Local Stack
Online marketing has changed rapidly over the past few months. Once (August of this year), online multifamily marketing was conducted almost solely through internet listing services – Apartmentguide.com, Apartments.com etc etc. These are aggregators of a great number of apartments throughout the country. Using a search engine to find a property, these would always come up first, and it was only through searching these internet listing services a community would be found. Making it even harder, listing services charged properties to get a high ranking within their site. Smaller properties, were often over-looked, pushed away from the first page of results.
There has recently been a change to search engine algorithms, offering a preference to local businesses over the large aggregators. When you search for properties in Fall 2015, the internet listing services will still show up, but above them a handy map showing properties near the user. This new phenomenon is known as the Local Stack, and it’s a BIG deal. The Local Stack means properties once been buried under pages of results on an internet listing service can now be FOUND ON THE FIRST PAGE of a search. The Local Stack shows only local properties and NO – repeat no listing services are shown. Fifty percent of all online searches are done on mobile phones. For mobile users the Local Stack is even more revolutionary because the it’s the first thing to show up while doing a search, making your multifamily community is even easier to find.
Mobile Local Stack
Of course, one wants to know how to take advantage of this seismic change to the industry. The biggest gateways are reviews on sites with high domain authority, optimized websites, and making sure the search engines aren’t confused by ill-informed directories that point to your site. If you have a well-constructed website page and are receiving reviews, you can well find your community located in the Local Stack. It takes two things to get found in the Local Stack. Skill and determination. Finally the odds are stacked in your favor to get found by your prospects – without spending an arm and a leg on listing services that are becoming increasingly irrelevant to your success.