Thread: Tip: CSS, Anchor Text, and Boosting SERP's

It's a given that your number one target phrase is going to be 'your city name' + 'real estate'. And chances are that somewhere in your top 5 phrases to optimize for will be 'city name' + 'homes' and 'city name' + 'MLS'. With quality links getting harder and harder to come by, you may not want to "waste" prime anchor text on "homes" or "MLS" rather than the phrase "real estate". (Unless you want really long anchor text - but then you risk diluting your primary KW phrase).

The best way to optimize for these phrases is by using the anchor text on your own site. Here are the keys:

1. You need to have a decent quantity of pages on your web site (100+ in most markets to get the link pop).
2. Use CSS for your main navigation menu.

There are alot of sites that uses images for their main menu, but this tactic means that you lose any boost in SERP's related to anchor text. With CSS you can use background images and rollover effects, but you still get the benefit of having a text link. See the Listamatic web site for CSS menu samples.

The next step is to avoid two key mistakes made in most real estate web designs. The first mistake is linking to the agent's listings using the phrase "My Listings". It's very rare that one of the most popular KW phrases in your market will contain the word "listings". Instead, use the phrase 'your city name' + 'homes'.

The second key mistake is that most realtor web sites link to their MLS section using the phrases "MLS" or "MLS Listings". Instead, your anchor text should be 'your city name' + 'MLS'.

Granted, the anchor text in your own internal links will not carry the same weight as an external link pointing to your web site. But if you have 200+ pages on your site and decent on-page optimization you should easily move into the top 10 on at least Yahoo and MSN.

One more thing, the link to the MLS page should never go directly to the IDX frameset. Instead, create an optimized gateway page that explains the MLS system and how to contact the agent ragarding an MLS listing. If you have optimized correctly, you should see both your index page and the MLS page at the top of the SERP's.

For example, go to MSN and type in Hilton Head MLS. One of our sites is at both the #1 and #2 position (the other Hilton Head site we have is at #5, but we only opened the site to SE spiders within the last week and only a fraction of our pages have been indexed). On Yahoo it is at #1 and #3. Don't bother checking Google yet - the site is less than a year old and sandboxed because of the hundreds of links we picked up in the last few months.

If you want to see any of the CSS menu tips described above, click on any of the real estate site in my signature.

A very good article.

I would also add that setting unique titles for all the pages and presenting all the dynamic URLs in a spider friendly way are very important too.

Originally Posted by justicewhite

A very good article.

I would also add that setting unique titles for all the pages and presenting all the dynamic URLs in a spider friendly way are very important too.

There is an active thread-"New 'Googletap' mod for turning all pages from .php to .html" at: http://support.open-realty.org/showthread.php?t=3726

All of the techniques discussed can be modified to work on any unix/linux server that supports mod rewrite.

Thanks guys very useful info!

Keep the tips coming

Great tip, thanks. You might want to remove your link to world property links. Their site has lost all of their page rank on all of their pages. Same thing for their world hotel links site. The index isn't cached either. May be considered a bad neighborhood now at the worst, a worthless link at best.

Originally Posted by Jade456

You might want to remove your link to world property links.

Thanks for the heads up - I had not checked my links this month. That's a very popular site with agents - it could come back to haunt a lot of people.

Thank you for these useful tips. I'm really having a hard time optimizing my page, that's why I keep on reading useful information like this.