Everyone is talking about Google’s new operating system, but our search overlords have also recently rolled out a real estate search function that our SEO company finds pretty interesting.  We’ve worked with many real estate firms over the years, as real estate agents and developers tend to be one of the industries that has woken up quickly to the power of being on page #1.  That said, Google getting into the game is not surprising, considering that nearly one quarter of all traffic to real estate websites is driven by Google’s search engine (for some perspective, the second highest source of traffic was Realtor.com at only 7%).

The changes include expanded listings that show up in Google when you type in real estate related terms, as well as opportunity to search Google listings (this only appears for select keywords).  The listings are also displayed in Google maps, giving real estate agents a valuable and interactive way to reach their target audience, especially if they build out their listings with enticing messages and photos.