We’ve been busy (as usual) to bring you some more upgrades, and here they are. This week’s updates mostly revolve around search engine optimization, and the update is on the homes section. Keyword density on your website is very important to gain higher rankings on Google, and here’s how we can help you.

Learn How To Change This

Meta Title

The title of search results, as well as on Social Media share posts of each listing page, is dictated by the Meta Title. This is one of the most critical parts for Google to determine the relevance of your website. It also is what shows as the main title on Google search results, or on shared posts on the majority of Social Media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+. Make sure this accurately describes each listing, and include the right keywords.

Make sure your meta title has:

  • Neighbourhood and city name

  • Property type and style

  • Street name, Building/Complex name

  • Other commonly searched attributes such as “waterfront”, “mansion”, “rental” etc.

Meta Description

Apart from the actual home description that you get to enter on each of your listings (or fed from MLS® reciprocity), you can also set up a custom description that will show on Google’s search results that is much shorter (about 156 characters). Our SEO tab on the home editing screen allows you to enter this description manually. With a blank description, it will default to a blurb that summarizes the listing price, type and size related features.

Make sure your meta description has:

  • An attractive intro to the sentence that would entice more visitors to click

  • Bed/Bath/Kitchen/Parking information that are relevant

  • Other amenities such as schools, recreation or sports facilities nearby

Custom URL slug

For the longest time we’ve offered a rich URL scheme that includes the full address and city name of the listing in order to be more clear to the human eye, as well as give more relevance to the page on search engines. Each property and building detail page can have a fully customized URL for even better presentation, as well as performance on search engines such as Google.

Sample of Great URL Slugs:

www.yourdomain.com/showlisting/12/123-main-street-mount-pleasant-vancouver-east-close-to-transit-large-yard-dog-friendly
www.yourdomain.com/showlisting/12/4550-caulfield-street-caulfeild-west-vancouver-water-city-views-south-facing

Like this, you can emphasize some key features of the listing to increase your performance on google over that of competitors’ sites.