As with all our reports, it covers which rental websites hold the top rankings on Google and other search engines. You can find the full background in the last Edmonton report.

You can download the latest Edmonton report here (PDF ~1.1mb).

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This week we’ll be releasing new reports detailing the best rental websites for Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and for the first time ever, Vancouver.

It’s been about three months since the last release, and there’s been some movement. As I expected, the top few players have generally stayed the same, while the pack ranking between 3 and 10 have shuffled around. There’s been one huge change in Toronto’s rankings and at least one other surprise, where one site is posting it’s listings on a few others. This is giving their advertisers a bit of a lift, but it’s not a tactic the search engines like, so I expect it’ll start to pull them down in a few months.

There’s been a bit of movement in keyword popularity, which has effected some of the rankings in our report and we’ll discuss that as we release the reports. They’re in a new, more streamlined format, so if you’d like more background the preamble to the Winter 2010 Edmonton Ranking Report is a good read.

The schedule for the week will be:

Tuesday – Vancouver

Wednesday – Toronto

Thursday – Edmonton

Friday – Calgary

Photo Credit: Kevinzhengli

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Following the success of the Edmonton, Calgary and Ontario rental website ranking reports, Chris Davies and the Awkward Turtle Consulting Group are presenting a day long workshop April 10th, 2010 (the next workshop will be in early May) to help educate real estate investors. Scores of questions from investors just like you have given shape to a curriculum that covers all the bases, from the complete newbie searching for properties and tenants, to the seasoned veteran, raising millions of dollars in capital. Come prepared to learn and share your own knowledge about marketing, real estate investing, social media and web design. You’ll leave with a solid understanding of the basics of online marketing, social media, email marketing and how to track the success of your online efforts.

The full day costs $297 and includes lunch. You can signup and pay through PayPal or you can go old school with snail-mail and a cheque. If you want more information you can download the registration form here (PDF).

Photo Credit:

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At long last, here is the Winter 2010 Edition of the Rental Website Ranking Reports for Edmonton and Calgary. Like the Ontario ranking report and the original rental website report, it helps you understand which rental advertising websites are dominating Google and why that’s an important thing if you have vacancies to fill.

The top websites for each category were:
Edmonton
Condos – www.rentfaster.ca
Houses - www.rentedmonton.com
Apartments - www.rentedmonton.com
Rooms for Rent - www.kijiji.ca

Calgary
Condos - www.rentspot.com
Houses - www.rentspot.com
Apartments - www.rentspot.com
Rooms for Rent - www.kijiji.ca

You can download the Edmonton, Calgary and Ontario reports below, and be sure to signup for email updates and subscribe to updates from my blog.

(PDF format, ~3MB each – Right click and ‘save-as’)

The struggle to find tenants to fill vacancies is a problem known to every investor and property manager. As the Internet has grown to become a pervasive part of our lives, the choices for advertising media have grown exponentially.

This report seeks to help narrow the field, and educate investors and managers about the role search engines play in our lives.

What this report gives you is a guide to which websites dominate Google, Yahoo and Bing (Microsoft) for Alberta’s two major rental markets. For transactions like buying cars and houses, nearly 80% of people start their search online. While not all of your marketing should be online, it should be a significant part of it.

The stronger a site is, the more traffic it gets from Google and other search engines, and the more likely it is to play a role in your tenants’ search. This is only a guide to how sites rank. We strongly encourage you to adopt a culture of testing and change in your real estate business. Track the responses so you know which sites consistently refer quality leads and tenants. Use different phone numbers and email addresses, tracking where your marketing time and money is having the greatest impact.

We’ve done the hard part here; determining which phrases people use and which websites rank the best. Now it’s up to you to take the lessons from our experience, create good ads and measure the results.

You can signup below to get updated releases of the ranking reports.

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The two rental website ranking reports we’ve done have been big hits, and I’ve had requests for more from landlords big and small (and also from a couple of the websites in question).

There’s a lot of cities and towns to choose from, and I have my own ideas of what people want. However, the point of these reports is to make things easier for you, the investor. Take 2 minutes to fill out our survey and let us know which areas are most important to you. Maybe there’s places we’ve forgotten or more information you’re looking for.

Anyway, take a minute and let us know how we can better help you!

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