In Wednesday’s News at Noon podcast, our opening story was about how the term “mobile home” so often appears in negative news coverage. And it seems that is the only type of housing singled out even though all the follies of life are carried out in every imaginable type of dwelling.
And yet we know, as I covered in earlier blog posts a large number of online searches for manufactured housing uses the keyword “mobile home.” (see, The best keyword is not always the most desired term and A few more words on keywords)
“Mobile home” carries with it all of the baggage of negative stereotype and prejudice that have shadowed the industry over the years.
But, let’s face it. It is a lot easier to say and spell “mobile” than “manufactured.” When presented with two possibilities, the vast majority of people will always take what they perceive as the easy way.
To move forward and be taken seriously as America’s (and the world’s ) logical affordable housing choice, we need to shift attention away from the stigma that the term “mobile home” carries, but still take advantage of it’s common usage.
We can’t conduct an effective online marketing campaign (or an offline one for that matter) and ignore the huge percentage of consumers who still refer to manufactured housing as “mobile homes.”
How do we make sure we cover the “mobile home” keyword, draw the traffic that searches by it and still make the point that today’s manufactured housing is a vastly superior product to the pre-1976 “mobile home?”
One suggestion I might make involves embracing the industries history. Just as Ford once made Model-Ts, the manufactured housing industry once made “mobile homes.”
They are an essential part of an industry’s growth from infancy to the mature, technologically savvy market leader manufactured housing is today.
Using your blog (you one one don’t you?) to publish historical references and nostalgic looks at the industry’s past allows you to claim the “mobile home” keyword, link it to your business and at the same time, be very clear that “mobile homes” are about the past, not the present or future.