Student Housing Websites Do's and Dont's
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This year, the National Apartment Association hosted its annual Student Housing Conference & Exposition in sun soaked Las Vegas, featuring over 900 attendees, more than 130 exhibitors, 16 educational sessions and countless hangovers. The schedule of sessions included On-Site’s User Experience Designer Dave Luciano presenting alongside The Preiss Company Executive Vice President Adam Byrley on “Student Housing Community Website Do’s and Don’ts.” In case you missed the session or couldn’t make it out to Vegas this year, we've got the presentation available on SlideShare just for you.
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Student Housing Websites Do's and Dont's
- 1. Student Housing Community Website Do's and Don’ts Adam Byrley, EVP – Property Management, Preiss Dave Luciano, User Experience Designer, On-Site
- 2. #NAAStudentConf Today’s Topics Mobile Sites Calls to Action Stock Photography Language
- 4. #NAAStudentConf Where do visitors look?
- 6. #NAAStudentConf Good photography in action:
- 8. #NAAStudentConf Let’s play a game!
- 9. #NAAStudentConf • 8 images • Is it from a property website… or a pharmaceutical ad? Guess the Photo’s Origin
- 11. Property
- 13. #NAAStudentConf
- 15. Property
- 17. Property
- 19. #NAAStudentConf
- 23. Property
- 26. #NAAStudentConf Stock Photography DO • Put your property front and center • If including people, use real residents DON’T • Hide your property behind stock photos • Use zombies or stock “people” If it could work in a Viagra ad, don’t use it.
- 29. #NAAStudentConf • As of May 2014: – 1 in 5 website visits are coming from a mobile device • End of 2013: – Nearly 80 million tablets were shipped in the last quarter By the Numbers
- 30. #NAAStudentConf On-Site’s Renter Traffic Tablet Traffic Mobile Traffic Desktop Traffic -21% +17% +82% (Mobile is +488% since 2011) (Desktop is -37% since 2011) 2014 vs. 2013
- 31. #NAAStudentConf Preiss’ Renter Traffic +28%mobile traffic share 2014 vs. 2013
- 32. #NAAStudentConf • 44% of teens 14-17 own a smartphone • 72% of college undergrads own a smartphone • 38% of college undergrads say they can’t go more than 10 minutes without checking their email, tablet, laptop or smartphone Your Renters
- 34. #NAAStudentConf • Use responsive design for your community website Do:
- 35. #NAAStudentConf • It’s a website designed to respond to the size of the device you’re viewing it on What is responsive design?
- 36. #NAAStudentConf Responsive accounts for: Large Screens Medium Screens Small Screens Desktops Tablets Phones Or any new devices in the future!
- 37. #NAAStudentConf Good responsive design in action:
- 38. #NAAStudentConf • One single website for multiple devices – No need to maintain multiple sources of information • Your site will work for different sized devices in the future Benefits
- 39. #NAAStudentConf • Don’t hide content on the mobile version • Design mobile first to avoid a large scrollable stack of desktop content Pitfalls
- 40. #NAAStudentConf Mobile Sites DO • Use responsive design • Include all content • Make all online workflows responsive from website to renewal DON’T • Use apps or mobile sites • Hide content on the mobile version
- 42. #NAAStudentConf • Users scan—they don’t read anything • Only about 20% of content is read online Reading on the Web
- 43. #NAAStudentConf • Clear • Concise • Consistent The 3 C’s of Language
- 44. #NAAStudentConf • Be clear with your website copy and phrasing Clear
- 45. #NAAStudentConf • Keep your website’s copy concise: short, sweet and to the point • Use scannable text to help users locate what they want Concise
- 46. #NAAStudentConf • Scannable means: – Has clear headings, sections and labels – Uses large type – Emphasizes key ideas – Makes use of bulleted lists (when appropriate) Use Scannable Text
- 47. #NAAStudentConf Premier apartment living is right around the corner. Discover Awesome Apartments, San Jose’s top apartment living destination, featuring a luxurious selection of floorplans, each offering breathtaking views of the Santa Clara Valley. Watch the sun rise every morning through the floor to ceiling windows and spread its warming rays over your dream lifestyle. Each apartment features a selection of high-end amenities, including gourmet kitchens stocked with commercial, stainless appliances, granite countertops and spacious dining areas for entertaining guests as well as breakfast nooks for mornings of quiet contemplation. Apartments also include central heating and air, high efficiency washers and dryers, plush carpeting, hardwood laminate floors and crown molding. Awesome Apartments is also pet friendly. Enjoy our weekly pet meet and greet play sessions. It’s the perfect opportunity for you and Fido to make new friends and new romances. Come visit Awesome Apartments today and realize a new level of luxury in apartment living. Example: 153 words, time to read 38.4s average
- 48. #NAAStudentConf Awesome Apartments features luxury apartments in the downtown San Jose area, conveniently located a 10 minute walk from the Caltrain station and an easy drive to highways 87 and 280. We offer four different floorplans, ranging from studios up to two bedrooms. Amenities • Floor to ceiling windows • Central heating and A/C • Stainless steel appliances • Granite countertops • High efficiency washers and dryers • Carpeted and hardwood floors Pet Friendly Awesome Apartments is a pet friendly community. Both cats and dogs are welcome for a small additional monthly fee. Your pets can also enjoy our weekly pet meet and greet play sessions with other resident pets and their owners. (Much) Improved: 106 words, time to read 20.2s average
- 49. #NAAStudentConf • Be consistent with how you refer to floorplans, amenities and workflows (e.g. online application) Consistent
- 51. #NAAStudentConf
- 52. #NAAStudentConf Language DO • Be clear use words renters know • Be concise make text scannable • Be consistent with word choices DON’T • Use industry jargon • Use long text • Use marketing speak
- 54. #NAAStudentConf • Let’s take a look at some of your favorite brands. Examples
- 55. #NAAStudentConf Let’s run a test…
- 56. #NAAStudentConf • Click Test: A type of user test • Ask users to click through screenshots of your website • Record where they click—and check it out in action! Click Testing
- 57. #NAAStudentConf Good calls to action… in action:
- 59. #NAAStudentConf You're a student looking for an apartment, and you find a community you'd like to live at next school year. Fill out a rental application. The Test
- 60. 50% success, 35 seconds avg. 50 participants
- 61. #NAAStudentConf How do we know if that’s good?
- 62. 80% success, 24 seconds avg. 50 participants
- 63. #NAAStudentConf • You can run your own tests! • UsabilityHub.com is free to register and use Running Your Own Tests
- 64. #NAAStudentConf Calls to Action DO • Decide on your CTA • Make your CTA dominant • Test your CTA DON’T • Have 5 calls to action • Be subtle • Trust your gut
- 65. #NAAStudentConf • Do an audit of your property websites! • Look for the things we talked about • Make some changes—and test the results Your Challenge
- 66. Thank You Want to learn more about Student Housing solutions? Visit our site
Editor's Notes
- Introduce Adam and myself
- Where do visitors look on a webpage? NN/g did an eye tracking study on multiple websites. One above is Yale’s School of Management, featuring their how to apply page. The blue blobs indicate where people looked. Notice how there are no blobs over the stock photo of students. Source: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/photos-as-web-content/
- We all have this intuition behind knowing what’s stock photography and what isn’t. What’s the science behind it? Graph of how human something is, versus how real they look. On the left, we have robots, which are not very human, and look fake. On the right, we have a real human that looks real and we know is real. (It’s me.) Notice the giant dip in the graph: This is where things that look very human but we know are fake live. Examples are zombies and stock photography. Sources: http://web.archive.org/web/20110313073609/http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110310jk.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley#mediaviewer/File:Mori_Uncanny_Valley.svg
- To prove to you that stock photos don’t add as much value as a real photos of your property, we’re going to play a game!
- You’ve probably heard the mobile spiel before at conferences like this. Who here has a mobile-ready community website? Are all of your communities mobile ready? We know it’s the future, here are some of the latest reasons why.
- Mary Meeker is a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. Each year she pulls together data from all over the tech industry and puts together insights for the Internet. Mobile is something she’s been talking about frequently and consistently. Source: Mary Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends, http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
- Source: On-Site’s internal analytics
- Source: Preiss’ internal analytics
- Teens 14-17 are your future renters. Of course, not surprising that so many college undergrads own smartphones. Source: Pew Research: Teens and Technology 2013, Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey 2013
- It’s now a headline when someone is “caught” using a flip phone.
- So what do we do to address this mobile revolution?
- And by multiple sources of information, I mean maintaining a separate mobile dedicated website or worse, an app.
- Only about 20% of the content is read Due to the short time that people spend on websites Users read more when they think they found what they came for Keep this in mind the next time you’re reading something on the web—slow down a bit and see if you’re doing these things, because you most likely are! Source: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/
- Jargon is the enemy. Most prospects will not be fluent in leasing industry speak—so call things using layman’s terms
- This goes back to how users read on the web—they don’t. So give them the information they want without all the fluff they don’t need.
- It’s breaking all the rules: No clear headings to zone in on the info you want, key ideas are not emphasized, no bulleted lists when they’d be appropriate here.
- Now, here’s a re-write: The text is much more concise, key ideas are bolded, there’s a bulleted list for the amenities and there are headings for different sections. In fact, there is more information in here (location + walk time information added in) with fewer words. Cut out 1/3 of the wording, but cut the reading time in half. Another way to think about it is to boil your website’s content down to what the important key words are. In the process you’ll do wonders for your SEO—no one is searching for “apartments with breathtaking views of the Santa Clara Valley” in Google.
- Your website should match what your leasing staff says.
- Let’s take a look at this website’s navigation. Can you guess what you might find behind each of these labels? What’s behind “Your New Home”? “Luxury Living”? “The Gallery”?
- Now, compare it to these navigation labels: What’s behind “Floorplans and Pricing”? “Community Features”? “Map and Directions”?
- Call to Action: The task you’d like visitors to take when visiting your website Examples for student housing: Button leading to an online application Form for contacting the leasing office with information
- Go-to examples: Southwest.com (airline) – a mix of things, a fare sale CTA, mixed with a booking search bar Google (tech) – search box front and center, no clutter Starbucks (food service) – not much going on, just asking people to learn about new drinks (although they don’t do much online commerce… yet) Enterprise (car rental) – not a ton of contrast around the search bar, busy homepage, bad example Zappos (ecommerce) – the frontpage has a lot going on, but search button is bright orange, contrasts with the rest of the blue site
- What do you need? - An idea of what you want prospects to do when visiting your site - Screenshots of your community website to upload - A willingness to react to the results and iterate your website’s design!
- And now, we have a challenge for you… Go home, take what you’ve learned, and actually do an audit of your community sites. Make sure your language follows the 3 C’s, make sure your CTAs are prominent, remove those stock photos, and consider taking steps to go mobile if you aren’t already.