Choosing Keywords Using Google Ads Keyword Planner

With all of the talk about backlinks in the world of SEO these days, it can be easy to forget about the bread and butter of SEO: keywords. You might be surprised to know that most pages don't even have high-quality backlinks! Keywords also happen to be an easier metric to control when it comes to your SEO.

Keywords are also the first thing a search engine like Google is going to look for: when someone types in a search term, your property management website is only considered for the search results if it has content that is relevant to the keyword. Only after your page passes this test does the search engine start looking at other attributes of your site like backlinks, the structure of its content, and images.

A property management business, therefore, needs to make sure it chooses the right keywords to include in its articles, blogs, and other written content.  An element of your property management marketing should, ideally, include writing down important keywords that may get your site higher in search rankings. Selecting the right keywords can be a challenge—particularly when you don't know how a search engine "thinks."

Thankfully, there's the Google Ads Keyword Planner. This is a free tool that helps you figure out which keywords to use. It doesn't choose the keywords for you—but it can help you narrow down your choices. Here's how to use Keyword Planner to get the best keywords for property management marketing!

Start Using Google Ads Keyword Planner

• Even though Keyword Planner is free, you will need a Google Ads account to use it.
• Creating a Google Ads account is also free, and it only takes a few minutes to get it set up.
• After you set up your Google Ads account and set up a campaign, you can start using Google Ads Keyword Planner. It's one of the tools in Google Adwords. 

Discover New Keywords

If you have no idea which keywords will be good for your business, "Discover New Keywords" is a great place to start. As the name suggests, it helps you find new keywords you may not have considered before. Whether you want to use keywords for articles or inbound marketing, this can help you get a good head start!

To use it, you can enter your website or some words that describe property management or services specific to it that you hope to rank high for in Google. To enter your website, you choose the "Start With a Website" tool, and to use keywords that describe your business, select "Start With Keywords."

After you've done that, you can generate your list of new keywords by clicking "Get Results."

How to Narrow Down Your Choices Using Filters

Google Ads Keyword Planner may return a lot of results: it's up to you to select the ones that best suit your needs. Here are some things to keep in mind while making your choices:

How Well the Keyword Applies

The keywords produced by Keyword Planner will certainly connect to your content in one way or another, but some of them may be too broad. If you want to focus on investors with multiple properties in your area, for example, simple keywords like "rental home" or "property management" may not get the job done.

The Competition

This filter gives you some insight into your competition. This only applies to how high the bidding competition is for that keyword. It's not a rating of how much competition your website will have if this keyword is on it. If the competition is high, however, that could indicate that using this keyword could give you an advantage. After all, no one would be interested in it if it didn't have marketing value!

Average Monthly Searches

This may be one of the more important criteria you consider. If the average monthly searches are high, that means a lot of people are looking for it every month. However, it also means you have a lot more competition. If you choose a keyword with lower average monthly searches, you may not have to face as much competition. This also means you won't have as many chances to attract property owners—so making the right choice will depend on your goals.

How to Maximize Google Ads Keyword Planner

If your goal is to cast as broad a net as possible, you may want to consider choosing a keyword that gets a lot of searches each month. Yes, competing against other websites may be a challenge—but if you're able to rank high, you are eliminating the vast majority of them.

On the other hand, a keyword with a lower average search volume may also be appealing. The number of people entering the term may be less—but those who enter it will be more likely to find your site.

You can also choose to use a mix of keywords in your content, some with high search volume and others with significantly less. This way, particularly if you use different types of keywords on different pages, you may get a wider range of viewers looking at your content—and you're not going to be stuck competing only against the big dogs.

Keep in mind, too, that the keywords you choose also have an impact on your advertising campaigns! Your keyword choices pair powerfully with your paid ads to reach the clients you're seeking. Diving into Keyword Planner to amplify your paid ads can be just as useful as streamlining the content your website offers.

Do you have a keyword strategy for your paid ads? If you haven't thought about this element of your property management marketing yet, you should! Paid ads combined with inbound marketing can give you a serious edge on the competition, and your keywords play into that directly.

You can learn more about paid ads by downloading our FREE guide! It's just one of the many resources that Geekly Media offers our clients to help them succeed and thrive as a property management business.