Link building is the most time-consuming, but perhaps the most valuable SEO practice. Earning the votes of highly trusted, real estate-related sites is one of the biggest challenges

This series is our response to Aaron Wall’s excellent resource on link building hosted on his site SEOBook.Com. We found this post so amazing that it needs to be broken down from a real estate angle. Our goal with this is to paraphrase each tip the article offers, and then give you some practical suggestions on how best to implement it for your site.

In our first installment of a 20-part series, we will cover the power of lists to build interest in and attention for your site. You can use these tips as assignments for your site for the week. Yeah, in that spirit, let’s get you on a 20-week program to a MUCH IMPROVED real estate website.

1. Create your own “101″ list. They definitely catch the eye of people! You could create a page that contains 101 reasons why it’s great to live in your area, or 101 common mistakes in the home buying process. Rack your brains for something you are an expert at and throw it down with your keyboard.

2. Make ‘10 simple tips to help you [insert subject here]‘ documents. That’s another thing that’s a quick and valuable read for people visiting the site. Perhaps it’s time you devised a ‘10 Easy Ways to Qualify for a Interest Rate Discount’ article and posted it?

3. Create detailed link lists for a specific topic. Maybe it would be great ‘link bait’ to have an up-to-date, indexed list of links to every good restaurant in your area? Complete with brief descriptions and your favorite dishes there?

4. Write a ‘top 10 myths’ list for your area, or about the type of real estate you specialize in. ‘The Top Ten Misconceptions About Buying a Foreclosed Home’ could look great on your site…

5. Create an extensive list of experts in your area who you trust, complete with links to their sites. These people should be relevant to your business in some capacity. Perhaps listing everyone in your office, the lenders you work with, the lawyer you retain, the builder you promote, and even a prominent local historian? This is an opportunity to build some new, meaningful connections, and also a way to perhaps get your foot in the door for a reciprocal link!

So that should keep you busy for the next week. Look forward to developing yourself some authority, using pay per click, and syndicating news as next week’s challenges. In the meantime, feel free to put what you’ve learned from this in the comments. Class dismissed!