5th Rule of Thumb- Your Website Is Your Best friend!

It doesn’t matter how good your marketing is, if you don’t have a good website, you aren’t going to get the bookings that you are hoping for. You need a website that is mobile friendly, tablet friendly, and desktop friendly. In addition, your website must be fast and easy to use. If it isn’t, your potential renter will move on to a website that is easy to use.

Not only do you need a website that is easy to use, you need a website that looks good and is going to attract your potential renters attention. Your website may be the only opportunity that you have to interact with a potential renter. You want to make sure that you leave a great impression. You already know that they want to know how much your storage units cost and if you have any available. Make sure that that information is easy to access. You also want to have a call to action that gets them to rent a unit while they are on your website. You can always have your manager upsell them later.

At the very minimum, your website should be welcoming, show them what your self-storage facility looks like, allow them to reserve a unit, and show them how much fits inside each self-storage unit. This way they can upsell themselves if they don’t think they will fit.

You always want your manager to be part of the rental process. This way they can try to upsell your renter to a better unit. They can also go through your rental steps of showing them the unit, making sure that they know which unit is theirs, and review the paperwork with them. However, the more that your renter can do online, the less of your manager’s time they will take.

The manager should also set your tenant up on automatic payments. This is the best way to collect rents. The tenants don’t even think about how much it is costing them to store their extra belongings. If they have to come in and give you cash each month, they may remember that what they are storing isn’t worth as much as what they are paying in rent. This is also a great way to collect rent from tenants who are forgetful or have busy schedules. You are still going to have tenants whose payments don’t clear, but this will lesson the number of collection events you have.

If you don’t know what to do with your website, check out your local and your national competition. What are they doing that you like? What are they doing that you don’t like? Now you can talk to a website designer and have them create a fantastic website with all of the features that you love. Make sure that your website is something that is inviting to your potential renters too.

Finally, you must be on the front page of Google. If you are on the second or even third page, no one is going to scroll that far. There are SEO, Search Engine Optimization, companies that can help you manage your website so that you will appear at the top of searches. Most of your business may come from Google. Make sure that you are taking advantage of online marketing as well.

Your website will be the only interaction that some people have with your company. Make sure that your website reflects your company the way that you want to be perceived. Utilize the tools that are available to be on the front page of Google. As always, happy investing.