Originally Posted by nexthost

Ellen - the URL does include the city?

Originally Posted by RealEstateSEO

I've created a web site I think is a bit unique.

Originally Posted by RealEstateSEO

Anyway, I am hoping for those pros with real estate web site development and SEO experience (and perhaps especially those pros -without- that experience) to give me feed back about the site's usability, size, organization, look & feel and general SEO fitness.

Originally Posted by computergenius

Not sure why you say unique - did I miss something?
PS - certainly not meant as a criticism of the site, just confused by your use of the word 'unique'.

Sorry let me justify that remark. The unique part (I believe) is in the way the site is constructed.

In essence, it has two “elements”. The first element, which makes up 99% of the site, is the 50,000+ pages used to list and organize the MLS’s 30,000+ property listings. The second element is the search and results pages. These are dynamic pages which query the MLS database. While I know there are hundreds if not thousands of real estate sites which list properties it the combination of these two elements which lead me to believe the site is unique (although it is getting harder and harder to find anything unique on the net).

However, my explanation might lead one to ask “Why bother building 50,000 pages when a few dynamic ones will do?”

Well, previous attempts to provide crawlable access to this data via dynamic pages were only moderately successful. The bots would only crawl 2 or 3 links down on a dynamic page (with a single ?x=y query string variable)even on thier "deep cralws". On static pages, however, the bot seemed to penetrate much deeper reaching 4 or 5 levels down and perhaps more importantly, the static pages do better in the SERPs. Seeing this, we asked ourselves, how can we provide access to the MLS (IDX) data in a static file format. The solution was to build a custom application which pulls in an entire residential MLS (IDX) data and the pumps out 50,000+ web pages all neatly organized by city, street and address in about 20 minutes.

These 50,000 web pages then become (we hope) a “Google Honey Pot” that is, web pages which are rich in unique content and attract Google. While these pages are certainly navigable by humans, the main purpose of these pages is to expose the MLS database to Google’s indexing bot, score high on specific Search Queries, land visitors on highly relative pages and then quickly move the visitor over to the dynamic web pages which allow the users to locate other properties of interest much more effectively and efficiently.

Oh, one last thing I think makes the site unique is that when it’s available, we’ll list comparable property values and even list how much that particular property sold for the last time it was for sale.


On a point of usability - same problem as ours <G>
There are no maps! And no information about what sort of areas these lists of names refer to. Is Addison full of factory chimneys, or full of sheep? If I buy in Addison, where are the hospitals, schools, and shops?

It's something we are working on...

But I do like the idea of a picture which is big enough to be seen, and some info about the property. I am amazed by how many real estate sites have a huge company logo, and postage stamp sized pictures.

Originally Posted by ellenthompson

I always thought MLS was a closed system. What a nice way to get content!

Some SEO thoughts - I see you have the optimized the title tag. We also optimize the url itself - anyway you can rewrite the url to include the city the listing is in?

Also, you have a lot of text at the bottom, but nothing related to your keywords. If you could auto generate some generic text under the listing related to getting help finding xxx, il real estate with your keywords repeated once or twice, this would help improve keyword density. Also, if you can take the data from mls, someone else will figure out they can, too and at least this will make your page content more unique.

I am interested in hearing how this works. Good luck!

Originally Posted by DanF

Over 30,000 Chicago Real Estate Listings


Access More Than 60,000 Chicago Homes for Sale

How many homes can I search? 30,000 or 60,000?

I like the look of the gray text, but I'm not sure I would feel confident that those people who are half blind could read it or would take the time to try.

Are you a SEO specializing in RE websites?

Originally Posted by DanF

When you click to speak with a live person, will you talk to a realtor?

Originally Posted by freddieb

I won't add much to the other comments, except to say that the site has a good feel, is very comprehensive and works well. I haven't tested it across browsers, but would suggest that you add a Doc type to your pages and that you take out the Meta re-visit tags. I also found a typo, with criteria missing the second "i" on http://www.realestatechicago-bw.com/...d/MAIN-STREET/

Also http://www.realestatechicago-bw.com/...d/MAIN-STREET/ is missing the graphics borders except for the corners and some other pages that I checked are the same.

Good luck with the site.

Originally Posted by Nutrition Discounters

If possible, for your "Suburban Homes for Sale" page I would like to see at the top of that page a alphabetical jump menu bar.

A | B | C | D | E | F

If I want to find the city of Schaumburg, I want to find it right away, don't make me hunt for it. Categorize all the cities together. ("A" "B" "C", etc.)

This aids in usability.

Good luck to you.

Originally Posted by jrdorkin

Hey - I think you've built a nice site. As I'm not yet an expert in SEO, I can't offer much in advice. If you are looking to exchange links, however, I might be interested. Visit my site. If you want to do an exchange, let me know.