How to Conduct a Content Audit For Your Apartment Website

Let’s start with a question: when was the last time you audited your apartment website’s content? The multifamily industry is ever-changing, and so are your renters. This means you have to be constantly re-evaluating what your renters want and need. One way to account for these changes is with a thorough content audit of your apartment website.

Before You Start Your Content Audit

Before you start your content audit, you’ll want to develop a strategy. If you don’t know the market, your ideal audience, or what renters want, you won’t know what to look for during your content audit. So where do we start?

Research the Market

First, you’ll want to conduct some research about the multifamily industry and housing market. According to Mashvisor , one of the most important things to look at is the job market and income of the area your community resides in. This includes the top employers of the area and the average income of the population.

Why is this important? Because incorporating content about the top employers and keyphrases like “budget-friendly” or “luxury” will give renters and Google an idea about what kind of community you are.

Pinpoint Your Ideal Renter

How do you get your audience to notice you? You incorporate content tailored to them . And there’s no way to do this unless you know exactly who your renter is and what they want out of an apartment home. 

Our renter persona ebook is a great resource for learning about the different types of renters, their demographics, their online tendencies, and their likes and dislikes.

Evaluate What You Offer

Now that you’ve pinpointed who your ideal renter is and what they want, ask yourself – do I have what they want? And if not, how can I position myself as a community that they desire? Make a list of all your amenities, your location, and your price points and tie those back to your target audience. 

How to Audit For Renters

Now you’re ready to audit – it’s time to apply what you learned about your target renter persona!

Let’s start by ensuring that you have the necessary pages to house all your important content, then we’ll jump into what to look for on each page. The pages you’ll need are:

Amenities

This page is perhaps the most important one to audit. Look back at your list of amenities and see which ones are most important to your target renters. For example, if your target renter is a young professional, maybe they’re looking for an apartment with free wifi so they can work and a fitness center so they can save money and time.

If your amenities page doesn’t showcase each and every amenity your target renter is looking for, they won’t know what you have to offer and they’ll move on.

Location & Neighborhood

According to Apartment Guide , 52% of renters say that the neighborhood is the first thing they look at when searching for a new apartment home. Oftentimes, location is even more important than price to some. What does this mean for your content audit?

You have to look at how you’re representing your neighborhood on your neighborhood page. Do you have a map that includes all the dining, shopping, entertainment, services, and schools nearby? Do you list out a few well-known and loved places near you? If not, you need to up your game! 

Apartment hunters will notice these things – and it could be the difference in someone choosing your property.

Floor Plans & Prices

Just as location is uber important to many, so is price. Especially if your renter is a young professional or millennial, price matters. According to study, people are saving more than spending, and at an increasing rate. 

This means you’ll have to pose your community as a worthy financial investment to your renters. This is all the more reason to audit your floor plans and price page, make sure everything is up to date, and that your prices are posted there. 

This, along with your location and amenities, will work together to persuade renters that your community is the right choice.

Gallery

A content audit doesn’t only entail the text on your pages or the technical side of things – it’s also your images! We live in an increasingly visual world, and people would rather view a slideshow or browse photos than read lengthy text. 

In fact, the human mind actually processes images 60,000 times faster than text . Meaning, someone could make the choice to rent from you just by looking at your pictures – all the more reason to have good photography on your website.

To learn more about apartment photography and why you need it, check out this post.  

Home Page

Finally, let’s look at the home page of your website. Why aren’t we starting with the home page? Because the home page is a summary of your whole website – it should include pieces of content and keywords from all your other pages.

In many cases, this will be the first page your prospective renters will see when they visit your site – and it could be the only one they look at. So, you have to make it count. By including the things you found most important for your other pages – amenities, location, floor plans – on your home page, you’re giving your prospective renters an initial idea of what your community is all about.

And, if they want to delve deeper into the details after seeing your home page, they’ll explore the rest of the site!

Whether you’ve audited your content recently or not, it’s always a good idea to go through, analyze, and make better. The market is always changing, search engine algorithms are always changing, and the needs of your renters are as well.

For more help with your apartment marketing needs, contact us – we’d love to help!