This post was originally written by Ken Shafer, past SEO Manager for Apartments.com.

If you haven’t already heard about this site, let me introduce you to Quora. What’s it all about? Well, I’ll let their “about us” page do the talking:

“…One way you can think of it is as a cache for the research that people do looking things up on the web and asking other people. Eventually, when you see a link to a question page on Quora, your feeling should be: “Oh, great! That’s going to have all the information I want about that.” It’s also a place where new stuff–that no one has written about yet–can get pulled onto the web.” Read More

Big news out of Google yesterday, via Ken Shafer, that the search giant is discontinuing real estate and rental searches on Google Maps, citing low adoption, technical constraints and “the proliferation of excellent property-search tools on real estate websites” (hopefully they’re referring to all the fine ILSs out there). I suspect low monetization might also be playing a part, but that’s pure speculation. What’s not is that Google has no compunction killing underperforming products. Remember Wave? Froogle?

Google and its map-based real estate and apartment search was a hot topic at last year’s AIM conference, and Google will continue to be a player in real estate and apartment search. But clearly they’re retrenching, perhaps focusing resources on their Places product. Either way, I suspect whatever is up their sleeve will be discussed heavily this year at AIM, other conferences and the multifamily blogosphere. Read More

Yesterday, I paid for my coffee with my iPhone.

So you’re thinking, whoop-de-doo for you. I didn’t even think much of it myself. I simply downloaded the latest Starbucks app, coupled it to a gift card I had registered earlier online, and, voila, the $14 left on that gift card was now at my disposal on my phone. The barista scanned the QR-like barcode directly from my phone, which debited the balance on my card. What convenience — other than no longer having to carry a slim gift card in my pocket — did this advance grant me? I can check my balance anytime, which is nice, but, otherwise, not much.

So why is this a bigger deal than even I thought? Read More

This post was originally written by Ken Shafer, past SEO Manager for Apartments.com.

So you’re considering adding a blog to your website. That’s great! But hold on a second. Where you put that blog can have an impact on search engines and how they view all that great, new content you’re providing them. When you or your developers are building the blog, more often than not, this question comes up:

“Should we put the blog on www.companyname.com/blog or blog.companyname.com?” Read More

There’s been a lot of debate about the roll – and the perils – of online reviews in the multifamily space. Mostly, the concern, when boiled down, is about ceding control of the message from the marketing department to the consumer/renter. And that’s a daunting prospect, no doubt. 

Those who know me know I’ve got my own reservations about user reviews, not so much because, if abused, they can be unfairly damaging to a business (that risk is overblown), but because I often find them more confusing than helpful, and don’t like the anonymity factor. (I have other issues, too. For example, have you noticed recently how pretty much every restaurant on Yelp! is now rated 3-4 stars? It’s uncanny how consistent our restaurants are today!) Read More