Danish
Results
- 29% increase in organic traffic (from 32 to 41 million annual visitors)
- 20% improvement in click-through rate (from 17.8% to 21.4%)
- +250,000 estimated monthly visitors, while competitors declined
Denmark’s largest real estate portal, Boligsiden, was already working with IIH Nordic on their SEO, but wanted to strengthen their market-leading position and further increase the gap between themselves and their competitors. Together, we developed a technical SEO strategy focusing on fast page loading, mobile user experience, and structured data. The effort resulted in a significant increase in organic traffic, better search engine rankings, and a significantly improved user experience—all factors that strengthened Boligsiden’s position as market leader.
- Organic traffic increased to 41 million annual visitors (9 million more than the previous year)
- Google Search Console rankings improved from an average of 7.9 to 5.9
- Core Web Vitals optimized from 580,000 to 62,000 problematic URLs on mobile
- Record month in August 2024 with 4 million organic visitors
Speed as a competitive advantage
Boligsiden is Denmark’s most visited real estate portal, but in a competitive market, continuous improvement is crucial, which is why we have been working with Boligsiden for several years. In our work, our analysis showed that although traffic was high, there were technical challenges, particularly around page load times and mobile user experience.
With a large proportion of traffic coming from mobile devices, optimizing the mobile experience was a key focus area. We conducted a technical review that identified more than half a million URLs with issues related to Core Web Vitals. By optimizing image sizes and caching strategies, we managed to reduce the number of problematic pages by 89% and significantly improve loading times.
Structured data and property-specific optimization
A key element of the strategy was the implementation of schema markup specifically for property listings. This gave Google a deeper understanding of the page content.
The real estate website also developed a smart ‘Coming Soon’ feature for properties, which gave them an advantage over their competitors as they could index and rank upcoming properties before they were officially listed on other portals. Combined with AI-generated alt text for a few million property images, this created a head start in search results.
Optimized data architecture and loading
A key challenge for real estate portals is handling huge amounts of data and images. We implemented a new image loading system that prioritized the display of images in the user’s field of view and delayed the loading of images further down the page.
At the same time, we optimized the underlying data structure so that Google could crawl and understand the page content more efficiently.
These technical improvements resulted in a significant increase in the number of indexed pages and better rankings for key search terms.
Growth while competitors fell behind
While many competitors experienced declining visitor numbers in a challenging housing market, Boligsiden’s traffic grew by 29%. Particularly noteworthy was the 33% growth in December, which is traditionally a low season for housing searches.
The improved click-through rate from 17.8% to 21.4% clearly shows that the optimization work not only improved rankings in search results but also made Boligsiden’s listings more attractive to users. This resulted in Boligsiden adding an estimated 250,000 monthly visitors, while competitors lost up to 23,000 visitors per month.
This case study demonstrates the power of an in-depth technical SEO effort. By focusing on fundamental technical aspects such as speed, structured data, and optimal data structure, we have not only significantly increased traffic but also created a solid foundation for Boligsiden’s continued dominance in the Danish housing market.
