Reducing Amount of Text on Web Pages-Risk of Killing Ranking?

[Kingalan1]

We are a commercial real estate brokerage firm in Manhattan. Our site (w w w . m e t r o - m a n h a t t a n . com) is text heavy and somewhat uninviting. Ranking is fair. Conversions awful. Our niche is very competitive.

We plan on reducing the amount of text and making the site more visual. Among the planned changes:

-Reduce amount of text in home page and text heavy pages. More emphasis on product (listings)
-Much larger photos for listings
-Lighter cleaner design with more open white areas
-Use of more visible fonts
-Better forms

New design will be like: http://www.dernieretage-paris.com/

Theme and graphics based on Manhattan. More visuals. Better photos. Less text.

But are we shooting ourselves in the foot by reducing text? Is there a risk that Google will reduce our ranking?

Can we compensate for reduced text that is visible to visitors by completing meta tags more fully?

Any thoughts???

Thanks,
Alan

[Nigel_Carr]

Hi Kingalen

I honestly would not use that French site as a model for your own. The homepage is just one big banner and you have to scroll below the fold to search anything,

In my experience, the best home page for this type of site is one big search box in the middle with little opportunity to refine it until they get some results. You have to hook them in with the minimum of fuss.

It's not the amount of text on the homepage but how relevant it is and quite frankly it just drones on about expiring leases and out of town businesses needing a rental. Keep it focused and succinct.Go to MOZ keyword explorer or any similar product and type in 'Office Space New York' and look down the most searched keywords. 'New York Office Lease' as well and write clean contextually strong copy for the home without overdoing it and trying to rank for every keyword you can think of.

Then when a user has clicked on say, Bryant Park, show them the listings. Not just one or two at the top with a link to 'view all' and the rest of the page thick with content - Give them what they want as quickly as you can, and if then add some local area content with a map and image with alt saying 'Bryant Park'  below the listings.

It seems to me that someone's attempts at novice SEO has ruined your site and you need to simplify and make the object satisfying your customers as quickly as possible rather than filling the site with cannibalising content and needless words.

Of course, Meta is important for SEO so make sure that yours are optimised 'Bryant Park Office Space for Lease' you have 70 characters so. use them.

Use one (1) H1 on the page! - for some reason your logo is an H1 - Use a logo with an Alt tag - 'Metro Manhattan Logo'

Then the other H1 'Bryant Park Office Space' is OK, grab a photo of Bryant Park and Alt it 'Bryant Park Office Space' and use just 3-500 words per page and you will be fine.

I hope that helps.

Regards Nigel

Regards

Nigel

[1weekSEOladyUK]

Take a look at the Paris website in Moz Tools. It's not ranking for anything. There's zero content.

You have to have a compromise of text and SEO visibility. Having a pretty site with lots of photos and white space won't do you any favours and will have a negative impact on your ranking.

Stick to 400 words text on the home page and 300-400 on your category landing pages. Alt tags on all images with keyword rich descriptions. In Wordpress add tags and categories to your blog posts. The last one was in January 2017. This doesn't look as if you care about website maintenance.

Meta tags are not SEO.

Content is king. Use internal linking. Add sales text to increase your conversions.

Yes your website looks outdated, just a spruce up should increase conversions but don't lose the textual content.