Gain Brand Equity Through Systematic Search Engineering
When companies are considering rebranding or enhancing their corporate website marketing, we are often asked how we can best present unified branding.
One option is to house properties on one domain. This works especially well in situations where a company can cross-sell units at multiple properties. It can be a very effective strategy. However, this configuration is not recommended if you have multiple owners involved with different branding requirements or if domain ownership is split between different stakeholders. That can create a mixed brand message that weakens identity. However, where ownership and management are aligned, a unified front can be a strong approach.
The corporate URL is at the brand root. The presentation of tone, color, and identity is all presented in one voice which unifies the prospects’ impression of the whole. The properties live on the corporate domain, thus instantly associated by the first impression of the company. If prospects shop properties without entering through the corporate website, they will observe the unifying presence that links the company brand message. They do not have to be identical though layout navigation and calls to action do simplify the user experience. Properties can have their own colors, patterns, even fonts, if they maintain the feeling of the core corporate identity.
In the past it was recommended to keep property websites on separate domains as Google was then only ranking one property per domain per search query. Therefore, if you had multiple properties in one city and on one domain, only one would appear in organic search results.
Google will now rank multiple properties on the same domain if a unique detailed URL structure and unique Google Business Profile (GBP)/local listing are correctly set up and optimized.
Benefits to the root domain, when executed correctly, can present multiple advantages to search. Traffic coming to the domain is inclusive of the corporate website plus the property websites. Returning visitors and residents, etc. will also be incorporated into the total traffic.
These higher traffic numbers improve the search engine’s impression of your website granting higher domain authority and quality scoring. These are important factors for ranking organically.
From a paid traffic perspective, through either social marketing or browser ads, the website will also potentially market more properties for less cost, depending on the cross-selling structures of the property websites. The prospect can look at the initial property of interest or cluster of interest and branch out to other nearby communities that may have a better price point or availability.
For example, let’s says a prospect clicks an ad for Property A from Google’s results page. They visit the website with the signature brand experience for that company. They are disappointed to find that the availability for the size of the apartment they want (perhaps a 2 or 2.5 bedroom) does not align with their needs. But the presentation makes it easy for them to see that at another nearby community (Property B) and another (Property C), there are two-bedroom units available. The prospect reviews the pricing and its features and decides to tour at Property C. This conversion was at the base cost of one click from one ad, however, three communities were marketed. This could serve as a steppingstone also for companies considering a centralized or partially centralized leasing office for clusters of properties.
Shorter versions of the URL for printed signs (vanity URLs) serve well to redirect prospects to the property home page with the longer domain structure and make it easy for prospects to remember and key for return visits.
Supporting products are critical for this single-domain scenario to be most effective. A reliable CRM for property management is necessary to track sources across the domain and properties as well as a website provider to manage pricing and availability information. The provider must track multiple communities at a time while making the designation of each property clear for the prospect who is just looking for a quick way to find their new home. Tracking and managing analytics in a single root domain environment is more complicated. Search engine marketing (SEM) teams must be familiar with managing Dynamic Number Identity (DNI) and Urchin Tracking Monitors (UTMs) on redirecting URLs, schema optimization per property and corporate level, tagging, traffic, and conversion reporting per property as one would per domain – something Spherexx has been engineering for over 10 years.
Spherexx provides multifamily websites that consistently outperform our competition. We achieve this with our talented SEM team and with the support of our robust ILoveLeasing Customer Relationship Management (CRM). ILoveLeasing not only nurtures and converts leads to leases but also provides a holistic picture of what sources are bringing the most and best qualified traffic, which is even more important with a unified presentation. Spherexx Market Insights and Business Intelligence software are available to produce a masterful view of your marketing presence and develop strategies to garner more leases.
If you would like more information on how a unified single-domain approach can improve your search engine marketing and how the product suite from Spherexx can simplify and energize marketing decisions, and build revenue, visit us HERE for a complimentary consultation.
Ready to gain greater search prominence? For a limited time, Spherexx will conduct a complimentary website audit of your search engine status with a fifteen-minute consultation. Request your audit at www.spherexx.com/get-started.