SEO for Local Terms Help on

A little about us.
We just got our site rebuilt. Tons of original content, videos, pictures and updated blog. (real estate website)

What works now for SEO (it has been years since i even looked at doing this). We are still ranked good with a few of terms but not sure where to start with our new terms.

Is link building still working, blog posting? Now, our site is a new design but has been around and registered for over 7 years now.

Also, what is the best software to find out where my competitors links are (anchor backlinks). I use to use Traffic Travis but was not sure if that was still good enough...

Thanks guys/gals for the help
Ryan

Build organic cloud cover, massive organic quality. Takes time and money.

Aas for tools Ahrefs great for backlink analysis of anyone.

Archemike said:

Build organic cloud cover, massive organic quality. Takes time and money.

Aas for tools Ahrefs great for backlink analysis of anyone.

Click to expand...

That is a new term to me. can you explain that i little further or post a link to a site that explains it well.

Thank you

For local businesses, you're going to want to focus on creating citations (here's a list of citations). These citations are directories which list your name, address, phone number, email, and sometimes your URL. They help let Google know that your business is indeed a local business. You can do this manually by searching for another local business' information (phone numbers, addresses, and occasionally emails), or you can automate it with programs like scrapbox.
In addition to this, it would benefit you to set up a Google+ page for local businesses. Get your address verified (Google will physically mail you a little code for you to verify your address), add information to it, and let your customers leave reviews for you. This will let other people know that they can trust your business and that you're not just some shoddy mass-scam operation straight out of the 3rd world.
After that, you will of course want to focus on your website's general SEO by finding keywords with the Google Keyword Planner, analysing your keyword competitors using tools such as Moz and Majestic, and then implementing your keyword on your website/page/post by using it frequently (keep your keyword density between 1-3%). If your keyword density if too low, you run the risk of not ranking for your keyword, and if your keyword density if too high, you run the risk of receiving a penalty from Google for keyword stuffing.

As for link building, you'll want inbound links from local businesses. For the same reason that a puppy training website will link to another puppy-related website (relevancy), local businesses will link to local businesses. You can either keep the inbound links natural or you can contact local businesses and see if there is any way you can get a backlink from their website.

Real estate industry has been hit very hard within the last couple of Google Updates.
Lots of users made a big deal about Google doing such a thing with "Real estate" Favoring Zillow and realtor.com etc, etc.

What I am getting at is that Real estate doesn't pull up in the 7 pack listing anymore (List A - G) [[Most locations, last I checked]]
Getting first page real estate in the real estate category is harder than ever!

SkylerJarman said:

Real estate industry has been hit very hard within the last couple of Google Updates.
Lots of users made a big deal about Google doing such a thing with "Real estate" Favoring Zillow and realtor.com etc, etc.

What I am getting at is that Real estate doesn't pull up in the 7 pack listing anymore (List A - G) [[Most locations, last I checked]]
Getting first page real estate in the real estate category is harder than ever!

Click to expand...

That's a real shame that Google does that sometimes. I know they only want to display the most reliable and relevant information, but it also doesn't give the smaller websites much of a chance to outrank them, especially if the smaller website has more relevant, accurate, or fresh information on it.

As stated above real estate is dominated by the "authority" sites in that niche now. Maybe it would be best to hire a reputable agency. Just my two cents

Sounds like your site probably has a little bit of authority if it has been around for 7 years, and you say it ranks already for some stuff which is good. Having worked with a number of real estate websites, the best thing traffic/business wise I have seen them do is get setup with a good custom IDX solution. If you can swing it, have it on your domain, not your subdomain. If that isn't easily done, a reverse proxy is your friend. Have your domains authority to power your listing pages goes a very long way. Consider also that everyone in your area is going to have these same IDX pages, so what can you do to differenciate yourself? That's where the "custom" in custom idx solution comes into play. Optimizing those listing pages can make a huge difference, especially when you are competing for placement w/ Trulia, Zillow, Homes and Realtor. I have a couple great examples of clients who have done it RIGHT. PM me and I will fire you the URLs.

And yes, citations and all that jazz can help you w/ the cityname + realtor/real estate/real estate agent/homes for sale vanity terms.