Multifamily SEO vs. Paid Search: Learn Which One Best Supports Your Online Strategy
What is life without search engines? Being able to instantly look up apartment communities with availability in the area you are looking to move has changed the way we market towards prospective renters. 68% of everything that happens online begins with a query in a search engine. Google alone has over 5 billion searches made every day.
There are two kinds of searches to know when you begin to think about how you want to target prospects through search engine marketing, organic searches and paid searches. Organic searches are when a prospect enters their search and naturally finds your website and clicks on it. Paid search is when a prospect clicks on a paid ad (Pay-per-Click or PPC) within the search results page. Paid searches mean that your business has paid the search engine to rank your website up in the top search results or it can mean that prospects clicked through one of your ads. This is important to know when going through your multifamily business plan. Having your multifamily marketing strategy thought out and having people assigned to SEO and PPC is important in keeping your website higher up on search result pages and in prospects’ faces.
Ads vs SEO
Paid searches will take a lot less effort and creativity when it comes to getting your website ranked higher up on the search results page but it doesn’t guarantee clicks. While 75% of online consumers that PPC makes it easier for them to find what they are looking for, 53% of all website traffic is done through organic searches.
What can you do to rank higher up in organic searches so you don’t have to pay for an ad? This is where search engine optimization, or SEO, comes into play. SEO is critical for any digital marketing plan in today’s world. No one goes to the second page of search results so it’s important to get your multifamily website ranked higher up.
First identify the keywords or phrases that your prospects are looking up to find their next apartment. Once you’ve understood what your prospects are looking up, you can start to optimize your apartment website for SEO purposes. Add keyword-rich copy to your landing page and on other pages of your website, but be careful. Using too many keywords in your copy can in the end be penalized by search engines.
Best of Both Worlds
If you really want to get your apartment website in front of online prospects, combining SEO and PPC is your best bet. By using the keywords in your multifamily PPC ads on top of optimizing your website with SEO, you are guaranteed to see an increase in website traffic. An increase in website traffic means the possibility of more qualified leads that eventually will go to tour and sign a lease. This is why it’s a crucial aspect of any apartments business plan.
SEO and PPC can work together in harmony to get you the most out of your digital marketing efforts. Search engine marketing is a critical component of multifamily marketing as it will help your community engage with prospects and leads online and move them down the sales funnel. Whether you want to boost your website traffic through paid searches, organic searches or both, SEO and PPC offer a foolproof method to increase website traffic and your online presence.
With the right multifamily software, your website and onsite team will be able to handle the increase of online leads that come with pushing your SEO and PPC efforts. AI Leasing Assistants are able to make your website more engaging, track how the prospect came to your website (organically or from an ILS) and collect better data so onsite teams only work on qualified leads while the Assistant sifts through the clutter.