SEO for Property Managers - Part 7 How to Build A Great Home Page

How to build your property management website home page – The home page is the online representation of the brick and mortar business. The branding and design should exactly match the company’s off-line branding efforts. It should be a generic introduction to the products and services that the company provides with obvious call outs to the more detailed sections of the website. Many managers make the mistake of trying to place every single piece of information that affects every different type of client they work with on the home page. This is good for content, but very bad for user experience. Rather than a detailed description of all products and services that the company provides, the home page should act more like a traffic cop that sends people where they want to go. Property managers work with at least 4 different types of online personas: Tenants, prospective tenants, owners, prospective owners, and many companies also do real estate, HOA’s and other services. The home page should direct these different types of personas to the content that they are looking for in detailed sections of the website that pertain to the given persona.

The most common calls to action for property managers are the management services page(s), the properties for rent section, the existing tenant resources page/portal, and the existing owner services page/portal. The call outs should be large, above the fold and easy to find and understand. In addition to those items, every home page should contain sitemaps, blog snippets (More on this later), internal links to the most important pages, original or exclusive photography that is properly tagged, and if possible a company video featuring the business owners.

Home page tagging – Meta tagging is still an important factor in all search algorithms. The home page should have a generic title tag that says something like “Phoenix property management and Phoenix Homes for Rent | Company Name”. The Description should also mention the company’s services while including the keywords in the title. Meta keywords are no longer important. Home pages often appear in property management searches.

David Borden

Co-Founder

With a resume that includes West Point graduate, Captain of the West Point Team Handball team (which, interestingly, is also referred to as “Borden Ball” around the world. Google it. We’re not sure which name came first, but we’re pretty sure Dave could tell you), US Army Chinook helicopter pilot and Co-founder, President & CEO of what is now the leading website in the country for advertising long term residential rentals, it stands to reason why Dave has a place at the PMW kitchen table...

With a resume that includes West Point graduate, Captain of the West Point Team Handball team (which, interestingly, is also referred to as “Borden Ball” around the world. Google it. We’re not sure which name came first, but we’re pretty sure Dave could tell you), US Army Chinook helicopter pilot and Co-founder, President & CEO of what is now the leading website in the country for advertising long term residential rentals, it stands to reason why Dave has a place at the PMW kitchen table: his appetite for success. And, well, because he keeps us laughing. As our resident funny-man (possibly self-proclaimed), his booming voice can be heard spreading the PMW gospel to anyone who’ll listen. And, frankly, even those who have no interest in property management. (Don’t they teach “Inside Voice” at America’s oldest military academy?) But his high-decibel, funny ways become awfully serious when it comes to staying one step ahead for the good of our customers; because Dave has been there. As a second-generation property manager from Colorado Springs, CO, he knows the struggles that property managers go through and painstakingly dissects every step of their process to come up with ways to ease their burden. As former CEO & President of RentClicks (which went on to become Rentals.com), he strategically positioned their business to become NARPM’s first official partner and was awarded NARPM’s National Affiliate of the Year three times. When he’s not devouring industry information at our kitchen table, you might find him bellying up to a plate of wings while watching his beloved (understatement) Broncos, flipping channels in search of a historical documentary, searching out a tennis match or preaching the ways of the world to his pre-teen sons, Andrew and Brady.