In today’s market, nobody wants to be the poor relation—especially when it comes to attracting new customers. By utilizing text effectively on your website, you can position yourself as the go-to source for information and attract the interest of potential tenants, friends, and family members. This, in turn, can help you to grow your business and become the successful landlord that you deserve to be.

Whether you’re looking to attract new customers or just want to improve the engagement of your current demographic, text is a powerful tool that can play a key role in the success of your website.

1. Keep It Brief

If your text is going to be used to attract and engage prospective tenants, keep it simple, quick, and to the point. Long, rambling, and over-the-top descriptions can lead to decreased engagement and a higher bounce rate (percentage of visits that result in people leaving your site immediately).

Cut out all the fluff and keep your text as concise and to the point as possible. You want to give the reader the biggest bang for their buck and maintain their interest so that they don’t click away from your page.

2. Use Actionable Words

Actionable words can engage your audience and make your text more accessible and easy to understand. For example, instead of using words like “the,” “recession,” and “deflation,” which might be understood by only certain audiences, you could replace them with more general and everyday words like “save,” “economy,” and “boost.”

Try to keep your language simple, direct, and easy to grasp. When crafting your text, use words and phrases that are culturally relevant and have the effect of drawing the reader in. For example, using “budget” instead of “financial budget” will make your text sound more modern and relevant to a younger audience.

3. Make It Visual

With the rise of social media and digital nomads, more and more people are turning to Google to learn about, and connect with, businesses and entities in their local area. As such, make sure that your website’s text is easy to understand and follows a logical sequence by using images where appropriate.

To attract prospective tenants, you could create a short video, or even a quick slide show using images from your website. These types of videos and slideshows can engage your viewer if done well, and allow you to add another dimension of information that would otherwise be unavailable in text.

Images can also be used to enhance your text by demonstrating something that it could not otherwise communicate. For example, a picture of a dog smiling broadly can encourage your readers to smile too, even if they aren’t particularly feeling that emotion at the moment.

4. Test, Test, Test

Even when you have perfected your marketing text, you should continue to test it. If you’re not actively seeking improvements, it could be because you’re confident that it’s perfect. If you’re seeking improvements, however, it could be because you’re worried that it isn’t perfect.

Testing means using different versions of your text to see which one attracts the most attention and has the best chance at being effective. One or two test versions usually suffice, but if you find that one version fares much better than the rest, you should probably choose to go with it and avoid the others.

5. Be Accessible

An accessible text is one that can be read and understood by all members of your target audience—regardless of their socioeconomic, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds. If you are seeking to attract a more diverse set of tenants, take the time to make sure that your website’s text is easy to understand and navigate regardless of whether they’re from the UK, US, or another country. Consider using inclusive language and removing any elements that could be deemed offensive or insulting.

Offering translation services for your website’s content is also a great way to make sure that all of your text is accessible to as many people as possible. Having a translation tool on your website will assist non-English speaking individuals in finding the information that they need and allow you to better tailor your content to specific demographics.

6. Create Meaningful Links

Adding relevant and meaningful links to your text can enhance your site’s credibility and allow you to gain more traction with your audience. For example, if you’re seeking to attract digital nomads to your apartment for fun and work, you could include links to digital nomad forums, blogs, and podcasts that you find relevant and engaging.

Similarly, if you’re seeking to attract creative types to your apartment for a change of pace, you could include a link to a creative agency that could help with ideas and inspiration.

7. Use Headings And Subheadings

Using headings and subheadings will make your text more accessible by allowing readers to find what they’re looking for more easily. For example, if you’re seeking to attract potential tenants, you could use headings and subheadedings to guide your reader toward your website’s most critical information. You don’t need to use all of them, but putting an emphasis on key words, such as “apartments,” “rent,” “tenants,” and “marketing,” can help your text seem more structured and help your audience understand the information that they need to learn about your property.

8. Keep It Tasty

When someone is reading your text for leisure, they usually want to keep it interesting and easy to understand. To keep your text interesting, cut out all the unnecessary fluff and make it more streamlined and clean. In the same way, when someone is reading your text for leisure, they want to keep it easy to understand and follow. To achieve this, take the time to spell out all of the important information in your text and clearly define any words or phrases that are unfamiliar to the reader. Also, be sure to use common abbreviations and acronyms where appropriate.

9. Make It Social

If your target audience spends a lot of their time on social media, make sure that your website is equipped to engage with them there. The most effective platforms for real estate businesses, such as Craigslist, let you connect with potential tenants, friends, and family members in a much more personal manner than traditional social media sites. By creating a profile on these platforms, you can start engaging with potential customers and increasing the chance of converting them into paying customers.

Craigslist, in particular, is a great place for landlords and real estate businesses to showcase their properties. By creating a profile and adding a video or an image of the inside of your property, you can increase YOUR chances of being contacted by potential customers.

10. Use Analytics To Gauge Success

After you’ve deployed a successful marketing text plan and started seeing the results, you can measure and appreciate its effectiveness. To begin with, check out your bounce rate—that is, the percentage of visits to your site that result in people leaving immediately after visiting once. Cut off this number as close to zero as possible, as this is usually the sign of a poorly designed site. Similarly, measure the time that people spend on your site and whether or not they subscribe to any email marketing campaigns that you send out.

Although these numbers can vary from website to website, in general, you’re looking for a bounce rate below 20% and a time on site above 3 minutes. With these numbers, you can assume that your site is providing value and interesting information to your audience—and that you’re on the right track.

If you want to turn your apartment into an online hub that is both functional and beautiful, take the time to plan your marketing text strategy and deploy it effectively. With a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work, you can become the successful landlord that you deserve to be.