Mark-Taylor Residential, a leading apartment development company located in Phoenix, contracted Vortaloptics to build a Phoenix-area local search engine and directory specifically for the needs of their residents and prospects. Mark-Taylor residents benefit from having a 24-hour concierge service – the customized search engine where they can locate the local, meaningful information they are seeking. For more details on the concept and installation of the search engine, please refer to part 1 and part 2 of the series.

Advertising Revenue
Mark-Taylor wanted an outsourced solution for advertising sales, so Vortaloptics stepped in as their part-time sales team. With some local media, and support amongst the 22 apartment properties, local businesses began finding out about the new local search engine. Advertising contracts for paid search placement and banner ads within the engine began coming in just a couple weeks after launch.

Positioning in the Mark-Taylor search page gives advertisers the direct link to the local customer they desperately seek. It also presents an inexpensive and no-hassle solution for bringing many locally-owned small businesses online. With a simple monthly placement fee, they can reach the Phoenix area through a well-known brand while at the same time, extend their online reach. The flat-fee pricing model harkens back to yellow pages advertising but provides much more functionality, reporting, flexibility and potential audience. In fact, many advertisers have seen their own website rankings increase due to their ad placements with Mark-Taylor. They’re receiving exposure locally and globally – through major search engines.

Another highly successful promotional outlet has been the Monthly Winner’s promotion. Local businesses with search listings provide free barter items to Mark-Taylor for distribution to the lucky monthly winners.

With paid advertising contracts, which was accomplished without dedicated resources from Property Centric and very little involvement by Mark-Taylor employees, Mark-Taylor is not only offering a great amenity which has inherent value, it’s seeing revenue and gift incentives from local businesses on a monthly recurring basis.

Next, we’ll discuss the search engine optimization benefits Mark-Taylor has realized.

Search Optimization Benefits
Mark-Taylor’s local search engine was installed late July 2005. Immediately, www.mark-taylor.com saw traffic and reach increases. In May 2005, before search engine installation, Mark-Taylor’s traffic rank was approximately 518,000 (according to Alexa.com, a traffic ranking analysis system). Traffic rank represents the popularity of a site among the tens of millions of sites online. It is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). The top 100,000 sites are where 45% of traffic conducts commerce online.

By September 2005, just six weeks after installation, Mark-Taylor.com’s traffic rank was about 145,000th – a ranking increase of 373,000. This occurred because the search engine and directory created thousands of links to outside websites, significantly increased the local content of Mark-Taylor’s site and caused more people to visit and return to the site. As Mark-Taylor’s online popularity increased, so its natural search engine rankings increased.

In fact, prior to search engine installation, when a user searched at a major search engine such as Google for the popular terms, “phoenix luxury apartments,” they would have had a tough time locating Mark-Taylor’s site: their listing was buried on about page 10 of the search results.

Now, when a user searches for “phoenix luxury apartments”, Mark-Taylor’s apartment page regularly appears in the first result! And several of its apartment microsites appear on page 1 and 2 of the search results. Search for “phoenix apartments” or similar phrases and Mark-Taylor’s site can usually be found on page 1 or 2 of the major search engine results (Google, Yahoo!, MSN).

As a result, a paid search campaign with Google was discontinued; after all, why pay for placement when your site already appears in the top 10 natural results?

Mark-Taylor is now in the top natural results positions without spending thousands a month in paid search campaigns. This is a significant success, considering that consistent natural search rankings can be difficult to achieve and expensive to optimize for. This improvement happened naturally as a result of the local search engine.

Mark-Taylor sums up benefits
Prima Walker, Director of Marketing & PR of Mark-Taylor Residential, has seen firsthand the benefits of the paid and local search engine product that Vortaloptics has custom-built for her company.

“Repeat visits are on the rise and our natural search rankings have improved drastically. In fact, without any other search engine marketing efforts, the Vortaloptics search engine has helped Mark-Taylor.com appear on page one of natural search listings at Google for “phoenix luxury apartments” – a key phrase we used to spend thousands a month for with AdWords, and we’re consistently showing up on page two for “phoenix apartments.” Prior to installment of the search engine and its subsequent regular usage by thousands of Phoenix valley residents, Mark-Taylor.com was usually on page 10 or more of Google’s natural listings. The Mark-Taylor brand is becoming more widely known in Phoenix and among the Internet community,” she said.

“Additionally, we are already seeing advertising income and barter goods from local businesses seeking guaranteed placement in the search engine. I am thrilled with Vortaloptics’ service and product. I highly recommend Vortaloptics as a business partner and search engine solutions provider.“

Return on investment for Mark-Taylor for the last 10 months has been healthy. Within the first few months, advertising contracts and barter items more than paid for the search engine licensing fees. Combine that with the benefit of consistently being in the top natural search results of Google without having to buy placement, and Mark-Taylor has seen approximately a 280% return on investment.

Next Steps
Phase 2 of building more value for Mark-Taylor includes launching an email campaign to begin a more holistic communication strategy with prospects, residents and opted-in monthly winner’s entrants. With very little promotion in the first half of 2006, total searches have increased 3-fold. As Vortaloptics continues to update the search results, general search rankings hold steady and Mark-Taylor continues to promote the local search resource, Mark-Taylor should continue to see significant traffic improvements, SEO benefits, resident value, easier prospect conversions, advertising and barter revenues and more.

Mark-Taylor’s experience is not unique. Other Vortaloptics clients have also seen significant direct and side benefits for their companies. You, too, can have a vertical or local search engine and directory custom-built for your company and start reaping the customer, branding, marketing and financial rewards.
Contact us for more information about vertical search engines and related services. Or, if you're a property management or residential services company and would like more information about resident amenity search portals, please contact our exclusive distribution partner for the property management industry,
Property Centric.

Menu