SEO: Good Move or Waste of Money? Here's How to Decide if it's Right for Your Community

Are you trying to fill units in your community and want a steady stream of qualified leads that magically find you with an online search?

When it comes to getting seen online, it's all about SEO, and we all know its weight in winning organic traffic that converts.

👉 92.96% of global traffic comes from Google Search

👉 Google Images, Google Maps, and SEO drive 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media.

👉 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine

But there's a big problem with SEO no one talks much about, let alone how to validate your strategy.

So many people blindly invest in SEO that could take months to see results. Instead, you could just bid on the keywords you want to rank for and see if it actually does anything for first.

Why waste time, money, and resources throwing everything you have at SEO instead of spending a nominal amount to see if it will work first?

Understand the Limitations of Multifamily SEO

Sure, SEO is crazy powerful, but it has its limitations in almost any industry, including multifamily.

With few exceptions, SEO only helps your community rank high in local map pack searches.

You'll see traction in other areas of Google, but for the most part, search engines are trying to enhance the user experience by showing specific, hyper-local results to their query.

Let's say you have a luxury property in Carteret, NJ.

The only keywords you'll successfully rank for are Carteret-related terms, such as "Apartments in Carteret."

Truth 💣: If you ran this test using PPC and discovered the resulting leads aren't very good or qualified, there’s no reason to invest in SEO–you’ll just get more of the same traffic that doesn't work for your community.

How to Test Your Keyword Strategy

Before deciding whether to invest months of your time and a big portion of your budget into ranking for a set number of relevant keywords, figure out if those keywords are profitable for you FIRST!

Turn to Aherfs, SEMRush, or similar keyword validation tools to start hunting for keywords. In the Carteret example, you could to try:

Carteret apartment rent special
Luxury Catered apartments with swimming pool
Carteret apartment buildings with laundry

Let's say you discover 5 of the 20 keywords you tried have solid search volume and low to medium competition.

Tip 💡: Put them into one campaign and test them for a couple of months at a set budget. SEO is also phrase-match friendly, meaning it will match variations of those target keywords.

It ultimately takes the guesswork out of choosing between "Carteret apartment buildings with laundry” or just “Carteret apartments laundry."

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Sync Up Your PPC Campaign with Your Google Business Profile

Before launching your campaign, you need to sync your PPC with your Google Business Profile.

Make sure you're creating a dedicated PPC campaign with only the SEO keywords you want to test to ensure the cleanest data possible.

Sign into your Google Ads PPC account:

Look to the left-hand menu and click Campaigns
Then click the plus button
Select + New Campaign
Choose your advertising goal
Review your Google My Business listing and select the community you want to advertise
Finish creating your campaign

You're ready to launch!

Analyze Your Results

Let your PPC campaign run for a month or two and analyze the leads. Do they help your community?

Did they inquire about more information or a tour? ✅

Did anyone sign leases? ✅

Are any of them actively looking early for a move-in date a few months away? ✅

If you're seeing actionable results, keep your PPC campaign running while moving forward with your SEO strategy.

Once you hit the top 10 rankings, you can scale back on your campaign and enjoy the free, organic traffic from Google’s algorithm.

Repurpose Winning Keywords into Your Content Marketing

Once you've got a powerhouse list of validated keywords, you can enhance your SEO with content marketing.

Use your keywords in your:

Blog posts
Website sales copywriting
Online promotions
Google My Business Listing
YouTube video descriptions

Your validated keywords help shape your copy and gives ideas on what kind of content to focus on.

Tip 💡: Does your keyword validation process show that people are eager for upscale amenities? Focus on that instead of the lackluster keyword results about free parking or proximity to public transportation.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

It's true what they say–there's no shortcut to good SEO. But that doesn't mean you can't maximize your process to amplify your results.

You'll still need time to rank organically in Google, but instead of stumbling over keywords that don't work, you remove the guesswork by starting with a validated process that speeds everything along.

Truth 💣: SEO also isn't the right fit for every property; it depends on your community and local market. A highly saturated market may need more advertising alongside a winning PPC strategy. Whatever the reason SEO may not be the right fit, you can figure it out quickly and cheaply with these validation ideas.

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