Who Dominates New Orleans Real Estate SEO?

Search Engine Optimization — SEO for short — is the work behind getting your website to organically rank (not paid ads) for specific search terms.  The sites that land on page 1 of Google for searches like New Orleans Real Estate or Homes For Sale In New Orleans get a tremendous amount of website traffic and ultimately dominate the real estate web space for Greater New Orleans. Historically, Real Estate SEO is extremely challenging to break into because of the extreme competition.  Anyone who ranks here deserves kudos.

How Do Real Estate Searches Work?

There are hundreds, even thousands, of keyword searches that people in New Orleans put into their favorite search engine to look for real estate.  In addition, some people include the city or area when searching—some do not (Homes for Sale vs. Metairie Homes for Sale).  Google does take into consideration where you are physically located when you search to give you search results.  To make it even more challenging, Google actually customizes your search results based on sites you have visited, checked in at or liked on social media.  That means if you visit your own website all the time and like it on Facebook, Google+ and follow it on Twitter, your specific search results will be skewed to show your website when you search.  For this we are only looking at Google search results—Yahoo and Bing still play a large role.  We wanted to look at taking all of the Google customization, and focus on the main two real estate searches:

New Orleans Real Estate

&

Homes For Sale In New Orleans

To put these searches in perspective, “New Orleans Real Estate” gets around 5,400 searches per month, “Real Estate New Orleans” gets about 1,600.  “Homes for Sale In New Orleans” gets around 2,900 searches per month.  That is a good bit of traffic and if you rank highly for those, you will undoubtedly get leads from your site.  Our goal in this article is to see who the real players are.  Keep in mind, there are thousands of search possibilities, especially when you include the surrounding areas.  The “Big Boys” will first go after the big traffic, then focus on the peripheral cities and then Long Tail Keyword Searches such as “waterfront homes in eden isles subdivision”.

Who Ranks for New Orleans Real Estate Searches?

Here are the top 10 Results — without Google taking into consideration your personal history or location:

New Orleans Real Estate
# 1 www.zillow.com
# 2 www.realtor.com
# 3 www.trulia.com
# 4 realestate.nola.com
# 5 www.movoto.com
# 6 www.century21.com
# 7 www.homes.com
# 8 www.latter-blum.com
# 9 www.latter-blum.com
# 10 neworleans.yourkwoffice.com

New Orleans Homes For Sale
# 1 www.zillow.com
# 2 www.realtor.com
# 3 www.trulia.com
# 4 realestate.nola.com
# 5 www.homes.com
# 6 www.century21.com
# 7 www.movoto.com
# 8 www.latter-blum.com
# 9 www.kw.com
# 10 www.nolarealty.com

New Orleans SEO Defined

Its no surprise that Zillow ranks #1 for both searches, followed by realtor.com and Trulia.  NOLA.com on the other hand is a media company—-that is the Times Picayune.  The URL realestate.nola.com is a sub-domain of the main site and mostly stands alone for Search Engine Optimization.  Homes.com is another nation-wide 3rd party aggregator (like Zillow or Trulia) and they have always ranked better with the word “home” or “homes” in the search query.  Nolarealty.com is the surprise as a relatively small player (considering the goliaths such as Zillow, Trullia and Latter & Blum) ranking well for a major search term.  I think its worth pointing out that out of the two main real estate searches for Greater New Orleans Real Estate, only a couple of these websites have IDX and actually show all of the listings.  Thant means when people search for real estate in NOLA—they are usually getting a very limited idea of what is really available for sale.  Its also worth pointing out that we really only see two local broker websites and one of the top players in GNO is not even in the top 10 for ether search!

So What?

Don’t think that your organic search results don’t play a part in your companies branding and the ability for your company to generate leads.  The websites that rank well are worth paying attention to.  In an extension of my article on Redfin Coming Into New Orleans, I soon expect Redfin to rank in the top ten for both searches.

Don’t Get Mad!

Let us say without a doubt…your companies strategy on the web may not include ranking for these major searches.  I know that sounds crazy, but actually makes a lot of sense.  You strategy could be to save the time, energy and money in not fighting for these results and and focus on long tail keyword searches.  Or…you may only do business on the Northshore or in Metairie.  You may have invested a lot of money in Zillow or another 3rd party site for your on-line leads.  There are many on line strategies that can be utilized  effectively, this is simply a generic look at the major keyword searches using only the biggest search engine.

We will be running a series of articles on Real Estate Search Terms for Greater New Orleans.  Let us know if you would like to see a particular group of keywords compared.

In the meantime, feel free to use our FREE SEO Website Audit Tool to check your website for SEO effectiveness.