Back in the late 90s, search engines used to base rankings mostly on the on-page factors of a site (mentioned in our SEO piece) – a site that had the keyword phrase “Lancaster real estate” 40 times through its site content, internal links (which just link the pages of your site together) and meta and html tags would rank higher for that term than a site that used it only 15 times throughout. But then search marketers caught on and started stuffing their sites full of keywords to game the search engines. So the search engines had to evolve their way of crawling and ranking sites (also know as the algorithm).

Enter off-page optimization. This is basically the reputation and notoriety your site achieves on the world wide web. Your rank now depends on both on-page optimization and off-page: the number of incoming links to your site (or how many sites out there link to YOUR site), the anchor text used in the links (which should vary somewhat between the sites linking to you, but should include some combination of the keywords you want to rank for), how much the blogosphere and the rest of the ‘Net are talking about you and the kind of exposure you get yourself.

If you make yourself an authority on certain subjects, getting links isn’t hard. Since your business is more locally based, search out local websites, community websites, local directories, etc and request links from them. Some will request a reciprocal link in return (meaning you link to them on your site) and that’s okay sometimes, but don’t overdo the reciprocal linking – it doesn’t affect your rankings as much as getting a site to just link to you naturally.

There is also another consideration: some sites are more trusted by search engines, therefore getting a link from them looks even better for you – sites like library and .edu sites are often seen as authority sites and will pass more “link juice” to you than a less authoritative site.

Creating a really unique or useful piece of content that will make people WANT to link to you is the best way to get naturally incoming links – it’s also known as “link bait” in the world of SEO. Think of a concept – maybe do a video tour of your community or a glossary of important real estate terms – and post it on your website. Than search for local forums, blogs (having to do with your community or with real estate) or even those that fall within your state, not just your neighborhood, and start posting useful info and tips, leaving the link to your “link bait.” This will draw some traffic and if people like the your content, they will naturally link to your site, tell their friends and your site will spread by word of mouth.

You should also have a presence on the most popular local forums and blogs, and real estate blogs and forums all over the U.S. Some forums can be broken down into geographic areas – Topix.com is a news site that you can contribute to by area, and a great site to make your presence known. You can also check out this directory of real estate blogs to browse through blogs you might enjoy reading and commenting on.

Some blogs and forums allow you to leave just the url (or address) of your website – others allow you to make it an active link using html. Learn the basics of html so that you can at least leave a link to you site in your “signature.”

Quick example:

If we had a website called ManheimTownshipRealty.com, and we wanted the link to actually say “Manheim Township Real Estate” for keyword ranking purposes, the html would go something like (replace any [ ] with < >):

[a href=”http://www.manheimtownshiprealty.com” title=”Manheim Township Real Estate”]Manheim Township Real Estate[/a]

That is a very simple formula to write your own link. The bold text is what winds up as your anchor text. Of course, this isn’t an in-depth lesson, so your best bet is to educate yourself by doing a search for something like “html basics” on Google or Yahoo.

Article directories are a great way to get some traffic and help your rankings as well. Write a couple different articles on topics that may interest homeowners or potential clients – be sure to include a particular keyword phrase you want to target several times throughout the article. For a 600 word article, include it about 10 times or so as naturally as possible. Some article directories allow live links, so your html lesson will come in handy creating a link right within one of your articles. Other sites allow you to have a “resource” or “about the author” box at the end in which you can include your link. You can check out this great article for a list of free article directories and our own personal favorite: Ezine Articles.

Article writing, when submitted to several different directories, builds up your inbound links AND gets you traffic – because really, that’s what SEO is all about – getting traffic to your website. Being number 1 in the the SERPs will DEFINITELY get you a ton of traffic, but every link you try to build should be both for site traffic AND rankings, not just rankings.

Take advantage of networking sites as well, like Facebook.com, MysSpace.com, WannaNetwork.com, ActiveRain.com, etc. Profiles on those help build inbound links and get some traffic, especially if you make your presence known.

There are really a ton of ways to get search engine traffic and build up your rankings. Again, your best bet is to do some research on your own and find the best combination of SEO practices that work for you. You’ve got it easier than some websites because your focus is more local. A site like GetMyHomesValue.com has to do SEO on a national level and beat out VERY stiff keyword competition like “home value” or “property appraisal” where as you can narrow your focus to something like “Manheim Township home values” replacing Manheim Township with your neighborhood/town.

Again, we would suggest checking out SEOMoz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO and doing your own research for more details. Just make sure you get your tips from trusted sources who practice what they preach. Using the wrong SEO tactics can get you banned from the search engines and that is one sure fire way to DECREASE your rankings AND traffic.