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Apartment Blogs


Jul 20
2010

Got Web Traffic?

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Posted by: John Stepleton on Jul 20, 2010 09:28

So, you have a website.  If you haven’t put any time or energy into optimizing your website then you probably haven’t been getting the traffic to your site that you had hoped you would.   The question is, where do you start?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex and confusing process.  The good news is that it doesn’t have to be.  SEO begins with “Keywords”.  Keywords are the search terms people use to find things on the web.  They are also the content or DNA your website that search engines like Google or Bing look for to determine how relevant your website is for any individual search result.  The strategy you use to determine which keywords to include on your site matters.

First, you need to understand what your customers are searching for.  If someone’s looking for a coffee shop in Portland, they might search using keywords like “good coffee” or “Portland coffee”.  Coffee shop websites using these keywords on their web pages, in their site code and in their web marketing, might stand a good chance of showing up in this search.

Finding the “right” keywords, however, is not as easy as you might think.  Some keywords are easier to “get” than others.  For example, if the keyword is too broad (good coffee) there are a lot of other websites that are competing for the same search terms.  If the keyword is too narrow (coffee Beaverton) then there may not be enough people searching that term to drive any traffic to your site.

The best keywords are those that have enough people searching for them, but aren’t so competitive that you would have to spend a fortune to participate.  There are number of great tools that can help you determine which keyword is best for you - Google Research Tool, Market Samurai, and SEOmoz are a few.

Having a website is an amazing and awesome marketing tool.  Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.  Spend some time researching keywords that are just right for your business.  Imagine yourself at the top – above and beyond your competition.  In the end, optimizing keywords in your web content is going to get you there.  Keyword research is one of the reasons why the Property Marketing gurus are your top choice for Property Marketing Services.


Comments (2)Add Comment
68
written by Eric Brown, July 20, 2010
Apartment operators are just starting to see the benefit of driving traffic to their web site. In your experience, what are some good metrics of web traffic verses unit count, meaning How much web traffic should a typical 300 unit apartment community get per month to drive enough leads to rent their apartments?
3774
written by John Stepleton, July 21, 2010
Eric – in my experience there is magic web traffic number per say. When working with a property we start by evaluating all the marketing metrics and then set goals based on those results. First we start with their occupancy rate and determine how many new residents will be needed to achieve their target occupancy. Then we determine what the properties historical “lead to lease” ratio is – (# leases / # leads). This will help us determine the total number of leads (unique guest cards created in the system from all sources of traffic; phone calls, emails, and walk-in traffic) needed. Of course the property’s turn-over rate must be added to the calculation. Once we have this information we can then set appropriate goals for the marketing effort.
With that said – a good starting point for a property that size would be for at least 1,000 unique website visitors or more a month. But, there are so many other factors to take into consideration to focus on just one number; quality of visitors (average time on site; bounce rate; etc.) sources of visitors (direct traffic, referring sources, and search results), etc. When working with property websites our primary goal is to build a web strategy that ensures there are a growing number of website visitors going to the property website – this will ensure they will have more than enough visitors and can achieve their occupancy goals. I hope this has been helpful.
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