The Do’s and Don’ts of SEO for Property Management
Anyone in property management should be doing most of their business online. Doing business online means staying one step ahead of the competitors, and that means doing some serious search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO will make you rank higher in search engines, meaning you are likely to get traffic and more conversions. Your competitors are probably already doing it. To get you started, we have given some do’s and don’t of SEO for property management.
Do Stay Local
Location-based searches are huge, and you can not afford to utilize the power that location brings. Local SEO involves giving your location to search engines such as Google via Google My Business. In doing this and knowing where you are, Google can recommend your business and services to potential customers.
All Google My Business needs are your basic details. These may include the website and your hours of opening. It can also allow you to take reviews online, which you should seriously consider as a way to increase customer engagement online.
Don’t Delete Negative Feedback
Everyone understands that negative feedback makes them look bad. However, deleting it can make you look even worse. It is essentially the digital equivalent of sweeping something under the carpet.
Having pristine feedback on your site and reviews also makes your company look fake. No one believes that everything is perfect, and people will smell a rat if this is what your reviews look like.
Instead, respond to feedback in a positive manner. Ask people what their problems were, and how the service could be improved. Reassure them of the service you provide and how good it is, so others will view you as a caring, understanding company willing to do the utmost to please a client.
Do Create Backlinks
Links from other websites to your site (backlinks) are extremely important, as they significantly improve your chances of ranking on search engines. The more backlinks you have, and the better the source they come from, the more likely you will be to appear higher up the search columns.
Imagine you need advice on property in Alaska. You can ask a large property owner who has worked in the area for years, a brand new developer from out of town, or a car salesman. Whose opinion would you place in higher regard?
Of course, it would be the experienced property owner, and backlinks work in exactly the same way. They are a nod from an established website to Google saying that you know your topic and are relevant.
Don’t Communicate Differently
When corresponding digitally, be it on messenger, email, or through blog content, you should adhere to the same principles you would in any other aspect of your business. This means keeping transactions formal with appropriate language and etiquette.
Remember that just because you are online, it does not mean you can speak as if you were in a bar with friends or messaging your partner about dinner. These are still business transactions, with no place for emojis, gifs, or any other replacement for text.
Do Create Quality Content
It can be too easy to fall into the trap of putting out content for the sake of it. However, all content must add value. It must be something that is offering something to the reader, either in the form of information, special offers, or news.
Quality content will also get shared. This will bring in more visitors, increasing footfall, and conversions. A blog with keyword-rich articles is an excellent way to start increasing your property management SEO score.
Other ways to create quality content can be through infographics. You may also decide to do ‘how to’ guides and give advice on problems.
Don’t Ignore Interactions
If a customer asked you a question in a store, you wouldn’t ignore them and carry on with something else. This is exactly the same in the digital world, especially in social media where these interactions count a lot. They show you care about customers, build relationships, and can show you as an expert on your subject matter.
Once you have social media and comments set up on your website, make sure to respond to them. If it takes up too much time, then appoint a social media manager or designate the task to someone in your workforce. You will soon find that the time you put in results in conversions.
Do SEO for Property Management on Mobile
Most people are browsing using their phones these days, and all your SEO tweaking and excellent content will be wasted if you do not have a mobile-friendly site. You need to be optimized for mobile.
This means a speedy site with fast load times. Your site needs to be easy to navigate on a phone, and you need to minimize any weighty code in the back end or distractions at the front. Ask the advice of professional property management SEO services if this is too far out of your own technical capabilities.
Don’t Try to Compete With Huge Companies
Some battles are just unwinnable and try as you may, you are never going to compete with huge corporations that have money to throw at their website. This is particularly true when you are trying to use short-tail keywords in your content strategy.
For example, ‘apartments in Seattle’ as a keyword is always going to get picked up quickly by large, established websites. However, you can utilize your local knowledge to work against this. Something like ‘apartments in Belltown, Seattle for families’ will make you more likely to rank, increasing your conversions.
Get Started Today
SEO for property management is not a quick fix solution. It needs to be implemented and maintained, and time is of the essence.
If you want a boost when starting your SEO, why not message us? We can give a fast, reliable online quote to boost your results and increase your traffic, quickly. In fact, you can click here for a free SEO report.