[kid disco]

Sugarrae just posted an incredible series of link building questions answered by herself, and 4 other top SEOs:

http://www.sugarrae.com/blog/five-link-development-experts-a-group-interview/

Question Five: Name 5 specific techniques (queries, tools, process, or starting points) you would use to get links for a statewide real estate agent.

Eric: Since the overwhelming majority of real estate agent sites are, well, nothing more than online billboards with little content, or gateways to MLS databases, the linking potential is very similar for most of them, and the link quality potential is low. Yes, there are some to be had, but it depends on the state, the agent’s focus, and the agent’s site. For example, this site http://www.lakehouse.com/ which focuses on lake property will attract links that this site http://www.century21thewrightchoice.net/ never could. Have a look.

Rae: Death to whoever came up with this question (kidding). Well, again, without seeing the specific site, it is hard to make very specific suggestions, but the top five that pop into my head are:

1. The first starting point is making sure he site is ship shape from an SEO perspective and that she has general content worth linking to.
2. Creation of specific content meant to be interesting and attention grabbing… something like “Top Eight State Name Communities You Didn’t Know You Wanted to Live In Until Now”.
3. Creating a portal for specific housing developments within cities and towns is another smart tactic. If your area has a gated community, consider “sponsoring” a site that gives information about it. Not only will you get inbound links from the community site, but since these sites are often the only ones focusing on a community within a town, they rank fairly easily and can send you a lot of targeted leads who see you as “the” real estate agent for the community. Scrapers and made for Adsense site builders can scrape city names, but information or even knowledge of “Sugar Woods”, a gated community within a town, is a little harder for people who aren’t local to come by - again, making competition for those niches within a town almost non-existent.
4. Creating a local presence on national sites is also an important step. The more obvious: making sure they’re listed in the regional sections of directories like Dmoz, Yahoo, Best of the Web, etc. Also making sure they have any and all available listings within the local search arena like those listed in my Local Small Business SEO Guide.
5. I’d also start to backtrack their competition by using the (linkdomain:competitor1.com linkdomain:competitor2.com) -linkdomain:myclient.com to see who is linking to several other local agents, without linking to the site I am working with and figure out how we can get them those links.

Rand: Google maps mashups - they’re all the rage and if you can put a good one together, you’ll be getting links from all over with the perfect relevance and anchor text that you want. Some other good ones include the very basic but often overlooked design and user experience element. If I go to your site and the experience of surfing it isn’t at least as enjoyable and useful as a site like Zillow.com in real estate or Wufoo.com in forms or Digg.com in user-submitted news, you have an opportunity to improve. A site that looks stunning and performs with an almost sexy aesthetic is a great way to insure that you’re maximizing the number of new inbound links and viral spread per visit. Sorry I didn’t do all five.

Roger: Simple list:

1. Video Walkthroughs. Host them on your site.
2. Upload Video Walkthroughs to YouTube and Google Video
3. Send out press releases and pre-written articles about your Video Walkthroughs directly to the real estate editors at newspapers across your country (and maybe even the world). Then send out press releases the to technology editors and the business editors. Do it in phases, spread it out.
4. Start a how-to blog or website that is useful to first time or even aspiring home buyers. Give them the tips, be sure to brand yourself as the Real Estate Agent you can trust. Everyone wants a superstar Real Estate Agent on their side. Be a superstar, don’t just say it! Then get links to the site or blog. How-to sites, especially ones without an obvious commercial component (like AdSense or banners) are the easiest for attracting links to.
5. Chambers of commerce memberships

Todd: Simple list:

1. Google directory
2. Search query combination tool - state or city names + add url (or better more creative queries)
3. Yahoo site explorer - search "state + real estate" (the top phrase) - and mine the backlinks of the top 3 sites ranking
4. Search geo-targeted areas for local opportunities "cityname + sponsors"
5. Install Hubfinder on your own site (so you don’t run out of api calls), or using some of Aaron’s other tools

Check out the post for other strategies and links.