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Key takeaways
- Give every development its own permanent page, built around the suburb and the unit types, and keep it live after the units sell out.
- Answer the questions buyers ask before they call: levies, transfer costs, finance, completion dates and who is building.
- Fast image handling, clean structured data and a mobile-friendly enquiry form matter more than a clever design.
- Track enquiries by development and by source in Search Console and your CRM, so you know which pages produce buyers.
How Buyers Actually Search for New Developments
A developer sells a product that does not exist yet, in a window that closes when the last unit is sold. That changes how you think about search. You are not chasing traffic for its own sake. You are trying to reach the right buyer while units are still available.
Most developer sites are built as a brochure for the launch and then left to go stale. Search tends to reward the opposite: pages that stay live, stay accurate and answer the questions people type in.
Searches start with a place, not a developer
Buyers rarely search for your company name. They search for a suburb plus a property type, such as apartments for sale in a specific Durban North or Umhlanga pocket, or new developments near a particular school or hospital.
Your target keyword for a development is therefore the location and the unit type, with the project name as a secondary term. Build the page around the phrase a buyer would type before they have heard of you.
Three kinds of query, three kinds of page
Developer sites face three query types. There are location queries, such as new developments in a suburb, project queries once marketing has run, and developer queries from people checking whether your company is legitimate before they commit a deposit.
Each needs a different page. Location and project queries go to development pages. Developer queries go to an about page that shows your track record, your registrations and the people behind the company.
What Google expects from these pages
Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content asks whether a page shows real expertise and gives the reader what they came for. For a development, that means specific facts about the site, the build and the buyer's costs, not adjectives about lifestyle.
A page that says only that the development is luxurious and modern gives Google very little to match against a query. A page that names the suburb, the unit sizes and the completion phase gives it more to work with.
Build the Site Around One Page per Development
The most common structural mistake is a single page listing every project. Search engines cannot rank one page for five different suburbs, and buyers cannot share a link to the one unit they like.
Give each development a page of its own, then decide how much of the unit and phase detail belongs on it or on child pages.
The development page is your anchor
Treat the development page as the permanent home of the project. It should carry a clear H1 with the project name and suburb, a short factual summary, unit types, location detail, finishes, the sales office address and one obvious enquiry route.
Keep the URL stable from the first day of marketing. If you launch on a temporary landing page and move later, you throw away every link and mention the project earned in between.
Unit type pages when the range is wide
If a development has clearly different products, such as one-bedroom apartments and three-bedroom duplexes, separate unit type pages can capture searches that a single page would blur. A buyer searching for a specific layout wants the floor plan and the size range, not the whole brochure.
Only split when each page can carry its own useful content. Thin pages that repeat the parent with one changed heading are the pattern Google's quality systems are built to discount.
What to do when units sell out
Sold-out phases are an asset. A page that has ranked for months should not be deleted or redirected to the homepage the day the last unit goes.
Mark the phase as sold, explain what remains or what is coming next, and link to your current developments. The page keeps its authority and sends buyers to the project you are now selling.
Write Content That Answers the Buyer's Real Questions
Buying off plan is a large commitment with many unknowns, and buyers go looking for answers before they contact anyone. Every question you answer on the page is one less reason for them to open a competitor's tab.
This is also where developer sites tend to be thinnest. Most stop at the render and a price-from line.
Location facts that a buyer can check
Describe the surroundings in terms someone can verify: the nearest schools, the closest medical facilities, the main routes and the type of neighbourhood. Name the places rather than calling the area convenient.
Buyers compare pockets of the same city very closely, so suburb focus matters if you are targeting a Durban suburb. The method is laid out in local SEO for Durban suburbs.
The money questions
Buyers want to know what the purchase really costs. Explain how levies, rates, transfer costs and bond finance work for your development, and say plainly what is included in the purchase price and what is not.
You do not need to publish every figure, but you should explain the process and point to where the buyer gets exact numbers. A page that ignores costs pushes the question into a phone call, and many buyers won't make the call.
Proof that the project is real
Trust decides whether a deposit gets paid. Show the site itself with dated construction progress photos, name the developer and the building team, and state your NHBRC enrolment where it applies.
Update the page as the build advances. A progress section with recent dates tells both buyers and Google that the project is alive, and it gives you a reason to revisit the page instead of letting it age.
Get the Technical Basics Right Before Launch
Developer sites are image-heavy by nature, which makes them slow by default. Buyers often first view them on a phone, sometimes on a weak connection, sometimes during load shedding.
A handful of technical decisions decide whether the site loads, gets crawled and shows up properly in results.
Images: heavy, but not slow
Renders and drone shots are the product, so do not strip them out. Compress them, serve modern formats, set explicit dimensions and lazy-load everything below the first screen. Google's image best practice guidance covers file names, alt text and formats.
Write alt text that describes what is shown, such as a two-bedroom lounge with balcony views. Never fill it with keyword strings.
Structured data that matches the page
Structured data tells search engines what a page is about in a form they can read directly. For a development page, that usually means organisation and local business details for your company, plus clear address and contact markup for the sales office. The schema markup guide explains the types and how to test them.
Only mark up what is visible on the page. Accurate, minimal markup beats an ambitious block that describes units the page does not show.
Mobile speed and crawl health
Google indexes the mobile version of your site, so a floor plan viewer or gallery that breaks on a phone is a ranking problem as well as a sales problem. Check your galleries, sliders and embedded virtual tours on a mid-range Android handset, not just on the office laptop.
Submit an XML sitemap through Search Console, keep old development URLs live and fix broken internal links. If the site was built on a page builder with heavy scripts, a technical SEO review will show where the weight sits.
Turn Launch Traffic into Enquiries You Can Measure
A visit to a development page is worth little until it becomes a conversation with your sales team. Conversion work on developer sites is mostly about removing friction and knowing which page produced which lead.
Set this up before the launch, not after the first quiet month.
Make the enquiry easy to start
Put one primary action above the fold and repeat it further down. Buyers in South Africa often prefer WhatsApp or a callback to filling a long form, so offer both and keep the form to name, number and the unit type they want.
Every extra field costs you enquiries. Ask for budget and timeline on the first call, not in the form.
Track by development and by source
Give each development its own enquiry tracking so you can see which pages and which channels produce real leads. Tag form submissions, WhatsApp clicks and call taps as events, and pass the development name into your CRM with the lead.
Then connect that to Google Search Console to see which queries bring people to each page. That tells you whether buyers found you through a suburb search, a project name or a developer check.
Plan search around the launch calendar
Search takes time to build, so start before the sales office opens. Publish the development page while the project is at approvals or early construction, add progress content as the build moves, and update the page at each release.
If you also sell through agents, make sure their listings link back to your page and describe the project consistently. Agent-facing pages follow the same principles covered in SEO for estate agents, and local visibility for the sales office is a job for local SEO.
Frequently asked questions
How long does property developer SEO take to work?
It depends on how competitive the suburb is and how early you publish the development page. Pages published before launch have more time to be crawled, linked and understood, so start as early as the project can be described accurately. Expect a build-up over months rather than days.
Should I use a separate website for each development?
Usually not. One site with a page per development pools links and authority and shows your track record in one place. A separate site can make sense only when a development has a different brand and its own long-term sales plan.
Do I need Google Business Profile for a sales office?
If the sales office is staffed and open to walk-in visitors at a real address, a Google Business Profile can help buyers find and contact it. Follow Google's rules on eligibility and only list a location that is genuinely open to the public.
What should I do with a development page after it sells out?
Keep it live and mark it as sold out. Link it to your current or upcoming developments so the authority it built keeps sending buyers somewhere useful. Deleting it throws away links and search history.
Can I copy the developer's brochure text onto the page?
Avoid pasting the brochure as it is. Brochure copy is written for print and is often identical to what agents and portals publish. Write page text around the buyer's questions, using the brochure only as a source of facts.