7 Basic Features Every Apartment Website Should Have

Your apartment’s website is one of the first impressions that prospective residents have of your property. What impression does it give? Does it have professional photos that highlight your property’s features? Is it easy for prospects to navigate and quickly find the information they need? Or is your website out of date, slow, and outdated?

If your want to get visitors who come to your website to tour your property and eventually sign a lease, here are the basic features your apartment website should include.

1. Contact information and office hours (including map and directions)

It should be easy for prospective residents to contact you to get more information about your property and schedule a tour. Prominently display your phone number and address along with your office hours. Make sure your phone number is clickable, since so many people search for apartments on their phone.

Add a Google map so that leads can easily find where you’re located and directions to your property. To know which prospects found you through your website, use a trackable phone number.

2. Professional exterior and interior photos

A picture is worth a thousand words, and your pictures may be worth thousands of dollars if they lead to increased leases. At a minimum, showcase a few different exterior shots, top amenities, and interior shots of a staged unit. Hiring a professional to take those pictures is an investment that will pay out.

3. Photos of floor plans

A section of your website should show which floor plans you offer and their layouts. Make it easy to search or filter floor plans by style: studio, one-bedroom, etc., if you have over six floor plans. See if you can integrate your floor plans with your property management system to show website visitors your current availability on your website.

4. Amenities offered

Part of what makes your property different than other local properties are your amenities. Highlight both your community amenities such as pool, workout room, lounge, etc., as well as unit amenities. Include photos and descriptions of your amenities.

5. Mobile friendly

Around 50 percent of apartment searches happen on mobile devices. If your website is hard to navigate from a mobile device then you’re missing out on leads. When you make changes to your website preview the changes on different mobile devices. If the formatting looks bad or important sections aren’t displaying properly then talk to your developer(s) about what steps you need to take to make your website more mobile friendly.

6. Disclosure, privacy policy, etc

You’ll need to make sure you adhere to any legal or regulatory compliances on your website. This means including a privacy policy, disclosure, complying with the Fair Housing Act or other acts, etc.

7. Analytics Tracking

If you want to get more leads from your website, you’ve got to know how your website is currently performing. The best way to do this is through analytics tracking. Track your major pages as well as any contact or tour forms.

Ready to Get More Advanced?

Feel like you’ve got your basic features covered? Then stay tuned to see if you have our recommended advanced features for websites that want to sign more leases.

This is the first article in a three-part series. Learn about advanced apartment website features to convert prospects as well as premium apartment website features to help your leasing agents.

Photo Credit: 123rf.com/venimo