In your experience, do you suggest to pick a set of keywords and raise in rankings all together, or rather, pick one and get top rankings before moving to your next?

If it's the latter, how do you suggest implementing the new keyword? As a separate page and start SEO for that page for that keyword? I was assuming you want to stay away from altering your front page if it got you to the top with your first keyword.

My apologies if that is confusing. Please let me know if I should clarify.

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Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

IMO (stolen from judyo)

I think we have come to the conclusion that it is better to have many key words that are less popular, then to have just one insanely popular one.

Not in the long run, but it's less work to get the lesser used keywords (since most people try to go for state city real estate etc) so you can get higher up. With your then higher Google page, you can then persue the big key words easier.

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I see! In other words, build up your web pages with keywords that are not "insanely popular" to get to the top positions. Then use those pages to move into the popular keywords by adding some new content that is dense with the new keyword. Right?

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Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

To my understanding (TMU) that is how you do it. Trying to wrestle South Florida Real Estate (from my knowledge, it gets searched more then miami real estate etc) was near impossible unless I did only SEO, so I went for other terms.

Surprising people search for 'real estate in the heart of state' sometimes too. Strange thing.

If you specialize in appartments, try city appartments, or county appartments. It's still a good keyword, but will be easier to get then city real estate.

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Here is how I did it when I first started. I picked one set of kw's. On my first site it was a niche site so that was OK. However, after the fact I read that Google likes things to "seem" natural and it isn't very natural getting incoming links with the exact same anchor text. I think I overdid using the same kw's, too. Had I understood allinanchor at the time I could have moved on to other kw's for my site long before I finally did.

Brandon is referring to my main Cook County site. I was instructed to go for the big words first & then work on the niche words. Hey, I finally made it for the big words & guess what? Most of my searches are out of the area I actually work in. Sure, I can refer them but half the time that doesn't work out, especially when we all know that new visitors probably aren't ready to buy right now.

So now I'm working on the areas I actually work in. Since I want people to land on the city page I try to get most of my inbound links to the specific city page. I try going for the most searched for term (in my area it supposedly is city IL real estate) followed by city real estate and then city illinois real estate. After I get all of those kw's towards the top in Google I'll start adding other, less used kw's. Many long tails that I haven't even tried for are already in top positions.

So I say to mix it up but keep your eye on your most important kw's. Use a few different anchor texts at a time until you become #1 in allinanchor with them (or as close as you can get against some of the big guys like Homegain).

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Southwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate is an affordable area with close access to downtown Chicago. Money Magazine says that Orland Park real estate is one of the best places to live in the U.S. Next door you can find Tinley Park homes for sale and get Orland Park amenities at a more affordable price.

Oh, and the stolen from you, was using your IMO, not your website

Sadly, I have a very different view point on this matter then the rest of you. I work for pretty much all of the state of florida, not in just one region =/ We specialize in a type of real estate, not a location.

With this new knowledge, I'd say go for a mixture of both.

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So you think it's pretty tough to pass up Homegain? Just curious because they are about two spots up on me on my rankings for my target KW at the moment.

__________________
Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

I have them beat in some of my areas which means they haven't focused on that particular area as much. But for my main area they are #1 in allinanchor and serps. I'm not sure how to find out what I need to do to beat them like I do with other towns.

In fact, for a kw I'm usually #1 with, Homegain is #6 but homes.com is now #1 & I'm #2. I'm not too worried about them being a notch or 2 above me as I'm hoping surfers will click off those portals & find my site. I'm more interested in getting ahead of other local real estate brokerage/agent sites.

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Southwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate is an affordable area with close access to downtown Chicago. Money Magazine says that Orland Park real estate is one of the best places to live in the U.S. Next door you can find Tinley Park homes for sale and get Orland Park amenities at a more affordable price.

I agree with you, and I think that's a good approach. Though I'm biased on this, I'd think consumers would click through the big company sites to hit the local market agent sites to check them out at least.

__________________
Steve Castaneda, Realtor
Keller Williams Realty
The MyHomeHouston Team

Specializing in Houston Real Estate. Feel free to visit my Houston Real Estate Blog or read about Real Estate Technology for agents.

I find the big companies easy to pass in the SE's. Ususally there rank is based on the authority of the site and not on incoming links/target anchor text.
As to the original posters question. When I start a new site I usually have 3-5 main keywords then anywhere from 100-250 secondary keywords. While I am building authority I focus primarly on my main 5 but I like to toss in a secondary anchor text link ever 3 or 4 links so it looks a little more natural. I may be wasting these but I also put a couple links for just Real Estate and just my City. I feel this looks a little more natural from googles view. Its totally personal and could be completely wrong its just what I do. My Cedar City site ranks top 5 for every Cedar City keyword I can think of now. My secondary cities are all in the top 3 for inner pages. It seems to have worked for my market but my market isn't highly contested either. Anyways this is what I do. I hope it helps.