Google Mobile First Indexing for Your Multifamily Property Website

Regardless of your web development skills or knowledge, the following is important to know for your multifamily marketing strategies. For property management marketing teams, you can relay this information to your web developer in preparation for the coming changes. Earlier this year, Google announced new updates regarding mobile first indexing for online ranking for websites. Initially announced and rolled out back in 2018, Google’s mobile-first indexing takes the mobile versions of our websites into consideration first and foremost for ranking.

Here at Street Digital Media, we see traffic of up to 80% from mobile devices for some multifamily websites. It makes sense for Google to continue to think mobile-first. With that in mind, Google’s update encourages web developers to use the same content across the mobile and desktop versions of your website. While this may seem obvious, many companies, small businesses, and agencies create mobile and desktop versions of their websites in an effort to accommodate for page speed, load time, AMP, etc. According to Search Engine Journal, “Google has advised developers to maintain the same primary content across the desktop and mobile versions of their sites.”

While your web development skill set might be limited as a marketer, there are steps in working with your developers to make sure this doesn’t have a negative impact on your traffic. It’s important to check with your web development team on the following:

- Structured data- make sure structured data is consistent on the mobile and desktop versions of your site.

- Photography & Video- Make sure to use the same alt text across desktop and mobile. “As is this case with images, videos should also use persistent URLs. Site owners are also reminded to use the same video structured data across both versions of their site and to avoid placing videos in hard-to-find locations on mobile pages, such as areas that would require a lot of scrolling to find the video,” says SEJournal.

As your marketing team continues to drive high quality leads to your property websites through multifamily PPC campaigns, social media advertising, ILS referrals, and more, it’s important to take into account the ever-changing digital landscape that your websites must play within. As a multifamily marketer, confirming that the items above are in good order with your web team will put your mind at ease knowing you are evolving with Google’s changes. In the end, this will help ensure less loss of traffic, reduced bounce rates, and better overall website performance for your multifamily marketing strategies.

Google My Business Update For Multifamily Marketers

With increased competition, Google My Business's new update gives marketers an opportunity for their communities to stand out among the rest.

Updates to your communities' Google My Business Description Could Lead to Positive Impacts on Website Ranking.

Regardless of the unit count that your company or department oversees, it’s important to not lose sight of the fact that each apartment community you oversee, lease up or stabilized, should be treated as a small business. You may have an overarching brand that represents multiple locations, but each property is its own brick and mortar entity. With that in mind, and with the monopolized ILS landscape that’s evolved in multifamily, it’s more important now than ever to ensure Google My Business’s latest feature is up to date and as informative as possible.

First reported by Search Engine Land back in February, Google My Business now offers a “Describe Your Business” to improve your local Google ranking. If you have a brand new lease up in Brickell/Miami, Florida, for example, it is best to include a description along the lines of “Brand New 1, 2, & 3 Bedroom Apartments in Brickell.” Google advises the below to improve you local ranking:

- Enter unique and valuable information that describes your business. The more unique your business name and description are, the easier your customers will find you. A well-organized and clear business profile may provide a better experience for customers, and make it easier for them to find you.

- Example: If someone who lives in Dublin, California is looking for a NY Pizza restaurant and you also own that business, it’d be easier for the customer to find your listing on Google if your description included, “Harry's NY Pizza in Dublin, CA,” instead of only “Harry’s Pizza in CA.”

It may seem obvious, but any opportunity to help each location you oversee in today’s digital landscape should not be overlooked.

The Rise of Zero-Click Online Search: Preparing Your Multifamily Marketing Strategy For The Future

With the current worldwide pandemic, your property's online presence and content are not arguably more important than ever as summer leasing season approaches. There is no better time than now to make sure your digital presence is well prepared to attract prospects to you vs. the comp next door. As multifamily continues to debate the most appropriate attribution model of digital advertising in the prospect journey, a trend among online users has emerged to further complicate the matter.

The increase of zero click search behavior puts a greater need to make sure all of your ads are transparent and as up to date as possible.

Introducing zero-click search. As reported by Jumpshot in Search Engine Land last year, “for the first time, the majority of Google searches (50.33%) ended without a click on an organic or paid search result.” In essence, online users are searching, they’re getting their answers based on what appears on the search engine results page (SERP), and then moving on without interacting or engaging. While these stats are not specific to multifamily, it is important to note that online behavior is steering away from interacting with the listings and ads that marketers pay for.

As we prepare for the Summer leasing season combined with social distancing best-practices, zero-click search makes it ever more important to make sure your price extensions, structured snippets, ad copy, and headlines on your Google Ads are as up to date as possible every day and week. If a user was to search for “Apartments in Plano, Texas,” for example, you would want to ensure that your latest leasing special, bedroom types, and starting at pricing are shown on your Google Ads and extensions. Ensuring your ads are up to date week in and week out will entice prospects to learn more about your community and stay informed of what you offer without falling prisoner to zero-click behavior. In doing so, you provide the exact details of what your communities offer at the time of that user’s search should your ad appear.

Updating your ad copy and price extensions may seem like common sense, but with zero-click online behavior becoming a larger part of online user behavior, the importance continues to increase more and more. How often are you updating your price extensions, ad copy, or headline specials with your current agency for your current communities? At Street Digital Media, we stress the importance of updating ad content and copy as the core of our strategy. We aim to make sure your ads reflect the latest loss leader pricing for those hard to move units and upfront concessions to show prospects the value they’ll get with moving to your community, just as a few examples. As Summer approaches make sure you put in place the proper measures to do the same.