Thanks for joining us, Jennifer. So let’s start at the very beginning – Can you tell us what exactly Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is and why it is important?
Thanks for having me! I’m a big nerd and love talking about this stuff. Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing the backend text and format of a site so that the search engines will choose that site to serve up to users doing a search. Google wants users to find information that is important to them, and so do you. But if you don’t optimize your site, the search engines may not even know it is there. So you should start with great content people are searching for; then you can implement straight-forward tactics that help the search engines better understand your content. Review and enhance your plan overtime, and you’ll see your site positioned higher and higher in the search engine results and, more importantly, you’ll see an increase in traffic of your target market, be it prospective residents, current residents, investors, and/or owners. Almost everyone who searches for an apartment uses a search engine. If you have the opportunity to capture those people with your unique message and turn them into leases, you can create a return on the investment that you put into your website.When creating an SEO plan, will the same plan work for all search engines? And if not, which ones are the most important?
Yes and no. The most effective tactics are the most effective for all of the major search engines. There are some less important tactics (like meta keywords) that appear to be read by Yahoo and Ask but ignored by Google and MSN. So you might as well throw in some meta keywords. But they won’t make a huge impact on your traffic.When looking at the overall SEO picture, what are the main components of a good Search Engine Optimization plan?
Without question the top three most effective and most basic tactics are title tags, links, and link text. Title tags are HTML tags set for each page (like page titles for the search engines); “links” refers to the number of links on a page; and “link text” means the words that are used in the links. The link text should be relevant to what the user is searching for. Those three basic steps are imperative to getting indexed by the search engines. However, I would argue that the main components to a good SEO plan are keyword research, data analysis, and on-going optimization.You mentioned providing “great content” on the site, but what type of content would help gain more exposure to the search engines beyond the typical amenity listings, pricing, pictures, floor plans, etc?
The “great content” I mentioned previously should really be written with the consumer in mind. That content will serve as a starting point for SEO, but in and of itself is not one of the more important SEO tactics. That being said, there are a couple of things that you can do with content to improve your SEO. Make sure that the keywords are selected with careful analysis and naturally placed within the content, and that you dive into the “good stuff” right away. (This will help with usability in addition to SEO.) Also, keeping your content fresh (by continually updating news, blog posts, etc.) is excellent for SEO purposes.[Multifamily Insiders Note: Check out posts on great apartment blog ideas and benefits of an apartment community blog.]
Can you tell us what “Backlinks” are and how the different search engines treat it?
Backlinks are links to a web page from another web page. In the SEO world, these links can be considered a “vote” for the legitimacy of that page (which is sometimes referred to as “link popularity”). Search engines like Yahoo and MSN have a fairly simple approach to considering link popularity: essentially 1 link = 1 vote. Google pioneered an effective variation of link popularity called “PageRank” (after its creator Larry Page), which takes into account the relative importance/popularity of each link. All of the search engines love backlinking. Because the search engines rank each page, not each website, links within a website count. (Just make sure they are relevant to the content.) Building up backlinks overtime is a great way to improve SEO.What are some things that property management companies and communities do right away to help their SEO efforts?
- Add meta descriptions to each page. Use a short description that is a clear and specific description of the information and benefits the customer will discover on the web page.
- Add title tags to each page – and they should be unique to the page. An example would be “ABC Apartments Floor Plans.” Oh – and spell floor plans as two words and use the word “apartment” instead of “community.” (I know, I know. It’s not as warm and fuzzy. But people don’t use the term “community” when they’re doing searches for apartments. Trust me.)
- Make sure you have text on every page of your website.
Jennifer Cyphers is the founder of Multifamily Edge, which provides Online Marketing Strategy to companies in the multifamily industry.