Whether you are a landlord managing a single property or a real estate agency with an extensive portfolio, vacancy is a word that every rental business owner dreads. An empty property costs money as it fails to bring income requires maintaining and advertising.
In this post, we are going through six easy online strategies to build a strong web identity and fill your rentals fast.
1) Listing sites are an effortless way to get your rental seen by thousands of people looking to rent in your area.
According to the latest statistics, more than 80% of people looking to rent start their search online. When searching for an available apartment, the first positions in search results are taken by big-name sites such as Zillow, Hotpads, Trulia, Realtor.com, Rent.com, RentCafe.
These listing websites attract millions of visitors each month, so they are the first source for website traffic. Create a free profile, add your listing with some photos and descriptions, and get instant visibility for your rental offer.
Most of these listing sites offer paid featured listing for extra exposure. For a monthly fee, your rental will be positioned at the top of targeted searches – for example, in the top three results for ‘Seattle one-bedroom studio.’
2) A list of emails is the most precious value for your rental business
When landing on your site, most visitors leave without completing a significant fill-in form such as a rental application – the reason is that they don’t like the property or are just prospecting the market. You can use this unique visitor traffic and capture leads by creating a newsletter subscription form.
There are many ways to build an email list, and the simplest way is to add a sidebar widget with a newsletter option on your website. Ask visitors if they want to be notified through email about new rental listings.
Once you have your newsletter ready add share buttons to email content, so readers have the opportunity to share the property on social media or forward it to a friend
3) SEO is a technique that helps grow website traffic by getting a high ranking in the search results page of a search engine.
To get renters that are interested in a specific area on your site, you will have to build a local SEO friendly website. There are several methods to improve your regional ranking for rental-related keywords.
First, you should make a search terms plan using SEO tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner and focus on geographic terms. To rank high target the city/area, you do business and place the keywords in your domain URL, page and image titles, alt tags, and several times on pages.
For your local SEO strategy, get your business listed in Google 3-pack. Sign up for a profile in Google My Business, Google Maps, and Google+ and grow your site visibility and visitors fast.
4) Use targeted ads on social media platforms to reach a broad audience
The second largest website on the internet, Facebook, offers the best-targeted ad platform due to the data collected from its users.
One way you could use this platform to market your rental is to boost your posts. Create a post about your offers, include excellent photography, a short but complete description, a call to action, and an URL to a landing page. You can segment Facebook users and set your target audience for the boosted post
Using a custom audience, you can retarget unique visitors and bring them back to your site. How do you do that? By showing them ads on Facebook to remind them about your business.
To create this targeted audience, add custom code on your website. Users who visited that particular page (with the code on it) will be added to an audience list in the Facebook Ads Manager. Next, you can use this list as a target audience in ad campaigns.
5) Help your tenants evaluate your rental property with a dedicated video
Create a free Youtube account and upload videos to get more traffic and convert visitors into future tenants. These could be virtual tours of the property to help viewers imagine living in your rental home.
You don’t have to pay exorbitant sums for your video as you can always use your smartphone for filming a low critical friendly tour. Add interactivity to your videos using YouTube cards.
They allow you to add a call-to-action in video overlays or direct viewers to your website. Next, you can embed the video on your website and promote it on social media to attract more viewers.
6) Create a fantastic user experience to convert visitors into tenants.
Your website is your business identity on the web, and you should make all efforts to impress visitors. Growing traffic should result in capturing more leads. How do you do that? Focus on optimizing your website so that the user can navigate easily and find all the information needed.
The first thing you should focus on is to choose the appropriate website builder, theme, and plugins to ensure trouble-free site navigation. Our solutions can help build the strongest website for your business.
Choose WpResidence, the most popular WordPress theme for showcasing real estate properties, 5-star rated and purchased by over 30000 clients worldwide. You have 13 demos to choose from, with a fresh and modern design. Check our special WpResidence blog posts for more info, or reach us through our private chat.
Or go with WpRentals, the most popular booking/rental accommodation theme you can find online.
Optimize your rental pictures, use only high-res quality pics. And include all the details needed in the property description. Include a map and a virtual tour if possible, to increase user engagement.
To turn your website into a lead generator include call-to-action such as a sign-up form, walk-through scheduling, etc. Your site should have a responsive design to increase your rank in local search results. Ensure you reach renters on mobile devices as more than 50% of your traffic comes from mobile or tablet.
