Over the years, we’ve written plenty of blog posts relating to SEO and its importance to your property management company’s success. The fact is, more people turn to the internet than any other resource when they need a product or service and if your company isn’t showing up at the top of the list, you’re missing out on business. But like most web-related things, SEO is fluid. The formulas and algorithms change regularly, which means businesses must adapt or risk being left behind. To catch you up to speed, here are a few recent SEO trends that will help you stay competitive online.
Continued Dominance of Mobile
Mobile has officially eclipsed desktop for online searches. That means if your site isn’t optimized to perform well on smaller screens, you are undoubtedly hurting your results. In fact, Google now gives favor to responsively designed sites and accelerated mobile pages (AMPs) because they load faster and use less data. If this hasn’t been a priority yet, the time to invest in a mobile-friendly site is now.
Focus on Quality over Quantity
The focus used to be on getting as many targeted keywords into your content as possible. While keywords still certainly play an important role, the past several years have seen a shift toward an emphasis on the quality of the content itself. The more valuable your content is to your readers, the more trust and authority you’ll develop, which is a big component of SEO algorithms. So, make sure you’re producing content of substance and not just fluff about your property management company.
The Rise of User Experience Optimization (UEO)
Similar to its shift toward mobile-friendly sites, Google and other search engines are now placing high value on sites that are user-friendly. UEO refers to such factors as mobile optimization, sites that are quick to load, easy navigation, etc. This is measured primarily by the amount of time spent on your site, so if your analytics indicate a high bounce rate, you may want to assess your site to see where improvements to user experience could be made.
Impact of Personal Digital Assistants
More and more people are turning to their personal digital assistants, like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, to manage their day to day lives, including performing web searches. As such, we are seeing a significant shift toward more conversational queries, since people are verbally expressing what they need versus typing it. You can take advantage of these new ranking opportunities for your property management company by adapting some of your keyword targeting to suit this conversational tone.
We’ll never know all the secrets to mastering SEO, but by staying on top of the trends, including those listed above, and making the necessary changes, you should be able to keep your property management company in good position in the search engine rankings.
