All posts by Jonsette Calloway

Want more Millennials? You may have to go green.

September 22, 2019Apartment website, Customer Experience, Engagement, Good to Know, Happy Renter, Lease-up, Leasing, Marketing tips, Millennials, Single-family Property Manager, What Renters WantJonsette Calloway

We’re just departing primary leasing season, and things are looking pretty ideal for the multifamily housing market right about now. Apartment demand is now 11% higher than in 2018, and rents are up an average of 3% nationally. What’s more is that 82% of renters now feel as though renting is more affordable than owning (up from 67% in 2018), according to a recent survey from Freddie Mac. And, while affordability still remains the top consideration for those deciding to rent or own, for Millennials, specifically, rising burdens like student loan debts, healthcare and child care costs are postponing the home journey for many and apartment communities are filling that void.

If you’re interested in leveraging this new rental trend to boost your Millennial occupancy rates, it may be time to think “green.” According to a report by AMLI Residential, Millennials care the most about having sustainable amenities in their apartment units, more than any other U.S. demographic group–which is huge news for properties. Their affinity towards sustainability is actually so strong that they say they’ll even pay up to an additional $100 per month to live the “green” life.

Going “green” not only presents benefits for apartment renters, but offers property owners several benefits as well. For starters, owners can save on utility, construction and maintenance costs over the property’s lifetime. Leveraging LED lighting, for example, offers substantial returns and pay-backs for energy expenses within apartment common areas. And, as the price of water continues to surge, additional cost savings can be experienced through the installation of smart irrigation systems, which allow for greater precision and conservation. Renters, in turn, experience lower monthly energy bills, greater efficiency, increased comfort and, most importantly, peace of mind, which all play a factor during times of lease-ups and lease renewals.

Properties that are looking to roll into the “green” trend slowly can begin the process by going paperless in the leasing offices, installing bicycle racks and/or initiating a robust recycling program before advancing towards the more costly investments. These types of installations would include things like geothermal heating and air, energy efficient appliances, community gardens, and smart automation devices.

For those properties looking to delve right in to sustainable leasing, you can start by becoming familiar with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system that was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council and verifies that a property meets certain guidelines for achieving high performance and sustainability. All properties are evaluated on their design, construction, maintenance and operation. While there were nearly 43,000 LEED-certified properties in the U.S. just last year alone, more and more property owners are now taking the “green” leap towards energy efficiency–and for good reason. Studies indicate that LEED certification is one of the most important features to apartment renters, second to proximity/distance. So, if you’re not already on board, now may be the time to truly evaluate what LEED could mean for your property.

Rentbot can help.

After you make the “green” investment, you’ll need a great website to promote it, next. Rentbot can help with that! Our custom designs are perfect for properties that want to demonstrate their modern feel, urban location, trendy neighborhood, or sustainable amenities and they’re guaranteed to score you better leads, higher conversions and stronger retention rates. Not to mention, we specialize in working with small to mid-size properties, so we know the importance of stretching your marketing dollars. We deliver great results with the budget you already have.

Showcase those “green” amenities on a new Rentbot site, and we’ll ensure that it’s your most powerful marketing tool. Get started with a free trial, here.

About the Author

Jonsette Calloway joined the Rentbot team in 2015. With a background in public relations, advertising and copywriting, she has helped a multitude of clients achieve their marketing and communications goals within various fields, but she particularly enjoys working with the apartment industry.

5 ways to boost your Google Ads performance

September 22, 2019Analytics, Engagement, Good to Know, Google Ads, Keywords, Metrics, Online ads, Online Marketing, SEOJonsette Calloway

When you first launch your Google Ads campaign, you may feel the full spectrum of emotions–excitement, anxiety, fear, and aspiration–as you eagerly await for your ads to perform. Others may be squeezing their pockets for dear life for fear of breaking the bank. But, despite what you may have heard, you do not have to spend a boatload of your advertising dollars and precious time on your Google Ads campaign to produce results. While strategy is key to generating wins from your campaign, with a little research, the right keywords, and some small adjustments to your website, you can be well on your way to producing extraordinary ROIs for your property.

Take a look at these five best practices to help kick off your campaign to produce better results for you:

1. Pay attention to your metrics.

Your Google Ads campaign will be pretty fluid over the course of its lifespan. After the initial set-up, you’ll be making constant adjustments and variations to keywords, copy, URLs and more over time. This is why you’ll want to keep a sharp eye on your metric reports often, as this data will alert you to if you need to experiment with different call-to-actions or make other tweaks based on your campaign’s performance. Over the course of time, you’ll begin to see which ad and text combinations prove the most effective with your target audiences and tend to score you the results that you’re seeking.

2. Pick your keywords perfectly.

Keywords are the foundation of Google Ads campaigns, and bidding on the right ones for your property can make it or break it. This is where Google’s Keyword Planner comes in. This tool will help you search for certain phrases that relate to your industry, provide insight into how often specific keywords are used over time, and give suggested bid estimates for those keywords so that you can better align your budget accordingly. Incorporating negative keywords (the words that you don’t want your ad to show up for) is also important to refining your campaign and improving performance. Ultimately, your keywords should mimic the search terms of your potential renters during their own apartment search.

3. Make sure your website is up to par.

While you should spend a considerable amount of time structuring your ad campaign for greater success, you can’t ignore the role your website plays in the process. You Google Ads should entice your traffic to click through to your website. And, the job of your website or landing page is to convert this traffic into renters. So, this means, if your website isn’t quite up to par, then the ROI from your ad campaign is almost guaranteed to be poor. For starters, you’ll want to ensure your site is responsive, visually appealing, easy to read and navigate, and includes great call-to-actions.

4. Know your competitor’s strategy.

By remaining abreast of what marketing steps your competitors are taking online, you can be better positioned to improve the effectiveness of your own campaign. There are external tools available that will assist in determining which keywords your competition is using. You can also begin by creating a list of keywords that are likely to be used by your prospects to find your property, and then jotting down the properties that appear in the initial SERPs. This tactic tells you who is competing for the same target audience. From this information, you can analyze their websites for other potential and relevant keywords to include in your own campaign.

5. Fine-tune your call-to-action.

Apart from your website, your call-to-action is the most essential component of your Google Ad. It aligns directly with your campaign goals and instructs the viewer as to what step to take next. To effectively reach your prospects, the text within your call-to-action message should be specific, relevant, attractive, and empowering. It is also important for you to incorporate messaging within the body of your Google Ads that supports the call-to-action message so your prospects can clearly see the benefit that they’re receiving from engaging with your ad.

Rentbot can help.

In addition to helping you build a website for your property that is guaranteed to attract more high quality leads, increase conversions, retain more tenants and reduce vacancies, we can also help your property establish an effective Google Ads campaign with great results. With our targeted Google Ads services, our clients have experienced immediate website traffic, more high quality leads and actual, measurable results.

Ready to turn your website into a lead generator? Get started with your Google Ads campaign today.

About the Author

Sometimes it pays to go negative

August 25, 2019Apartment website, Engagement, Google Ads, Keywords, Marketing tips, Online ads, Online Marketing, SEO, SERP, Target marketingJonsette Calloway

From day one you’ve been told to “pick the right keywords for your target audience.” We’ve even written a few posts on top strategies to selecting top keywords and how to use them strategically in your marketing to increase your positive results. What if I told you that you can create additional positives for your property by incorporating negative keywords into your campaign?

It’s true! Though oftentimes overlooked by marketers, there are several benefits to using negative keywords in your Google Ads campaign. For starters, they can help direct more quality traffic to your website and save you some dinero in the long term by removing those irrelevant search queries from activating your ads.

Take a look.

What are negative keywords?

By definition, negative keywords are simply those terms which prevent your ad from being triggered by a certain word or phrase. While they operate the same way as your standard keywords, when used properly, negative keywords prevent your Google Ads from being shown to anyone who is searching for that specific phrase. So, in practice, if you were to incorporate the term “costly” into your campaign’s negative keyword list, you’re essentially telling Google Ads not to present your ad in any search with the term “costly.”

How can they boost performance?

Oftentimes, we tend to focus on the exact word combinations that will attract our audiences to our website and don’t usually consider the similar terms used by those who are uninterested in our property–this is where negative keywords can come in handy. In these scenarios, negative keywords can serve as a filter; thus, ultimately improving performance, ROI and website traffic.

Cost savings

Your standard keywords encourage users to click on your ad, and then you are charged for these clicks, despite if these users convert or not. Negative keywords are in place to prevent unnecessary click-throughs, thus saving you money on wasted searches.

Increased conversions

Negative keywords can serve as a filter, removing the opportunities for those uninterested parties. This means that your ad is not going to appear for those designated terms, leading to an increased conversion rate.

How to pick the right negative keywords

The Google Ads Keyword Planner is a great first step to determining which negative keywords to use. This feature allows you to view data on user queries, like how often certain words are searched and how these searches have altered over a period of time. You’ll want to search terms related to your property and look for those search terms that have no correlation to your property in your related keyword list; then, consider using these terms as negative keywords.

If you already have Google Ads established, you can also analyze the search terms report to see exactly which searches prompted your specific ad. Once these results are segmented by conversions and click-through rates, you’re able to see which terms outperformed the others and can add the poor performing terms to your negative keywords list.

Last but not least, you can also determine which negative keywords to use by taking it back to the basics–a simple Google search. Try searching your standard keyword terms and pay close attention to the first few pages of results. These are the terms deemed most relevant to that designated search term. In the event you see results that are unrelated to your property, go ahead and add these to your list as well.

All in all, when choosing your negative keywords, you’ll certainly want to do your research. Whether you decide to leverage the keyword planner, delve deeper into your search terms report or stick to the basics using Google search, you’ll need to dedicate time and effort into creating your list in order for the strategy to be effective.

Rentbot can help.

With each of our Rentbot websites, you get a strategic SEO partner by your side. We’re trained by leading SEO firms and have over a decade of experience improving clients’ apartment SEO-driven traffic. And because Rentbot specializes only in multifamily clients, we know the industry like the back of our hand. Through our advanced SEO services, we find and analyze target keywords and phrases based on your property’s location, type, and class. Then, we’ll create a customized SEO strategy plan that gets your website more of the qualified, local visitors you want and less of those you don’t want. Learn more about our advanced SEO and Google Ads services and we can score you the results you’re looking for.

About the Author

Content still reigns king in this industry

August 5, 2019Apartment website, Engagement, Good to Know, Marketing tips, SERP, Target marketingJonsette Calloway

Content, content content! It’s the term we’ve probably heard mentioned one thousand times. We also know that we never seem to have enough of it, and, of course, certainly never enough time to create it. So, it typically falls to the wayside. But, when you really think about it, do you truly know what content is and its relevance to your property?

365 Connect recently published a whitepaper on the importance of content marketing within the multifamily industry, which also detailed how to create an effective content marketing strategy. They essentially discovered that given the changing digital environment, content marketing has still been able to not only weather the storm, but grow even stronger, with greater plans over the next decade. It has even been estimated that content marketing revenue will exceed 300 billion dollars by the end of year. So, what does that mean for you as a multifamily owner?

Well, since the content craze isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, it’s time you became familiar with the concept, specifically as it relates to your website traffic and, ultimately, bottom line.

Here’s what you need to know:

What is content?

Content comes in many forms and sizes, not just your typical words on a page. From videos, blogs, and imagery to infographics, case studies and social media posts, content, when leveraged strategically, can undoubtedly create results for apartment marketers. It includes the information that you present and communicate to your target audience or end user and is directed towards a specific medium. It is also always created with an end goal in mind–be it to share experiences, build relationships, increase SERP placement, or educate an audience. No matter what your goal is, creating great content starts with understanding your customer base and identifying a purpose for it.

Search engines love it

Your page ranking plays a major role in the volume of traffic you receive from your website–and search engines typically reward great content. With a goal to deliver the most relevant information to its end users as possible, search engines like Google are constantly fishing for great information to create the most optimal user experience–and this starts and ends with identifying high quality content. Google does through leveraging algorithms, which are constantly changing, to determine which results to show to users first.

So, with this in mind, when developing content for the SERPS, you’ll want to take advantage of keywords and choose them wisely. When incorporating keywords on your site, ensure that you’re creating the most valuable piece of content for that given keyword or phrase. Keep the intent of one’s search in mind as well as user experience. Longer is not necessarily more effective in this game; rather, it all comes down to quality–and remember, images are content too!

It can be shared

Another great benefit of quality content is that it can be shared across multiple channels, which creates an added boost to your marketing strategy. By leveraging social media, for example, you have the ability to share information with your audiences and source this content right back to your website. By taking on this strategy, you can create loyal, engaged followers among increased click backs to your website, which the SERPs consider when determining the legitimacy and relevance of your business. To gain a better idea of which content produces the most results or engagement, you can leverage your Google Analytics platform.

Rentbot can help.

All quality content needs a great website to call home. Each Rentbot site is guaranteed to attract, convert, and retain tenants–thus, improving your bottom line. With mobile friendly site designs, conversion optimized layouts, and plenty of space for your most prized content, our websites are designed to save you both time and money, while creating a strong first impression for your visitors. And with our built-in SEO package with targeted keyword research, we’re able to optimize each page to boost your organic ranking.

Leave your content with us, and we’ll do the rest. Experience what we can do for you through a free 30 day trial here.

About the Author

5 elements of a well-designed website

July 17, 2019Apartment website, Customer Experience, Engagement, Good to Know, Marketing tips, Mobile-friendly, Online Marketing, Web DesignJonsette Calloway

Having an online website that customers can find is crucial to the success of any business nowadays. By maintaining an effective, well-designed site, you can improve your property’s visibility, enhance your credibility, promote engagement among your prospects and renters, and we can’t forget the most important–lease more units. Investing in a good site design is more than just a luxury; rather, a necessity. In fact, a recent Adobe survey found that when pressed for time, 59 percent of global consumers crave beautiful design over simplicity. Continue reading 5 elements of a well-designed website →

What is conversion tracking and why is it so important?

July 7, 2019Analytics, Apartment website, Engagement, Good to Know, Marketing tips, Online ads, Online MarketingJonsette Calloway

When you launch an online marketing campaign for your property, oftentimes, it can be a little difficult to track your success. While each business will likely have different campaign goals, within the property industry, goals typically take the form of two–leads and number of renters. This is where conversion goals can help. Continue reading What is conversion tracking and why is it so important? →

Leveraging Google Ads Audience Insights for better targeting

June 30, 2019Analytics, Apartment website, Good to Know, Google Ads, Marketing tips, Online ads, Online Marketing, Target marketingJonsette Calloway

How amazing would it be if you could have the same type of relationship with your prospects as you had with your favorite neighborhood mechanic or barista. While this level of relationship may not necessarily be as feasible nowadays considering many businesses’ transition to the online sphere, it does still shine light on the fact that knowing your customer is essential to establishing loyalty and ultimately, conversions, at the end of the day. Continue reading Leveraging Google Ads Audience Insights for better targeting →

Understanding your customer journey

May 31, 2019Analytics, Apartment website, Good to Know, Marketing tips, Web DesignJonsette Calloway

So, you’ve made the investment into a new site, but still aren’t seeing the results you’d hoped for. It’s officially time to take a deep dive into your online customer journey and see how your visitors are interacting with your website. Are they landing on a certain page and bouncing back out? Where are they originating from? How long are they spending on each page? Are they even making it to your contact page? All of the answers to these questions and more can be found in your Google Analytics dashboard. By becoming accustomed to these tools, you’ll be better equipped to pinpoint any hiccups that could be attributing to your missed conversions–and you should start with your behavior flow. Continue reading Understanding your customer journey →

Take your Google Ads on the go

May 14, 2019Good to Know, Google Ads, Marketing tips, Mobile-friendly, Online ads, Online Applications, Online MarketingJonsette Calloway

Have you taken the dive into Google Ads yet? Ever wished you had the ability to make a pressing change to your ad on the go? Introducing…the Google Ads mobile app. Google makes it easier than ever to monitor the performance data from your top property ad campaigns through their handy mobile app. Though not a completely new tool to the market, the Google Ads mobile app has previously allowed managers to view campaign performance, make changes to one’s Google Ads account, and monitor billing activity directly from their Android or iOs device. But now, marketers can create and edit responsive search ads too, thanks to the latest new feature roll-out.

Continue reading Take your Google Ads on the go →