Collecting and Protecting Your Online Assets for Property Managers

Updated Article: How to Protect Your Property Management Company on the Internet

Today, we are talking about something a little bit technical but very important: your Internet assets. These are some of the things you need to have when you’re doing business and marketing your property management company online.

Website Address

First – you need a website. If you don’t have a website yet, you need to get a URL or an Internet address. If you already have a site, that’s great. But make sure you control it. Don’t ever let someone else own your website or URL. You can go to a place like GoDaddy and buy it yourself without allowing someone else the power to turn it on and off and hold it for ransom.

When you’re setting up your website and buying your URL, get a long lease on it. They will let you buy your website address for one year at a time, but you’ll get more SEO from Google if you lease it for a longer period, like 10 years. It doesn’t cost much, and it will help you in the long term to get a long lease on that web address. Believe it or not, it does make a difference with your search power.

Logo

If someone wants to write an article about you for the local paper or you’re about to give a talk or attend a conference and your business information is required, you’ll need to provide a logo. Get two logos; a square one and a rectangular one. The rectangular logos are used in things like banners and to go on your website. The square one can be used right next to your name or profile pictures on sites like Yahoo, Facebook, Google and Reputation.com. You also want each of those logos in different colors. Have your graphic designer make you a dark one, a light one and one with a transparent background. Ask for the logos in a PDF or an EPS file. When you have the original format in which they were created, the people who need your logos will be able to size them appropriately. Make sure your logo is readable even in a small size.

Photos

Take a few good pictures of your business. Start with a photo of the outside of your office. This will help people find you, especially if you’re in a location that’s hard to explain. Take a shot of your whole staff all together. Get some headshots of your personnel. You should have a picture of the highly visible people in your company, such as the owner/broker, but it’s also a good idea to have pictures of the people that your clients will work with every day. It helps to put faces with names. Get good pictures done and make them available on your website.

Bios

Those photos will look great on your About Us page, and you’ll also need bios. Include a blurb about each person and why they are such an integral part of your team. If someone from your staff is going to a conference or planning to speak at an event, this bio is exactly what you’ll need to provide. Bios are easy to write and you can use them again and again. You should have a company bio/description as well – a long one and a short one. This tells people why they want to work with you, and it will also share a little bit of your history. Sites like Google and Yelp will ask for this. Have it written up in advance and ready to provide.

Storing Assets

You may be wondering where to keep these valuable Internet assets. We recommend storing them online. Get an account with a service like Dropbox. You can get a free account with 2GB of data, and that’s plenty of space to store information. You can even keep a promotional video there, which we think is a very good idea. Upload your files to Dropbox or Google Drive and you’ll have the peace of mind that it’s automatically backed up. If you need to share it, you can do that without emailing the document. Simply provide a link and others can access and download it on their own.

Collect your Internet assets, store them all in one place and you’ll have an assets folder that’s easy to access when you need information for a landing page, a new website or any other marketing plans you might have. If you have any questions about this, or you’d like some help putting together your assets, please contact us at Fourandhalf and we’d be happy to work with you.