Read on for six short-description writing tips that will improve your listing performance on Apartments.com and any listing service.

 “Great location… close to the bus stop.”  Read More

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

If you’ve been following search engine optimization at all in the past year, you’ll have undoubtedly heard the term “real-time search.” One aspect of real-time search refers to search engines using the social media pipeline, including channels like Facebook and Twitter, to provide up-to-the-minute results. There is a growing contingent of bloggers out there who believe that real-time is the “next big thing” for SEO. I decided to run a few experiments to help illustrate how this all works. Read More

This post was originally written by Brandon Hollembeak, Product Manager – Advertising Products & Services

Part 3 of 3  Read More

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

We’re all busy people and time is short, right? We need to be out there filling vacancies, so time to spend on the website and SEO is limited. Let’s see if we can help you by debunking a few myths that could be eating up valuable time and resources.

Myth 1:  Keywords in your Description Tag can affect your rankings Read More

This post was originally written by Brandon Hollembeak, Product Manager – Advertising Products & Services

Part 2 of 3 Read More

Hi everyone,

As you may know, Apartments.com recently announced the results of our testing and subsequent launch of Live Chat. Long story short, by facilitating a live online conversation directly between the leasing office (or the call center) and the renter, we’re seeing an increase in leads without sacrificing other lead types, like email, phone and availability checks through vendors like VaultWare. We’ve effectively (and not too immodestly) introduced a new, highly effective and incremental lead type to the ILS space, and needless to say are pretty excited about it. But like any lead, you get out of Live Chat what you put into it.

Below is a little exercise I like to call “Good Chat/Not-As-Good Chat,” where I compare two actual Live Chat transcripts taken from our site. A Good Chat takes attentiveness and strong customer service skills. Leasing professionals who focus first on answering questions, not selling a lease, will ultimately capture more lead data and have more success with Live Chat. Read More

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

A web page’s Title Tag can be an important signal, telling search engines what a page is all about. It’s one of the most powerful on-page SEO elements you have at your disposal. Also, it’s one of the first things people will see about your site when it appears on a search engine results page (SERP). If you’re unfamiliar with the Title Tag, you can see it in a couple of places. Read More