You are most likely familiar with the acronym SEO, which, as you probably know, has long been defined as “Search Engine Optimization.” However, there’s a more recent movement that defines it as “Search Experience Optimization.” With this new outlook, the user is king. The mission of behemoth search engine Google is to deliver its users with an optimum search experience. In marketing apartments, it’s important to understand the fundamentals of this tactic in order to improve your community’s search visibility.
On-page search optimization consists of several tactics including optimizing your content, adding title tags on all of your photos, implementing relevant H-tags (headers), and enhancing your meta descriptions with keyword-rich content. All of these factors will help build a solid foundation for an effective strategy. Of course, there are more technical tactics that you should discuss with your website developer, but here are a few basic tips to help you improve your user’s search experience.
Content is King
Thanks to smartphones, humans now have a shorter attention span than goldfish. Researchers surveyed 2,000 participants and studied the brain activity 112 others to conclude that the human attention span has fallen from twelve seconds in the year 2000 to eight seconds. And goldfish? They have the attention span of nine seconds.
But this doesn’t detract from the importance of content. Algorithms are smarter and more complex than ever before; therefore, from a search perspective, search engines can spot content that is not useful to search users. Google’s mission is to deliver the best possible answer to its searchers so if your website has inadequate content, you will not have a strong presence in search results. In other words, the more helpful content you write, the more Google (and other search engines) will consider your website as a credible source on that particular topic.
SEO has changed dramatically over the past decade. Repeating keywords over and over again will not help you achieve a higher search ranking as it once did. This means no “keyword stuffing,” or overloading your webpage with keywords in your content. Consider your target audience while optimizing your webpage for one or two keywords. In short, keep in mind what your audience is searching for when they utilize search engines such as Google or Bing. It’s really all about understanding the psychology of the user: their wants, needs, and desires when they look up a topic online.
When composing the content for your apartment community website, it is critical to implement the proper headline tag to represent different sections of webpage content. It can impact both SEO and the usability of your website. H-tags are sequential: the most important headline tag is the H1 tag and the least important is the H6 tag. It’s imperative to include a primary keyword in your H1 tag. So don’t skip it!
Title Tags
The next step in your on-page SEO strategy beyond freshly updated, keyword-rich content is to optimize the title tags on each page, meaning on the homepage and all of the website’s interior pages. Even though it may seem unnecessary, considering you just wrote detailed content, title tags are vital to both user experience and search engine optimization. According to Moz, “It creates value in three specific areas: relevancy, browsing, and the search engine result pages.”
The best thing about title tags, unlike generating content, is that they are low-effort; however, they still effect SEO in a highly significant way. The optimal title tag length is 55-60 characters. Think of the title tag as a description of that particular page’s content. Although longer title tags often work better for social sharing and search engines don’t necessarily cut off keywords in search results, it is often suggested to write title tags that encourage clicks rather than obsess over length.
Placement is also important. The closer the keyword is to the start of the title tag, the more it will help ranking, boosting clicks from search users. Many SEO firms recommend using the brand name at the end of the title tag, especially if the brand is less well known.
Just like when you’re writing content, you need to consider the user’s experience while you are creating title tags as well as keyword usage. If your title tags are compelling like your content, it will earn more visits from the search results. Since the title tag dictates the visitor’s first impression of your brand when they locate your apartment community through search, it should evoke a positive reaction.
Meta Descriptions
You know that small description you see under a link whenever you perform a Google or Bing search? That is a meta description. Essentially, the meta description is an explanation of the content on the webpages you pull up during your search. According to the representatives of Google and Bing, a webpage’s meta description isn’t directly used in search engine ranking algorithms, but most SEO professionals still consider them to be critical because they will allow your website to gain user click-through rates.
You should think of the meta description as an opportunity to advertise the content on your webpage to searchers, allowing them to discern whether the given webpage contains the information they were initially searching for.
Meta descriptions are a search marketing tactic. Like webpage content and title tags, they should be unique. Even though you should use keywords in your meta description, you must also create compelling content in the process that will draw the user in, encouraging them to click on the link above. Most meta descriptions are between 150-160 characters. Remember: Google and other search engines will bold keywords in the description when they match the user’s search terms.
When crafting the content of your website, there is nothing more crucial than the user’s experience. You must develop a deep understanding of your prospects as well as your current residents. To boost on-page optimization, and in turn, click-through rates to your apartment community’s website, which have the potential to turn into leads, it is vital to write quality content, include title tags and H-tags, and carefully construct your meta descriptions.