When Michael Rahmn, VP of technology at Seattle-based Windermere Real Estate Services Co., considered ways to increase visibility for the Windermere brand, he had a statistic in mind: 56% of all online real estate searches are conducted via search engines like Google. But "playing the SEO game" -- increasing user traffic with well-distributed keywords in content and other methods -- proved only so useful, says Rahmn. Search engine optimization couldn't ensure that buyers and sellers searching on Google would find what they were looking for, let alone that they would land on the Windermere site.

So Rahmn stopped trying to beat the odds and partnered with Google in a "content for traffic" arrangement, where Windermere provides real estate listings to Google's new vertical directory, Google Base. Now, when users enter certain keywords, a OneBox -- a drop-down box with an option to search on real estate listings in a given geographic area -- appears as the first search result. Consumers can then view individual home listings from the site, even accompanied by a Google map. It took two developers about five days to customize the XML feed to work with Google Base, and the partnership has yielded good traffic improvement for Windermere since the project's launch in September 2006, says Rahmn. "We bring great content, and the search engines bring the mindshare -- the audience -- and great generic search."

Lauren Horwitz, former managing editor, production, for CIO Decisions, is now managing editor for TechTarget's Data Center Media Group. Write to her at lhorwitz@techtarget.com.

This was first published in February 2007

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