I have read & learned a lot about SEO, but everyone seems to have their own opinions about what works and what doesn't.

I have heard reciprical linking is bad, submitting to business directories can be bad, having too many of the same article posted on many article directories can be bad.

So what I am wondering, what works for everyone & what doesn't?

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Holland Michigan Real Estate | Holland MI Real Estate | Lake Michigan Real Estate

Creating unique content that is insightful, market relevant and written with your users and conversion in mind (Not SEO) works

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Not listening to Morgan is bad.

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Michael Trinchitella
Associate Real Estate Broker
e-PRO certified Internet Expert
RE/Max Classic Realty - Yorktown Heights, NY
Putnam & Westchester County NY Real Estate

Mahopac NY Real Estate | Northern Westchester County Condos | The Preserve at Somers

The unique content for sure and also updating your sites content along with blogging and articles will definately put you on the right track aswell as taking care of your SEO.

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| Dubai Property | Dubai Real Estate | Dubai Property Blog| Call +971 4 323 1018 Specialising in Dubai Property, The Springs, Meadows, Greens, Arabian Ranches, Dubai Marina, Burj Dubai, Jumeirah Islands, Emaar, Signature Villas, Garden Homes, Water Homes, JBR, The World, Nakheel, Business Bay, International City and more.

I think the question is Mark, what does "taking care of your SEO" actual mean / entail.

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I don't believe these are necessary bad if done right. Think about it, do you think the average real estate sites that rank high in the serps have hundreds and thousands of links pointing to their site without reciprocal links?

Submitting to directories, Let's say you have submitted to directories for the past 3 years, are you now going to be penalize for being in a directory? What are you going to do tell every directory you are in to pull your link because it is bad?

G may not give much relevance(can be debated) for it but not going to penalize you unless its a bad link farm.

I believe getting quality links with anchor text through blog posts, articles, link exchanges, directories, are very important.

Also as Morgan said unique content that is relevant and helpful to your target audience always is a good thing.

This is just my opinion but you don't know me and I can be heavily medicated.
so proceed with caution.

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Brandon Florida Real Estate
Do Follow, Comment Luv Tampa Real Estate Blog and Top Commentator enabled
Tampa MLS

I think and will always feel that links are huge and important. There is real estate company in my area that is 1st for a few key word searches, the site has hardly anything in terms of SEO but it has over 6,000 links to it from various sites and of course each agents site links back to it (which probably accounts for all the links). They have 40 offices. I think I have like 1,700 links. When I check search engine saturation using MarketLeap I have 1,176 and they have 26,000+. That is probably a little or a lot different than link building but figured I would add those stats in.

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Michael Trinchitella
Associate Real Estate Broker
e-PRO certified Internet Expert
RE/Max Classic Realty - Yorktown Heights, NY
Putnam & Westchester County NY Real Estate

Mahopac NY Real Estate | Northern Westchester County Condos | The Preserve at Somers

Link exchanges aren't necessarily bad as long as you use them in moderation. Same deal with crosslinks. If you're talking about interlinking 2 or 3 related sites you own, there's no reason to worry about that.

However, its important to understand what Google likes and doesn't like. It's not about "what can I get away with" or "how can I make more money" because that mindset will lead you down a path where you will end up constantly worrying about penalties, whether it be -950 penalty, -30 penalty, TBPR penalty, or the position 6 penalty. While its important to set revenue goals for each quarter, it helps to have a "what can I do to add value to the web" mentality when running an SEO campaign.

If you focus less on rankings and more on content creation, networking, and traditional marketing, you will end up gaining some powerful links. If you instead chase anchor text and PageRank around the web, never bothering to create alliances with people in your industry, not bothering to invest time into writing unforgettable content, your site may wind up with a spammy link profile and a short life span. Ranking on Google is also in large part a popularity contest - and that battle you will not win without visibility and friends.

The way i see it, you can split SEO in two major parts. "On site" optimization and "Off site" optimization. The "on site" optimization it's all the optimization you can make on it(titles, description, content ...) and "off site" optimization would be link exchange and submiting to different directories on the web. I say that link exchange is the most important from "off site" optimization(based on the big number of articles of people saying how much difference can make if you have sites with higher ranks linking to you and the google articles). But, in the same google articles we can read that it's not very good to link to sites which sell links and stuff like that

I know that the site that comes up #1 on Google for my main search phrase 'myrtle beach real estate' has around 40,000 links to it. Will google eventually catch them on this excessive link exchaning?

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Tammy Winner, Myrtle Beach Real Estate