By Justin Franklin, Online Media Specialist
We all want to be at the top of our Google searches but being visible online goes far beyond that.
You already have a hot website with all the bells and whistles, e.g. WordPress integration and enticing Flash animations. All those features will not do you any good if you don’t have relevant traffic coming to your site. Using Search Engine Optimization, your website can deliver the right customer traffic. Starting with keyword and trend analyses and applying that research to Meta data, content and images, your site will soar to the top of search results.
Ongoing SEO efforts can further optimize your site through web analytics, consumer path analysis and keyword visibility reports. The Apartments of Wheaton Center, a downtown Wheaton, IL apartment community, saw a 42% rise in organic search results in just 3 months – imagine what that could do for your occupancy rate!
2. Social Media: Develop Your Community
Everyone wants buzz these days, but in such a fast paced society it’s hard to keep up. The best way to control the buzz? Develop your own. From Facebook to Twitter, social media provides the best route to not only promote your corporate agenda, but to shed a little light on what is going on inside the walls of your business.
Posting relevant business information, industry and neighborhood news, while having a little fun, will have people interacting with your brand in no time. The Alaire, a luxury apartment complex in Rockville, MD saw a huge success in the initial lease up of the building with an active Facebook community and still (after a year later) gets over 2,000 views a month, pretty great for only having 270 fans!
3. PPC: Targeted Results Fast
Organic search results take time, developing a community takes people; PPC however, can bring traffic to your brand fast. The difference with PPC, whether it’s on Google, Facebook or through any other site, is that you can pick your target market, pin point what they are searching for and name your price to get their attention. These paid advertisements go as far to geo-locate your market and specify search queries. Budgets can be set at any point and time, and changes can be made in a matter of seconds to match your marketing goals.
Tied in with tracking, you can see how much you are spending for any interaction on your website – from downloading PDFs, signing up for email blasts or even making a purchase! Muse Apartments of North Hollywood, CA saw PPC conversion rates of over 12% in peak leasing months.
Being visible on the internet is a no-brainer these days with 90.2% of the American population being connected. When it comes to real estate, over 75% of people begin their home search online. Without the proper routes to get your digital message out there and to the right people, your business will be left in the dark! END
