How to pick Keywords for Property Management (And a Free List of Trending Keywords)

Keywords are the foundation of SEO. People searching for what you are writing about get you traffic. Understanding this pillar of SEO is essential to your success.

If you are here just for the list of keyword ideas (seed keywords), below is it. Although it is best to learn about picking your own keywords, which is a better strategy, stick to reading to learn more.

LINK TO LIST OF KEYWORDS (GOOGLE SHEETS)

Disclaimer: This list was last updated on April 12, 2023. If this date is greater than three months, or you want a list optimized for your specific area, shoot me an email, and I will send you a free updated list for your particular location.

Why are keywords important?

Your audience, like potential clients, uses terms when searching for something related to your brand or services. When you conduct adequate research and optimization, keywords connect your target audience with your website.

They won't always type "property managers" into Google when looking for one. Many will actually look for specific services like "Eviction Process in (your area)" or "Military Property Management." Yes! These are actual keywords I found while doing research for a company in a particular area. Keep in mind they work great for that location, and you should conduct your own research before using any keywords.

According to a 2020 study by Ahrefs, an estimated 90.63% of content gets no traffic from Google. So you better use the best practices to rank in search engines.

How can you pick the best keywords?

If you are willing to master the art of keyword research, the first step is to put yourself in your customers' shoes – What are they looking up to find solutions to their problems?

I will explain it to you in a few simple steps:

1. Brainstorm Seed Keywords

Just think what your average client would type into Google to find you. For example:

• Property Management in your area
• Best property management companies in your area
• Etc

We will only use these as "seeds" for the next steps, and it should only take you a few minutes. Don't stress too much about these steps of the process. As soon as you have a handful, move on to the next step.

2. See what keywords your competitors rank for

The best way to accelerate your keyword research is to identify your competitors and see what keywords are already sending traffic to their websites. It's essential to focus on your Organic Competitors and find who they are by searching Google for the seed keywords you picked in the previous step.

Once you locate a competitor's website, plug it into a traffic analysis tool. Don't worry. Here are a couple of free tools I use for competitor research:

1. Ahrefs Website Traffic Checker
2. Moz Free Domain SEO Metrics

Either works fine, but I will use Ahrefs Website Traffic Checker for this example. I don't need an account, unlike Moz, to run reports.

Seeing the results for the first time feels really satisfying. I ran this report for one of Denver's most popular Property Management Companies. After repeating the process with a few more websites, you should have a good list of relevant keywords.

Pro Tip: For a more detailed report (since these are limited to only a few keywords per report), go on Fiverr and pay someone to run Keyword Analysis Reports. You can order multiple reports from all the competitors you want, which will cost you like 10 bucks. It is okay if you want to try any of these platforms and buy a full subscription to Ahrefs or Moz and tinker around with them. Go for it!

3. Use keyword research tools

I bet there are new areas of opportunities that your competitors are not exploiting yet. These tools all work the same. You plug in a seed keyword and pull new keyword ideas from their databases.

Google Keyword Planner is the most popular tool out there. Although it's mainly for ad planning, it will still get you there. It can generate new ideas that don't necessarily contain your seed keyword, making Google Keyword Planner a fantastic tool.

Let's enter the top keyword we previously pulled from our report and throw it into Keyword Planner.

I got a whopping 77 keywords. Most keywords are entirely unrelated to our audience, but I found one that looks good. From the total 132 keyword ideas I pulled from the second top keyword, "property management denver," the majority are good.

Closing Thoughts

Everything we've discussed is enough to generate ideas to keep you busy for years. But at the same time, you can expand this part of the process to look at Facebook Groups, your local community, and other places that are a source of information for Property Managers and your clients. Your existing customers are also a great source of information. Next time you talk to them, pay attention to what they say and what questions they ask. This will lead you to new areas that may even be unexplored by you and your competitors.

Next, I will write about analyzing, targetting, and prioritizing keywords in the keyword research topic. There is so much more to know about planning your SEO strategy. If you have any specific questions about this, feel free to email me, and I can help.