Sadly, backlinks are still the #1 ranking factor from Google when trying to rank higher in organic searches. Google likes to tell us that ‘content is king’ and it’s true to an extent — SEO and content marketing have never been more important. Great content also naturally gets backlinks and also has various other ranking signals that helps you rank well. Still backlinks are the most powerful metric for realtors to rank higher for (SEO) searches.
We analyzed over 100 real estate websites who were ranking on the front page of Google search and identified the top sources of their backlinks.
Keywords were for “City Real Estate Agent” or “City Realtor.”
One side note – most of them are ranking highly because they’re also a business listing. If you don’t have your real estate listed as a business listing you should look into that right away.
Great Backlinks For Realtors:
(Potentially high value ones in bold)
SEO, content marketing, and backlinks have to be your bread and butter when it comes to a marketing strategy. Take a look at these websites, and choose at least three of these avenues to begin looking into right away for quality backlinks.
Social Media Backlinks
YouTube – No Follow. Start your YouTube backlink strategy with your own YouTube channel, and if you don’t have one, it’s time to make one.
Pinterest – No Follow. Take note: this is a top backlink for multiple real estate websites, even though most people say it has no ‘link juice’. When almost every real estate website in the #1 spot has this at the top of their list, it has to mean something.
Real Estate Website Backlinks
RESAAS – A big real estate social network. Generally easy to get links from your profile page
ValueCom– Real Estate Listing Site
Real Estate ABC – Paid links are generally less valuable than they used to be, but having one or two could prove to be helpful.
Trulia Blog – Not only a great way to increase your real estate SEO rankings but, it’s also a good way to connect with potential prospects.
Redfin Forums – From the profile page. Looks like you might have to be working with them to get this benefit.
Realtrends– Looks to be populated from your Trulia profile page.
Variety/Dirt– Find some celebrity real estate news,and if you submit it first you get a backlink. It’s relevant to real estate so it’s pretty high quality as well.
Other Quality Linking Strategies
Internal Linking – This is linking from the other pages on your site to your main page. Internal links are super relevant because they establish your website’s architecture, which essentially paves the roads for Google’s crawlers. These crawlers can better index your pages, and give you higher relevancy, if your internal linking strategy is sound.
This is important: if you don’t have a large amount of competition we found a lot of websites rank #1 in Google without backlinks other than the ones they were giving themselves.
Regional Backlinks — Obviously, shooting for global markets is never a bad idea. However, most of your real estate business is going to be local or regional. Google ranks content regionally, which is why it’s so important to build relationships with the real estate apparatus in your area and reach out to them personally for backlinks. Local newspapers, municipal social media, community websites, local subreddits — building these relationships will keep your name at the top of the local list of realtors and real estate.
Forbes – The most expensive home for your backlinks. If you want a similar article with such a high value link, we suggest finding something highly unique in your market and searching through the Forbes writers for one that does real estate coverage. Contact them with something that would interest them and pitch them on it. Bonus points if you build a relationship first.
Active Rain – This is a great strategy. The key here is starting a blog with great content. The problem is, that they’ll only allow your blog to be indexed by Google if you pay their high monthly pricing. Is it worth it? If you’re going to be blogging consistently on it, yes. If not you’re going to be paying over $40/mo for a single backlink that might not even get indexed.
PRWeb – No Follow – Again, no follow which is supposed to have no ‘link juice’ but, we found a lot of websites ranking in the #1 spot with PR Webs no follow attribute. This seems to suggest that it is actually passing something through that Google likes. There is a chance that the real estate industry doesn’t have the same rules as everyone else.
*Another thing we noticed is that some Realtors are getting articles on all the top news sites (yahoo, aol, forbes, bloomberg, etc). If you can obtain these types of links it almost guarantees you a top spot in Google. When everyone is competing for lower quality links, these can be considered the holy grail. Other real estate agents are doing it so you can do it too. Build a relationship first and then figure out what they need as a journalist and work with them to get that completed.
** A lot of backlinks were left out if deemed low quality. Most were very low quality.
And of course, don’t neglect your traditional real estate marketing strategies. Be sure to check out FlyerCo for your real estate flyers.
Have you seen any other high value links?
Leave a comment below and we’ll give you a link as a thank you!
Thanks for posting the info on back links. It was very informative.
Mary W.
Thanks for the comment Mary!
Great backlink list. The nofollow links also do have an impact. Very little but still esp when the domain authority is high.
Nice article.
You can create backlinks in your Google Plus page’s about section and also backlinks in wordpress.org. I’d add Twitter to the list as well, although, I believe it is nofollow.
Google bookmarks and Delicious are great for bookmarks. Great article!
Great article! Excellent advice regarding SEO!
Thanks for sharing Andrew. I use Activerain who’s domain has switched to Trulia but it’s a very good blogging platform and backlinks follow.
Thanks for the comment and suggestion David!
Late to the party but I have one more for you Andrew. Agents or anyone industry related can create a profile on Zillow while the links are no followed, users can link to social profiles/blog/website, share reviews and past sales. It’s all about getting your brand out there. Thanks for this post.
I completely agree. I just setup my Zillow profile and linked all of my social networks.
Thank you for this informative article. Great Job!
Nice post…It lets realtor have a good starting point for Backlinks..Thanks
Wow! i wanna thank for this outstanding article. I like it so much.
What a nice post! It is so important for all.
I am always looking for new angles to add backlinks to my property sites, so your article is going to be very useful to me. Many thanks.
Check out zillow. No follow links from profile but can use keywords to backlink. And zillow is high pr
Great post, i will keep reading.
Thank you Andrew for sharing this valuable info with us, may I add vizway.com ,it too offers do follow backlinks .
Activerain was the greatest source of quality backlinks when it started. My blog there was responsible for making my website #1 ranked for my city at the time. However, the large backlink profiles there were problematic when the google algo changed and my #1 ranked site at that time got a -50 penalty. This was the kiss of death for that site and despite my efforts to clean the link profile, it was a lost cause.
Backlinks are still the #1 ranking factor from Google when trying to rank higher in organic searches. Realtors are getting articles on all the top news sites. If you can obtain these types of links it almost guarantees you a top spot in Google. I have spent 48 years in the real estate business and this is very useful information.
Thank you Andrew for this lovely article, may i also add that vizway.com is another source for real estate do follow backlinks.
I have been hearing that quality backlinks are very important to any blog. So I stumbled upon this article hoping to find more information on “real estate” backlinking sites. I’m going to give PRWeb, Active Rain a look. Thank you for posting this for a “newbie” like me! 🙂
Now that Zillow has bought out Tulia Putting your profile on Zillow also puts it on Tulia. Thanks for the good info.
Thank you for the great article. I’m relatively new in trying to figure out how to rank in google. Do you have any suggestions with respect to keywords in local markets. For example I work in Toronto. How do I determine which keywords to use?
How about right here on this blog? Lol. Seriously though. Activerain is a very busy place, but as you said the privilege to have your blog listed is pricey. What I would suggest is check out where other Realtors are getting backlinks from and then do the same.
Yes you don’t want to use fiverr for link building, you do want to use it for articles, pr submissions and many other things .Guest posting is also another great one.
So never use that for things that will get your website banned from google
Nice List, old but many of these Tips are realy good.. THX
What a wonderful article! It improves my knowledge about social media marketing. The facts on social media marketing tools are amazing. I learned so many things from your post.Thanks.
Thanks for the info. I am a member on Active Rain and I also a member with SEO moz. Both groups offer paid subscriptions but I think they are nesessary to do SEO on a Real Estate webpage.
thanks for the article. good stuff!!
Thanks for the informative article. Is it important that internal links point to the home page or does it still help if they point to any page on the site?
Thank you for the info. I will have to spend some time improving my back links.
Great article – finding backlinks sometimes feels like a full time job – these tips will help
Great list thanks for the info. I agree about PRWeb although these links are no follow they still seem to carry a lot of weight. I’ve had some of these get picked up by other popular online sites as well, for sure worth it.
You can always build some blog posts at biggerpockets.com. Its a very big RE investment website.
Great info here! How about AngiesList and Houzz? These sites are now admitting RE agents.
Needs to be updated as Trulia was acquired by Zillow.
Also using semrush and analyzing competitors’ backlinks is very useful. Time-consuming but useful.
Great article! Excellent advice regarding SEO!
Great post and thanks for the valuable information.
Very helpful. THX
I will definitely be implementing some of these strategies!
Thanks for your help – Been looking for this info and you provided a nice list.
Super helpful. Thanks!
This information is important to anyone whose prospect is to go higher in online business. the timing at which the effect takes place is what i dont know.
Thank you for your such a valuable article. I really appreciate your work and promise to share it on my social medias.
This information has a great impact on achieving backlinks and ranking on the search engine
Thank you for compiling this list, it will help a lot.
These are some great tips. I would also add zillow profile to the list.