Criteria Used for the Top 50 Canadian Real Estate Blogs List

These are the criteria we used to rank as many Canadian real estate blogs as we could find to update the list of the top 50. If you think we missed something, feel free to drop us a line in the comment section below.

1. Uniqueness and Quality of Content

It's very important for your content to be genuine. No matter how good you are in your business, reputation and skill in your business are not the only things that sell on the internet. Being able to provide high quality articles, infographics, relevant maps and other content is not merely about originality, but also about going deep into the context of the chosen topic and offering an experienced look into the problematic that is appealing to both experts and uninitiated. Providing unique content in and out of your own area of expertise also attracts new readers who will become regular visitors to your website.

2. Business Expertise

Through your website you offer your expertise, counsel, products, your point of view on the topics that concern you and your potential customers. It can reflect your success and achievements in the business and tell us how good you are. Sharing your knowledge of the trade is showing everyone that you are a real expert who knows what he is talking about.

3. Design

Good design is not just about what's pleasant for the eye. A clever design is easy to navigate and helps the visitors to find the information they want. Sometimes, it gets out of hands and the overall tone and design isn't suitable for the particular business that its trying to represent. Use of over the top effects, mismatching colours, too many various fonts, etc. are only a few examples which make websites not only kitschy, but also more difficult to use. Sometimes less is more.

Other extremes are generic looking websites, using one of the many common templates without much customization. And while it seems that they can serve their purpose, if your web design is bad or generic, having more and better content won't help. The main reason behind this is that new visitors usually spend only a few seconds to decide whether they are staying on the site or moving to another. So yes, the visual appeal matters a lot.

4. Freshness (Frequency of Updates)

Your website is a mirror to your business, you tend to it, you grow it, you uproot any weed that appears in your garden, keep it in shape, renew it when it's needed and make the people cling to your regular updates. If your website stagnates, so does your (Internet) popularity and eventually it will start to fall down. Publishing fresh content and keeping your site updated is a clear sign of responsible approach of a true professional.

5. Social Media Usage and Interaction

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and other social sites come hand in hand with every good website and its owner's activity, not only as a vital part of its communication with the audience, but also a way to scout for new ideas and ways how to improve the services and your website.

6. Functionality

One of the basic criteria for ranking any website is very trivial. Buttons have to link and redirect where they should, pages shouldn't be loading too long, the website shouldn't show any broken pieces of code, 404s, etc. The website has to work, it has to do what it's supposed to do while providing an intuitive and pleasant user experience.

7. Visibility

Visibility is the sum of all of the above mentioned efforts that make you visible to your potential customers and readers on the Internet and especially search engines like Google. To measure the visibility of your blog, you can use metrics such as Page Rank or Moz Domain Authority to name only a few.