How Does Google Rank Your Property + What to Prioritize in Your Property Management SEO Strategy
“Hey Google, where are the best luxury apartments for rent in Dallas?” The answer you receive from your virtual assistant can vary greatly depending on how diligent you are when it comes to your property management SEO strategy.
Before the advent of the internet (we know, it’s hard to think back on such a time), when people were looking for a place to live, they’d peruse the Classifieds in the paper or dial the numbers on billboards. Today, they go to the source of all online information — Google.
Google is an intensive resource when it comes to the search and delivery of information, especially in the multifamily market. However, what most people fail to realize is that Google requires assistance from sites to successfully find the right information, crawl the site, and spit it out where and when it’s appropriate.
The means by which search engines accomplish this is known as property management SEO, and it requires a lot of work — including the correct tags for a website to read, a submitted sitemap, and keywords.
Want to know how to check your property management SEO status? Watch this quick property management SEO video for a simple how-to!
Performing property management SEO keyword research
Let’s say you have a problem, and you’ve taken to Google to solve it. What do you type in the search bar? Odds are there are words related to your problem or question. If you’re moving to a brand new city that you’ve never even visited before, what might that search be?
Maybe you want to know which neighborhoods in the city are safest. Typing in “neighborhoods in Dallas” might begin to give you relevant information. Searching for “safest neighborhoods in Dallas to live in” would likely give you even more relevant information.
Choosing what keywords or keyword phrases (known as long-tail keywords) a person might type to find your site is key to property management SEO. If you know your buyer personas well, these may come easily, but sometimes it can be difficult to narrow in on what people will actually search versus what you think they might search. In these cases, keyword research is critical.
Watch this quick property management SEO video to learn one of the best ways to perform keyword research for your property.
How to approach property management SEO keyword search
The simplest way to approach property management SEO keyword research is to type your intended keywords into the search bar and see what kind of sites appear. Another good option is to look at what your competitors are trying to rank for. This is as simple as looking at their site and the words that come up, especially if they appear in headers or titles.
A more complex but strategic method that’s worth exploring is to use a free keyword planning tool. Both Google and the SEO tool Moz provide these at no charge. These tools allow you to type in your intended keywords to get a measure of how difficult it may be to rank for and what kind of search volume the keyword receives. They can also suggest or show related keywords. Once you have collected the keywords you believe to be most relevant, the next step is to implement them.
Understanding Google’s ranking parameters
A number of resources will offer technical ways that multifamily SEO keywords should and shouldn’t be used on your site. The reason for this is that search engines use algorithms, and the technical details of these algorithms are not public. Google does give clues though, and there are certain things (e.g., keyword stuffing) that will knock you down in the rankings. But ultimately, much of property management SEO is guesswork by experts as to what little things will help you rank higher.
Google factors in over 200 signals to rank websites. Here are the ranking parameters Google places the most importance on (and what you should be focusing on for your multifamily SEO strategy):
- Site structure and speed
- Bounce rate
- Keyword usage
- Backlinks
- Session rate
- Website traffic
- Content quality
Once you understand the relevance of these parameters, you can create a more effective multifamily SEO strategy.
Natural keyword usage is key to effective property management SEO
The biggest key to performing well in rankings is to use your keywords as naturally as possible. Further, you should make sure that your content is relevant to what you want to be found for. Remember the buyer’s journey: Are you trying to build awareness for your property? Don’t just focus on the property, focus on the location.
For example, the goal of this blog is to offer practical advice on how to increase your apartment community’s brand awareness and potentially increase your ranking. As such, our focus keyword is property management SEO. As you read through this blog, you may or may not have noticed that we sprinkled this keyword into the content as naturally as possible. At Swifty, we want to rank for the keyword multifamily SEO because all of our apartment web designs were created with property management SEO top of mind.
Further, this blog is an awareness stage blog, meaning it is merely an educational blog to inform you about a topic relevant to your business and day-to-day duties. In the awareness stage, people are likely not looking for your property yet. They are, however, looking for resources on the location, places to eat nearby, and what goes on in the neighborhood.
Do the same thing based on possible searches in the decision stage and the consideration stage. Keep up with building content around these searches, and your multifamily SEO will improve slowly but surely.
Want to learn more about property management SEO strategies? Check out our apartment SEO series on our YouTube channel for quick tips and step-by-step guides!
