How to optimize the real estate website for search systems

Real estate is highly competitive industry, that’s why to promote your business online you need to use as many channels as possible, including organic results. In this article we will tell you about the peculiarities of site optimization and how to compete with popular aggregators.

Peculiarities of real estate business

First let’s state what peculiarities real estate industry has comparing to other industries.

The main difference is that a lot of time may go by from the first contact to the moment of making the deal. Purchasing a flat is a very serious investment, so customers learn and compare as many options as possible.

Another peculiarity is that the demand on real estate is not steady and depends on a lot of factors: season, economic situation in a country or political climate.

You should also take into account that to promote the website in Yandex you should compete with Yandex itself. Today first lines in search results are occupied such aggregators as Yandex.Reality, Avito, Cian and others. It is rather difficult to compete with them. A lot of users while searching for real estate type the name of the portal directly, e.g. “buy flat domofond”.

However you can hope that a potential buyer while choosing a flat or a house is ready to spend more time and is likely to search for the offers in many different websites.

The third peculiarity is a low barrier of entry in business. In other words, it’s not difficult to start selling and buying real estate in Russia, sometimes it’s enough just to declare yourself a realtor. But there are a lot of people who want to earn some money in real estate and many websites with such offers. So if you decided to make your business on the Internet, you website should be well-optimized. You are unlikely to get in top with a mediocre website, so take into account that your own resource is a time consuming activity.

Main types of real estate websites

All the websites can be conventionally divided into two large groups: portals, where users can publish the listings about their own property and oficial building owners’, agencies, residential complex websites.

One of the features of the portals is that the website owner cannot influence the content, as it is made by the users: when flats are sold out, the listings are changed. In the database of such websites there are a lot of listings, a lot of them are not unique, as when a person sells a flat they can publish the advertisement in different resources. Moreover, such listings are not always accurate and look like well. This is typical for any listings board, that’s why it is not important for ranging in search systems. Anyway, don’t think that objects descriptions should be unique. Regular updates of the content are more important, as this way the search systems identify that the resource fulfills its tasks well.

Behavioral factors influence the position in search results more. A person usually is choosing a flat for a long time, looking through a lot of listings. The more time a user spends in a site, the better the site is for search robots.

The second type of real estate websites are official websites of building owners, residential complexes, agencies and realtors. In their turn, they are divided into the following categories: default websites with a typical structure and landings or promo-pages, which show the advantages of the site owner and contact details. Usually promo-pages are created especially for context advertisement, it is more difficult to promote them, as search systems prefer websites with a typical structure.

Structure tips

Let’s have a look at the typical website structure, which are in the advantage in search engines.

1. Navigation

For convenient usage of site the catalogue should be divided into subcategories: rent, sales, new buildings, etc. You can look at the examples of popular websites, leading the real estate industry. For example, Cian has pages for transaction different types, number of rooms, property types.

If it is a federal resource, you need division into regions, besides, it should be direct links, which lead not to the page with all the listings but to a static page with its own address and title.

2. Tags

You have to fight for a top position with high frequency requests for a long time and not always successfully. However you can choose low-frequency requests with exact characteristics and create the static pages with the list of objects. For example, “flats with the view on the Kremlin” or “The flats to 4 mln”. With such low frequency requests you can compete with the leaders of the industry.

It is not worth adding such sections in a menu, as there can be too many options and the search may become inconvenient for the users. The links to the sections can be published in the page of an object itself. One object can have several tags, and when a user clicks the link they are directed in a page with all the listings on the category.

Tips for optimization

Let’s look at the general tips for real estate websites optimization and what you should do and avoid.

1. Texts in a section with objects. Quite often the agencies try to place texts with keywords in the bottom of the page, such descriptions are usually useless for the users. It’s pointless. In real estate Yandex gives the priority not to the texts but to the usage for users, which is determined by behavioral factors. That’s why don’t add extra introduction which is not needed for the users.
2. Title tag. As title is shown in search results, it should be more exact and include the information which may interest a user. It is your extra chance to attract customers.
3. Headline H1. Don’t spam in headlines. It should be laconic and exact.
4. A section with articles. From the point of view of behavioral factors it is better when you have a section with information, for instance, “Analytics” or “News”. When a person is choosing a flat, it’s quite common that they may be interested in the market trends. If the articles are written by experts, the resource will become more trustworthy and people may return to it in the future.
5. Try to minimize the number of grammar mistakes. Of course it is not the key factor, however grammatically correct texts is a sign of respect to the users.
6. Attract other types of traffic: direct and affiliate. Yandex identifies if the users open your site not only from the search results but also searching for exact brand name. This way search systems find out that your resource is popular and useful.
7. Don’t place too much irritating advertisement banners, as it may cause different filters in search results. “Clear” resources without advertisement will be ranged higher.

Conclusion

Technologies are developed every day, search engines are getting smarter. In general, the optimization rule is the following: things that are interesting and useful for users are good for search engines. That’s why when you work with the site, first try to take into account your target audience’s needs. It will increase your traffic, improve the site position and bring you grateful customers.