(Or: How to Pretend You Know What People Are Thinking When They’re Typing into Google)
Ah, coliving spaces. You know the ones: a place where “digital nomads” gather to “connect” while silently glaring at each other over laptops and trying to remember which charger belongs to whom. But if you run one of these places, you’ll know the real challenge isn’t stocking the communal fridge or preventing passive-aggressive Post-It notes from evolving into a blood feud—it’s getting found on Google.
And that’s where SEO comes in. Or, as I like to call it: “Guess What Random Words People Type Into a Box at 2am When Their Wi-Fi Has Finally Returned In The Jungle.”
What People Actually Search For
You might think that people searching for coliving spaces are logical, discerning travellers with a clear idea of what they want. Oh, you sweet summer child. They are not.
They are tired, slightly stressed, and often unsure whether “coliving” is even a word…
Here are some actual patterns you might encounter:
- Location-first people: “Tenerife accommodation for digital nomads with desk and maybe cat”
- Lifestyle-first people: “cheap remote work paradise with like-minded people who won’t steal my oat milk”
- Panic bookers: “Wi-Fi Tenerife NOW”
- SEO-unfriendly romantics: “where can I live by the sea and finish my novel”
The problem is you, the humble website owner, can’t just write a paragraph saying:
“Yes, we have desks, a cat, oat milk, and your novel will be magnificent.”
No, you have to wedge in precise search terms in a way that doesn’t make you sound like an alien trying to sell timeshares (also we don’t actually have a cat):
“Our affordable coliving space in Tenerife offers high-speed Wi-Fi, inspiring sea views, and like-minded remote workers.”
Every time you do it, a small part of your soul curls up and weeps.
Cultural and Language Minefields
Search terms aren’t just about what people want; they’re also about where they’re from and how they think. For example:
- American searchers will almost always use “coliving” or “coworking and coliving” if they’re in the nomad/startup bubble. They might say “commune,” but that’s usually reserved for 1960s-style intentional communities where the Wi-Fi is a rumour and someone is almost certainly learning the sitar.
- British searchers might hunt for “shared accommodation” or “house share,” but rarely “coliving,” unless they’ve been to Bali or Lisbon and picked up the jargon.
- Chinese searchers are more likely to be looking for “共享居住” or “远程工作公寓” (shared living / remote work apartment) on Baidu. They will not find you if your site is entirely in English.
- Germans will search for “Coliving Spanien” and expect your Wi-Fi speed in megabits and milliseconds of latency. They will email if you do not list it.
And then there’s the multilingual minefield: a Spanish search for “espacios de coliving en Tenerife” is great, but if you forget the accent on “coliving” (which doesn’t actually exist but someone will insist on it), you’re dead to them.
The Illogical Logic of SEO
The trouble with SEO is it rewards behaviour that in any other context would be considered bizarre. You must:
- Repeat the exact phrase “coliving spaces in Tenerife” just often enough to please the robots, but not so often that your human readers think you’ve suffered a head injury.
- Write blog posts about things you didn’t know you cared about, like “Top 8 Ways to Arrange Your Desk Plants for Optimal Productivity in a Shared Space.”
- Pretend you’re constantly answering questions no one has ever asked you in real life, such as: “Is coliving good for introverts?” (Short answer: no, but it will give them excellent material for a memoir.)
Advice for Fellow SEO Sufferers
If you’re doing SEO for your own coliving space—or indeed any business where the customers are humans—here’s my unsolicited wisdom:
- Research like a spy. Use keyword tools, yes, but also eavesdrop on Reddit, Facebook groups, and the comments section of unhinged YouTube travel videos. That’s where the real search terms are born.
- Translate and localise. If you want a Chinese audience, don’t just machine-translate your page—get someone who knows why “remote work” might be phrased differently in Mandarin depending on context.
- Write for people, not robots. Once you’ve satisfied the keyword gods, write something actually worth reading. People who enjoy your content will remember you more than people who just found you because you typed “coliving Tenerife” six times.
- Accept the chaos. No matter what you do, someone will find your site because they searched for “Tenerife goats cheap” and somehow ended up booking a month in your space. Don’t fight it.
In Conclusion
SEO for coliving spaces is like hosting a dinner party where you don’t know who’s coming, what language they speak, or if they’re allergic to gluten. You just keep cooking and hope someone shows up who appreciates the effort.
And if this whole rant doesn’t make sense to you, then congratulations—you’ve probably never had to spend three hours wondering whether “digital nomad Tenerife” gets more clicks than “remote work Tenerife.” I envy you.
In my last post when I started the SEO journey I said I’d be super happy and open a bottle of Cava if we made it to page 3… we made it!!! two months… I should be proud, but I feel it’s a pretty niche market and therefore it was probably an achievable goal.
Next target Page 1 by November!!!! think I’m going to need some backlinks etc.
