News & Resources

February had some important changes for student housing in digital marketing. Here are the top 5 updates you need to know.

New Google “Slow Label”

Google is currently testing a red label for its search engine results page (SERP) that will categorize a website as slow loading. Since this is still in the testing stages, there isn’t much detail on what Google will consider “slow” or if this will be determined by the Google Page Speed Grade versus simply average load time. However, Google is particularly good about announcing visual updates to the SERP page like this (similar to the recent mobile-friendly label released in November).

Luckily, page speed grades and factors are easily identified through the Google Page Speed tool or other tools like GTmetrix. For now, if your website receives a Page Speed grade under 70%, I would recommend taking any necessary steps to improve it before the label goes live.
http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-red-slow-label-search-results-slower-sites-215483

Why Blogging is Crucial for Local SEO

If SEO were an ice cream Sunday, local SEO would be the cherry-on-top for apartment complexes – which is delicious. However, this can also cause a brain-freeze if it is left out of the equation (are you liking these ice cream puns?). This is because local results dominate SERPs when they occur. If a website ranks organically for a keyword phrase that shows local results, the local results will always rank higher. Apartments qualify for local rankings, but the website must be correctly optimized in order to achieve this.

There are many factors to ranking for local SEO (take a look at this Moz article for the full list), but blogging has the potential to enhance all of these other factors. Localized content allows you to target your blog topics for location-based keywords that will further improve local relevancy. The more these are shared, the more relevant your website becomes. Used blogs to create hyper-local content for your target audience at home. This will encourage sharing for local visitors and help target your website for those local keywords.
http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/blogging-local-seo

Why Good Reviews Matter (And How to Get Them)

This month, Google has begun using different colors for reviews in the SERPs – changing stars from the typical orange to green. Apartment ratings show up when searched for in Google. Therefore, these are extremely important for businesses to be aware of. But what else do they affect?

According to Moz local ranking factors, good or bad reviews play a part in local rankings as well, which makes cultivating good reviews essential to SEO strategy. Luckily, Search Engine Land has put together an article on cultivating good reviews. It is extremely important to use these practices to gain good reviews (in addition to answering bad reviews when they present themselves).

Algorithm Tweak

Google made some tweaks to its ranking algorithm on February 4th, but hasn’t announced any updates publicly. Several rank tracking companies showed spikes in variability, but it is hard to tell exactly what this update affected. After the algorithm tweak, we reviewed our properties at Catalyst and saw little to no change in keyword rankings.
https://www.rankranger.com/google-algorithm-updates

Twitter Releases WordPress Plugin

If you are using a WordPress website, Twitter has now created a crucial plugin for sharing your site. The new Twitter plugin features several key functions including a tweet button for posts, a follow button, Twitter card implementation, and Twitter analytics.
https://blog.twitter.com/2015/twitter-plugin-wordpress