By G5
During budgeting season, many self-storage marketers must carefully consider the sources of their highest quality website traffic. It’s a challenging balancing act between lead aggregators, paid search and search engine optimization (SEO).
While storage operators generally recognize the benefit of ranking on the first page of search engine results, those in highly saturated markets can find it difficult to achieve or often lack the resources to implement strategies that enable them to outrank organic listings belonging to lead aggregators. These strategies can include content-rich social media campaigns and blogs that result in frequent engagement with customers and prospects, thus improving organic search rankings.
While it may seem daunting to compete for organic traffic with a big-name lead aggregator, it can be done. And doing so can ultimately bring down your cost per lease. Here are four tactics that can help you get there:
1. Enhance SEO strategy to include social media
Start to engage with online connections on a deeper level. This will send important social signals to search engines that will translate into earned trust and help your content rank better in search results. You can do this by connecting with and providing relevant content to your audience via Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
2. Improve the user experience on your website
User experience ought to be part of your SEO strategy. User-centric and device-agnostic Web design is recommended by Google and has been found to convert visitors to leads at a rate four-times greater than non-responsive website designs.
3. Add paid search to your search strategy
Paid-search ads dominate mobile search engine results pages and, therefore, can improve your ability to be found by customers searching on mobile devices. With nearly 60 percent of self-storage searches occurring on mobile devices, you can drive awareness and conversions by reaching prospects with the right message.
4. Work to improve your online reputation and leverage your advocates
Consider that 79 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Actively managing your online reputation should be an important part of your social media strategy and can improve conversions on your website.
Self-storage operators who effectively use these tactics often find their cost-per-lease to be lower than that of a standard lead aggregator. This allows them to reduce marketing spend versus reallocated resources for structural improvements. Decrease your dependence on lead aggregators and drive leads directly to your websites by incorporating these tactics into your online marketing strategy in 2015.
G5 is a provider of Digital Experience Management software and services for the self-storage industry. For more information, call 800.656.8183; visit http://getg5.com.