Real Estate SEO and Technology Blog

How far has real estate SEO come? Here’s a test. Raise your hand if you have your name or company name as your domain name . . . Ouch. Should this be? This blog is all about why and how to fix it. Why is having your name in your domain name (such as JohnJones.com) not good? Because your domain name is one of the first things that the major search engines look at (even before your Title) to see how relevant you are to the prospect’s search. In other words, if a prospect types in “Boston luxury homes” into the search engine, and my website domain name is BostonLuxuryHomes.com, it is a directly relevant website and is given high value in the search engine rankings.

Before you say that all the good keyword phrase domain names are gone, you’ve obviously not included “stop words” such as “my”, “the”, “best”, “site”, etc. Of course you know that “BostonLuxuryHomes.com” is taken, but did you know that “TheBostonLuxuryHomes.com” is available for $9.99/yr. (yes, it really is available, as most locations like this are).  Also, “BostonLuxuryHomesSite.com” is also available for the same fee.

The magic of using these “stop words” are that the major search engines don’t index them, and so they are invisible to the search engines. Thus “TheBostonLuxuryHomes.com” has the same impact as “BostonLuxuryHomes.com”.

Want to test it? Just type this search into Google and take a look at the results line that shows how many competing websites there are. You’ll note that the word “the” is black and not underlined. Thus it is not a hyperlink. All the other words are.

So all we’ve learned so far is how to buy valuable domain names. Next we must understand why we would want to do this. The answer should be clear. How many times do you think that someone types into their search engine, your name? Not going to happen. Will a few type it in? Yes. And that brings me to my main point.

You can and should have your name as your domain name . . . but not for the search engines . . . for humans. We can remember easily spelled names as domain names. But how do we combine the use of our domain name that has our personal name (for the human element) with the “keyword rich” domain name (for the search engine element)? It’s just 3 steps.

1. Go to GoDaddy (or any other domain seller) and research and purchase a good “keyword rich” domain name. A “keyword rich” domain name has your location and services included.
2. Ask your Internet Service Provider (or the company that is hosting your website) to move it (not copy it) to the new “keyword rich” domain. They’ll know what to do.
3. This step is most important, and the ISP should know it. Tell them to put a “301 redirector” (a “301 redirector” is called a “permanent” redirector and is good for the search engines) on your old website, which will redirect them from your old domain with your name to your new domain location. To the viewer, they will know no difference. You will still have the same website and  it will happen so fast they will not know they are being redirected.

Now what do you have? You have your MarySmith.com domain on your business card for the human element, and yet you are using the better “keyword rich” domain name for the search engines to find you better. So you are using the best of both worlds.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When you buy this new “keyword rich” domain name, make sure you buy it for 10 years. Google gives you extra credit if they know you are not a spammer.

Also: If you already have a high Page Rank with Google, and your domain name is NOT “keyword rich” don’t do anything. The search engines already know you under your current name. Altering it could be bad.

BTW- For those SEO junkies out there, this bit of advice on the importance of domain names has been tossed about for awhile. I got the scoop from Yahoo and Google direct at a recent conference.

Sincerely,
Randy Eagar, CRS
www.Webstarget.com