Scaling Organic SEO Across a 23-Property National Real Estate Portfolio

The Problem: A Fast-Growing Portfolio With No Shared Search Strategy

Cedar St. Companies develops and operates multifamily properties nationally, with a growing slate under its FLATS Life brand: new-construction and lease-up communities in markets like Chicago, San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, and Portland. Each property needed its own local search presence, but at 23+ live and in-development properties across three regions, there was no consistent way to:

• Stand up SEO for brand-new developments before they had any organic history. Several FLATS Life communities launch with "Coming Soon" or "Under Construction" splash pages that still need to rank locally well before leasing opens.
• Report performance consistently across a portfolio spanning Northern Chicago, Central Chicago, and a National region (San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, Portland, Las Vegas, Miami). Ownership needed one number to look at, not 23 disconnected dashboards.
• Prove organic ROI against paid spend on a portfolio where marketing budget gets scrutinized property-by-property.

How Refresh Delivered: Active SEO on Every Property, Rolled Up Into One Portfolio View

Refresh runs an Active SEO plan on every property in the portfolio, with monthly content and technical work, plus a reporting layer built specifically for a multi-property portfolio owner:

Portfolio-Wide SEO Program

• 23 properties on Active SEO plans ($500/mo each), spanning three regions: Northern Chicago (8 properties), Central Chicago (7 properties), and National (8 properties across San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, Portland, Las Vegas, and Miami).
• Shared FLATS Life template system so new-construction splash pages (The Samuel, The Ivy, The Laurel, and others) launch with on-page SEO, structured data, and fast-loading builds baked in from day one, not retrofitted after leasing opens.
• Monthly content cadence on every active property to build topical authority in hyper-local, high-intent apartment-search terms for each submarket.

Portfolio-Level Reporting

Every property gets its own monthly report (Google Search Console + SEMrush + Lighthouse), and every report rolls up into a single portfolio hub and three regional summaries, so ownership can see the whole picture in one place, then drill into any property.

The Results: Real Organic Growth Across Every Region

As of the July 2026 reporting cycle, the portfolio is generating meaningful organic traffic and keyword coverage across all three regions, and every region is up meaningfully year over year.

• 23 active properties across three regions.
• 26,096 organic clicks per month and 1.4M organic impressions per month across the portfolio (Google Search Console, July 2026).
• 26,372 keywords ranking portfolio-wide (SEMrush, July 2026).

Year-over-year growth by region (Google Search Console, July 2026 vs. July 2025):

• Northern Chicago (8 properties): 9,319 clicks/mo, up 43% YoY; 504K impressions/mo, up 94% YoY; 9,414 keywords.
• Central Chicago (7 properties): 10,577 clicks/mo, up 49% YoY; 570K impressions/mo, up 76% YoY; 10,596 keywords.
• National (8 properties): 6,200 clicks/mo, up 58% YoY; 375K impressions/mo, up 121% YoY; 6,362 keywords.
• Portfolio total (23 properties): 26,096 clicks/mo (about 49% blended YoY); 1.4M impressions/mo (about 92% blended YoY); 26,372 keywords.

Property-level example, The Sally (Uptown, Chicago): 1,788 organic clicks/mo, up 171% year over year, ranking for 1,087 keywords.

YoY figures per Google Search Console, July 2026 vs. July 2025. Blended portfolio YoY is a clicks/impressions-weighted average across the three regions, calculated from each region's reported growth rate.