Google Ads vs. SEO—When Is Paid Search Better Than SEO for Your Property?
Multifamily clients often ask if they should be using Google Ads or search engine optimization (SEO) for apartment marketing. If budget allows, we always recommend doing both Google Ads and SEO simultaneously.
However, that’s not always practical. What’s right for one community may not be the smart choice for another. Here are five situations where Google Ads may be the right choice for your community.
With Google Ads, you can have a campaign generating leads in as little as 24 hours. While SEO is often highly effective, a search engine optimization campaign will take time (several months to over a year, depending on the level of competition). When you need leads right away, running a smart Google Ads campaign is the way to go.
Running a Google Ads campaign can be a great way to get valuable keyword data that can help to prioritize the most important keywords in your SEO efforts.
Google offers a type of ad called “Call Ads” where instead of visiting your website, the user calls your property. For communities that prefer call-style leads over website forms, this can be a great way to generate more phone call leads quickly.
If you have specific keywords that you want your property to show up for on Google that you may not be able to capture via SEO, Google Ads is your go-to. For example, if you want to capture traffic for those looking for “Apartments near” like “Apartments Near Century City” or “Apartments Near USC.” You may also want to target a specific geo-area for where your ads display. This is known as Geotargeting.
If you Google your community name and it doesn’t show up at the top of the search results, you more than likely have on-page SEO issues. A quick fix is to run branded search campaigns around your community name with Google Ads. This will ensure your property stays on top of Google search results until you address your on-page SEO issues.
Written by Josh Grillo
Josh Grillo is a #1 Best Selling Author, Speaker and Co-Founder of Resident360.
