Maximize your website's success on search engines
I am always asked how to get better search engine results. I'm going to work through some search engine success issues for you. I'm going to relate most points in this article back to our website system rather than to general websites because we have specifically planned our system based on most of the points I am discussing.
The main reason real estate websites have search engine issues is because it is such a competitive market which means everyone wants in on the action. Currently over 40% of all traffic on the Internet in Australia is on real estate.
The other reason is most real estate websites have dynamic content. In non nerd terms this means the computer holding the website pages generates the pages as you click on links to go to them.
In normal circumstances this is a very efficient way of managing your website... but here is the catch. It completely kills you as far as search engines are concerned. Here is why.
Search engines have little programs called "bots" or robots or spiders. These little programs go around the web and index the pages on your website. When they encounter a dynamic page they get confused and ignore any further links.
A dynamic page is one generated by a database. For example if I go to realestate.com.au and use their search form to search for properties in Cleveland and above $1,000,000 it shows me a number of properties. View the search here.
What this means is the form tells the database to make a page with properties above $1,000,000 in Cleveland. This means the page didn't actually exist until the search made it generate. The poor robot can't add these pages to their index because they are dynamic. ie. generated.
Many web developers have systems that build these type of websites. Fatal when you are trying for search engine success. The bad news for agents wondering why their website doesn't show up on search engines is that they have to completely restructure their websites to fix this issue.
Surprisingly few web designers know this. Here is my personal strategy to achieve search engine success. I'll discuss this as if it was my agency.
First step is to start a blog. What is a blog? It's a weblog. What's that? Well our site has a blog on the front page. You add articles of interest to your target market. Search engines love them. If done correctly they can generate you lots of traffic. I'm not going to give away all our secrets so if you want to know full details you'll have to ask me.
Second step is to start an email newsletter to drive visitors to your website. Each weekend you capture names and contact details from open homes. What happens to them? Are you maximising the opportunity they represent? This is a detailed section all by itself and I have prepared a detailed article on that. Link to article.
Thirdly, make sure you aren't using frames. Search engines hate them. What are frames? They are websites like this one where you click on a link and the side stays the same but the main area changes.
The big problem with frames is if you enter the website from anywhere but the main page you lose all navigation. Click here to see the same main page minus the frames with the navigation. Notice all the navigation is now gone and you can only see what is on this page.
Most times when people arrive at websites with frames they land on a page minus navigation and get confused. They assume this all there is to your website and leave annoyed. Frames are the sure sign of a poor web designer.
The fourth and most important step is to rework your website making sure that as many pages as possible are static. This means they aren't generated by a database. You also need to have text links from your front page to all other static pages.
Netlab websites go one step further. Our system actually generates static pages of all your property listings. This means that if you have 200 properties in your listing pool your website suddenly has an extra 200 pages.
Search engines add extra weight to websites with more pages so an extra 200 pages can help your ratings dramatically. The other very clever feature we have added is that our system also adds page titles based on the first features mentioned on each property page.
Page titles are given more priority by search engines and when the title is repeated on the page it carries more weight. What this all means is that our system basically sets each page up to suit the search engines with no work on your part.
On the blog part of the website you make sure that words mentioned in the page title are also mentioned in the article itself. For example, the page title on this page says "Netlab - Achieve search engine success for your real estate website". By repeating the phrase search engine success in the article after mentioning it in the title it has a lot more impact in search engine rankings.
The best results are achieved by repeating the phrase you are targeting twice on the page. Too many repeats gets you penalised for spamming. This is a delicate balance and some coaching is the best method for learning this technique.
Search engines only understand words. They basically look at a webpage, and note the words used on that page. So when you search they just match the words you searched for. When the words match the page title and are mentioned on the page the search engine assumes this is a more accurate match and thus positions it higher.
To sum up this means you have to have as much content as possible. Put every piece of information you can find online. Anything that concerns the suburbs you service, selling advice and go into as much detail as possible. You really never know what people may be searching for.
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