Optimise your student property listings: real estate SEO

Most students now look for their university accommodation on the Internet, so, to enhance the visibility and accessibility of your properties, it's essential that you are listing online. But simply posting your listings isn't enough to make them stand out. You need to make sure you are actively optimising them to improve their performance on search engines.

Read on to discover how you can use search engine optimisation (SEO) to improve the visibility of your listings on StuRents, the UK's leading listings platform for student accommodation.

What is SEO?

SEO refers to the process of tailoring and improving your website content to improve its rankings in search engines like Google. This will help your content to appear higher in the results list when users search for related keywords or terms. 

Improving your StuRents property listings with SEO will help more students to see them at the right times. 

4 ways to improve your real estate SEO

SEO is a complex and ever-evolving beast. As such, there are lots of ways to improve your real estate SEO. If you're looking to get started, here are four ways that you can start boosting the visibility and accessibility of your student listings.

1. Do your research

Carrying out keyword research is the first step in any effective real estate SEO strategy. This will help you to understand what terms users are searching for and how competitive these keywords are. Bear in mind that users won't always just search directly on StuRents, they might start by Googling a key term. But if your StuRents listing is properly optimised, your property will appear higher up the rankings.

You can use tools like SEMrush and Google Search Console to conduct your keyword research. This will help you tailor your listings to what students are searching for. For instance, you might be listing your property as '500 square foot apartment in Bath' and discover that the more popular search term is actually 'studio apartment in Bath'. You can then strategically update your StuRents listings to improve their visibility online.  

2. Use relevant keywords in listings

You need to be strategic and thoughtful about how you use keywords in your listings. You should only include keywords where relevant, to avoid being flagged by search engines for overusing them (known as 'keyword stuffing'). Ideally, you should aim to use your most relevant keyword in your header tag, and include keyword variations (related search terms or phrases) in your property description. 

Don't forget to research and include local keywords in your property listings. This is particularly important in real estate SEO, as you want to attract students who are searching in a particular area. Try to be specific. For instance, instead of saying '5 bedroom student house in Nottingham', you could say '5 bedroom student house in Lenton, Nottingham'. 

3. Optimise your images

Images are an extremely important element of your property listings as they provide the clearest sense of what the property is actually like. You should aim to include at least five images on each of your listings. On StuRents, you also have the option to include virtual tours of your property.

While images are vital, you need to make sure that they not detracting from your SEO efforts and are, instead, actively improving them. To do this, make sure that your images are not too large so they don't affect your page load speed. Try to keep each image at 500KB or under. You should also include keyword-rich, relevant file names and alt text when uploading images to your StuRents listings so that search engines can recognise and process your images. 

4. Improve your reach

With Channel Manager from StuRents, you can feed your SEO-optimised listings out to more than 40 third-party sites. You only need to input your listing once: into the StuRents platform, helping to save you time and hassle. 

How StuRents can help

When you list with StuRents, you'll have access to personalised marketing analytics, which provide a snapshot of your portfolio performance in comparison to the wider market. You'll be able to see your search impressions, listing views, enquiries, and conversion rates. You can filter these by date, location, bed number, and individual listings to provide more granular clarity. By examining how your portfolio is performing against the average market positioning, you can understand whether your listing or pricing strategy needs improvement.

Start optimising your listings today

If you're listing properties online, it's important to ensure that they're properly optimised for the web. Investing time into your real estate SEO and property marketing is an excellent way to ensure that your properties get the eyes on them that they deserve. 

Ready to post your optimised listings? Why not list on StuRents.com, the UK's leading student accommodation platform, using one of our three Marketing packages? Once you've chosen your plan and set up your account, you can update your pricing and descriptions, refresh your images, and activate your listings. Implementing the above strategies in your StuRents listings will help you stand out from the crowd, and get your properties in front of the right student tenants at the right time.

Ready to get started? Explore our Marketing plans today.