Want To Buy A House in Redmond Washington?
I’m selling one!
It’s a great experiment for me, because I’ve implemented a redirect from a page on this site (with Google Analytics) to the real estate agent’s page and am going to see what links get the most traffic. I actually first tried something like this back in the late 90s. I was selling a house in Dallas, TX and created a web site for it. However, it was difficult to get search traffic for something so specific back then. How about now?
The first question is, does anyone search for homes for sale directly on Google or do they do all searching from a real estate vertical? Will it even do me any good to rank well? And then there’s the fact that I don’t control the web page that my real estate agent has up. The title tag has just her name in it — no mention of Redmond or real estate or house for sale. The address isn’t in an H1. And all the description text is embedded in the images. There’s little HTML text to pick up. Maybe I can get this blog entry to rank well instead. Or, perhaps optimizing for the various vertical real estate search engines is the way to go. Only the traffic will tell.
If I do a search for [homes for sale in redmond wa], I can see what vertical sites to target. Clearly, I want to add my listing to Google Base. After all, Base shows up before the search results and clicking through, I’m told that “Over 56% of all Internet searches on “real estate” and related terms are conducted on Google and our partner sites, and the majority of those searchers are actively looking for listings or referrals to brokers and agents. You can make sure that they can find your listings by submitting them to Google Base — quickly, easily and free.” Sadly, I don’t see a way for a homeowner to add a listing, so I’ll pretend to be my agent.
I also flagged the house for sale on Zillow and added some pictures, then created an ad on Zillow to display in nearby zip codes.
I also added the listing to craigslist and found that if I edited the ad after I created it, I could edit the href tag for the link. This was great not only because I had been worried about showing a vanessafoxnude.com URL for those who might be scared off by it, but also because craigslist adds a nofollow attribute that I handily deleted. Sadly, craigslist added it back as soon as I republished.
A lot of the sites that rank well for the terms I want require MLS listings or payment, so I’ll stick with these to start and see how well they perform.
Here’s what I’ve got so far:
- The redirected page with pictures and information about my house for sale in Redmond, WA
- Craigslist
- Google Base
- Zillow
- Flickr Photo Set
As with all optimization efforts, traffic (whether through links or search) is only the first step. And in fact, getting links (or ranking) is only the first step to getting traffic from those links. The link or search result has to be compelling enough for people to want to click on. And then, the resulting page has to keep the visitor interested. In my case, I need good pictures, headlines, and copy. Do I have them? Probably not as I did this all really quickly, but I can always go back and change things if it’s not working. This is all an experiment for you. I don’t even know if I can get analytics data in the way I have things set up. I suppose the best way to measure results if if someone makes an offer. After all, search marketers and advertisers are ultimately looking not for page views and visitors, but for conversions.
How else can I optimize this listing and get it seen by people who are looking to buy?
For rental property, we’ve done well getting renters through Craigs List. It’s better than rent.com and apartments.com. For selling residential property, we use the Realtor’s Multiple Listing Service to get top dollar. That said, my wife is a Realtor, so we only pay half as much commission as most people.
The most important thing for a seller marketing property online is have a comprehensive set of photos and a complete set of specifications, including the dimensions of each room, the condition, environmental aspects (lead, asbestos, radon) and the type of utilities (heating, water supply, sewer). Ideally, you should schedule open houses on specific dates and add those to the online listing.
umm how ’bout optimizing the anchor text on the outbound links …
I don’t know if it would send significant traffic but it might be fun and kind of cool to…
1) Tag it on Google maps labeled with the appropriate keywords.
2) Use adwords to promote it via mobile ad. Imagine someone in the area just txt msg’s your zipcode or town name combined with typical real estate terms (mls, home for sale, fsbo, etc) to Google (466453) and your listing gets returned. How sweet would that be?
Both of these ideas may be too new to send any real traffic though since the general public hasn’t really caught on to this stuff yet. But still they are fun ideas.
These days, when I want to look at real estate, I pretty much only look at Redfin. I used to use Windermere, but I find Redfin easier to use. I have never just searched Google for real estate, and I don’t expect many other people do either. At best, it’s useful for finding local real estate sites on which to search for specific properties (though I haven’t even had much luck with that — it usually turns up a bunch of really crappy sites from real estate agents, none of which have a decent MLS search).
It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem — searching Google doesn’t currently work well for real estate listings, so people looking for real estate don’t use it that way. And because people who are looking for real estate don’t use it that way, people looking to advertise real estate don’t tend to pay much attention to showing up in Google search results. If you’re able to start changing this, I’m all for it
I am not sure why you ask, but surely you already know that:
- you need to specify full address with alternative addresses (include washinton on the page, maybe neighbouring states, too)
- provide a full, engaging description (copy, yes)
- maybe setup a podcast with a visible link, explaining the house (or better yet, a show-house video with your comments, small in file size, tho)
- find fellow SEOs that are looking for a house in WA and and offer it to them.
- use your contact network(s) (finally for something more productive than wasting time online!)
Other than that, I am stumped, for now.
I think you should rent a cargo helicopter, fly this house to Columbus OH, and list it on findholmes.com . This, according to a big bitmap on the site, will let potential buyers find your home via their mobile phones. The bitmap doesn’t explain exactly how this will work–I am imagining something like dowsing.
eBay has an active community of property investors and traders from regular homes to more exotic underwater homes.
It may or may not get good SERP ratings, but you know that the traffic is populated by a high proportion of buyers.
Great experiment here Vanessa. Here in Southern Oregon a single site seems to be a very popular place for RE - it’s been around for 10 years. and people bump into it via Google searches for generic stuff as well as local sites for “real estate in [cityname] type searches”. However I think sales are generally through the brokers who have their own sites.
PS - you bottom link to another site seems to be broken at 11pm PST
Yuri: Dude, some good SEO advice but I don’t think Vanessa needs THAT…
nice house i’me always amazed how cheap housing is in the states. Its about teh same price as the samller 4 bed detatched I live in at the moment but with a much bigger garden and relativly speaking in a much better position we’are 70 miles from london
Estate agent search just seem to suck generaly my parents where looking at bungalows in our local vilage could not find one of the 3 or 4 on sale via a search on G
You should just go to http://www.vast.com/real_estate and type Redmond WA and you would settle to this page:
http://www.vast.com/real_estate/location-Redmond–WA
you could use drill down to narrow and “FocusFast(TM)”.
have fun
Here are my candid thoughts:
1. It’s a bad time to sell a home. Don’t expect to get anyone serious (unless your price is extremely fantastic) until after the holidays. If you look at search traffic for the keywords in the real estate market, you’ll find that starting in mid-October through the end of December–people aren’t looking.
2. Though I am not in the real estate industry (and you are), I think your keywords could be better optimized. The highest traffic search is for ‘homes for sale’. Which makes sense because when you are looking to buy a home you are looking for ‘homes for sale’ not a ‘home for sale’. Plus, ‘Houses for sale’ just sounds weird to say. Since you only have one home for sale, you’ll have to be more creative on your content. (One of the best valued homes for sale in Redmond, WA) Unless, you aren’t going for the highest traffic queries and your strategy is more for the less competitive terms–which may be your strategy.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=house for sale, home for sale, homes for sale, houses for sale&ctab=0&geo=US&geor=all&date=all&sort=0
Perhaps you have done further research or have extensive data to prove otherwise–just thought I’d point it out. Afterall, if you don’t have the correct keywords, everything else is in vain.
3. If Zillow doesn’t have issues with it, I’d post on Zillow’s competitors sites as well. Trulia.com is the first name that comes to mind (1st SERP on most related queries). As many eyesballs you can get, the better.
4. Speaking to your point of conversion . . . I’d convince your realtor to put a price on the page. When I sold my house a couple of years ago (divorce), it took an act of God to convince my realtor to list the price of the home. He kept telling me the ‘real prospects’ would call, he could show the home, follow up, etc. if he didn’t list a price. Finally, after a couple of months of no bites, he put prices up. We sold it 30 days later.
Now a question for the group. I assume the redirect page is more for tracking than SEO. That being said, will Google Analytics track traffic to a 301′d page? Wouldn’t you need to use a meta refresh and put the meta refresh after the Java Script for G’Analytics? I’ve never tried to track traffic to the 301′d page just the ultimate destination page and I’m curious how it would work.
P.S. Kick ass house!! 3,100 sq. ft. several bedrooms and all for under $700K in Microsoft territory . . . nice!!
Payne
graywolf - I didn’t know if it was worth it to try and optimize those pages, but I’ll go in and edit and see how it goes…
John - that does sound fun to try. I’ll look into it and keep you posted!
Larry - of course! Why didn’t I think of that before!
andrew - interesting. I might look into that too.
David - you’re definitely right on the keywords. I can likely do a better job there. And I was testing the analytics code with the redirect just to see what it would do. What you and I both suspected is true — the redirect happened before analytics saw the page or the code. I’ve now switched to a meta refresh, so we’ll see how that goes…
Use a company like Postlets (www.postlets.com) to distribute the listing to more portals.
Vanessa - Well, we kinda just did the (almost) exact same thing … and I guess we were wrong about YOU? The post is … here ?
PS: Direct results from Google SERPS eclipsed all efforts by the realtor and MLS 2-1 so far and you’ll be happy to know one showing (through an advertising realtor) came from Zillow.
Regards
Charlie
The Msoft HR dept. must have a relocation specialist. Give them a holler. Low tech, I know.
People - Vanessa’s house is gorgeous. You should all buy it.
Charlie! Thank you so much for posting! I came across your blog post a few days ago and had it open in a tab so I could come back to it. However, I tend to have 100 tabs open, which tends to crash things and I wasn’t able to find the post in my saved session.
The Zillow call was from an ez ad that your realtor put up? What search terms are people usin to find the house in the SERPs?
And yep, I am indeed both in search and selling real estate in Seattle… well, just the one house.
Listen to sasha, people! She’s even been to the house! Good idea, btw. And hi — when are you going to be out my way?
Vanessa, where is the price? Sorry did not see it on your site, Susan’s, etc. The buyer wants to compare apples to apples, don’t for the potential buyer to find the MLS listing for the price.
And I have a great home in Miramar, FL for sale too, lets switch…
Wonderful kitchen. Best wishes regarding your google experiment and selling your home.
Vanessa !!! Hey, I just noticed your post back. Basically I went digging through all the new (and old) RE sites to see where the realtor missed and posted away. I don’t remember (??!!) ‘what I put where’, but I found the house on AOL and a lot of other places after a week or so. Google SERPs were back again as of yesterday (I updated the page) under Pike County PA houses for sale, Milford PA home for sale …. and a whole bunch of others. So I’m getting e-mail from GOBS of real estate people, a few bites, and a second showing Thursday.
Considering the disparity of living there and here, I think we should ‘dual market’ the houses …
“Buy Vanessa’s house and get Charlie’s FREE?”
Later and Thanks!
PS: Nope … the Zillow ad was from another realtor in the area (and make it two as of this morning!).
Vanessa - once you’ve listed it in the MLS, you don’t get much of a second chance:
“And then, the resulting page has to keep the visitor interested. In my case, I need good pictures, headlines, and copy. Do I have them? Probably not as I did this all really quickly, but I can always go back and change things if it’s not working.”
It’s like a blog post - most home buyers look at homes in the first 24-48 hours they’re on the market. After that, they’ve already made up their mind, so if your copy doesn’t hit ‘em, you’ll have to wait for new folks.
That said, I think your copy and photos are pretty good. Heck - it looks like you already got an offer: http://www.estately.com/listings/info/745435