South Africans don’t Google “real estate”
When I started on the Diamond Peak website, the client’s own name told me what to write: Diamond Peak Real Estate. The American term. The term every theme and template uses.
It’s the wrong word for the people she needs to reach. South Africans search for “property” and an “estate agent”, not “real estate”. So a site written in the industry’s language would be talking past its own buyers.
That one word became the rule for the whole build.
One search phrase per page
One page trying to cover everything ranks for nothing in particular. So each page got one job and one phrase, and the phrase went where it counts: the page title, the main heading and the first lines of copy.
- A page per service. Selling, buying, renting, maintenance and renovations each stand alone.
- A page per area and suburb. 44 of them, each with its own local detail, so a search from Amandasig lands on a page about Amandasig.
- A page per property. Every listing has its own URL and gallery.
Then the same again in Afrikaans
Many of the client’s buyers and sellers are Afrikaans-speaking. A translate widget wasn’t going to rank for anyone, so the site has 68 English pages and 68 Afrikaans pages, page for page, with one tap to switch.
The site is only half of local search
Google has to see the same story everywhere. The Google Business Profile plan uses the same services and the same areas as the site, so the two back each other up rather than saying different things.
What I can and can’t tell you yet
The new site hasn’t launched, so I don’t have ranking numbers for you, and I won’t invent any. What gets measured, gets accomplished. Once it’s live, the measuring starts: Search Console for what people searched, and map-pack tracking for where she shows up by suburb.
The lesson so far is simple. Before you pick a theme or write a headline, find out what your customers call the thing you sell. See the full Diamond Peak case study.