Real Estate SEO Blogs by Key Yessaad

What?

Yes I can hear some of you asking the question – What the heck is he talking about?

In the world of Real Estate SEO and Internet Marketing many get acquainted with lots of SEO terms, and that familiarity is only skin deep. In fact, those in the know, understand the importance of studying “Cached Pages” in order to gain insights on a website performance, architecture, and potential for ranking or lack thereof.

As a matter of fact you can use this question to find out if you are truly working with an SEO Pro: “What does the analysis of my Cached Website reveal?” – don't email them the question; ask them one on one or over the phone; if you hear a bunch of Um’s and Am’s – you may be working with a pretender, worse a scammer.

So let me introduce this idea to you with an example: In this example I will show you what consumers “See” versus what Google “Sees” – I am going to use an existing page on the internet - http://www.smalleygoldsample.com/GreatFamilyHomes

There is nothing wrong with this Web Page – in fact the company behind this website is well known and well respected.Now, let’s look at the cached version – Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Go to Google.com;

2. in the Search Bar type the URL preceded with the word site: and no spaces as in: site:http://www.smalleygoldsample.com/GreatFamilyHomes

3. Without Clicking place your mouse over the Search Result and 2 arrows will appear to the right of the listing, hover your mouse over that and you will see an icon of the site and on the 2nd line Cashed – click on it.

4. A Gray bar will appear above the website with a link that says Text-only version – click on that and you will get:

Hummm…

Let’s compare the Public View (top) and the Cached View (bottom) and make a couple of conclusions:

a. Do you notice that the text in the left navigation does not appear in the Cached Version – this simply means that this website is Flash Driven, and the text in Flash Boxes will not appear to Google as Text. This is not a big negative since alamode creates both Text Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps to direct Google to your other pages.

b. Do you notice that there is a big blank space where the Map and Search Tools were in the visual Website? This means that the Search Tools are Framed – Framed Content exists on a another Website; for this example it exists in: http://idx.xsitesidx.com/%28S%28zb3aie5mhsy1blkh3pzwx5gn%29%29/search.aspx?id=10799. Google simply ignores it as content on your website and will NOT index it – if it did all you have to do is frame the content of Realtor.com and you will have the biggest Real Estate Website in the world.

I am not against such methods of building websites per se, but for those seeking high SEO index-ability and Scale, this knowledge is important to them.

Conclusion: Studying Cached versions of Websites help you understand the inner working of your website, as well as the psychology of Search Engines; I only shared a simple example here just to open your eyes to these ideas; I must admit that I go much deeper than this when I perform a site analysis:

Studying Cached version of Websites tells me:

1. Is the IDX Feed fully integrated?

2. Are there blockages to Google Spiders and how I can offer better ideas to my clients?

3. If Flash is used in a website has the Web Provider and Webmaster created good workarounds?

4. Does the site rely heavily of framed content and is it only a shell?

5. What is the fundamental Web Architecture of the site?

6. Does the site lead to lost pages and lots of 404s?

7. How often are Search Engines Spidering the website?

8. is the navigation highly visible for the top 50 pages of the website?

9. Do programming Scripts, embedded Objects, and the HTML Code help or hinder with the ranking of the site?

etc…

I hope this blog helps open the door to new ways of looking at your website. (this post shortlink: http://wp.me/pmEnK-ux)

Happy Blogging – Key Yessaad, Real Estate SEO Trainer