Introduction
In commercial real estate getting your property pages seen by your target audience should be your number one priority. Before you can make improvements you must understand how they appear online in the first place.
In this article by the Cindtoro team we will help you understand exactly how property pages get discovered, What holds them back and what to do about it.
Our Real World Experience
We have real world experience fixing how property pages show up to get them to show up in search results. We have guided numerous companies down the path of success online. In fact it is one of our most requested challenges we are asked to tackle for commercial real estate firms across the United States. Cindtoro primarily services firms who are looking to go to the next level with custom digital strategies. If that is you we recommend our commercial real estate web design services.
Once we build you a custom solution you will also need CRE SEO and targeted ads to drive additional traffic to your website.
Why Property Pages Are Important?
A property page can be important for a number of reasons. Without a well working property page investors, and potential tenants will not be able to see your listings online. This means you will get little to no visibility as people are searching for commercial listings in their local area.
in short better performing properly pages translates to increased visibility in search and most importantly more CRE leads.
Reasons Why Property Pages Do not Show Up Online
If you are using a listings platform to host the properties on your website via a 3rd party (as most firms do) there are numerous reasons why property pages do not get discovered. The reasons include include things such as:
- Iframes
- Issues With Data Syndication
- Thin Content
We will dive into the reasons why these things happen below:
Iframes
First on the list are iframes. These are by far the biggest issue affecting discovery. We are going to assume that you know nothing about what Iframes are. Here is a short answer: An iframe, also known as an inline frame, is an HTML element that embeds another web page inside of the current one.
The content inside of the frame is isolated from the parent page’s Document Object Model (DOM), this prevents the code from one page from interacting with the other. In terms of property discovery these pose a tricky issue for any real estate properties that are hosted on your website.
This is because anything that is contained of the Iframe code does not get crawled (seen) by Google. This means while your properties “appear” on your website they will not be seen by the search engine. Leading to low or no visibility. Iframes are common among listing syndication platforms.
Issues With Data Syndication
Next we have issues with data synchronization. there are multiple points to be made here. So we’ll break out each one.
There are 3 data issues we want to cover are:
- Data Latency
- Integration Difficulties
- Inconsistent data formats
Data Latency
First we have data latency, this is a common issue which causes a delay between the time an MLS listing is updated and when the change appears on third-party websites. Depending on the feed schedule, for new data pushes this can last anywhere from 15 minutes or could be pulled once or twice a day. System outages or slow data processing by vendors can also cause delays.
Technical integration difficulties
With the exception of a few commercial real estate professionals, the setup of a reliable data feed, can require a high level of technical expertise. Particularly when it comes to older methods like Internet Data Exchange (IDX) feeds.
Inconsistent data formats
There are hundreds of different MLSs systems across the United States, to make matters worse there is no single standard for structuring real estate data. Because of the lack of standardization this forces syndication platforms to attempt to normalize and reconcile data from diverse sources, increasing the risk of errors.
Thin Content
Finally, we have thin content. As the age old saying goes, what you put in you will get out. If your listings do not have enough information they will struggle to be seen by major search engines. Or worse your property pages will not get discovered at all.
What To Do About It
Luckily, it is not all doom and gloom there are things you can do to make improvements.
Move Away From iframes
To maximize the discoverability of your property pages you should absolutely move away from iframes. Doing this will ensure that your property pages are found online. The best way to do this is with a custom web design solution. This will give you the greatest control over the display of your property listings and will maximize your discovery.
Fix data syndication
Your next step is to fix any data syndication issues. Some of these things cannot be fixed as they rely on the company providing the service. Their systems may be built in such a day delays are apart of the process. This is another supporting element behind using a custom solution
Improve Content
If you opt to NOT use your own system to handle your property listings you should at the very least improve your content. This can be done by providing as much information as possible. Fully fill out descriptions, images, use video, MatterPort and include a short list of property highlights so users can quickly see the desirable attributes of a property.
We will produce an entire article on the anatomy of a high performance property listing page in the near future that will teach you how to do this.
Conclusion
Now that you understand how a property page gets discovered, take the next steps to improve the discoverability of your CRE listings. If you need help creating an internal custom property listing system for your commercial property firm. Reach out to our agency today. We are ready to help serve your needs. See why commercial real estate firms choose Cindtoro for their advertising efforts.