SEO For Coworking Spaces: The Definitive Guide [2023]

Are you the owner or operator of a coworking space looking to increase your online visibility and attract more members?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool for driving traffic to your website and making sure potential members can find your space.

But with so many different factors to consider and so many different strategies to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start.

That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive guide to SEO for coworking spaces. In it, we’ll cover everything you need to know to optimize your website, increase your online presence, and attract more members to your space.

From keyword-driven research and on-page optimization to link building and local SEO, we’ll take you step-by-step through the process of making sure your coworking space is easy to find and appealing to potential members.

Want to know what’s best?

This guide contains some hush-hush tips and tricks you won’t find anywhere else.

Let’s begin.

Do You Really Need to Do SEO For Your Coworking Space?

The short answer: absolutely.

Search engine optimization is critical for any business that wants to be found online. It is especially important for a coworking space, as the success of the business depends on attracting new clients and retaining existing ones.

By optimizing your website for search engines, you can improve your visibility online and attract more potential clients to your coworking space.

This can lead to increased revenue, as more people will be able to find and book your space. Additionally, SEO can help establish your coworking space as a credible and authoritative source in the industry, which can further improve your reputation and attract more clients.

Now, let’s cover the basics.

The 4 Types of SEO You Must Know

When it comes to SEO, there are four types that can benefit your coworking space.

Here, we’ll explain them briefly, and later, we will expand more on each.

1. Local SEO – a strategy to improve rankings and visibility in local search results so that if someone types “coworking space in Chicago”, your space shows first (assuming that your space is in Chicago).
2. On-page SEO – also called on-site SEO, this type of optimization involves tactics and actions performed on specific pages of your website to improve its rankings.
3. Off-page SEO – also called off-site SEO, it relates to strategies and factors occurring outside of the website. Sometimes, these are factors you can’t control.
4. Technical SEO – without going geeky, technical SEO is all about improving various aspects of your website so that it becomes easier for search engines to crawl and index it.

Before diving deeper into each of the four types of SEO that (if done smart) will boost your coworking space’s online presence, let’s mention the one thing you can’t go without.

Your Website – The Foundation Of Your Online Presence

It’s obvious that you can’t do SEO for your coworking space if you don’t have a website up and running.

But there’s more to it.

A good SEO strategy starts with deciding on the best possible website setup. One that’s fast, user-friendly, and easy for you to manage.

Because, when you start juggling with SEO and content, you’ll find yourself editing various parts of your website more often than you have probably imagined.

Most likely, you already have a website for your coworking space. However, it is still important to note that there are two primary methods for creating your website – a custom-coded static HTML site or a website built and managed via a content management system like WordPress.

Static HTML Website Vs a WordPress Website For Your Coworking Space

The choice between a static HTML site and a dynamic WordPress site for a coworking website depends on several factors.

A static HTML site is created by writing code yourself, while WordPress is a content management system that allows you to create a website using a graphic interface.

The main advantage of WordPress is its ease of use. You don’t need any coding knowledge to create a website with WordPress, as it has a variety of themes and plugins available for customization.

You can easily update your website and add new content without any technical knowledge.

On the other hand, customization of a static HTML site requires expertise in CSS and HTML. Changing its appearance can be time-consuming, and updates would need to be done manually.

However, HTML websites require little maintenance and have faster loading times compared to WordPress sites.

In brief, if you want an easy-to-use website that can be updated quickly and customized easily, WordPress is the way to go.

However, if you have specific design requirements or want more control over your website’s performance, a static HTML site may be a better option. Ultimately, it depends on your specific needs and level of technical expertise.

Our advice?

Go with a WordPress website.

Despite the speed factor favoring a static HTML website, these days there are plenty of easy methods you can use to speed up a WordPress website and make it as fast as an HTML site.

WordPress websites are much more customizable, scalable, easier to manage, and newbie-friendly. All that makes them more SEO-friendly.

As of 2023, 43% of all websites are WordPress websites.

If you want to read more about the comparison of HTML sites and WordPress websites, check out our guide on coworking space websites.

Website Structure

The structure of your website plays a crucial role in how search engines and users will interact with your website.

An example website structure for a coworking space website done with Octopus.do

A logical and well-organized site structure helps robots discover, crawl, and index your website more easily. And visitors will bounce back from it if they find it confusing.

So how do you make sure you satisfy both crawlers and humans with your site structure?

Map Out Your Site Structure

Start by creating a visual structure of your website. Think what pages and categories you’d need.

You have no idea how to begin?

First, look at some examples. Check out the websites of your competitors and see how they organized their website structure. What categories and pages did they include? What do their home page and main menu navigation look like? How about their footer?

Don’t copy their style, but rather draw inspiration from it. Here are two good examples from Co+Hoots and Serendipity Labs.

You can also use a free tool such as Octopus.do to create a visual map of your website.

Here are a few more tips on what to include in your website architecture.

1. Clear Navigation

• Avoid using complex or confusing menu structures. Keep it simple. Common menu items might include the pages Home, About, Pricing, Amenities, Events, Blog, Contact.
• Ensure the main navigation is easily accessible, typically at the top of the page or in a sticky header.

2. Detailed Service Pages

• Create separate pages for different offerings, such as private offices, dedicated desks, meeting rooms, and virtual offices.
• Each page should have clear descriptions, images, and pricing (if applicable).

3. Amenities Page

• List and describe the facilities and perks of your coworking space, such as Wi-Fi speed, coffee stations, printing services, and lounge areas.
• Use icons or images to visually represent each amenity.

4. Events Page

• Showcase upcoming events, workshops, or meetups happening at your space.
• Consider integrating a calendar or booking system for users to RSVP.

5. Blog Section

• Regularly publish articles related to coworking, productivity, networking, or local events.
• This not only establishes authority but also helps with SEO.

6. Testimonials and Case Studies

• Showcase reviews or stories from members to build trust.
• Include photos or videos of members, if possible.

8. Contact Page

• Provide multiple ways to get in touch: phone, email, contact form, and a map with your location.
• List your opening hours.

9. FAQ Section

• Address common questions about memberships, amenities, contracts, etc.
• This can reduce barriers for potential members and improve UX.

10. Footer

• Include essential links, contact information, and perhaps a newsletter signup.
• Consider adding social media icons linking to your profiles.

11. SEO Considerations

• Use clear and descriptive URL structures (e.g., `/private-offices` or `/events/workshop-name`).
• Ensure each page has unique and optimized meta titles and descriptions.
• Make sure that you don’t have pages with click depth bigger than 4. It means that it’d take four clicks from the home page to reach that page.

For further reading, Here’s a very useful guide on website structure from Semrush.

Now let’s move on to an important section.

Mastering Local SEO for your Coworking Space

As already mentioned, one proven technique for increasing visibility and driving potential clients to a coworking space is through local Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Local SEO is the process of optimizing a website and its content to improve its ranking in search engine results pages for location-centric queries. This helps in bringing more qualified prospects to the coworking space’s digital doorstep.

Besides, it’s a great way to drive organic, hyper-targeted traffic to your website. With over 85% of local searches resulting in a call or visit to a physical location within 24 hours, it’s clear that investing in local SEO can have a significant impact on your coworking space’s success.

So how do you start with local SEO?

The first step is all about understanding what is Google Local Pack.

Understanding the Google Local Pack

The Google Local Pack is a section of Google’s search results that displays local businesses related to a user’s search query.

It typically appears at the top of the search results page, just below the ads (if there are any). The Local Pack displays a map with three local businesses and their names, addresses, phone numbers, and reviews.

For example, if you search for “coffee shops near me” on Google, the Local Pack will display the three coffee shops closest to your location.

This is a great way for local businesses to get more visibility and attract more customers.

It’s important to optimize your coworking space’s website and Google My Business listing to increase your chances of appearing in the Local Pack.

This can include things like optimizing your website for local keywords, building high-quality backlinks, and getting positive reviews from customers.

It all starts with creating a Google Business profile. It’s free.

Creating a Google Business Profile

A Google Business profile, also known as GMB or Google My Business Listing is a free tool provided by Google that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps.

In a GMB profile, you can provide important information about your coworking space, such as its address, phone number, website, and hours of operation.

It also allows coworking spaces to manage and respond to customer reviews, which can help build trust and credibility with potential clients. And, as we’re about to see in a minute, reviews not only help in building trust with your clients but are an important local SEO ranking factor.

Setting up a Google Business Profile (a.k.a. Google My Business Listing or GMB) for your coworking space is easy.

Go to https://www.google.com/business/ and follow the instructions. Make sure to enter the following details related to your coworking space correctly:

• Address
• Category (coworking space)
• Phone number
• Website
• Business hours
• Business description
• Photos

Once that’s done, you will have to verify your listing in order to make your edits visible to customers. Otherwise, you won’t be able to respond to reviews, create postings, and edit your profile.

Verifying Your Listing

Google decides which verification method to show to business owners. Up until recently the most popular method was via a postcard sent in a mailbox or PIN code.

That has changed.

These days, Google requires you to record a video of your business to “show your location, equipment, and proof of management.”

You can do that with a smartphone.

They ask you to capture the following three requirements in one continuous recording:

• Your location should match your Business Profile address
• Your business name and category should match your Business Profile
• You’re authorized to represent this business

Some important tips to consider:

• Plan your video before shooting and decide what to show by keeping in mind the mandatory requirements as per official Google’s Gudelines
• Show the interior and the exterior of your building
• Show the location with street signs and nearby places
• Keep it below 3 minutes (videos longer than 5 minutes are not accepted)

Generally, the process is pretty straightforward. Watch the video below that gives more useful tips:

After you have verified your listing it’s time to optimize it.

Optimizing Your GMB Profile

Website URL

That’s quite straightforward, you’d say, so why the separate section?

It’s just because if you have a single location, then in the website field, it makes sense to enter the home page URL of your website.

However, if you have multiple locations, then a good practice is to include the “Locations” page URL. It provides better user experience, thus it’s good for SEO.

Photos

Guess what?

When it comes to photos and videos about your coworking space, Google has its official guidelines too.

Here’s exactly what they say:

“Format: JPG or PNG.

• Size: Between 10 KB and 5 MB.
• Recommended resolution: 720 px tall, 720 px wide.
• Minimum resolution: 250 px tall, 250 px wide.
• Quality: The photo should be in focus and well-lit, and have no significant alterations or excessive use of filters. In other words, the image should represent reality.”

And here’s your motivation to include photos: according to Google:

Profiles with photos see over 30% more clicks to their website links and nearly 45% more request for directions.

Here are some additional SEO tips:

• Use relevant filenames for your photos that include your business name and keywords related to your space, such as “coworking-space-name-city.jpg”.
• Optimize your image size to ensure that they load quickly and don’t slow down your website. Use image compression tools to reduce the file size without sacrificing quality. Such an online tool for example is Image Compressor.
• Add descriptive alt text to your photos to provide additional context to search engines and improve accessibility for visually impaired users. Feel free to include a keyword or two but don’t put your main keyword in every image’s alt attribute tag.
• Use geo-tagging to add location information to your photos. Here’s an useful guide from Google.
• Add relevant captions to your photos to provide additional context and information about your space.
• Don’t use stock imagery.

Videos

Including videos in the GMB profile of your coworking space makes your profile more engaging to potential clients. Plus it makes your content more appealing to Google.

Here are the guidelines for the videos:

• Duration: Up to 30 seconds long
• File size: Up to 75 MB
• Resolution: 720p or higher

Make sure your videos look professional and are well-edited.

Categories

Categories in Google My Business are a way for businesses to describe what they offer and help Google understand what their business is about.

When creating a GMB listing, businesses can choose one primary category and up to nine secondary categories that describe their products or services.

Categories are important because they help Google match a business with relevant search queries.

For example, if someone searches for “coworking spaces in [city name]”, Google will use the categories listed in the GMB listing to help determine which spaces to show in the search results.

“Coworking space” is a predefined category provided by Google and in most cases, you should choose it as your primary category.

What’s the exception?

If you have a coworking space but are looking to generate more private office members, then it’s wiser to choose “office space rental agency” as the main category.

This would make it easier for Google to understand and properly categorize the exact nature of your business.

How about secondary categories?

Secondary categories are important because they provide additional context to Google about what a business offers.

This can help improve the visibility of the business in search results for related queries. For example, if a coworking space’s primary category is “Coworking Space,” some relevant secondary categories might include “Office Space Rental Agency,” “Event Space Rental,” or “Virtual Office Rental.”

A good SEO practice is to use as many of the 9 secondary categories possible to increase your chances of ranking for secondary product-related searches (e.g. meeting rooms or office space rental agency).

Reviews

According to a recent report done by WhiteSpark, reviews are the third most important local search ranking factor for the local pack/finder.

Image source: https://whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors

Reviews are feedback, ratings, or testimonials left by customers or users about a product, service, or business. They can be found on a company’s website, social media platforms, or third-party review sites like Google My Business, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more.

Reviews play a pivotal role in local SEO, especially for businesses like coworking spaces that rely heavily on community and user experience. Here are six reasons to use their power:

1. Trust and Credibility: Positive reviews build trust and credibility. Potential customers often check reviews to gauge the quality of a service. A high number of positive reviews can make a business stand out in local search results.
2. Influence on Buying Decisions: Reviews can significantly influence a potential customer’s decision to choose one coworking space over another. A space with better reviews is likely to attract more customers.
3. Improved Search Rankings: Search engines, especially Google, consider reviews as a ranking factor for local SEO. Coworking spaces with more positive reviews rank higher in local search results.
4. Feedback Loop: Reviews provide valuable feedback for businesses. Negative reviews can highlight areas of improvement, while positive reviews can reinforce what the business is doing right.
5. Increased Click-Through Rates (CTR): Listings with higher ratings often have higher CTRs from search results, which can further improve search rankings.
6. Local Content Generation: User-generated content in reviews can provide search engines with more local-specific content, which can be beneficial for local SEO.

And here are nine proven tips to make the most out of reviews:

1. Encourage Reviews: Actively ask satisfied members or visitors to leave a review on platforms like Google My Business or Yelp. The more reviews you have, the better — as long as they’re genuine. A good rule of thumb is to have at least 44 reviews.
2. Respond to Reviews: Engage with reviewers by thanking them for positive feedback and addressing any concerns in negative reviews. This shows that you are always there for your customers and are actively involved in improving your space.
3. Incorporate Reviews on Your Website: Showcase selected positive reviews or testimonials on your website. This not only builds trust but also adds fresh content to your site.
4. Use Schema Markup: Implement local business schema markup on your website. This can help display star ratings in search results, making your listing more attractive.
5. Promote Reviews on Social Media: Share positive reviews on your social media platforms to reach a broader audience and enhance your reputation.
6. Address Negative Reviews Professionally: Instead of ignoring or deleting negative reviews, address them professionally. Apologize for any inconvenience and offer solutions.
7. Monitor Reviews Regularly: Use tools to monitor reviews across different platforms. This helps in timely responses and understanding the overall sentiment of your customers.
8. Offer Incentives: While you shouldn’t buy reviews, you can offer incentives like discounts or freebies to encourage members to leave genuine feedback.
9. Highlight User-Generated Content: If members share their experiences or photos from your coworking space on platforms like Instagram, consider sharing or highlighting this content (with permission). It acts as a form of review and showcases your space in action.

Building Local Citations

Local citations refer to any online mention of the name, address, and phone number (NAP) for a local business. They can appear on local business directories, websites, apps, or social platforms (ex: Yellow pages, Yahoo listings, Yelp, etc.).

Citations help online users discover local businesses and can influence local search rankings.

Why would you want to use citations? Here are six valid reasons:

1. Visibility in Local Searches: Citations increase the visibility of coworking spaces in local searches. The more places your NAP information appears accurately, the more credible and authoritative your business appears to search engines.
2. Boost Local SEO: Search engines use citations to verify the accuracy of a business’s details. Consistent and accurate citations can improve your rankings in local SERPs.
3. Boost Off-Page SEO: even though most links coming from citations are nofollow (meaning search engines ignore them when evaluating your page rank), they are great for backlink diversity. You backlink profile should always look as natural as possible in the eyes of Google.
4. Build Trust: Citations on reputable directories or platforms can enhance the credibility of a coworking space. Potential customers often trust businesses that have a consistent presence across multiple platforms.
5. Drive Traffic and Conversions: Citations can act as additional channels to drive traffic to your website or directly to your coworking space, leading to potential conversions.
6. Competitive Advantage: Having citations in more places than your competitors can give you an edge in local search rankings and visibility.

Here are 10 tips to manage and build local citations effectively:

1. Ensure NAP Consistency: Your name, address, and phone number should be consistent across all citations. Inconsistencies can confuse search engines and potential customers.
2. Start with Major Directories: Begin by listing your coworking space on major business directories like Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, and Apple Maps. Then, go with some coworking-specific ones such as coworker.com, coworkies.com, and desksnear.me
3. Target Local and Industry-Specific Directories: Apart from major directories, ensure your space is listed on local directories and those specific to coworking or office spaces.
4. Regularly Audit and Update Citations: Periodically check your citations to ensure accuracy. Update any changes in your NAP information across all platforms.
5. Engage with Reviews on Citation Sites: Many citation sites, like Yelp, allow for reviews. Engage with these reviews as you would on any other platform.
6. Build Citations Organically: Instead of using automated tools, consider building citations manually to ensure accuracy and select the most relevant directories.
7. Monitor Competitor Citations: Identify where competitors have citations and consider creating your own on those platforms, if relevant and possible. One tool to manage citations and to track competitor citations is the citation tracker from Brightlocal.
8. Include Additional Information: Where possible, add more than just your NAP. Include geo-tagged photos of your coworking space, amenities, pricing details, and more to provide a comprehensive view of what you offer.
9. Encourage Check-ins: On platforms like Facebook, encourage members and visitors to check-in. This not only acts as a form of citation but also provides social proof.
10. Participate in Local Community Events: Sponsorship or participation in local events can lead to mentions (citations) on event websites, local news sites, and more.

When it comes to local citations, it’s always quality over quantity. Don’t build hundreds of citations just for the sake of building. Instead, aim for relevancy and accuracy. You’d be fine with 40-50 citations.

On-Page SEO For Coworking Spaces

Unlike off-page SEO where there are factors that you can’t fully control, on-page SEO is entirely in your hands.

Plus, it’s more straightforward and easier to execute.

But, again, what is on-page SEO?

On-page SEO refers to the steps and strategies you use to improve the rankability of your coworking space website by modifying different elements on its pages. For example:

• Doing keyword research and adding keywords to important sections of a web page
• Optimizing titles, meta descriptions, and headings
• Adding ALT tags to images
• Adding structured data markup

In the following section, we’ll cover all this and more.

Local Keyword Research

That process involves finding and using location-specific phrases that people type to find your coworking space.

The first thing to grasp is that there are two main types of keywords:

• Implicit keywords – those are phrases that have local intent but don’t contain words implying geographical location. For example: “virtual shared office.”
• Explicit keywords – these contain spatial terms such as “virtual shared office near me” or “virtual shared office in San Francisco”

Google’s algorithm is smart enough to determine both local intent and the location of the user who types the query, to fully satisfy the intent.

Understanding and using both keyword types can help you better optimize your coworking space website.

So, how do you start?

List Your Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are broad phrases associated with your industry and the services you offer.

For example:

• Coworking space
• Shared office
• Office for rent
• Workspace rental
• Serviced office
• Shared desk
• Flexible office space

Add Local Modifiers

These are words that help narrow down the search intent to a particular area.

• Terms indicating proximity (coworking space near me, shared office nearby)
• City/town names (coworking space in New York)
• Neighborhoods or districts (shared office in Soho)
• Zip/postal codes (Flexible office space 90210)
• Landmarks or Well-known Areas (shared desk near Central Park)
• State or province names (coworking space in Texas)
• Specific streets or avenues (office rental on Sunset Boulevard)

To create an extensive list, you can brainstorm and use common sense to determine what keywords would people type in Google to find you.

It’s highly recommended that you use keyword research tools that give you valuable information about each keyword such as search volume and difficulty.

We will talk more about them in another section but here are the most useful keyword research tools to date:

• Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
• Google Keyword Planner (free)
• Semrush
• KeywordChef (cheap option for finding untapped keywords with low competition)
• KWFinder

The next step is to group the keywords and create a keyword map.

Creating a Keyword Map

A keyword map provides a structured overview of how keywords are distributed across your website, ensuring that you’re targeting all relevant terms without leaving gaps or causing overlaps.

By mapping keywords to specific pages, you can ensure that each page is highly relevant to the user’s search query, leading to better user satisfaction and higher rankings.

Here’s how to create a keyword map.

1. List down all keywords: start by listing all the keywords you’ve researched, including seed keywords, long-tail keywords, and those with local modifiers.

2. Categorize keywords: group keywords by themes or topics. For a coworking space, categories might include “Pricing,” “Amenities,” “Location,” “Events,” “Membership Plans,” etc.

3. List down your website’s main pages: this might include “Home,” “About Us,” “Pricing,” “Locations,” “Contact,” “Blog,” etc.

4. Assign keywords to pages: based on relevance, assign keywords from your list to specific pages on your website. For instance:

– Home page: “Coworking space in [City Name]”, “Flexible office space”, “Collaborative workspace in [Neighborhood]”

– Pricing: “Affordable coworking space”, “Membership plans for shared office”

– Locations: “[Neighborhood] office space”, “Workspace near [Landmark]”

– And so on…

5. Make sure to match the search intent: Ensure that the keywords assigned to a page match the user’s intent for that page.

For example, someone searching for “coworking space events in [City Name]” is likely interested in community events, so this keyword might be best suited for an “Events” or “Community” page.

If you’re not sure about the search intent, type the keyword in Google and see what shows up. Also, when creating pages around a local keyword with the goal of appearing in the Google Local Pack, first confirm if the search intent is indeed local. Do the results include local businesses with a map pack?

For example, the keyword “coworking space in the USA” returns results that include listicle type of blog posts.

And the keyword “coworking space in Texas” returns local coworking spaces listed in a Google Local Pack.

When checking the search intent for local queries, make sure to be at the same physical location. Google will detect where you are and show you personalized results based on your location.

Otherwise, you can use a Google location changer tool such as this one from Seranking.

6. Optimize each page: once you’ve mapped keywords to pages, optimize each page’s title, meta description, headers, and content to reflect those keywords.

We will discuss how to optimize each page more in-depth in a next section, so stick around.

You can easily create a keyword map in an Excel sheet or use a ready-made template that you can easily find online.

How To Proceed If You Have Multiple Locations?

You have two options:

1. Create a separate landing page for each location – that way you can optimize each page for its specific location. For instance, the Miami location page might target “Coworking space in Miami,” “Miami shared office,” “Workspace near (specific Miami landmark)
2. List all your locations on the “Contact” page so that Google will rank your home page for queries containing spatial terms.

Our advice is to go with the first option because it allows you to have more control over the on-page optimization process.

Critical Places to Put Your Main Keyword On a Page

To help Googlebot find your page easily and better understand it, you need to put your main keyword in several locations.

Here they are:

1. Page URL – your url should be short and descriptive and contain your main keyword. For example https://coworkingspace.com/private-office/
2. Meta Title – it’s the title of your page as it appears in Google search results.
3. Meta description – it’s an HTML attribute that provides a brief summary of the content of a web page. It’s commonly used on search engine results pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given page.
4. Page title – it’s the H1 element of your page. In some occasions, you’d want your meta title to be more keyword-rich than your page title so those could be different. Our advice is to have the same meta and page titles for optimal results.
5. Page intro – include your keyword in the first 200 words of the content
6. H2 – include the phrase in an H2 heading.
7. Image file name – just don’t overdo it, place your keyword in the file name of one of the images (preferably the featured image). In general, make the names of your images descriptive
8. Image ALT tags – this a text description added to an image’s HTML tag to provide context and meaning, primarily for search engines and users with visual impairments using screen readers. As a rule of thumb, use your keyword in one ALT tag and make all other ALT tag attributes descriptive. Don’t overdo it.
9. Sprinkle it 2-3 times naturally in the content throughout the page if it makes sense.

Avoid keyword stuffing. Always think about the human visitors first and then about the bots. Also, review and update your keyword map regularly to reflect new keywords, remove outdated ones, and adjust based on performance data.

Search trends and user behavior can change over time.

Using Schema Data Markup

Schema data markup, often just called “schema,” is like a special code language that websites use to clearly tell search engines about the content on their pages.

Think of it as giving search engines a “cheat sheet” that explains what each part of your website is about. For a coworking space website, this could mean highlighting details like location, amenities, pricing, and reviews.

Websites using schema often get enhanced listings in search results (like star ratings or event schedules) which can make them stand out and attract more clicks.

Important Schema Types for a Coworking Space Website

We can talk a lot about schema markup. But since this isn’t an article focusing solely on it, here are the most important schema types you need to know and use for a coworking space website:

• LocalBusiness – it’s a general schema type for local businesses. It allows you to specify foundational details like name, address, phone number, and opening hours, making it easier for search engines to understand and display your business information.
• Place – this schema describes physical places. It can be used in conjunction with other types to provide more details about the location of your coworking space.
• PostalAddress – this provides a structured way to present the address of your coworking space, ensuring search engines understand and display it correctly.
• AggregateRating – once you accumulate a decent number of reviews, this schema allows you to showcase an average rating, which can enhance trust and credibility in search results.
• Review – this schema highlights individual reviews. Positive reviews can significantly influence potential customers. Additionally, applying this schema can significantly increase your chances of obtaining a review snippet (the star rating shown in the SERPs and in the Local Pack). That could surely boost your click-through rate.
• Event – if your coworking space hosts events, workshops, or seminars, this schema can highlight such happenings, attracting more attendees and showcasing the vibrancy of your community.
• AmenityFeature – coworking spaces often have a range of amenities, from coffee machines and meeting pods to high-speed internet. This schema type allows you to list and detail these features, making your offerings clear to potential customers and to search crawlers.
• GeoCoordinates – by providing latitude and longitude details, you can help search engines and map services precisely locate your coworking space
• ImageObject – visuals play a crucial role in attracting customers. This schema allows you to provide details about images of your space, ensuring they’re displayed correctly and understood by search engines.
• OpeningHoursSpecification – This provides specific details about when your coworking space is open, helping potential customers plan their visits.

Here’s a useful resource from Google where you can read more about local business structured data.

Adding Schema Markup

The best way to add schema markup will depend on the type of website you have.

If you have a WordPress website, the fastest and easiest way to add and manage schema is by using a plugin.

There are many plugins out there and the last thing I want is to give you a choice overload. So, just go with Schema Pro. It’s arguably the best one.

If you haven’t built your website with a CMS like WordPress, or you just don’t want to install additional plugins, then another great option is to use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper tool.

It allows you to add schema to a specific web page. To start, choose the type of schema you want, then provide the URL of the page. Alternatively, you can provide the HTML source of the page.

Here are seven important tips for adding schema markup to a coworking space website using the Google Data Markup Helper tool:

1. Choose the Right Data Type: When you start with the Google Data Markup Helper, you’ll be prompted to select a data type. For a coworking space, you should choose the “Local businesses” data type.

2. Input Your URL: Paste the URL of the page you want to mark up. The tool will then load the content of your page and allow you to start tagging items.

3. Highlight and Tag: Using the tool, highlight different elements on your page and assign them appropriate tags. For instance:

– Highlight the name of the coworking space and tag it as “Name”.

– Highlight the address and tag it as “Address”.

– Highlight the contact number and tag it as “Telephone”.

– If you have reviews, highlight them and tag them as “Reviews”.

– Highlight pricing details and tag them appropriately, such as “Price Range”.

4. Add Additional Details: Depending on the content of your website, you might also want to tag other elements like:

– Opening hours

– Amenities offered (e.g., Wi-Fi, conference rooms, coffee machines)

– Photos of the space

– Events or workshops being held at the space

5. Generate the Markup: Once you’ve tagged all the relevant elements, the tool will generate the necessary schema markup for you. This will be in the form of JSON-LD or Microdata, which you can then add to the HTML of your website.

6. Test Your Markup: After adding the markup to your website, use Google’s Schema Data Validator tool to ensure that everything is correctly implemented and there are no errors.

7. Consider Other Markup Types: While the “Local businesses” type is a good fit for coworking spaces, there might be other schema types that are relevant to specific content on your website. For instance, if you have a blog, you might want to use the “Article” schema for those pages.

Here’s a useful blog from Hubspot that shows the process in greater detail.

Using Content Marketing To Complement The SEO Of Your Coworking Space

Content marketing is all about developing the right content strategy that will help you reach your audience and attract more traffic to your coworking space website.

As a result, it can lead to increased brand awareness and more members and revenue.

Any successful content marketing strategy starts with clearly defining and understanding your target audience. Without that knowledge, you’ll be shooting in the dark.

Defining And Understanding Your Audience

As marketing writer Doug Kessler says

Content that understands its audience will be good content. Content that doesn’t can’t be.

Start by creating detailed personas of your ideal customers. This could include freelancers, solopreneurs, startups, remote teams, or local businesses.

Try to be as specific as you can. Create a detailed document depicting all your customer profiles. The goal is to understand the following example traits:

• Demographics – age, gender, education, occupation
• Psychographics – this could include lifestyle: tech-savvy, values flexibility, and prefers a community-driven work environment; values: collaboration, networking, continuous learning, and work-life balance; challenges: seeking a productive work environment, looking for networking opportunities, and desiring a sense of community.
• Behavioral – buying motivation – need for a professional workspace, desire for networking, and access to amenities like high-speed internet, meeting rooms, and event spaces; buying concerns – cost, contract flexibility, space availability, and safety protocols
• Companyographics (for businesses) – this could include industry: tech startups, consulting, digital marketing, e-commerce, and other industries that can operate remotely; size: 1-50 employees; revenue: $100,000 to $5 million; Growth Stage: early to mid-stage startups and established businesses looking for flexible office solutions.
• Technographics – for example, tech usage: high reliance on high-speed internet and digital tools like Slack, Zoom, Trello, and other collaboration tools; online behavior: active on LinkedIn, industry-specific forums, and other professional networks.

You can create your own ICP document or use any of the freely available ICP templates online.

Don’t forget that creating the ICP is a starting point. It’s essential to continuously gather data, feedback, and insights from your actual customers and adjust the ICP accordingly. This ensures that your marketing and sales strategies remain aligned with the evolving needs and preferences of your target audience.

You can also conduct surveys to understand the needs, challenges, and preferences of your current and potential members.

Content Creation

Once you understand your target audience, it’s time to start crafting content tailored to their needs. You can create a “Resources” section on your website where you showcase all your content.

Content Types

There are several types of content you can create:

• Blog posts – write about topics relevant to your audience, such as the benefits of coworking, productivity tips, or the importance of community in a coworking space. A good example for a blog post would be “best coworking spaces in [city] or [country]”. Another one would be: “Why [City Name]’s Entrepreneurs are Choosing Coworking: A Look Inside [Your Coworking Space Name].” The goal is to create content that targets both the service offering and the location.
• Case studies – examples of how people use your space to achieve their work goals
• Industry news and reports
• Tutorials and how-to guides on how to use your amenities
• Thought leadership content

Keyword Research

The best way to drive organic traffic to your coworking space website is by using the power of SEO-optimized content. For that, you have to dig for the right keywords. Then create blog posts around them.

I’ve already outlined some steps on doing local keyword research. But doing keyword research for content marketing is a bit different. Here are 2 proven ways to perform keyword research for writing SEO-optimized blog posts:

1. Use tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Keywords Planner to look for seed keywords and then long-tail keywords.

The gold here is to find keywords with high search volume and low competition, especially at the beginning when your website is in the Google Sandbox phase. As for long-tail keywords, aim to find questions.

An useful tool for that is Answer The Public. For example, one question type of keyword is “are coworking spaces worth it.”

Don’t be afraid to target the so-called zero-volume keywords too. These are keywords that show up in most of the tools with zero search volume.

But guess what?

In reality, they do. If you find that Google autocompletes the search phrase when you type it, then people are searching for it.

An example of such a keyword is “why coworking spaces are the future of work.” An invaluable tool that can help you find zero-volume keywords and forum keywords (questions that people type in forums with almost zero competition) is Keyword Chef.

2. Spy on your competitors and “steal” their keywords.

Always keep an eye on your successful competitors’ content strategy and try to emulate what they do best.

Once you see what keywords they cover, you can cover them too by creating content that’s better and more optimized than theirs. SEO guru Brian Dean calls this the “skyscraper technique.”

A practical way of accomplishing that is by leveraging the “content gap” you have with any of your competitors. These are keywords they rank for but you don’t.

Both Semrush and Ahrefs allow you to find such keywords.

Here’s how it works with Semrush:

1. Open Semrush and go to “Keyword Gap”
2. Add your domain and the domain of your competitor (you can add several competitors if you want) and hit “Compare”
3. Examine the “Missed” tab in “Top Opportunities” where you can see the keywords your website doesn’t rank for but your competitor does

As you can see, the domain theexecutivezone.in has 616 missing keywords that its competitor thecollection527.com already ranks for.

3. Use Google Search Console to see for which keywords your website already ranks but it’s not optimized for.

Here’s how:

• Go to Google Search Console
• In “Performance” click on the “Full Report” tab.

• Choose your date filter, for example, last 28 days.
• In the “Queries” tab you will see the search queries that brought users to your site. Look for queries where your site has a high number of impressions but a low click-through rate (CTR). These are potential keyword opportunities. For instance, if you rank on the second page (or the bottom of the first page) for a particular query and have a significant number of impressions but few clicks, there’s potential to optimize that page and improve its ranking. In addition, you can switch to the “Pages” tab to see which of your pages are getting the most impressions and clicks. This can help you identify which pages might benefit from further optimization.

• And the “Average Position” column tells you the average ranking position of your site for each query. Keywords where you rank between positions 10-20 (page 2) are prime opportunities. With a bit of optimization, you can push these to the first page and significantly increase clicks.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is easy, very powerful, and unlike other SEO practices, totally within your power. Yet, many people still overlook it.

It refers to the practice of linking the pages of your website by creating hyperlinks on each page.

Internal linking is important for a few main reasons:

1. It eases user navigation – internal links help website visitors find relevant content on your website by following the links on each page
2. It improves page indexation – internal links help crawlers discover and index new pages. Plus they help them better understand the structure and hierarchy of your website.
3. It distributes Page Authority – not all pages on your website will have the same level of authority. Some might attract more backlinks from external sources, like for instance your home page. Internal linking helps distribute this authority (also known as “link juice”) throughout your site, boosting the ranking potential of other pages.

Here are some internal linking best practices that will boost your coworking space SEO.

1. Link from the homepage to key pages to pass link juice – your homepage typically has the highest authority since it often attracts the most backlinks. So linking from it to other important pages such as your service pages (e.g., types of coworking spaces, membership plans, amenities) not only distributes the page authority to those pages but also helps visitors find them more easily when they land on your home page.
2. Use contextual links to link from blog pages to other relevant blog pages or service pages. For instance, if you’re discussing the benefits of coworking spaces for startups, link to a page showcasing spaces specifically designed for startups. Generally, you want to link to the most important pages that you want to rank as much as possible, without overdoing it.
3. Use varied anchor text – anchor text refers to the specific words from a page that contain a hyperlink. A good rule of thumb is to use keyword-rich, descriptive anchor text when linking to the pages you want to rank high. For example, if you have a page targeting the keyword “benefits of coworking spaces”, then you can link to it from other relevant pages with anchor text such as “benefits of coworking spaces” or “coworking spaces benefits.”
4. Don’t go crazy with keyword-rich anchors – occasionally, use miscellaneous anchor text as well (click here, read more here, etc.). Using only keyword-rich, exact-match anchor text may be considered spammy and can deteriorate your rankings.

And here’s your short takeaway: link to all relevant pages within your website with relevant (but varied) anchor text and keep it natural.

Should you want to dive really deeper into internal linking, here’s a very useful guide from SEO legend Neil Patel.

Off-Page SEO For Coworking Spaces

As stated earlier in this article, off-page SEO involves strategies implemented outside of your website to enhance its rankings.

This can include link building, influencer marketing, building brand awareness, etc.

Since this piece is becoming too long already and because it’s arguably the most popular and important part of off-page SEO, we’ll focus solely on link building.

Link Building Strategies For Coworking Space Websites

Link building involves getting links from external websites that lead to your site. Why are they important for the SEO of your coworking space website?

Because they are a confirmed ranking factor and Google sees them as votes of confidence. If someone is linking to you, it means your website is trustworthy and link-worthy.

Before diving into some link-building strategies, there are two types of backlinks you need to be aware of:

1. Do-follow backlinks – they can help improve the search engine rankings of the webpage to which they link. When a website links to another website with a do-follow link, it’s essentially vouching for the content on that page and passing on some of its own authority.
2. No-follow backlinks – a no-follow link is a link that doesn’t pass SEO value to the target site. This means that search engines are instructed not to take the link into account when determining the rankings of the linked page.

While you’d mostly want to have do-follow backlinks to your coworking space website, for a balanced and natural backlink profile, it’s good to have a mix of both do-follow and no-follow links.

Too many do-follow links, especially from low-quality or irrelevant sites, can appear manipulative and may lead to penalties from search engines.

Now, let’s see some of the most popular and effective link-building strategies, suitable for a coworking space website.

Local Citations and Directory Listings

We covered that extensively in the Local SEO section, so this will be brief.

These types of links are crucial for any local business including a coworking space. Even though most of the links you get by listing your business (and website) in directories are with the “no-follow” attribute, they still boost the visibility of your business.

Guest Posting

Identify industry-related blogs or local business blogs and offer to write guest posts. In your content, you can include a link back to your coworking space website. Focus on providing value in your posts, not just promoting your space.

Avoid guest posting on websites that explicitly mention they accept guest posts. Guest posting has been spammed to death and these days Google ignores links from such websites.

A great tool for doing outreach is Respona.

Create Epic Content

The best way to gain quality links is to attract them naturally and not build them.

And the best way to do this is by creating link-worthy, long-form content on your website. Here are some topics ideas:

• Industry reports – for example, you can create a “The State of Coworking Spaces in 2024” report that contains valuable industry insights and statistics
• Blog posts of the type “33 Insightful Coworking Space Statistics [2023]”
• Infographics – a study by Hubspot found that articles that include infographics attract 178% more backlinks. Invest some time and effort into creating visually stunning and informative infographics.

HARO and Digital PR

HARO stands for help a reporter out. It’s a platform that connects journalists with content experts and brands.

It’s a free service where journalists submit queries seeking expertise or opinions on a particular topic, and experts or public relations professionals can respond to these queries, offering their insights or information.

If a journalist uses your input, you might get mentioned (and possibly linked to) in their article, story, or report.

So, the links you can get using HARO are real authority links from big websites such as Forbes, New York Post, CNBC, etc.

Another similar way to gain backlinks is by using digital PR. This is a strategy used to increase brand awareness through online methods. It involves building relationships with journalists, bloggers, influencers, and the general public.

Digital PR activities can include online press releases, content marketing, social media campaigns, influencer partnerships, and more.

An idea to leverage digital PR for your coworking business is to submit a press release and announce a big update about your coworking space.

For example, you can submit a press release to announce a big event you’re organizing. There are many services that offer press release distribution and one is PRNewswire.

When creating the press release article don’t forget to include a backlink to your website.

6 Valuable Tips to Get the Most Out of Your Link-Building Efforts

Use these to boost your coworking space SEO game when it comes to building links

1. Aim to have a diversified backlink profile – in other words, keep it natural. In a real world, you will have do-follow and no-follow links
2. Build links to your most important pages (home page and location page) but don’t overlook other pages you want to rank
3. Use varied anchor text – this applies when budding links (as opposed to naturally attracting them) because when building links, you can usually control the anchor text usage. Don’t focus solely on exact-match anchor text but also partial match, branded match, and generic. Here’s a good resource from MOZ on the topic.
4. Reverse-engineer your competitors’ backlink profiles. Use tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush to discover the backlink gap you have with them. Plus, you can also see what anchor text type they use predominantly.
5. Build links from relevant, authority websites (high domain authority and steady organic traffic)
6. Once or twice per year disavow spammy backlinks pointing to your website. It’s inevitable to have such links. Just monitor your backlink profile regularly and disavow them when their number becomes significant.

Technical SEO For Your Coworking Space Website

Technical SEO is crucial for ensuring that search engines can easily crawl, index, and rank your website.

This is a vast topic, but in this article, I’ll include the most important factors for a coworking space website.

Site Speed

Do you know that the speed of your website impacts visitor behavior and even the revenue of your coworking space?

In fact, a study showed that for e-commerce websites, even a one-second delay results in a 7% drop in conversion rate.

Scary, huh?

Site speed is also important for the rankability of your website. In 2020, Google introduced a set of metrics called Core Web Vitals that measure the performance of your website. In 2021, they became a ranking factor.

So, yeah, you want to keep these in the green.

You can measure the different core web vitals metrics and your site speed with a tool such as GTMetrix or Google Page Speed Insights.

Alternatively, you can do that in Google Search Console (setting it up is easy) by going to “Experience” and then “Core Web Vitals”:

How to improve your speed metrics?

Honestly, the best way is to hire a web developer, especially if you have an HTML website. A good service for that is OuterBox.If you have a WordPress website, then you can use a speed optimization plugin such as Nitropack or WP Rocket.

Alternatively, a tried-and-true agency I highly recommend is Wp Speed Fix.

Mobile Friendliness

It took Google 7 years to complete the mobile-first indexing, but it’s a fact. It means that Google crawls and views your website through the lens of a mobile phone.

And so do your potential visitors and customers. That’s why, making sure that your website is mobile-friendly in 2023 is a must. You can test that here.

In addition, Google Search Console can also help you find out which pages of your website are usable on a mobie device and which aren’t.

Just go to “Experience” – “Mobile Usability.”

Indexing and Crawlability

Part of the technical SEO of your coworking space website is to make sure that it’s crawlable and indexable. In other words, it should be discoverable by both robots and humans.

There are some advanced tools that can help you with that and we will mention them shortly. I like to use Google Search Console. You can do so too by logging in, going to your website property, and then – “Indexing” – “Pages”.

That will give you a quick view of how many of your pages are indexed and which aren’t and why.

If you scroll down a little, you will see something like this:

That’s a list of the unindexed pages. If you click on each ”reason”, you will see the exact pages and more info on how to resolve the issue.

Having a Valid XML Map

Imagine you’re at a large amusement park with lots of rides and attractions, but you don’t have a map.

You might wander around and find some fun things, but you could easily miss out on some of the best rides.

An XML sitemap is like a map of your website that you give to search engines. It lists all the important pages on your website that you want people to find. Just like the park map, it helps search engines quickly find all the great content on your site.

It’s a file that contains all the URLs on your site.

If you’re using a WordPress website, you can easily create a sitemap with a plugin such as Yoast.

Then, you can submit it via the Google Search Console. To do so, go to “Indexing” – “Sitemaps”:

And that covers the basics.

Backlinko’s technical SEO guide is an awesome resource for further reading.

Useful SEO Tools And Resources

As a reward for making it so far, here’s a useful list of tools and resources that will help you elevate your coworking space SEO.

General SEO Tools

1. Google Search Console – it’s free and it helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.
2. Google Analytics – again free, it’s a Google proprietary web analytics tool that tracks and reports website traffic. It provides insights into how users find and use your website, enabling site owners to understand their audience, and gauge the performance of their marketing, content, products, and more.
3. Ahrefs – arguably the most complete and effective SEO tool. It’s often called the Swiss army knife of SEO. Plus, the content on their blog is top-notch.
4. Semrush – very similar to Ahrefs, but their rank tracking is better.

Local SEO Tools

These are quite helpful for any local business, including a coworking space.

1. Google Business Profile – free tool by Google that allows you to create, manage, and optimize your local business listing, so people find you more easily.
2. WhiteSpark – great software and a service for local citations and more
3. Semrush’s local SEO tools – their listing management system is awesome.

On-Page SEO Tools

Some of the most notable ones include:

1. SurferSeo – the best tool for content curation, creation, and optimization.
2. MarketMuse – a SurferSeo alternative, but more advanced (and pricier).

Link Building Tools

The following tools will help you build links:

1. Respona – for doing customized, targeted, and automated outreach.
2. Ahrefs’ Link Intersect – for finding backlink opportunities based on competitor analysis.
3. HARO (Help a Reporter Out) – for building high-authority links by pitching journalists
4. Semrush’s Link Building Tool
5. Buzzsumo – great tool for finding influencers in your niche

Technical SEO Tools

These will help you keep your website healthy:

1. Screaming Frog – desktop tool that crawls your website and allows you to identify and fix all kinds of errors.
2. Ahref’s Site Audit tool – with it, you can run automated and regular technical audits. It’s very user-friendly
3. Semrush’s Site Audit tool – great crawl-based too that finds various technical errors and provides a score.
4. Siteliner – allows you to find duplicate content on your website among other things
5. OnCrawl – crawl-based tool that identifies complex technical SEO errors.

Before You Go…

So, there you have it. Using the tips and tricks mentioned in this guide will help you boost the SEO of your coworking space and attract more revenue and members.

If there’s one aspect of SEO to put more focus on, that’s Local SEO. After all, you’re a local business, and making it easy for potential members to find you in the Local Pack is crucial.

Combine the power of SEO with using highly customizable coworking management software such as OfficeRnD Flex, for example, and you’ll be able to grow your space more effectively.

Using another software? Switch to OfficeRnD Flex and get 3 months for free!

Click here to learn more. Alternatively, you can also book a free live demo and see how OfficeRnD Flex can take your coworking space to a whole new level.

FAQ

What are Good Keywords for Coworking Spaces?

Here are some example keywords suitable for a coworking space:

• Coworking space near me
• Shared office space
• Flexible office space
• Coworking office
• Hot desking
• Private office space
• Coworking community
• Virtual office space
• Coworking membership
• Affordable coworking
• Coworking benefits
• Local coworking spaces
• Coworking [City/Location] (e.g., Coworking NYC)
• Creative coworking spaces
• Professional coworking environments
• Coworking amenities
• 24/7 coworking access

How do I Market my Coworking Space?

To market your coworking space effectively:

• Use targeted digital marketing strategies such as SEO with relevant keywords, social media advertising, and local listings to reach potential customers.
• Offer virtual tours, host networking events, and gather testimonials to build a strong online presence and community engagement.

Here’s an useful article on some tried-and-true marketing strategies to attract more members.

Can I do SEO On my Own?

Yes, you can do SEO on your own. There are plenty of free, beginner-friendly resources online that you can use to learn SEO.

However, if you don’t have the time to do it or you want to avoid rookie mistakes, it’s best to hire a seasoned SEO expert or an agency.