Good design, proper key word density, intuitive navigation,

correct Meta tags and informative content are all important to

achieving top search engine placement. Especially when it comes

to real estate sites, they are almost devoid of one critical

search engine element... Quality incoming links!

Google, the acknowledged leading search engine, isn't looking

so much at word density with its ranking algorithm, as at what

other sites are linking to your firm’s site. Google relies

primarily on link popularity for ranking pages. They assign a

PageRank to each site they index with 10 being the highest. The

vast majority of quality sites rank at least four or above.

Google isn't breaking away from words-on-the-page -- it never

started there.

The logic is that pages other people think are valuable

resources will often get linked by other webmasters, while

pages that are of low quality or do not contain any information

at all, will not gain many links. Thus, the Top10 places will be

filled with sites people regard as useful. It does make sense

and it adds another way for SE's to rate your website with

minimal effort. Virtually all Webmasters these days are aware

of the fact that exchanging linkbacks with other sites is an

excellent method for building traffic.

The problem is that this change might make it even more

difficult for small and new sites to make it to the top and it

favors big, high-traffic mega sites. There is a software

program that can greatly help in you getting the links that you

desire. It does all this automatically.

More links are not better unless all of them are high-quality

links. Numbers aren't as important as context and relevancy. It

is better to have a few links from sites that are similar in

content and topic to yours, a few links from the portals, and a

few links from site reviewers, than to have 1,000 links on Free

For All (FFA) links pages. Actually, in practice, non-themed

links can actually lower a site’s search engine placement. This

is especially true when lazy webmasters join link swapping plans

in hopes of having ‘instant’ mega, in-coming links. These

services are designed to immediately boost your link

popularity. The way they work is simple: Each member of a

link-share program places a machine-generated page on his site

and links to that page from his front page. The

machine-generated page has links to all other sites

participating in the program. Each member submits his

machine-generated page to all search engines, and the result is

that each member has a link to his site from everyone else.

These programs have produced some positive effects in years

past, but many search engines now regard them as spam and often

ban sites that they find participating in these programs. Don't

even try them, even if you are really desperate. Here is what

Google has to say about this practice: “Avoid SEOs that talk

about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity

schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search

engines. These are typically useless exercises that do not

affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines.

At least, not in a way you would likely consider to be

positive”.

Quality incoming links are critical to improved rankings and

therefore, increased business. With a good linking program in

place, your site will soon reap the true potential the Internet

offers.