Matt Cutts had an interview with Rand Fishin and commented about real estate state directories by stating, “Does an agent from Maine really need to refer 40 agents for California?”. We have heard plenty of times in real estate forums about Google’s abuse on real estate sites and how dare Google punishes us for it.

For a second forget that Google exists… You really want to have a referral directory of agents you can trust your client’s referral to. How would you approach it???

Would you really …….

– put bunch of anchor text links that say <city name> real estate without even mentioning who the agent you are referring to is?

– put the same “optimized” paragraph that the agent requests you to put on your page that really does not tell anything about the agent (and probably is repeated in hundreds of websites around the world)?

– dump all those links or paragraphs under one state webpage without even defining any regional or city related boundaries related to the agents you link to?

If you really want to have pages of geographical regions you can refer your clients to and actually increase the user experience (and your dollar bottom line),

why not…

a) actually have a heart to heart talk with the agent and/or brokerage that you would like to set up a referral relationship with and learn about the relocation experiences and strategies, the brokerage or agent has

b)create a referral system and agreement on paper with that brokerage and agent if you like them

c) Create a profile webpage with unique content for each agency/agent you would like to setup a relationship with. On that page you should actually say why you are referring that agent/agency of all agencies. This page can be optimized for a certain area but honestly would you refer your clients to 10 agents in one area. One agent/agency per area (not state). Also make sure there is a defined contact form that emails both you and the referred agent/brokerage so that there is a record of referral for both parties.

In terms of linking to that agent…..

A link to the referred agent/brokerage is fine as long as there is a trustable agreement between both brokerages and agents in terms of referral fees and the link actually is relevant to the profile page’s content topic

If you are creating a profile page about a certain area you should link to the referred agent/brokerage’s relocation info page about the area you are writing about. Or if you are only creating a profile page about the agent then a link to the about us page that talks about the referred agent’s qualifications seems more appropriate and definitely increases your trust and relevancy rank. Also, I would pay attention not to link to an agent that uses bad linking practices and obeys the webmaster guidelines, even if you are going to use that agent as your referred agent. If you have done a good job of advertising the agent who knows, the agent might want to give you back a link to the page he is being praised from. Guess what!!!! Now that is an increase in trust and relevancy ranks. Though don’t forget…. Not everything is links and not everything is Page Rank.

Ultimately, you have three goals: Ethical best practices (both in terms of real estate and a website), healthy relationships with your clients, and website usability). This service in terms of ethics does include trustable referrals of other real estate industry professionals, and the best possible information you can give about those referrals.