by threshold | Jan 6, 2021 | Creative, Design, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web
For real estate developers, leasing and property management teams, apartment marketing agencies, and in-house real estate marketers alike, fair housing requirements have been an evolving consideration when it comes to how we do our jobs. With guidelines still emerging and clarifying, especially for the digital space, this topic can sometimes feel like a moving target. Regardless, it’s essential to put in the time and attention required to understand how legislation like the Fair Housing Act (FHA) works to reduce housing inequality across factors like race, disability, and national origin.
Our goal with this article is not to replace your legal counsel, but to provide our learnings and recommendations for FHA-compliant apartment marketing that supports a more equitable housing market. Our goal is to empower you with a better understanding of how you can not only act within the guidelines of FHA law, but more importantly, how you can avoid inequitable impact toward disadvantaged groups when you market your housing to your audience. After all, inequitable impact can occur more easily than you might think, and much of it is done unintentionally. But take heart, real estate marketers; a little extra effort and consideration can go a very long way.
So let’s start by introducing the Fair Housing Act, then we’ll discuss our recommendations and action items for marketers like you.
What is the Fair Housing Act?
The Fair Housing Act prohibits the making, printing, and publishing of advertisements that indicate a preference, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin.
It’s designed to not only outlaw explicit housing discrimination against these protected classes of people, but also to reduce housing inequality that may be caused in unintentional or subtle ways.
Housing Inequality refers to a disparity in housing availability and quality across variables like race, class, disability, and more. Housing inequality is typically a result of systemic factors both past and present, from Red-lining to wage inequality.
Housing inequality may include…
- less housing available to certain groups
- less affordable housing available than demand requires
- less access to local resources (e.g. schools, parks, transportation, social services) for certain groups due to where they predominantly live
- and more.
History of the Fair Housing Act
The FHA is considered amongst the last major acts of the ‘60s Civil Rights Movement. It was called for by civil rights activists of the 60’s including Martin Luther King, Jr., who demanded an end to redlining and other discriminatory housing practices that were preventing many Black and Latinx people from renting in certain neighborhoods. The act had been introduced to Congress when MLK was assassinated on April 4th, 1968, increasing pressure on Congress to pass the bill. It was then passed prior to MLK’s funeral.
But the FHA didn’t end housing inequality. While it has positively impacted many Black and brown renters and homeowners, a variety of systemic factors still result in housing inequality today. For example, the FHA did little to disrupt a trend of “white flight” between 1950 to 1980, when the Black population in America’s urban centers increased from 6.1M to 15.3M. During this time, whites moved out to the suburbs, taking many of the employment opportunities Black people needed into communities where they were not welcome.
Since its initial passing, a number of amendments and provisions have expanded the language of the FHA. Notably, in 1988, Congress passed the Fair Housing Amendments Act, expanding the classes protected by the act to include disability and familial status (e.g. people currently pregnant or with children).
During the Obama administration, the AFFH (Affordably Furthering Fair Housing) provision of the FHA was introduced, which expanded both accountability and resources given to cities and regional governments receiving HUD (Dept. of Housing & Urban Development) funding. These rules and resources were designed to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing by incentivizing fair housing efforts at the governmental level. However, in 2020, the Trump administration amended this provision, rolling back most of the accountability and resources provided by the provision. This change makes it less likely for fair and affordable housing to be built, but it doesn’t ultimately impact a marketer’s responsibilities to either the FHA law or to ethical ideals.
Protected Classes Under the Fair Housing Act
Race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, and national origin are all protected classes under the FHA.
Many state and local laws have more expansive fair housing protections that prohibit housing discrimination based on additional protected classes, such as sexual orientation, marital status, source of income, and use of Housing Choice Vouchers.
In some cases, political affiliation may also be a protected class according to a webinar by the National Fair Housing Alliance.
Below are a few examples of who and what these protected classes cover and don’t cover.
What Counts As “Advertising” Under the Fair Housing Act
It’s important to realize that under the FHA, the definition of advertising is actually very broad. It includes…
- print and online advertisements
- print materials such as brochures or applications
- television and radio ads
- and even speech.
In other words, the FHA can cover messaging from a brand or people associated with the brand even across media that may not strictly be advertisements as typically defined. For example, expressing an illegal preference or limitation to one of your fellow agents, brokers, employees, prospective sellers, renters, or to any other person in connection with the sale or rental of your property is illegal under the FHA. Here are two examples of illegal advertising that you may not have realized were violations of the Fair Housing Act (examples provided by the Fair Housing Institute).
- A maintenance man tells a passer-by that “only real Americans” live in the apartment complex where he works.
- A rental office is decorated with many large pictures of the residents participating in the community’s facilities and amenities such as exercising in the weight room, swimming, and playing volleyball and tennis. However, all of the pictures are of white, young, “yuppies;” none of the pictures shows children, or persons of differing races or nationalities.
Best Practices for Fair Housing Compliant Marketing
FHA-Compliant Copywriting
When it comes to writing fair housing compliant copy for your apartment marketing materials, it’s important first and foremost to use inclusive language as often as possible. This includes the following:
- Use gender-neutral terms and pronouns as often as possible. (e.g. “partner” or “spouse” instead of “husband” or “wife;” “child” or “student” instead of “son or daughter;” “they/them” instead of “he or she/him or her;” etc.)
- Avoid mentioning specific religious holidays or practices
- Avoid mentioning specific national or regional origins
It’s also wise to eliminate the use of buzzwords like “Restricted,” “Exclusive,” or “Limited,” as these have been associated with discriminatory practices in the past. If tempted to use these sorts of buzzwords, consider similar words instead like “Luxurious,” “Deluxe,” “Quality,” or “Sophisticated.”
It’s also important to avoid the temptation to speak about who you see as the ideal resident of your community. For example, if you have a community with a playground, you might be tempted to say that your apartments are “perfect for families,” but this expresses an illegal discrimination or preference for one of the protected classes under the FHA. Instead of indicating who you think should live at your community, focus on the amenities, features, and local attractions your property offers. Always offer truthful information about the availability, price, amenities, and features of a housing unit and leave it up to your prospects to determine whether the community is right for them.
In addition, when writing copy for websites, social media posts, articles, and the like, consider how legible the copy will be to a person reading your content via a screen reader program rather than by sight alone. Use capitalization and punctuation in ways that make it easier for these screen reader programs to parse copy (e.g. capitalize each word in a hashtag as in #ScreenReader).
FHA-Compliant Design
When it comes to design, representing diversity should be a top priority whether you’re launching new ads or designing a website. Use photos of diverse groups of people from all protected classes whenever possible. If you have to depict just one or two people in a given image, consider depicting a person or people from another protected class in the next image. In general, your goal is to provide an overall impression of diversity for a user that encounters your brand assets. Don’t forget that diversity doesn’t just include racial diversity, it also includes things like gender, disability, and religious diversity.
It’s also wise to incorporate the Equal Housing Opportunity logo in your ads and on your website. While the Fair Housing Act itself does not require the use of Equal Opportunity logo in any ad, using the logo does show your company’s commitment to fair housing compliance.
Similarly, we recommend incorporating the Americans with Disabilities Act Icon wherever relevant, such as on a floor plans or community amenities page. Several federal laws require that private and federally-assisted housing be accessible to persons with disabilities. While this icon is not required on marketing materials, it acts as further evidence of your company’s commitment to fair housing compliance and encourages people with disabilities to apply to live at your community if they see the icon on your website or other assets.
For more resources on creating accessible design across digital and print marketing, we recommend looking into dedicated resources like W3’s Web Accessibility Initiative, UX Design’s post on Accessible Design, and Smashing Magazine’s article on Designing for Accessibility and Inclusion.
ADA-Compliant Websites and Accessibility
While the Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, it doesn’t provide much in the way of accessibility guidelines to determine how accessible a website is to people with various disabilities. To put it generally, everyone, including persons with disabilities, should be able to enjoy the “full and equal” use of your website; they should be able to access content, navigate your website smoothly, engage with different elements, etc.
When it comes to more concrete guidelines, U.S. courts and the Department of Justice have continually referenced the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA success criteria as the standard to gauge whether websites are accessible. The WCAG 2.0 AA success criteria are comprised of 38 requirements and you can learn more at W3’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview. Although there is a lot here to sift through, WCAG 3.0 is scheduled for release in 2021 and is intended to be a much more inclusive set of guidelines that are easier to understand and implement.
Using an accessibility widget is a great way to cover many of the WCAG guidelines for your website. An accessibility widget is a plugin that helps users with disabilities access the site and may allow users to adjust factors like contrast and font size, use keyboard navigation or page readers, and stop animations on the site. No plugin guarantees 100% coverage of the WCAG guidelines, but nevertheless, they are a great addition to your website.
FHA’s Impact on Digital Advertising for Apartments
Thanks to guidance from the Fair Housing Act and similar legislation, the housing industry has emerged as one of the first to receive official legal guidelines for digital advertising tactics. While traditional marketing has operated under clearer legislation, the digital space has long been a legal frontier as legislators, courts, and thought leaders work to catch up.
In 2019, platforms like Facebook and Google, who represent the lion’s share of digital advertising space, began making changes to their advertising options. To summarize, the platforms have now eliminated or adjusted a number of targeting options for ads falling into the categories of housing and finance in order to bring their platforms into better accordance with FHA and similar legislation. These changes—such as the removal of zip code targeting, age targeting, and targeting based on certain interests—reduce the possibility of inequitable impact across the protected classes under the FHA. You can learn more about Facebook’s targeting changes and Google’s targeting changes in our other posts, linked here.
What We Expect To See Next For Digital Marketing
These targeting changes on Facebook and Google are likely to act as forward momentum for similar such changes in the future. We expect cookie privacy and other privacy concerns to be a large part of the discussion in the coming years. We also expect other platforms beyond Facebook and Google to begin seeing regulation (if they don’t initiate changes proactively themselves).
by threshold | Dec 7, 2020 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web
There are a lot of best practices you can gather about digital apartment marketing before you ever launch your own campaigns. But the best campaigns are built on the foundation of testing and optimization. No two markets are exactly the same, so to learn what works for your real estate brand, you have to be willing to try, fail, and learn along the way. Luckily, A/B testing—AKA split testing—is a tried-and-true practice among marketers, and it’s built into many of the most popular advertising platforms. Plus, when done strategically, it saves you much more money than it costs, making it a no-brainer for most real estate marketing agencies and in-house apartment marketers.
So what exactly is A/B testing, how does it work, and how should you employ it for your apartment marketing campaigns? We’ll answer all that and more below.
What is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is a type of split testing in which two versions of a marketing element are run simultaneously to determine which performs better. For example, if you take an existing ad for your property, but swap out the headline for a new one, then run both the new and the old version at the same time (i.e. version A and version B) to see whether the new or the old headline earns better results, that’s an A/B test. While split testing refers to a test with more than one version, A/B testing is simply the term for a split test using exactly two versions. However, the term A/B testing has become so ubiquitous you might hear it used synonymously with “split testing.” In any case, the basic methodology is the same whether you’re using two versions or more.
Ad headlines aren’t the only thing you might A/B test. Email subject lines, landing pages, CTAs, and lots more can be A/B tested to fine-tune your approach to apartment marketing for your real estate brand.
Why is A/B Testing Important for Apartment Marketing?
We said it earlier, but it bears repeating: no two real estate markets are exactly the same. Your audience of potential residents might respond to one headline while another audience might ignore it. And while you might land on a decent marketing strategy by following best practices and common sense alone, you could be missing out on a lot of optimization if you never test your approach.
When real estate brands employ A/B testing, they give themselves the opportunity to understand how to put their marketing dollars toward the most cost-effective outcomes. For example, you might find that advertising “Get 2 Months Rent FREE” performs better than “Get Half-Off Rent for 4 Months,” earning you more leases even though the rent concession costs you just as much no matter how you phrase it. A/B testing can amplify—sometimes dramatically—the effectiveness of the same basic marketing campaign, simply by tweaking the messaging you use, the color of a CTA button, the header at the top of your landing page, or the subject line of your email.
How To Do A/B Testing for Apartment Marketing
Before you start A/B testing, though, it’s important to know some basic dos and don’ts. Otherwise, you can easily get results that are skewed, confusing, or just not very useful. There are a few essentials to keep in mind when setting up an A/B test.
First, it’s important that you pick only ONE variable to test at a time. If you run a version of a display ad with a different headline AND different photo selection, you won’t know whether the difference in performance is due to the headline messaging or the photo selection. Unclear results like this make it challenging to use what you’ve learned to optimize your results. While it can be tempting to test everything all at once in the hopes of expediting the learning process, you’ll actually slow yourself down because you’ll have to wade through unclear results that don’t offer actionable takeaways.
Secondly, it’s important that you split your sample groups evenly and randomly. Doing so ensures that one version’s higher performance isn’t simply due to it having more opportunity to excel than the other. For example, if one landing page is shown to prospects who have visited your site already and another version is shown to new visitors, you won’t know whether the difference in performance is due to the audience it was shown to or due to the landing page design itself. Randomizing and evenly segmenting the users who see version A vs. version B helps ensure that you can confidently attribute differences to the variable being tested and NOT to any variables that are not being tested.
On a similar note, avoid jumping to conclusions until versions A and B have both been shown to a good sample size. The sample size sufficient to draw reasonable insights can vary based on your goals and what’s being tested, but in general, the larger your sample size, the more confidently your can draw your conclusions and apply your learnings.
Finally, understand your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) before you start testing. Since there will likely be a variety of measurable differences among factors like CTR, impressions, time spent on page, percentage of new website visits, open rates, and so on, it’s important that you know which are most important in measuring success. For example, if what you want is more traffic to your site, measuring CTRs and new visitors to the site (through Google Analytics) are your key metrics to look at. If what you want is to raise awareness, impressions and views may be more important barometers of your success.
by threshold | Oct 13, 2020 | Culture, Marketing, Tech/Web
Updated 9/8/21 With the oldest representatives of Gen Z now 24 years old, this generation has already redefined the student housing market and is well on its way to doing the same for multifamily. As their coming of age continues to change the student housing and multifamily industries, here’s what you should know if you want to remain at the cutting edge of the industry and future-proof your marketing strategy. We’ll break down who Gen Z is, what motivates Gen Z’s housing choices, and how to market housing to Gen Z. Let’s dive in.
Who Is Gen Z?
First of all, let’s nail down some definitions. Although from a practical standpoint, generational boundaries are more of a guideline, the official birth years for Gen Z fall between 1997 and 2012. That means as of 2021, the oldest Gen Zers (or “Zoomers”) are now 24 years old. As a result, many Gen Zers are now becoming first-time renters in both the student housing and multi-family markets, and within the next decade, the entire generation will be 18 or older.
Besides their years of birth, Gen Z is defined by the digital and cultural trends that formed (and continue to inform) the zeitgeist of their formative years. This generation is dominated by digital natives—i.e. people who have not only never experienced a time without the internet, but who grew up using smartphones, social media, and other digital technologies and platforms. They are on track to be the most educated generation on average and tend to be socially conscious and climate conscious.
In terms of their values, Gen Z is considered to be similar to Millennials but antithetical to the Boomer generation. Many Gen Zers appear to reject the traditional values of the Boomer generation: for example, Gen Z is less likely to value buying a home, marrying young (or marrying at all), having children, achieving traditional career success, or conforming to traditionally-defined gender roles.
What Motivates Gen Z?
Gen Z’s digital and social sensibilities define their key motivations within the housing market. For example, it should come as no surprise that, even more than Millennials, the digital natives of Gen Z are motivated by smart home tech, access to high-speed internet, and a property’s digital presence. They prefer having the ability to learn about a property online without first having to visit in person and expect online options for lease applications, rent payments, and maintenance requests. In a similar vein, this group—accustomed to having so much of their life at their literal fingertips—appreciates convenience and will choose housing options that cater to it.
Beyond their digital expectations, Gen Z is also highly motivated by affordability. As this generation enters the market during one of America’s most staggering recessions, when tuition costs are higher than ever, and job security is hard to come by, they know they have to be frugal and cautious. For similar reasons, this generation values flexibility and efficiency. They want to get what they need without paying for extra; they want low utility costs and high value, and they want the freedom to change their housing when their needs change, especially during a time of instability.
Additionally, this climate-conscious generation is motivated by sustainability. They are early adopters of sustainable alternatives to everyday goods and services and likely to appreciate brands that they see as contributing to climate solutions rather than to climate problems.
How is Gen Z Changing the Housing Market?
As Gen Z enters the renting market, many developers and property management companies are beginning to see what is most important to these renters as well as what are some of the deal-breakers.
We’ve already seen a shift to online rent payment options, online leasing, and virtual tours. In addition to these changes, we’re beginning to see an incorporation of more smart-home technologies with new developments and upgrades to existing apartments. These changes speak to some of the shared values placed on digital convenience and tech-savvy by Gen Z and Millennials. While the latter have been shaping housing trends for over a decade, Gen Z will likely push these trends even further. In particular, smart-home technologies with phone compatibility are likely to be the next wave of upgrades. Some of the amenities we’re beginning to see in this area include:
- Smart thermostats
- Smart door locks and keyless entry (for apartments and amenity spaces)
- Package lockers
- Smart speakers (often given as leasing incentives)
- Smart lights
- Smart appliances
- App-based amenity reservation system
On the subject of sustainability, many developers are setting new standards with LEED certification. Since Gen Z values contributing to efforts that protect the environment, we may see an increase in LEED certified buildings and the marketing around these certifications to appeal to the interests of Gen Z renters. Other features and amenities we’re beginning to see in this area include:
- Vehicle recharging stations
- LED lighting
- On-site renewable energy
- Recycling options
- Daylighting
- High-efficiency appliances
- Community gardens
Another interesting trend that could emerge is co-living. While it’s still a niche industry, co-living may appeal to the convenience and affordability motivators for Gen Z. Younger renters are accustomed to and actively seek out living with a roommate. The housing affordability crisis of today may even motivate Gen Z renters to seek out co-living options in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and any lingering cultural shift it may create.
How To Market Apartments to Gen Z
Whether you’re marketing student housing or multifamily apartments, appealing to a Gen Z audience requires more than just running some ads on Instagram or creating a TikTok for your property. While most apartment marketers and asset managers already know that social media presence is a must when marketing to Zoomers, there are additional factors you should take into account.
Branding & Positioning for Gen Z
Gen Z likes to see authenticity, social impact awareness, sustainability, and modernity from their brands, and apartments are no exception. For new developments, it’s easier to steer your branding in this direction, but for existing communities, it can be a challenge to adapt to these preferences after the fact. Consider drafting new brand messaging guidelines for everything from your social media posts to your website and ad copy, then update these digital assets accordingly. Gen Z can smell inauthenticity a mile away, so brand voices that are conversational, approachable, and down-to-earth tend to resonate better with this crowd. And after all, there’s something inherently appealing about a brand that appears to “cut through the bullshit” and deliver straightforward facts. While some existing brands can achieve this with just some well-placed tweaks, in some cases, a full rebrand could be the glow-up your community needs to attract Gen Z renters.
Gen Z also tends to prefer a brand look & feel that is colorful, playful, and simple. In general, think organic shapes, minimalist composition, and hand-drawn patterns and textures. By contrast, the ultra-luxe look & feel of metallic accents, moody lighting, and elegant or crisp lines don’t tend to play as well with this audience. That’s not a hard and fast rule though, so consider which of these elements, if any, will play well with your interior design and existing branding.
Digital Marketing for Gen Z
You already know that a social media presence and social media ads are a must for Gen Zers. To maximize your impact on these platforms, video is a must. TikTok videos, Instagram reels, and Instagram Stories are excellent ways to give quick video tours of your floor plans, show off resident events, introduce your on-site team members, and more.
In addition to these platforms, your website and Google My Business page are also key to earning leads and leases from Gen Z renters. You don’t have to have the fanciest website, but a modern feel with solid UX (including, at a bare minimum, no broken links) can go a long way. That goes double for a GMB page with updated info, a working link to your website, attractive community photos, and positive reviews.
And because most housing searches begin with a Google search, especially among the digital natives of Gen Z, Search Ads are a must if you want to reach your prospects when they are most ready to click and convert.
by threshold | Sep 22, 2020 | Creative, Design, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web, Thought Leadership
Every good digital marketing plan for real estate must take into account the user experience on property websites. After all, a digital ad is only as good as the landing page it directs to, and a bad first impression can destroy your chances with a prospect. Real estate marketers today know they need to provide a great user experience on property websites, but they aren’t always sure how to improve UX or use strong UX design from the beginning.
If this sounds like you, don’t worry, we’re going to go through some UX tips for apartment websites. These tips range from quick fixes to broader strategies, but every one of them will help you build websites that meet user’s needs and encourage them to take the actions that are important for your bottom line.
Study User Behavior
First and foremost, you need to understand your users. Not just users in general, but your users; your audience’s browsing habits, goals, needs, motivators, and preferences. Each market is different and so is each person, but a few strategies can help you discover broad habits that your site should cater towards, like what information is important to your users and what device they usually use to search for housing or access your resident portal.
Conduct a Focus Group
A focus group survey can help you understand a lot about your audience. While the best focus groups require diligent survey design, the payoff can be massive.
When conducting focus groups, make sure to get as representative a sample as possible for your city, university, or age group. You might want to offer an incentive to attract more participants—for example, with a chance to win a gift card once the survey has been completed.
Avoid asking leading questions or limiting the answers your respondents can give. Keeping things open-ended is the best way to ensure you learn something you didn’t already know (or assume).
Use Scrollmaps
Scrollmaps are a tool you can use to study user behavior on a site that already exists. It shows you where users tend to linger on a page, where they tend to click, and which areas fail to hold their attention. This is a particularly useful tool if you want to identify areas for improvement on a website you’ve already built.
Scrollmaps can’t provide a full picture, however, because they don’t show you what your users would be doing if things were different. They can only show you what they are or aren’t doing right now. In other words, they’re better at identifying problems than solutions. Still, they can be a great place to start.
Study Your Google Analytics
For more insights into user behavior on already existing sites, Google Analytics is a fantastic resource. It allows you to see which pages have the highest bounce rate or lowest time spent on-page, which pages are most viewed and which are rarely seen. These insights can help you identify sections of your site that need improvement. Combined with the use of scrollmaps, this strategy can give you a lot of information about your current UX without having to ask users directly.
Consider Your Mobile User Experience
While many users’ housing searches take place primarily online, mobile phones and tablets still represent a significant portion of the traffic to your property website. In fact, a user is especially likely to encounter your property website on their phone during the discovery phase, when they’re forming their initial opinions and deciding which properties will move forward into their consideration phase. This means having a responsive website—one that’s optimized for a variety of screen sizes—is essential in making a good first impression.
If you’re not sure how to turn a website design that’s optimized for desktop into one that works on mobile, here are a few basic guidelines.
When it comes to website design for mobile:
- Stack content vertically instead of horizontally
- Use image carousels instead of images arranged in a grid pattern
- Implement expandable elements so users can expand and collapse information as they desire
- Use an expandable “hamburger” navigation menu that remains out-of-the-way when not in use
Address Long Loading Times
Nothing contributes to high bounce rates more than a slow load time. That’s because a slowly-loading page makes for a terrible user experience in a world grown accustomed to lightning-fast internet. Users just don’t have the time or patience to wait for your site to load, especially when they have other options available to them.
The best way to reduce page load times is to be aware of the common culprits—namely, video and images. When you have several large image or video files on a page, it takes much longer to load, even on the best internet available today. It’s best to keep each image or video under 500KB wherever possible.
That’s not your only option, though. Sometimes, you might need to include a large file (or several). In cases like these, you can instead defer certain elements from loading on the page until they’re needed, or until the rest of the page loads. For example, you can wait to load a video until a user scrolls to the section of the page it’s on.
Make Pages More Engaging
The longer a user spends on a page, the likelier they are to take a conversion action or become loyal to your brand. But you need to give them reasons to stick around, and that means offering a great experience while they’re there.
One of the best ways to improve website UX by making your pages more engaging is to incorporate great images and video onto as many pages as possible. Users like to have something visual to enhance their understanding of information and hold their focus.
For apartment websites, we highly recommend taking high-quality photos and video of your community and incorporating them throughout your webpages (not just on a gallery page). Virtual tours have become a must, and your homepage can be a great place to feature a professionally edited community tour video or even feature Matterports of your top floor plans.
Make Pages More Scannable
Much as website creators might want them to, users don’t read pages from start to finish. Instead, they scan pages for the information they need or content that engages their attention.
Work with user habits and not against them by making your pages easier to scan. This creates a better user experience on your property website and improves your chances of showing a user that your community is right for them.
Tips for making web pages more scannable include:
- Develop a clear hierarchy of information by using header tags, consistent font and formatting styles, and visual cues that help signal separate chunks of information (like font color, font weight, background color, and other design elements).
- Use headers that clearly signal the content they introduce (e.g. “Community Amenities” or “Amenities for an Active Lifestyle”).
- Avoid long blocks of text. Break up text into sections of about 100 words or less.
- Avoid repetition. Repetitiveness confuses the reader about where they can find the information they’re looking for. It can also seem spammy to users and search engines alike.
- Use bullets or lists when you can (like we just did).
Make In-Demand Pages Accessible
Some pages are more important than others, and you want to make sure your users can easily find and use the pages they need the most (and the pages you most want them to use). For apartment websites, that’s typically your application portal, contact page, and resident portal. It might also be a page housing your virtual tour or floor plan availability. There are a few things you can do to make these in-demand pages more accessible.
Firstly, let’s talk about accessibility in terms of how easy it is to find. Use clear Call-To-Action buttons at the tops of pages—especially your homepage—to direct users to what they need and where you want them to go. You might also use borders and contrasting colors in your navigation menu or headers to make links to these pages clearer and more attractive.
Making pages more accessible also means making them easier to use for as many users as possible, including those with disabilities. For example, make sure you use fonts that are large enough for all users to read. You should also avoid using colors that provide poor contrast with one another, especially for text and CTA buttons.
Don’t Forget About Micro-Copy
“Micro-copy” refers to those small pieces of text that guide a user through your website, like the text on a CTA button or the error message they get when they fill out a form incorrectly. It’s easy to overlook the power of strategic micro-copy, but these are often high-impact areas that define the quality of a user’s experience in spite of their relatively small real estate.
Beyond their usefulness in guiding a user clearly through your website experience, micro-copy also offers a great opportunity to turn something generic into something that expresses your unique brand and really makes an impression on users. For example, the ubiquitous “Submit” button is boring and not all that descriptive. A button reading “Send My Message” or “Make Me a VIP” is more descriptive, personal, and flavorful.
Micro-copy applies to areas like CTAs and form fills but can also include hover copy to let a user know something is clickable and what will happen when they click (e.g. on an image or button), like in the below example.
Micro-copy also allows you to set expectations for what will happen when a user does something, which makes them far more likely to take the conversion actions you want them to take. For example, if you want the user to contact you to schedule a tour or start an application, including the text “We’ll read your message thoroughly and get back to you within 24 hours,” near the contact form gives a user the confidence that taking that action will lead to their desired result.
That’s all our tips for improving UX on apartment websites! If you want to learn more about UX or get professional assistance with your UX Design, you can do so by filling out our Contact Form. We’d love to hear from you.
by threshold | Aug 20, 2020 | Digital Marketing, Marketing, Tech/Web
Earlier this year, Google announced that it would be making updates to targeting capabilities for ads within the housing industry. In the wake of this announcement, many real estate brands and apartment marketers have been wondering what to do about the Google Ads targeting changes and how to ensure their digital campaigns continue to run smoothly and effectively. Today, we’ll be going over what you should do today to meet those goals.
Due for implementation on October 19, 2020, Google’s update will limit the targeting options for real estate ads run on Google platforms in order to bring ads on the platform into alignment with HUD standards. The change will impact ad campaigns in Google Ads, Gmail, and YouTube, some of the most popular and lucrative ad platforms in use by real estate brands today.
Google’s announcement comes in the wake of Facebook’s decision last year to limit its targeting options after the company faced criticisms that some of its targeting options conflicted with the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and other civil rights legislation concerning housing, employment, and finance. With these two industry leaders making these changes, we can likely expect to see new updates along the same lines emerge on other platforms as well in the future, although none have been announced as of today.
Google Ads Targeting Changes
So what exactly is changing? Google’s October update will restrict targeting options for housing, employment, and credit advertising shown to users in the US and Canada. Let’s break down what we know so far.
Broadly speaking, housing, employment, and credit ads will no longer be able to target or exclude users based on age, gender, marital status (or whether someone is getting married soon), parental status, or zip code. This policy only applies to in-scope ads targeting the US and/or Canada. These changes will bring the platform’s targeting tools more in line with legislation like the FHA, which is designed to ensure equitable conditions across the housing industry and reduce discrimination against protected classes of people.
This will also mean that any automatic bid adjustments made on the basis of any of the above targeting factors (age, gender, etc.) will no longer be possible.
Real estate marketers will still have many targeting options, however. They can continue to use all other Google Audiences, contextual targeting, automated bidding, and non-zip code geotargeting options. Let’s dig down into some specifics.
First and foremost, advertisers will still be able to target users based on browsing behavior (like what they search for and what websites they visit). This is already one of the most effective ways to reach qualified leads and this capability isn’t going away. For example, you can still target the keyword “student housing” to capture users searching for this term, even if you can’t target users between the ages of, say, 18 and 22.
Advertisers will also still be able to target based on Interests, providing the possibility of further nuance where useful. For example, if your property is located near a major stadium, you can still target people interested in sports.
Finally, let’s talk about geotargeting options. Targeting based on zip codes will no longer be possible for housing ads, which is a good thing. Zip codes are often drawn on the basis of districting practices that were (or are still) influenced by systemic racism and classism, such as red-lining or gerrymandering. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use location as a targeting factor, however. It just means that, instead of zip code targeting, you’ll need to rely on radius targeting. This will allow you to target users within a certain radius of your property, allowing you to generate qualified leads without the same risk of inequitable impact.
What You Need To Do Today
So what, if anything, should you be doing to prepare for this change? The vast majority of ad campaigns can continue uninterrupted, but if you are running ads that use any of the soon-to-be eliminated targeting options, you’ll want to take action sooner rather than later.
Once these changes are implemented in October 2020, any campaigns using the now-eliminated targeting options will automatically be paused. In order to ensure uninterrupted campaigns, we recommend you make the necessary adjustments to remove soon-defunct targeting options from your campaigns before October 2020.
Whether you’re reading this before or after October 2020, performing a self-audit on your existing ad campaigns (or having your marketing partner do this for you) is an important first step. Determine whether any of your existing campaigns use targeting options that will soon be eliminated, such as age targeting, zip code targeting, or targeting on the basis of family or marital status.
For any existing campaigns that use such targeting features, remove these targeting features. Then, if necessary, you may choose to implement other options that will have a similar targeting impact. For example, you may choose to replace zip code targeting with radius targeting.
After you’ve made the changes, keep an eye on your results and adjust as needed. Impressions, clicks, and cost-per-click are the Key Performance Indicators to focus on as you optimize your campaigns.
Overall, these targeting updates should still leave real estate marketers with the tools they need to see meaningful results that positively impact their bottom line. If you’re looking for more guidance on these changes and how your brand can adapt, don’t hesitate to reach out to the experts at Threshold. We’re always here to help.
by threshold | Jul 7, 2020 | Digital Marketing, Tech/Web
Improving your visibility online has never been more important in the world of apartment marketing. According to research by HubSpot, 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search results. That’s probably not very surprising for you—after all, how often do you find yourself scrolling even as far as the bottom of the first page? Real estate marketers today know that SEO is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies because, when done right, it costs very little to implement, leading to low cost-per-conversion and increased traffic and leads.
So what can you do today to improve your apartment website SEO? If you’re not interested in hiring an SEO expert on our team, there’s still a lot you can do to execute your own SEO services to rank more highly on Google. Here are some quick and dirty tips that can help you get started and see results.
On-Page SEO for Apartment Marketing
On-page SEO is a collective term for the ways in which your website content—from page titles to headings to alt tags to meta descriptions to site maps and more—impacts your Google search rankings. There are lots of ways to impact your on-page SEO, and it all starts with a little research.
Use Keyword Planner
Use Google’s Keyword Planner to your advantage. This tool can help you do the keyword research that will be the first step to making informed SEO decisions. You want your site to use keywords in strategic ways so that Google will deem your website relevant when a user types out those same keywords in a Google search. But in order to select strategic keywords for your property, you need to know what people are searching for. That’s exactly what Keyword Planner tells you.
There are also popular tools like Semrush with similar functionality, but Google Keyword Planner has the advantage of being free to use, so it’s a great place to start.
How To Use Keyword Planner for Apartment Marketing
When you’re using Keyword Planner, start by typing in the search terms people might use when looking for an apartment in your area—your common sense is your best friend here. The tool will then return suggested keywords similar to what you entered, showing the search volume and competitiveness for the suggested keywords. You’ll want to target the least competitive keywords with the highest search volume. This is the quickest way to see more organic traffic.
However, be mindful of user intent when you’re choosing the keywords to target. Just because a keyword offers what looks like a particularly juicy opportunity doesn’t mean that users will actually click on your website in search results. Your website also has to be genuinely relevant to what they’re looking for. For example, it might seem tempting to attempt to rank for “apartmentfinder” but users typing in this search term will typically be looking for the website ApartmentFinder, which is bound to claim the first spot in Google results. Once they’ve made their search, there’s extremely little chance of them going on to click on your website, even if it claims the second position in the search results.
Always Leverage Local Keywords for Apartment SEO
You may have heard that local searches are more important than ever, and this is particularly true for real estate marketing. After all, location is one of the most important factors in a prospect’s housing decision.
For this reason, you should always include hyper-local keywords in your SEO strategy. Keywords like “apartments in [city],” “[city] apartments,” “[district] apartments” or “apartments in [zip code]” are usually great places to start. Sometimes, a keyword that mentions a particular landmark, employer, or school district can also earn high search traffic.
While you’re at it, it’s also a great idea to put your property’s street address and contact info on the footer of every page of your website and make sure that your address and contact info is also on your property’s Google My Business page. This helps your website capture more local traffic by letting Google know exactly where you are.
When In Doubt, Learn From Competitors
You can also use Keyword Planner to see what keywords a competitor’s site is ranking for. If you’re like most apartment communities, you probably have a competitor just down the street with comparable amenities and solid SEO. While you might be frustrated knowing you’re losing business to them just because they show up higher in search results, they are also the perfect example to learn from. Put their website domain name into the Keyword Planner and see what comes up. Remember to go after the keywords with higher search volume but lower competitiveness scores—this could help you beat out your competitors and see lots more organic traffic.
Place Keywords in High-Impact Areas of Your Site
Now that you know what keywords you want to target, it’s time to put them all over your site. But there are areas of your site that will offer higher impact than others, so before you go slapping keywords throughout your site, take a second to plan things out.
When Google indexes a site for search, it pays particularly close attention to page titles, headers, and alt text on images to determine what your page is about. When you can, incorporating keywords in these areas can have a higher impact on your ranking than putting them in the body copy. That’s not to say you shouldn’t put them in body copy too, just don’t neglect the sections of your site that offer the highest SEO impact.
Add a Blog to Your Apartment Website
Adding a blog to your apartment website is one of the easiest ways to expand your SEO opportunities. That’s because the more words and the more pages your website contains, the more space there is to incorporate those keywords.
Including keywords in your page titles and headers is great, but these areas represent precious little real estate on your website. To provide more opportunities to enhance your SEO, you need more space to incorporate keywords. But nobody likes a cluttered homepage and absolutely no one wants to sift through a bunch of paragraph copy while they’re just looking for a list of amenities.
That’s why adding a blog is a great way to have your cake and eat it too. You can preserve the streamlined usability of your main site while still incorporating plenty of copy where you can drop in those keywords without seeming spammy. Try writing a post about the top restaurants near your apartments or the best ways to keep your in-unit laundry machines running smoothly. You’ll find it easy to drop local keywords into this kind of content, plus your residents and prospects can genuinely benefit from the information.
Posting fresh content to your blog consistently also makes Google’s algorithm happy and makes your site more likely to rank highly in search results. That’s because it prioritizes fresh content to ensure it’s providing up-to-date and hyper-relevant results for its users.
Add Video to your Apartment Website
Google’s algorithm likes websites with content that sees high engagement. That’s why it tends to favor websites that include video as part of their user experience.
Video offers the opportunity to communicate a lot in a short amount of time and users love that. A user is a lot more likely to watch a 1-minute video than to read through your paragraph about all your top amenities. Since Google’s mission is to connect users to content they’ll find valuable, it tries to deliver sites that offer great UX, and video is just part of that equation, but a powerful one.
Wondering how you can incorporate video on your website? A virtual tour is the perfect place to start. An impressive fly-over video that acts as the hero image for your homepage might also be a great option.
Whatever video assets you implement on your site, always ensure that they have a full description and meta data included. This is necessary to tell Google what the video is so it can index it properly.
Improve Your Mobile Experience
Most apartment websites are built first for desktop, then optimized for mobile, which is a fine strategy. But with more than half of all internet traffic now coming from mobile devices, it’s essential that you don’t skip that second step. It’s bad UX, and Google will fault you for it.
Having a responsive site—i.e. one that looks great on a variety of screen sizes, including mobile—will not only make users happier (which leads to more conversions), it will also help you rank more highly in Google’s search results by showing Google that your site can provide a great experience. While ensuring your site design is optimized for mobile, it’s also important that you minimize load times for your site. A slow-loading website will result in high bounce rates—especially for mobile users—which hurts your SEO rankings.
Off-Page SEO for Apartment Marketing
Off-page SEO refers to the ways in which content elsewhere on the internet (i.e. not on your site) can impact your website’s Google search rankings. While you have less control over these factors, there are still steps you can take to improve your off-page SEO.
Manage In-Bound Linking
In its effort to deliver relevant and up-to-date search results for its users, Google takes cues from other pages on the internet to determine how credible and how current your site is. Social media pages and reputation management sites are likely to comprise the majority of in-bound links to your site, so this is what Google will pay attention to.
To enhance your off-site SEO, ensure that all these pages list the correct URL for your site so that Google sees these in-bound links and deems your website that much more important. It’s also worth ensuring that these off-site pages are up-to-date with the same phone number, address, office hours, and other information listed on your website. This further demonstrates to Google that your site is credible and current.
Invest in an SEO Audit
If you’re doing all of the above already, or you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, an SEO audit can help you identify what’s contributing to your SEO woes. There are lots of SEO experts out there who can help, and we’re one of them. Our SEO services range from a simple SEO audit to full-service SEO overhauls and SEO blog writing. If you’re interested, you can learn more by viewing our SEO product slick or chatting with a team member today.
