Best Practices For Real Estate Saved Search Pages

Best Practices For Real Estate Saved Search Pages

 August 31, 2016

If you want your website to appear in search engine results for typical home buyer keywords such as “homes for sale in Alpharetta”, you are going to need landing pages that display the right content. Consider the expectations of someone who types a similar keyword into Google or Bing. They are not looking for your homepage or your “about me” page; they are looking for homes. Give the people what they want by building targeted saved search pages to rank for the keywords that matter in your area. To ensure that your saved search pages rank well in search engines, follow these best practice recommendations.

  • “New-to-old” ordering is best. While ordering by price may seem practical in some cases, it also means the the first page of search results will not change very often. If you order your saved search pages by date listed instead, the first page of search results will always be changing. Not only is this a better user experience for returning visitors, but it is good for SEO as well! Search engines are known to show preference to content that updates frequently, while stale content is often suppressed.
  • Target the long tail. The more specific your saved search criteria is, the less search volume there will be, but in turn, there will be less competition in search results. If you are the only realtor in the area with the foresight to create a taylor-made search for a trending neighborhood, you will surely be found in search engines for related queries. Every saved search page you create, no matter how specific, is another potential entrance point to your website. Examples of “long tail” search phrases:
    • Homes with pools in Ashton Park
    • Horse and Farm properties in Cherry Grove
    • Waterfront condos in Autumn Springs under $300,000
  • Don’t limit your searches geographically. If you have the ability to display listings from your entire MLS, why limit your landing pages to areas in your immediate vicinity? Show listings slightly outside of your comfort zone and you will get more leads that may be open to looking within your comfort zone. What’s the worst that can happen? Too many leads?
  • Avoid duplicates. While a large number of saved search pages is almost always a good thing, take care to avoid duplicates. Google and other search engines frown upon duplicate content. If you have 5 saved search pages that all show the same listings, which page should the search engine show in search results? If the answer is not clear, the search engine may elect to show none of them.

Need help building a saved search page? With iHOUSEweb, it’s easier than ever! Just follow this simple guide.


Kevin Ashley

By Kevin Ashley

Kevin is a Web Developer and Marketing Expert for iHOUSEweb. He has a degree in Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and he specializes in front end web development, web advertising, and web analytics. Kevin works closely with real estate agents all over the US, and he helps to communicate their needs to the team of Software Engineers at iHOUSEweb.