Real Estate Website Link Bait Solution

Posted on August 25, 2009
Filed Under General | 1 Comment

Realtors Can Approach Link Bait Differently

In my line of work I’ve been exceptionally lucky in that I have almost no real competition. I am a freelancers freelancer so to speak where designers and other web professionals outsource work to me predominantly in the area of converting PSD Files to a fully validating XHTML / CSS layout. A full 90% of all my clients are web masters, designers, hosting companies and those in the mass media (news, entertainment, journals, blogs etc). I have the luxury of taking a designers desired end result, and turning it into a WordPress, Joomla or OpenRealty functional template with none of the necessary preliminary fundamentals required for most freelance related work.

There is a downside to this which is that I end up with NO links back and no design credits even if I originate the design. A hosting company for instance may hire me to build them an inventory of 10, 15, 20 or so free templates, but I can’t expect to retain the footer link-back or design credits as one could plainly see. Link bait is still none the less very important and the method I use involves the development and publishing of FREE OpenRealty and WordPress tools that extend the applications in hopes people will write about them and link back to my site. Writing about this very subject in a forum, I expanded it a bit by suggesting that maybe the way Realtors could benefit from something similar is to have their own inventory of free themes and such published.

After writing that forum post, I’ve seen the idea seat itself in the minds of those entertaining the idea progressively more and more over the past three months. Realtors have contracted the development of link bait themes where they can publish these themes to WordPress, give them away on their blogs and even provide an avenue for discussion about them right on their real estate websites. Give away 500 copies of a theme with your link at the bottom is certainly attractive for those seeking some quick come up in the search engines but it doesn’t stop there. I’ve been contracted to build Joomla and WordPress plugins by more Realtors than any other type of client. Not just Realtors bent on using the plugins for their own use but those that want to publish the products to WordPress as FREE GNU / GPL products in hopes of link-back. I can’t reveal which themes or plugins naturally but the results are starting to demonstrate their effectiveness.

It’s an Alternative to Worthless Reciprocal Linking

Links Back! You simply need them. Period! Every SEO worth his salt will tell you that you really do need a way to have links pointing to your site, preferably one way links from good sources relevant to your objective. Although Google, Yahoo and MSN to a degree have pretty much put real estate sites under the microscope after such rampant link farms and reciprocal link schemes there is still hope for Realtors seeking honest, valued, ethically correct and beneficial link backs without taking part in yet another foolish scheme to trick the Search Engines.

Think about this scenario for a moment. Either of us can intelligently see that there must be something a bit unusual about a Realtor linking to another Realtor. If not a single event then maybe Realtors linking back to dozens or even hundreds of Realtors. Most would gather its little more than a bunch of reciprocal links in the midst of some scheme and they would likely be correct. Link schemes fail 100% of the time once the search engines developers catch on and adjust the algorithm. Penalties are the likely end result.

What can a Realtor do to reap the same or similar positive results from massive links back without getting put on the chopping block? My answer is to publish plugins, addons, widgets, and themes, lots and lots of themes. As I stated above I have had several dozen requests for this after making a post on a real estate forum regarding the subject and it stands to reason why this hit such a positive note. There is a clear benefit to the approach that isn’t likely to be construed as unethical or cheating by any means. So by doing so, the link back stands the greatest chance of being beneficial when compared to other methods being employed. But not just any link backs will do, you have to be intelligent how you approach this. Although I’m not really in a position to reveal how a few of my clients are doing this I can however suggest a few ideas for you to consider.

If a Realtor were out seeking links back from other Realtors then designing a theme that can be used by Realtors would seem to be the natural avenue. But experience and time have demonstrated that this is not always the most productive or effective way of getting the types of links that the search engines consider "legitimate" for lack of a better term. It would be my suggestion that a Realtor seeking to reach the ideal types of link back that the themes they give away be fitting of the ideal target audience. Community portals, news blogs, mortgage sites and the like would seem to be the ideal approach. Giving away a theme that results in downloads exceeding 500, a thousand or several thousand doesn’t require a great deal of effort for anyone to understand the power in that link back math. But what are the costs compared to the value in doing so. Here is a small menu of my costs associated to doing this that you may compare to your other efforts and the cost to benefit ratio associated with your existing methods. I will say this, having your own theme which you can distribute as link bait is most often at or about $450 on average. Images, custom code, and other features naturally increase this especially if you plan on including royalty free images or icons. In each of those listed below you retain copyright, license and footer link back to your real estate site.

  • Converting a Photoshop PSD file to a fully functional WordPress template (providing its compliant width) starts at $300.
  • Converting or cloning from a static HTML to a fully CSS XHTML valid WordPress template starts at $150 – $180
  • Creating a custom template for WordPress based on your design artwork or sketch starts at $350
  • Creating a custom template for WordPress based on a link list of example sites you submit, starts at $350 and usually never exceeds $600.
  • Converting your existing theme, template or site to a WordPress powered site starts at $380 and content is usually pretty affordable at or about $2 per page but can go up quickly with complex content.
  • Designing from scratch and then building for WordPress to include coding for an options panel usually starts $500 with an average being $650. This is the ideal although an options panel can be added to any of these theme scenarios.
  • Custom Design, conversion and then porting to include an options panel – Email for Quote.

How much time, effort and money are you willing to spend trying to get 50, 100, 500 or more links back to your site. If you feel that you could get hundreds of links back for under $500 in terms of effort and dollars spent then the idea of publishing a free theme will be a moot and pointless avenue to pursue. If however you can see that an entry level theme starts at barely $250, the cost to benefit ratio is exceptionally reasonable. Please feel free to contact me via the Contact form.

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  1. real estate rockhampton September 20, 2009 7:17 am

    real estate rockhampton…

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