A crucial part of successful property marketing in today’s digital age is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. It’s vital in the process of bringing qualified leads to your website and community. Many think it’s as easy as building a website and waiting for prospects to arrive. Unfortunately, things aren’t that simple.

SEO And Keyword Research

SEO, in it’s simplest form, is the practice of making your way up to the top of a search engine’s results page. Google is currently the top search engine and is the primary target of all companies. Being the first result for a specific, relevant keyword is a goal of many businesses, especially those in the multifamily industry, and competition can be fierce.

Using keywords is vital to optimizing a website’s presence on a search engine. A sound strategy is required: knowing what your prospective tenants want, what they’re most likely searching for on the internet, and what they value in a property.

The next best step is to then create relevant personas. Don’t make the mistake of approaching SEO the wrong way: by building a site that you want someone to find. You should instead approach it from the prospect’s or searcher’s point of view. Think about their habits and their needs. Consider what interests them, irritates them or makes them feel confused. While it’s very important to rank for your own property’s name, but if a prospect has never heard of you, then they won’t be able to search for it anyway. If you think from a renter’s prospective and what they might search for first, it’ll help you come up with keywords that matter in attracting leads.

Once your list of keywords and phrases is developed, you should then include these topics into your website, social media posts, blog posts, URLs, and etc. This helps search engines take note of your keywords and link them to your property. While all this sounds like a lot of effort—and it truly is a long-term approach that should not be rushed—it is definitely an investment that will pay off in time.

When you understand what residents are looking for online, and how they’re searching for it, you can then target tenants better than your competition.