Ignoring the power of paid search is a big mistake. Unfortunately, it’s also a mistake that’s incredibly common. In order to shed light on why apartment marketers should avoid making this blunder, we’ve assembled the following four reasons explaining how paid search works wonders for online marketing strategies.

Reason #1: Paid Search Creates Brand Visibility

Nearly 50 percent of all web traffic comes from organic search, according to conductor.com. While this figure dwarfs the meager six percent of traffic that comes from paid search, marketers must remember that the presence of a paid ad creates value in the form of brand visibility. So even if your paid ad doesn’t receive a click, your brand name is still getting exposure. And when it comes to pay-per-click campaigns, marketers receive this exposure absolutely free of charge.

Reason #2: Paid Search Reinforces Credibility

Ranking higher in both organic and paid search reinforces the credibility of your brand. Think about it: If a user searches for “Upper West Side apartments” and is immediately confronted with not only a high ranking organic result, but also a top paid result, that user will likely come to the conclusion that the high ranking brand is the premier apartment complex in the area.

Reason #3: Paid Search is Highly Targeted

No credible SEO company will discount the value of organic search. But that doesn’t mean organic is superior to paid search in every sense. When it comes to targeting a specific audience, for example, paid search has an incredible advantage over organic search because marketers can customize the messaging of their paid ads. This allows marketers to focus on niche opportunities with higher ROIs, and it’s extremely different from organic search, where the messaging is limited to a set title and meta description of the page.

Reason #4: Paid Search Provides Free Apartment Marketing Tools

Calling paid search a free tool may sound like an obvious contradiction, but it’s actually quite true. There are plenty of ways that marketers can pay nothing, or close to nothing, for their paid search tools and still gain a ton of value. For example, Google Adwords users can sign up for Adwords, pay absolutely nothing for their account or ads, and still take advantage of the keyword planner tool. The insights gained from this tool can then be used to develop search engine optimized copy for organic search.