it, we would recommend that you rephrase that question. The only question you should ask yourself about backlinks is – how long do you see yourself in this industry? If the answer is ‘longer than 5 years,’ then go and do all the hard work to build as many backlinks as possible.
Those who are in real estate to make one or two house flips a year can close those deals without backlinks. But if you are a real estate entrepreneur and your goal is to dominate the market over time, then make the effort. It’s a lot like networking – when you offer something of value to someone else, chances are, they will return the favor without you asking them to. In most cases, the collaboration is mutually beneficial and people will be happy to link back to you.
Whatever you do, don’t buy low cost backlinks from an obscure link builder. If it was that easy, everyone would rank high. We reiterate this because real estate professionals in the real world have destroyed their chances for good ranking and organic traffic by going with black hat link building methods.
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