A benefit of custom real estate websites is that their navigation has been optimized for both the website visitor and the search engines. Custom real estate website designers constantly monitor the two facets of a website: is it attracting and retaining leads and it the search engine seeing the site as a visitor does. This is not as easy as it may seem.

Real estate website visitors see the navigation buttons and content that is presented by the browser. Since search engines are computer programs trying to assess that visual information from the coding done by the real estate website designer, it uses various algorithms to try and mimic what the eye sees. The website’s internal navigation is one of the critical features the search engine uses. A website visitor uses the navigation buttons and internal links to find where all your real estate news, homes for sale listings and blog entries are located. The search engine uses the links to create its own site map, but it also takes note of the quantity of internal links, their positioning on the page and how they are reflected in the headings and content to determine which are the most popular pages on your website.

A real estate agent may feel their index page is the most important page, but the search engines may find that the majority of web traffic, keyword usage and internal links point to the Feature Listing, guestbook page or About Us page.

Unseen on the web page is the code the real estate website developer uses to create the look, feel and interactivity features of the webpage. The most advanced website developers have changed the architecture of websites by moving the code that gives directions onto separate pages. The real estate webpage looks the same to visitors searching for a new home, but the slimmed down page makes it easier for the search engine to find and index the pages content - thus leading to better ranking.

This follows the maxim of “Follow the best industry standards in architecture and the website visitor’s taste in content and you will organically rank well in the search engines.” As a real estate agent, keeping up with the search engine changes and the continual evolution of HTML and CSS is not in the job description. Strange as it may seem, website developers thrive on learning new techniques for keeping your real estate website up in the rankings. Talking to people for extended periods of time? Selling houses? Sorry, not in a developer’s job description, which is good for the real estate industry.