The ins & outs of business listings management for apartments, according to experts at Yext

Pop quiz! What’s a pivotal part of the customer experience, critical for SEO and apparently simple (but deceptively complex)?

It’s listings management, and if you’re not doing it, you’re losing leads and leases at your apartment community.

To learn a little more about managing your business’ information across the myriad of places it can appear online, we went straight to the source.

Yext is the leader of business listing management, with more than 15 years of experience helping thousands of companies worldwide manage their digital touchpoints.

Here to tell us more about business listings management is Brooke Henderson, RVP of strategic partnerships at Yext.

What is listings management?

Brooke: Listings management controls all of the important facts about your business in various databases such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Amazon Alexa, Bing Places and Waze, to name a few.  In fact, just in the U.S. alone your business could be found in hundreds of places across the web: maps, social, voice, video and app experiences.

If done manually, maintaining your business profile requires vast effort and leaves room for error. Yext created the best way to manage your business listings: by building direct integrations with search platforms globally and across industries.

All you need to do is update your business information in one place, and we take it from there, showing you the results through our robust platform. 

How do online listings affect today’s customer experience? 

Brooke: Not long ago the center of a business’ digital experience was the website. In today’s world there are countless options for a customer to find you. They can search for you on Google, ask Alexa questions about your business and direct Waze to your property. 

Ensuring all of your data is front and center gives you the assurance you need that you have a strong online presence. 

Why is location data management critical for apartment communities?  

Brooke: Consumers are more informed that ever before. They are searching for their new homes in a very specific way, for example “pet friendly apartments in the lower east side of Manhattan with a fitness center.” Will the search results direct them to your community? Or will it send them to a competitor who is better optimized for local search?

When your business information is managed through direct integrations, you can rest assured that the end-user is receiving the most up-to-date information about your business.

This accuracy and dependability helps separate you from the competition, thereby relieving the risk of vacancies and losses by losing online traffic. 

What is a common misconception about listings management? 

Brooke: A common misconception is that managing your data is a one-time fix. With business information, including holiday hours, changing often, you have to ensure your data stays up to date.

With Yext listings, hundreds of sources are updated from one centralized platform. Especially in an industry like real estate, it’s vital to stay on top of your online presence! 

Good news for REACH SEO clients

Business listings management is included with REACH SEO. In fact, we partner with Yext so our clients always have accurate, up-to-date listings across numerous internet directories. We choose to work with Yext because they are the best at what they do, and you deserve the best!

See what it takes to stay optimized.

Thank you to Brooke for taking the time to answer these questions. We were excited to have her as our keynote speaker at OutREACH Live in Palm Springs.

OutREACH Live is an exclusive event for multifamily marketers that happens every year. It features some of the most knowledgeable speakers in the industry. Get on the list to find out about next year’s event and stay tuned for more insights.