Many of you know that my full-time job is working for a search engine marketing (SEO) firm. I`ve decided to put those skills to use and help out investors like you and I. I`ve done a study of which words prospective renters are likely to use on Google and other search engines and translated that into a list of the top rental websites (76 sites in total).
I`ve done the searches in Edmonton, so the results are a little slanted towards Etown, but the top 5 sites are:
1. bwalk.com
2. apartmentcorner.com
3. places4rent.com
4. 247apartments.com
5. apartmentscanada.com
Bonus: If you let me know through the `company` field that you`re a REIN member or saw this on myREINspace , I`ll send you a copy on Sunday afternoon/evening, in advance of everyone else.
And just to make my life more entertaining, I`ve had several emails from some of the companies you`d expect to show up. I`m going to have to make this a regular thing. The response thus far has been awesome!
Thanks Chris. Good stuff. I`m surprised that only one of the search phrases actually has "Edmonton" in it. You`d think that someone looking for accommodation in Edmonton would include that in their search. Is that not a common behaviour? I wonder how your results would differ if different city names were prepended|appended to the original search phrases.
It would be interesting to know what people searching via Google are expecting to find. Are they looking for the rental listing sites to start their real search, or are they expecting to find direct links to ads for rentals? I`d guess the former - or at least that`s how I`d approach the task. That`s probably not a question that can be answered without surveying people or doing user testing.
You`re right on the money Jim. I`m going to run a more detailed report, and possibly for other cities as well. For the moment I just ran the top 25 most popular phrases, which only included one `edmonton` phrase.
I`m not sure about your other question, but I think the answer will be both at different times. I might bug the guys in the research department at work on it. (We do surveys, user testing and eyetracking
)
QUOTE (JimWhitelaw @ Jul 15 2009, 09:16 PM) Thanks Chris. Good stuff. I`m surprised that only one of the search phrases actually has "Edmonton" in it. You`d think that someone looking for accommodation in Edmonton would include that in their search. Is that not a common behaviour? I wonder how your results would differ if different city names were prepended|appended to the original search phrases.
It would be interesting to know what people searching via Google are expecting to find. Are they looking for the rental listing sites to start their real search, or are they expecting to find direct links to ads for rentals? I`d guess the former - or at least that`s how I`d approach the task. That`s probably not a question that can be answered without surveying people or doing user testing.
