Real Estate SEO Adviser

Real Estate SEO - How Directories Increase Ranking

Advanced Summary: This real estate SEO articles shows real estate agents how to improve their websites’ search engine ranking by using web directories for additional inbound links.

Web directories are not search engines, though many real estate agents confuse the two. But web directories can help your search engine ranking, so it’s important to understand what they are and how the work — and how they tie into your real estate search engine optimization program as a whole.

What is a Web Directory

A web directory is basically a big catalog of websites that’s edited and managed by people. With a search engine, automated web crawlers find websites and add them to the search engine’s database. With a directory, human editors find websites, screen them for quality and relevance, and add them to the proper category of the directory’s database. This “human intervention” is what makes a directory different from a search engine.

Yahoo is both a search engine and a directory. If you go to dir.yahoo.com, you’ll be looking at the directory side of Yahoo. You’ll also notice a common feature of directories — the category system. Directories use a system of categories and sub-categories to group websites, and to help people find them effectively.

How Directories Improve Search Engine Ranking

An obvious benefit of having your real estate website listed in a web directory is that people can find your website when they search that directory. But directories can also help you rank well in the major search engines like Google. How? Because Google, for instance, uses certain directory inclusions as part of its algorithm.

Regardless of any preference given by certain search engines to certain directories, it is safe to say that all search engines reward websites strong link popularity. By “link popularity” I am referring to the number and quality of inbound links from other websites to your websites. Generally speaking, a higher number of links coming in from quality websites will boost your website’s search engine ranking.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Of course, you have to consider the quality of the directory. An older, well-established and high-ranking directory will provide more SEO benefit (and possibly even direct traffic) than a brand new directory that hasn’t built up any trust or traffic yet.

Many of the directories that are worth being listed in will require a submission / review fee, ranging from $9 on the low end and $299 on the high end (namely Yahoo). With the exception of Yahoo, most of these fees are nominal when you consider the lasting benefits you get in the form of search engine visibility and website traffic.

Here’s the good news. If you download my real estate SEO book, you won’t have to worry about distinguishing good directories from money-wasters … because I’ve done it for you. Download your copy today, and start using directories tomorrow.

In my opinion, most real estate agent websites can get by without such an expensive listing. Instead, I will be recommending a larger number of less-expensive directories that will still provide you with plenty of value from an SEO and traffic standpoint.

How to Submit to Directories

All web directories have their own set of submission guidelines, so you should always read those guidelines before submitting.

In almost all cases, your website will be accepted into the directory if you meet the following basic criteria:

1. The website functions properly, with no broken links.
2. The website is complete, with no parts “under construction.”
3. The website contains mostly original content.
4. The website does not contain offensive material.
5. You have submitted the website to the appropriate category of the directory.
6. You have followed all other submission guidelines posted.

If you meet the criteria listed above, your website will likely be accepted into 100% of the directories where you submit it.

Update: We Built a Real Estate Directory

I’ve updated this article to let you know that we recently launched our own real estate directory for agents, and it has all the hallmarks of a good directory. It’s part of the Home Buying Institute, which is a high-traffic real estate website that’s several years old. It’s built with static pages for maximum search engine visibility. And, best of all, it’s actually intended to attract consumers who want to find an agent in their area. Direct traffic + SEO benefits!

I’ve also recently introduced a blog directory that has a category just for real estate blogs (and the agents who publish them). You can check it out here.

The Real Estate SEO Book

If you found this article helpful and would like to learn more about real estate search engine marketing you should download my book, Top Ten Agent. The book also includes a valuable list of high-quality directories like those mentioned above.