In search of new marketing: the competition is only an eighth of a second away.

This year, three out of four people preparing to move will go online to search for housing. Using the right Internet tools can determine whether a renter is won or lost in an instant.

Knowing how to use the Web--to attract leads, sign new clients and inch up rankings on search engine sites--was the dominant topic among multifamily housing officials at the second annual Apartment Internet Marketing Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., in October.

"We're seeing more traffic coming to us through the Internet and clients completing processes online." said Melintha Ogle, Vice President and Director of Marketing for Mid-America Apartment Communities. which owns 38,000 units. "Our online traffic increased 33 percent in the last year. Everything is changing so quickly that it poses challenges for everyone.

About 40 percent of Mid-America's leads now come from the Internet. said Ogle, who came to the conference to share marketing tips and hear about new technologies. Realty Data Trust hosted the conference.

To drive business, executives said they use organic--or free--listings, pay-per-click ads or paid ads on search engine sites such as Yahoo! and apartment-specific Internet listing sites. With today's localized searching, apartment communities are receiving 20 percent to 60 percent of all leads from Internet traffic, they reported. Of those, 25 percent to 30 percent are converted to leases.

As the Internet revolutionizes the industry, companies need to track their traffic carefully to stretch ad dollars, experts said.

"In this arena, the first to respond often wins the business," said Fredda Steinberg, Group Vice President of National Marketing for Archstone-Smith, which uses competitions to fire up employees to meet goals to respond to leads within a two-hour window. "We are also able to make more effective marketing decisions based on the real-time customer data we now receive.

"Several years ago, our internal reporting systems were not equipped to track Internet and e-mail leads. Today, we have robust, automated lead management systems and processes that allow our site teams to respond to leads as quickly as possible. This is critical to our business as the vast majority of our customers initiate a dialog with us online," she said.

Steinberg said that "a completely transactionable" Web site that offers online leasing also drives leads into leases.

Those strategies are paying off. Last quarter, Archstone-Smith converted 20 percent of its leases online. That represents final lease transactions online--not just reservations. Of those, 25 percent of the customers never stepped on the property before leasing.

Promotion, Promotion, Promotion

Many of today's wired consumers do not want to pick up a phone or meet face-to-face, said Terry Jones, the founder of Travelocity and the keynote speaker.

"Today's consumers are Internet empowered, time starved and information rich," Jones said. "They want information and they want it right now. They e-mail you at midnight and they want a response before breakfast."

Jones, the Web wizard responsible for turning the online travel agency into a multi-billion dollar company in less than 10 years, said consumers are comparison-shopping at warp speed. He offers Web site rules to keep their attention: Make prices easy to find. Don't use industry lingo. Don't post a photo of the leasing office.

Offer a discount to clients who lease online, Jones said, and make it easy for them to take advantage of it. Don't make them go through several links to get a discount or coupon.

Making visitors register online immediately is a bad idea, Jones said. People are leery of giving personal information immediately. Chat them up first. List property benefits: wood burning fireplaces, quiet neighborhoods and proximity to golf courses and freeways.

Make the Web site "viral" so potential renters can share photos and text with a spouse, parent or friend. Advertise the site address everywhere, including voicemail and on radio and TV ads, he said.

New Frontiers For Apartment Marketing

In the coming months, new online tools to attract clients--especially college age and young renters--are expected to take off.

Google made its first-ever appearance at an apartment industry conference here to introduce its new video and mapping features. Most notable is its recent acquisition of YouTube Inc. Started in February 2005, YouTube, a free video hosting site, built a global audience of 72.1 million viewers in just 18 months. The service will be available on Google when the deal is finalized by the end of the year. For property owners, it means the ability to submit a video online for free.

Tina Makssour, Director of Sales and Training for Mark-Taylor Residential, said it is a great opportunity for resident-to-resident communication.

"People in Ohio can imagine what it's like in Arizona with a video stream from our sandy-beach pools," Makssour said.

Caroline Forehand, Marketing Director of S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co., envisions it as a marketing tool to attract Baby Boomers.

"I have a senior property where Baby Boomers are trying to find apartments for their parents," Forehand said. "We can use video to comfort them."

Mapping is another device expected to quickly sprout into an advertising vehicle. Free mapping services on search engines, including Yahoo! and Google, allow users to easily build their own layers of information--called a mash up--on top of online maps. A company can offer coupons, list neighborhood services, add icons to point out freeway ramps and more. Satellite imaging, now available on sites such as Google Earth, brings the far away closer up.

"Someone (can) fly from outer space to your building and can visit your apartment building before they ever set foot on a plane," said Google Real Estate Lead Spencer Frasher.

Opportunities on the smallest of screens also are emerging. Ask.com has a new search engine designed for cell phones and mobile devices ads that are a few words on the side of a page of search result or text.

Text on cell phones and mobile devices, such as iPods, can attract and assist clients with real-time traffic, detailed directions and local business locations

"The trend for the future is heading toward cell phones," said Jodi Bart, Co-Owner of Morrison, Ekre & Bart Management Services Inc., who immediately found a nearby Starbucks on her Blackberry while listening to Google's presentation on mapping. "The 18-year-olds--our future residents--are all using their cell phones for communication via text and researching information for product and service. Until now, I had never thought of using it as a mode of advertising."

Making the Rank

A listing on the first page of results on a search engine site, such as Google, Yahoo! or an apartment-specific Internet listing service, can be a jackpot for property owners.

Search engine optimization firms specialize in improving rankings for companies that use organic, or free, search engine rankings, paid advertisements and pay-per-click listings. Pay-per-click is an advertising technique in which a company is charged a fee every time someone clicks on its link It guarantees a high ranking on search engines and Web sites when a consumer types in specific keywords and phrases during a search. Prices can vary from pennies to dollars per click, making it affordable for smaller companies.

Rankings rise when users link to a site and when the site has links to other relevant sites. Partnering with quality providers lifts ranking because more users visit their sites.

Mark-Taylor Residential partners with others to offer services to clients on its property management Web site. Residents can click on the Web site to book tee times, pay rent and schedule maintenance and other services. This ratchets UD rankings on search engine listings and provides top service to clients, said Tina Makssour, Director of Sales and Training.

Mark-Taylor recently was named the top company in the country by Rent.com for converting leads to leases.

"It's not enough to just have the best Web site in the industry because our consumer doesn't rate us against the industry," Mark-Taylor President Dale Phillips said. "They rate us against all other Web sites."

Tips for Better Rankings

* Register a Company's Web site on as many sites as possible, including Google, Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project.

* Think of "optimal, keywords and phrases that consumers will type into a Search engine to find an apartment: Include them in Site titles and text.

* Limit the number Of links page to fewer than 100.

* Describe photos and graphics. Many search engines cannot find text inside a graphic or image.

An HTML site map, with a link from a welcome page, can help make sure all pages are crawled: Google and other search engines offer site map tools for free.

Improving the Odds

Free tips on search engine ranking are available from a variety of sources including:

* Yahoo Search Engine Optimization. Tips from independent third parties.

* Webmaster World. Discussion forums offer pointers on Web search.

* Google Webmaster Tools. Advice on how to optimize a site's coverage in Google's search index.

* RegisterEverywhere Inc. Search engine marketing tools include a keyword picker and related word generator, a Web site analyzer and ranking reports.

By the Numbers: Online Leasing Soars

* Percentage increase per property of online leasing growth from 2004 to 2006:92

* Percentage of people who moved last year who went online to search for housing: 77

* Percentage of people ages 18 to 29 renting apartments who made reservations online last year: 50

Source: Donna Hickey, Property Management Consultant

Free Resources

Online tools for tracking traffic and protecting against fraud include:

* Google Analytics. This new service records how visitors find a Web site and interact with it. Users can identify navigational bottlenecks that keep them from completing conversion goals. Find out how profitable keywords are across search engines. An added bonus: easy-to-understand visually enhanced reports.

* Copyscape, Find out who's scraping whom. Dedicated to defending users' rights and fighting against content theft. A free service finds copies of the content on the Web. Other services are available for a fee.

Victoria Harker is a freelance writer who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz.