Top 4 SEO website design tips for Commercial agents and Chartered Surveyors

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Top 4 SEO website design tips for Commercial agents and Chartered Surveyors

Those chartered surveyors and commercials agents new to the Resource Techniques newsletter can be forgiven for not being totally ofay with the phrase SEO. It’s a term that we do tend to bang on about here at RT. Yet only due to its huge importance to commercial agents, for without SEO your website would be hard to find and the wider commercial property market would perceive you as a lower league player.

So to those avid readers, who count the days from one newsletter to the next, I apologise now to the both of you for repeating myself.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, a process and set of on-going practices that ensure your company’s website is constantly ranked highly on Google for common search phrase like “Commercial Agents in…”,  “Commercial property in….”, “development opportunity in…” and “Office to let in…”.

Its influence is everywhere from the initial design and structure of your website, to its content and on-going management.

SEO is what makes your website and therefore your company, visible to potential new clients and partners.  So here are 4 SEO Top Tips for the commercial property market.

1.  Commercial Property Content is King

Text, images, videos, animations, applications, blogs, social networking, its all content and content’s what Google loves. There are other search engines, but as Google accounts for over 90% of the UK market, it is probably easier to always refer to them. Google will trawl commercial agent websites looking for content relevant to the commercial property market and will then, by using complex algorithms, rank these sites. The more relevant, current and constantly changing the content, the higher your rank. Google are looking for authority.

2.  Commercial Property Keywords

Keywords and keyword phrases are everything. Tenants, disposal, acquisition, investment, landlords, ratings, sustainability, corporate finance, disposal, acquisition, project management, the selection of the right keywords will determine how successful your SEO programme is.

You need to view keywords from your audience’s perspective and have a good understanding of their behaviour. Assume nothing. Think what are your business objectives and whom in the commercial property sector are you trying to reach?

Google will look for repeated use of these keywords as it scans your website. A good website design specialist for the commercial property sector will look at the density of the keywords you select. Your website should have around 2% - 3% of repeated keywords within its copy.

3.  Links

If everyone were pointing at something, you’d have a look wouldn’t you? Well search engines are the same. The more links the better; Google will consider that the website is important due to the amount of websites linked to it. Search engines love popularity.

But not all links are the same, some have greater perceived value, for example a link from the BBC website will be of greater value than one from your local newspapers website. And beware; you can also have “bad’ links that actually damage your SEO. Websites with similar commercial property content are the most ideal. And not just links to your Home Page, but to relevant pages throughout your website.

4.  Site Map

Search engines love a tidy organised website. Inconsistent links and irregular page placement will deliver a poor user experience and adversely affect your SEO. It basically confuses the little ‘bots’ that Google and other Search Engines send out to crawl across your website.

Do your homework; draw up a map of your pages ensuring that all can be reached. Try to make your website flat, limiting the amount of clicks are needed from the Home Page to get to anyone page.

Philip Burrows, Marketing Consultant