Top-Ranking Denver Real Estate Agent - A Hypothetical SEO Scenario

In this blog tutorial, I'll explain how a real estate agent in Denver could drive his or her website to the top of the search engines. Why Denver? Because I need a city for this hypothetical scenario, and Denver is just as good as any other. It's also a big real estate market with plenty of agent competition, so if this process works for a Denver agent it would work just about anywhere else.

Step 1 - Download a Copy of Top Ten Agent

My e-book offers nearly 100 pages of advice on the subject of real estate SEO. So any agent who is serious about website visibility should download a copy of this unique and helpful book.

Step 2 - Build Your Website

We are starting from scratch here! So let's assume that Jane Doe, our fictitious real estate agent in the Denver area, doesn't even have a website yet. Step 2 is to register a domain name and set up a website with quality content and useful tools for visitors (such as listing data, real estate news, virtual tours, maps, etc.).

Step 3 - Keyword Research

In most cases, this step is merely a validation of what you already know. You will make a list of the key phrases people are typing into search engines when they research real estate in your area. For this process, you can start with the obvious phrases and build from there. For example, Jane Doe would take a phrase like Denver real estate and put it into a keyword tool. You can learn more about keyword-research tools from the Top Ten Agent SEO book, mentioned above.

After some thorough research, Jane creates a list of 10 - 12 phrases she wants to rank well for in the search engines. They include Denver real estate agent, Denver Realtor, homes for sale in Denver ... you get the idea. Jane might even want to include a list of home builders in the area, because it's another way to pull traffic via the search engines.

Step 4 - Develop Plenty of Keyword-Rich Content

We touched on this under step 2 above, but it's worth revisiting now that we have done our keyword research. In this step, Jane will make sure she has at least one page of keyword-specific content for each of the Denver real estate phrases she has on her list. She can always expand her web content later on, as much as she needs to. But for starters, she needs to write one page per keyword. These pages are the fundamental building blocks that will help Jane's website rank well for Denver real estate agent and other key phrases.

Step 5 - Gather Links from Other Websites

This is an ongoing process that never really ends. Link popularity is one of the criteria search engines use to rank websites in a certain order. This concept confuses a lot of agents but it's really not that complicated. When other websites link to your site, they are contributing to your link popularity. This in turn will boost your search engine rankings.

When those other websites are well established, with a lot of link popularity of their own, they provide even more value through their links. Relevancy is also important. So Jane, the Denver agent in this scenario, should seek links from well-established websites that are related to (A) the Denver metropolitan area, (B) real estate or (C) a combination of these two topics.

This is where quality content comes into the picture again. It's much easier to get other webmasters to link to your site if it offers a wealth of useful information. If it's "just another agent site," it's not going to impress anyone. But if it's truly a resource for Denver home buyers, then other webmasters will be inclined to link to the site.

Step 6 - Repeat Steps 4 and 5 Indefinitely

This kind of process requires time, persistence and patience. So Jane must realize that the agents who rank well for Denver real estate phrases probably began the process long ago. At the same time, however, there's really no mystery to the process. If Jane repeats the steps I've outlined above (particularly the convent development and the link building), she will eventually be one of the top-ranking websites in her market. As a result -- and most importantly -- she will enjoy a steady stream of website visitors who need a Denver real estate agent just like her!