Having a basic understanding of SEO for property managers and landlords is crucial to your rental business’s success. Online marketing is a key component to ensure your available rentals are seen by prospective tenants and that you get your property management company’s work in front of property owners who may be seeking a manager. These intro SEO (search engine optimization) tips can help would-be tenants and clients find you when searching on Google and other search engines.
Online marketing and SEO for property management can get confusing. You likely didn’t decide to become a landlord or property manager because you wanted to specialize in marketing. Yet, the most effective way to reach your ideal renter is to ensure they can find you when they start their rental search online. Here you are, needing to reach as many as possible to increase your pool of prospects and outperform your competition.
Let’s start with the SEO basics and unpack some unique marketing terms used for your online presence in order to stay ahead of the competition.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which is a fancy way of saying that you have optimized your website and other online outreach in a manner that gives you the best chance at success in your online marketing goals. In most of the country, the days of simply posting a yard sign and finding an ideal renter are gone. Today, to find the best-qualified renter you need to harness the power of the internet to get more people to find your real estate site by enhancing your visibility in search engine results. So basically, SEO is all about getting your website noticed.
Why is SEO important for property managers?
Imagine a world in which real estate professionals are able to take advantage of the Internet and harness its power to promote their business and attract quality long-term tenants or owners to their property management company — organically, without spending money on marketing — that’s exactly what SEO is all about.
With today’s tech-savvy population, it’s necessary for any business to make themselves visible and so SEO is vital to find success on the internet. Without it, it’s easy for your website to get buried pages deep on a web search while your competition gets those prospects.
SEO for Property Management and Landlords
SEO is all about improving the visibility of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs) so that more prospects reach out to you. For landlords, good SEO can help fill vacancies; for property managers that might look like attracting new owners to your property management company. For all real estate professionals, SEO means increasing the traffic to your website which in turn may generate interest and could positively affect the amount of revenue generated by your properties.
Good SEO Differentiates From the Competition
As a landlord or rental company, you’re probably thinking about the services and the products that you provide to renters and property owners. And if you’re like most companies, your focus is getting people to visit your site to gain leads that can help grow your business.
Spreading the word about your business is an important part of growth, especially if you want to attract more renters to your property or owners to your rental management company. How can you make sure they find you? To best showcase your services and properties, you need to be found online. Google is the most popular search engine — and it’s used over 85% of the time for mobile traffic. So focusing on Google suggested best practices for SEO can help set you apart from your competitors.
Google looks for relevant content and keywords, external and internal relevant links, and an overall good user experience from speed to accessibility.
What are keywords?
If you want to meet and exceed your market reach, you need to get on Google’s good side and start ranking high for key terms. You use keywords, key terms, and long-tail keywords every time you search for anything online. Key terms can be one word which is known as keywords. Two or more words that make a phrase is called a long-tail keyword.
Link building is important to SEO
Find link-building opportunities that can help increase your website authority. The more authority you have, the closer your site is to the top of the search engine rankings. Having strong links can get your site easily noticed by Google and other major search engines. Look for online directories to list your website. Although not all will be relevant to property management companies, apartment complexes, or private landlords, here is a list of directories that might prove helpful to get you started: 21 Web Directories That Still Have Value
Content Search Engine Optimized
No matter how good of a link-building technique you use, without content, your SEO efforts will be wasted. If you want your prospects to read what you have to say, you need content — content that adds value and helps position your website as an expert or market leader in your industry.
Content is simply the information on your website which could be a blog article, information about your company, posting your tenant newsletter online, industry news, or testimonials. Rental vacancy listings are also considered content. The address of the listing falls under local SEO and the description can be peppered with appropriate keywords and phrases that help bring your listing to the top of searches if relevant to your audience.
Ongoing SEO efforts are essential for any website. Whether you’re promoting your community or property or seeking owners to place their rental portfolio under your property management company, your content is the bridge between your potential prospect and yourself. Those prospects rely on this content to get a feel for the community and property as well as the management or landlord they’d be working with in the future.
Optimize with Testimonials and Reviews
People want to read what other people have to say, find out what others experience, and, most importantly, decide how they feel about what’s being offered. Search engines like to see updated content on a website and a good place for that is within your testimonials. Be sure to grab the good ones and update your website often.
SEO Doesn’t Stop at the Content | Meta and ALT Descriptions
A meta description is the information you read in search results. If you leave these blank, the search engine chooses what gets put there — and that isn’t always optimal. You have control of what searchers see by making sure you customize the meta tags. Remember to think about your target audience and use relevant keywords and local SEO information when appropriate.
And, don’t neglect any graphics you post on your website. Those are called ALT tags or ALT text and choosing specific keywords to use for them can make a difference when search engines are ranking your content.
SEO Basic Wrap-up
If you’re a real estate professional or rental management company, SEO is an inexpensive way to connect your properties and services to your ideal renter or owner. It’s all about providing great content and making sure people are able to find it.
It’s no secret that SEO is great for improving your website’s search engine rankings and local search results. SEO helps a website get more views and more views can translate to more prospects and leads — setting you up for success.
