Property Management Blog

Out of hundreds of factors that go into search results, site structure, content and links are the three most important.  If you have already built a sound website that is SEO optimized, well designed, well organized, and packed with great content, now it is time to get some links.  If you want to beat your competitors at search, you need lots of great links pointing to your site.

A link from another website is essentially a vote by that website for yours.  It means that the website likes the content of your site and is willing to re-direct some of its traffic to your site.  For search engines, this is a powerful affirmation that your site is well liked by others.  Sounds easy enough, but most GOOD websites are very hesitant to link to others, and that is why links are so powerful.

All links are not created equally.  It is much more powerful to get a link from a powerful site than to get dozens of links from weaker sites.  Page rank is a tool that Google created to gauge the power of a page.  It is rumored that page rank will be going away, but it is still a good tool to use to judge the power of a particular page, and whether or not it is worth pursuing a link from that source.  Here is a complete description of page rank.  In summary, page rank is a logarithmic number from 0-10 assigned to each page to show how powerful that page is within Google’s algorithm.  It is exponentially more difficult to move to each higher number, and only a handful of sites have a page rank of 10.  A good page rank for a local property manager website is 2 or better.

It is better to get links from a site that doesn’t have many outbound links than from sites with lots of outbound links.  The more links a page gives out, the less valuable each one is.  The rank of the page is basically divided by the number of links that the site links to.  Therefore, fewer links will give more power to each site linked to.

Links from property management or real estate sites are better than links from other industries.  It is much better to build a collection of relevant links from others in the same industry.  This shows that your site is respected within the community of sites that participate in the same business and will help your search rankings much more than getting links from sites outside of your industry.  The exception to this rule is to get local .gov, .org, and .edu links from government sites and universities.  If you can get these well respected links, they are always powerful regardless of industry.

Front page links are better than links from secondary pages.  Generally, the front page of a website is going to be the most powerful page for that site.  There are some exceptions, but as a general rule, you want to get links from the front page.  It is also beneficial to get a link in the footer of a site as that will give you a link from every page of the site.

Anchor text links are better than generic links that only contain your website URL.  As a part of your SEO strategy, try to get links with anchor text that match the search terms that you are trying to compete for.  For example, if you want to compete for the term Denver Property Management, make sure that the link says “Denver Property Management” and not “FreeRentalSite.com.”  The Denver Property Management link above is an example of an anchor text link that we just created to our Denver Property Manager page.

One-way links are better than reciprocal links.  A one-way link means that the site links to you and you didn’t have to link back.  This shows the search engines that the site thinks you are great and there was nothing given in return for the link.  A reciprocal link is still valuable, but shows a bit of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”  Finally, NEVER pay for links with the exception of inclusion in paid directories.  Google will catch you and if they determine that you are paying for links, they will black list you from search results.

In summary, it is best to get one-way anchor text links for search terms that you are competing for in the footer of powerful websites that are in the property management or real estate industry.  Easier said than done right?  Not really.  Here is a winning strategy to get lots of quality links to your site:  Ask.

Most of you know dozens of other property managers and real estate agents in your community, nationwide, and even internationally.  If you have an associate in the same market but you have different service areas, ask for them to give you a link for business in your service area.  This is a great local link from a relevant site in the same industry.  If you don’t do real estate sales, ask an agent that gives you management referrals in your area for a link.  If you have friends that you have met at conferences or trade shows from different markets, ask them for links.  This strategy will take some time, but will pay off big time in search rankings if you can assemble a quality assortment of links.  If you like the content of this article, we would appreciate a link from your site that says “Homes for Rent” to http://www.freerentalsite.com/.  There, we just asked!

If you have any questions about technology for property management, whether you are a customer or not, feel free to contact us.  888.705.3404.  We build technology for property managers through Free Rental Site and Property Manager Websites and we love it!

An asset is defined by Dictionary.com as:

1.  a useful and desirable thing or quality
2. a single item of ownership having exchange value
3. items of ownership convertible into cash

I am often confused by the following concept:  Property managers and other businesses will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a great location, tens of thousands of dollars on an office build-out to impress their clients, and thousands of dollars on advertising programs with no trackable ROI.  Then when it comes time build a website, they choose a template from a company that has no idea what a property manager does, and then wonder why their website doesn’t generate any value to the business.  Property managers build websites for a number of reasons, and it is important to ask yourself if your website is an asset or a liability.

In order for something to be classified as an asset, it must add value to your business.  There are several ways that your website can add value:   Provide a steady stream of tenant leads that help you rent your clients’ homes faster and at a higher monthly rent, provide a steady stream of investor/owner leads that help your business grow and replace accounts that you might lose, and improve or automate processes that save employee time and increase customer retention and satisfaction.  There are others, but these are the most obvious for property managers.

Typically, a property management company is worth about one year’s management income in the form of your management accounts.  This has been the industry standard for a long time.  What if you could demonstrate to a potential buyer that in addition to the management accounts, you had a steady stream of new business that came in from your website?  The business would be worth significantly more money.  As a matter of fact, a website that generates a steady stream of new business might actually be worth MORE than the business itself.  A typical, growing internet business can sell for 5-10 times its yearly income.

Many companies charge money to help your business find leads for new tenants and owner/investor clients.  If you can achieve some or all of this business on your own, you can reduce or eliminate your dependence on third party providers.  By reducing cost for these vital business requirements, you can keep more of your earnings in your pocket.  In addition to making more money, you can create a lasting asset that grows in value with your business.

If you haven’t built a website, or if you are looking to make changes to your existing site, remember this:  A company website is now the #1 initial factor in choosing which company to hire.  That means that most people will never contact you if you cannot inspire confidence in them through your website.

Change in consumer behavior

Put yourself in a customer’s shoes for a moment and take a good objective look at your site.  Now look at some of your competitors’ sites.  Would you hire yourself?  If the answer is no, it is time to create a new asset…

We build technology for property management companies and we love it!  If you have any questions, whether you are a customer or not, please feel free to contact us.  888.705.3404.

It seems like everyone is searching for property managers these days.  Lots of people ask for a referral, many do a search online, and one guy is still using the phone book.  When they find your company through a search, on social media, Google Places, organic or paid search, what do they find?  If you’re like most property management companies the reviews could be horrifying.  Not because you are a bad property manager, but because anybody can write anything they want online.  Most of you have had a tenant that you had a great relationship with for years.  As soon as you withhold $100 from their security deposit for the hole their dog (which they weren’t supposed to have) dug in the carpet they go crazy online talking about what a terrible property manager you are.  You try to get it removed, you try to answer back, and there it is every time someone searches for you.  What can you do?

Like I said, anyone can write anything they want online on services such as Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo local, etc.  If someone gives you a negative review, it can be very stressful and irritating, especially if it is untrue or unfounded.  To be truly competitive in today’s property management market, you need to control the conversation online.  Every day you work with tenants and property owners, vendors, and other members of the business community.  The best way to drown out the few negative voices is to get a lot more positive voices talking about you and your business in a positive light.

During the course of conducting your normal business, make a concerted effort to solicit reviews.  Don’t be annoying and ask for reviews before you say hello, or ask a thousand times, but be persistent.  Tell them that it will help you and your business if they would take some time out of their schedule to tell others how happy they are to be working with you.  If you really are a good property manager, and you know if you are, you will be surprised how receptive people are.  If this doesn’t work, offer an incentive.  Get a bunch of $5 Starbucks cards and tell them to show you their review for a free cup of coffee.  I am not suggesting that you pay strangers for reviews, as that would be cheating.  I AM suggesting that you give real live customers an extra nudge to get them to help you out online.  Also, try to solicit tenant reviews while they are still living in the property.  They will be much more likely to give a positive review while you still retain their security deposit.

If you are able to create a great review following from your happy customers, your naysayers will be reduced to angry aberrations that don’t know great service when they see it.  Consumers will be ok with a bad review or two amongst a legion of happy customers, but will run for the hills if your only review is a one star tirade from your worst tenant.  Don’t allow the one angry customer to dictate your online reputation.

Visitors will consider the source.  If you have a few bad reviews from angry tenants, but lots of great praise from property owners and community business leaders, most property owners will disregard the tenant comments and hone in on the comments from like minded individuals.  Tenants usually choose based on the property criteria only, so bad reviews from tenants are not nearly as harmful as those from owners.

In summary, the best way to get rid of bad reviews is to drown them out with good ones.  Nobody is perfect, but potential clients will expect to see an overwhelming number of positive reviews for each negative one.  If you can control the conversation, you can turn a negative situation into a positive one.

If you have questions about this article or anything related to building your property management business online contact us by email or at 888-705-3404.  We build technology solutions for property managers worldwide.

Dave Borden is the founder of FreeRentalSite.com and PropertyManagerWebsites.com.  David is a second generation property manager that has been building technology solutions for Property Managers for more than ten years.  David was the founder of RentClicks.com, which is now Rentals.com.

Google Places.  If you are a property manager and do not have a Google Places account, go get one right now.  It is our job to monitor search engine rankings and trends for our property management customers and we have found an interesting trend, Google Places is dominating first page search results for property management terms.  Here are some strategies to stay competitive in your market:

Google Places is Google’s attempt to replace the Yellow Pages.  It is working.  For almost every property management search that I have conducted, Google is displaying its Places deck either above, or integrated into the organic results.  Google IP targets the search location of the searcher and displays the most relevant results based on the searcher’s location.  They then compare the size, relevance, and proximity of the local businesses that meet the searcher’s criteria.  This is a huge opportunity to get your property management business listed in the organic results, and a huge loss of highly converting local business if you are not listed.

Click for Larger Image

Try the following search:  Denver Property Management Companies

If you do not have a Google Places account, you can set one up in minutes.   If you already have accounts with Google such as gmail or apps, you can use the same login as you do for the rest of your Google accounts.  Find your business using your office phone number and claim it.  Claim the business yourself under your Google account, and do not allow one of your employees to do it.  It will be very difficult to recover your listing if that employee leaves or is terminated.  Make sure it is your business as Google will call you with a pin to verify that it is you.  Do a great job building your account as searchers will use this information and your website when they decide who to hire.  Choose your categories, upload photos and if possible a video.  Include your website information as searchers will be re-directed to your site.  Make sure a searcher can very easily find your property management services page, and that they can easily contact you.  Do a better job than your competition with your places account and you will have a better chance of getting hired.

Get reviews.  Google uses a combination of factors to display their Places results, and among them are:  Searcher location, business relevance, business size, business location, on-site search factors, and reviews.  Get as many reviews, preferably positive from your tenants and owners as possible.  Getting more and higher rated reviews than your competitors can push your Places results above your competitors even if their office is closer to the searcher than yours.  Getting reviews can be as simple as asking.  Many of your clients and tenants like you (believe it or not) and they will be happy to give you a positive review.  If that doesn’t work, offer an incentive.  Do not solicit a company to write reviews on your behalf!  Google has a way of finding cheaters, and when they do they blacklist you.   Getting honest reviews from real people that do business with you is the best way to increase your relevance in Google Places.  We will discuss property manager reviews in a future post…

Proximity is a big factor for Places.  Obviously you can’t just pick up your office and move, but your location does matter.  If you are already considering a move, consider the clients that you want to attract.   If you are looking to attract new Denver property management clients , you will have more success with a Denver address that is close to the city center.  If your office is far away from the city center, consider opening a satellite location.  Again, do not cheat, Google is looking for legitimate businesses that are relevant to its searchers.  If you open a satellite office, make sure that you actually conduct business out of it.

**UPDATE**

Define your service areas.  Google allows companies that service areas outside of their office location to define those areas.  Since property management companies service tenants, owners, and properties all over the place, the industry qualifies for service areas.  You can do this by selecting the radio button and then defining your service area by a radius from your office, or by selecting specific service areas.  After making these changes for a client, Google Places impression level went up almost ten times!

Creating a great Google Places account is the fastest, easiest, and most effective single item that you can do to promote your property management business online.

If you would like more information on this post, or on our services please contact us via email, or call us at 888-304-7505.  We build technology solutions for long-term residential property managers worldwide.

A brand is something that communicates what your company is about to a target audience.  For property managers that means tenants and owner/investors.  Some companies spend thousands on their brand, and some don’t.  Regardless of the investment, online and offline branding should match.

Property managers have signs, business cards, car magnets and other marketing collateral.  Buying these items and adorning them with your company logo and branding helps portray a consistent image to the public.  The idea is that every time a customer or prospect sees something with your branding it reinforces who you are and what you do.  A quality branding effort will create a desired response from your customers every time they see your collateral.

A website is an increasingly big part of a property management business.   A quality website can be a huge ally to a property manager, and can be an effective tool for communicating to your customers and prospects.  It is absolutely vital that your website contains the same branding message that all of your offline efforts contain.  Since you often pass out your business cards, place signs on your vacant properties, and correspond with your customers on your letterhead, these efforts should be reinforced with your online branding efforts.

The goal is for a customer that has seen any of your offline branding efforts to immediately recognize who they are dealing with when they visit your website and vice versa.  This might sound obvious, but in many of the sites that we have evaluated we have seen completely different color schemes and even different logos being used online and offline.  This creates a confusing message to customers and prospects, and devalues a company brand.  Make sure before you build or modify your website that you have a consistent online and offline brand.

A direct response landing page is a webpage built specifically to convert those searching for property management services into leads for new management business.  Many property managers make the mistake of sending their traffic to their homepage.  Usually the homepage will have listings, information for tenants, applications, and other items that someone who just searched for a property manager does not care about.

When someone lands on your site through organic or paid search, you have about 3 seconds to capture that visitors attention before they leave your site for another one.  You already know that they conducted a search for a property manager in your area and landed on your website.    Now is the time to give them a few bullets about your company, and a compelling reason to contact you.  A compelling reason is an offer like a free month’s management fee, or a free rental analysis, etc.

A direct response landing page should have two or three bullets about your company that reinforce that your company does exactly what the searcher is looking for.  The offer should be on the top left of the page and above the fold.  Immediately next to the offer should be a contact form and clearly visible phone number.  Do not put too much information in this area as most searchers are not looking to read a lot of information.

It is acceptable to add as much information about your business as you want below the fold as some of your visitors will read everything, and the additional information might make them more comfortable in contacting you.  After the user submits a lead to your company, it is vital to respond to them immediately, and send an auto response that will set the expectation of when you will contact them.

Sending traffic to a quality direct response landing page will increase your conversion by as much as 400% over sending them directly to your home page.

Stay tuned for website tip #11 Matching your online and offline branding.

Search engine marketing is the process of paying to send traffic to your website.  Effective search engine marketing is not as ideal as effective search engine optimization, but still be of great benefit in landing new management business to your property management company.  Effective search engine marketing is a science that very few property managers understand.  In this edition we will teach your business how to gain way more clients through search engine marketing than your competitors.

Gaining new business is a challenge for any property management company.  In our experience with property managers, this 5 step process is most effective at landing new clients.  Again, most of your competitors will be too lazy to do it, so you have an immediate opportunity to harvest hundreds of new clients in your market.  At a time when many who are trying to sell their properties cannot, this is a great opportunity to grow your business.

Step 1.  Make a commitment to online advertising.  Offline and print advertising have diminishing effectiveness and high prices.  You can usually get a much better return on your investment if you focus your marketing dollars online.  You can also track an exact return on investment.

Step 2.  Get your ads in front of your target audience.  You can do this immediately with SEM or search engine marketing.  You can also employ SEO or search engine optimization, but this generally takes much longer, and your success is not guaranteed.  Not only do you have to get your ads in front of your target audience, you must build compelling text ads that make searchers want to click on your ads rather than your competitors.  The text ads that you create appear when a user does a search for a term that you are competing for like “Atlanta property management.”   You will see many of your competitors advertising in your market, but their text ads are probably not good.  They probably say something like, “Atlanta’s premier property manager,” or “We manage homes in Atlanta.”  This is your opportunity to increase your click through rate, or to qualify your audience.  To increase your click through rate you need to offer a compelling reason to click on your ad instead of the other advertisers.  A compelling reason usually means offering something of value for free to gain the customer’s trust.

If you want to qualify your visitors you can tell them in your text ads what kind of business you are looking for.  This will decrease your click through rate, but increase your ROI.  Examples include:  “We manage exclusive rentals in Atlanta, $2000/month and up.”  This type of text ad will prevent those with properties that you do not want to manage from clicking on your ads and costing you money.

Step 3.  You must build a direct response landing page.  A DRLP is a page that is specifically designed to get a searcher to submit a lead to your company inquiring about your services.  Most of your competitors will direct their website traffic to their homepage.  When a user lands on your homepage, they have no idea what to do.  You must create a specific page that is built to reinforce the message that you conveyed in step two with your text ads.  Convey to the owner quickly and concisely what you do, and why they should contact your property management company.  Offer an incentive to contact your company about your services such as first month free, or free rent analysis.

Step 4.  You must answer your leads faster than your competitors.  If an investor submits a lead to you, odds are they will submit a lead to at least one other company.  Surprisingly, many of your competitors who are spending money on attracting leads do a terrible job of answering them.  Many do not answer leads at all.  You must make it a priority in your business to answer leads as quickly as possible, and by quickly we mean within the first minute.  This is your chance to capture them while they are thinking about your services and at their computer.  The goal is to set an appointment to meet with the prospect about their property as soon as possible.  If you contact them immediately you make an incredible first impression, and your odds of getting the business go up dramatically.

Step 5.  Run your business better than your competitors.  Property management is a hard business, and you cannot afford to waste time.  You must employ every cost and time saving measure that you can.  Be an expert in the field, take care of your clients, and do what you say you are going to do.

If you employ this 5 step process, you will almost certainly be the leader in your market in attracting and keeping new clients.

Stay tuned for website tip #10 How to build a Direct Response Landing Page

Finding a rental property is very frustrating.  Many tenants know exactly where they want to live, but most websites make it difficult to perfectly refine their search.  Advances in technology, and integration with mapping software like Google maps make perfectly refined search possible.

Basic rental search includes sorting by broad criteria such as city, zip code, or price.  Tenants don’t want to be confined to these limited search criteria.  Most tenants know the exact part of town where they want to live, but most sites fall very short of offering this experience.  Through integration with Google or Bing maps, it is now possible to unleash a new level of search to your potential tenants.  Instead of limiting a tenants search to city or zip code, it is now possible to allow your tenants to search your vacancies by any criteria they choose.  It is now possible to search by any recognizable landmark, elementary school, city park, cross street, exact address, neighborhood, etc.

If your potential tenants want to be within a 2 mile radius of their children’s high school, they can simply type the name of the school into the search box, specify their radius and then enter their property criteria.  If you have a property that meets this search criteria, it is very likely that the potential tenant is going to rent that property.  This allows property managers to maximize the time they spend showing properties to only the most qualified prospects.  It is now possible to have enterprise level technology on a company website.

Stay tuned for Website Tip #9  Search Engine Marketing.

Another key mistake that MOST property managers make when building a website is making it difficult for tenants to contact them.  Most companies that build websites do not have experience with displaying real estate listings, and that could cost your business and your clients money.  A couple of simple changes to your listing display can increase the conversion of your site’s existing traffic by 300%.

Most property management companies have a consistent inventory of homes for rent.  The sooner these are filled the faster the cash begins to flow for the company and the company’s clients.  Amazingly, many property managers display the vacant listings on their websites and do not offer the potential tenant a lead form, or show their phone number on the listing.  Instead tenants are forced to search through the entire site to find a phone number or lead form.  Obviously, this will cost a company business.

The internet is a numbers game, and maximizing the number of visitors that turn into business is critical.  Through proper use of property listing lead forms and phone number placement, your business can maximize the number of visitors that convert to business on the website.  Through years of working with the biggest and most successful rental companies in the world, and testing different listing displays on millions of potential renters, we have found the highest converting display for a rental listing.

Each of your listings should include a lead form for an email response that requires them to indicate their name, phone number, and expected move in date.  Users that do not want to provide this information are probably not very serious and will waste your time.  This form should be placed in the upper left hand corner of the details section of a rental listing.  Next to the lead form, directly in the middle of the screen and in red numbers, should be the contact phone number.  For an example of this format visit this link and click on one of the listings.  By making this simple change to a listing display, the site will convert as much as three times better from the existing traffic.  This is the equivalent of increasing website traffic by three times.

Stay tuned for website tip #8 – Property Search.