Real Estate SEO Adviser

Older Real Estate Websites and Title Elements

Much has been written about the importance of the title element for search engine visibility. But I’m going to revisit the topic, because there’s one point I don’t feel has been given sufficient coverage.

That point is the value of keyword-rich titles on older websites. More specifically, I’ll talk about aligning your title elements with your key search phrases for maximum visibility. But first, let’s start with a definition of a title element, just so we’re on the same page.

What is a Title Element?
Search engines give a lot of consideration to HTML title elements. The title element is within the HTML code that makes up each of your web pages. To see the title element, just right-click on any web page and select “View Source.” This will show you the HTML code that makes up the web page. The title element will be near the top, between two tags labeled as “title.”

Case Study: Keywords and Titles on an Older Real Estate Websites

I once worked on a real estate website that was nearly ten years old, with an abundance of quality links coming in from other websites. The website’s owner complained that people weren’t finding his site through search engines for certain phrases. He sold mountain cabins and rented them out as well, so there was both a real estate and a rental side to his business. He was doing well in the search engines for the real estate phrases, but he was off the radar for the rental phrases.

Without even investigating the website, I had an immediate hunch this was yet another keywords-in-title scenario, or a lack thereof.

First, I validated the regional “cabin rental” phrases he had in mind. Yep, they were getting plenty of search volume. And the competition level was reasonable, considering his was an older website with plenty of relevant inbound links.

Next, I moved on to the site itself. It only took about five minutes to find the problem. The title elements on his rental pages were too generic. They mostly consisted of non-specific phrases like “Availability” … “Rentals” … “Seasonal Calendar” and the like.

The first thing I did was modify those title elements to help people and search engines alike. “Rentals” became “Blue Ridge Mountain Cabin Rentals” and so on. In fact, this was the only change I made at first, because I wanted to judge its effectiveness in the absence of other modifications.

Long story short, after adjusting all 125 of his titles on as many web pages, his rankings rose considerably and within a relatively short time. Where he was on Page 7 for a rental phrase before, he was now on Page 1. Predictably, his search-driven traffic for these phrases more than doubled.

The “How did you hear about us?” form told the story: Google. Internet Search. Yahoo Search. Google. Internet Search. Etc.

I know it’s all technical and algorithmic and what not, but I swear it was almost as if the search engines were waiting to reward this website with maximum visibility … if it would only do something with those titles!

Conclusion
Now you can see why I’m such an advocate of proper keyword usage within the title element, especially on older websites. An older website without specific page titles is like a Ferrari running on half its cylinders. There’s a lot of potential there, but it won’t be realized without all the parts in place.