Earlier this month, we wrote a blog post on Things to Consider When Marketing Your Property Online. In this post, we talked briefly about using Paid Search Marketing to attract businesses searching for office space online to your listings. We understand that paid search marketing is no easy task to take on and have provided a few additional tips below to help you get started.

What is Paid Search Marketing?

Paid search marketing is the process of gaining traffic by purchasing ads on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. It is sometimes referred to as CPC (cost-per-click) or PPC (pay-per-click). This unique form of search engine advertising gets your site in the top search results for the keyword terms you target.
 
How does it work?

The search engines display ads in response to search queries. When a user searches for keywords you’ve selected for your ads (ex. San Francisco Office Space), your ad can appear above and next to the organic search results. You pay a certain amount each time someone clicks on your ad; this is why paid ads are referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-click (CPC) advertising.

The position of a keyword-targeted ad on the search results page is calculated by the click thru rate of the ad, the ad’s display URL, the relevance of the keyword and the ad to the search query, along with other factors. The top three ad positions get the highest percentage of clicks.
 
Where You Should Focus Your Paid Search Efforts?

Start with Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter (which includes Bing and Yahoo! Search).

Choosing Keywords

Traditionally marketers bid on one or two term keywords (ex. office space), while searchers type in three or more keywords per search. Three word plus terms are generally the cheapest per click with higher conversion rates (depending on the keyword and the quality of the landing page).

• Add long tail keywords to your account, the phrases individually are unlikely to account for a great deal of searches, but as a whole can provide significant traffic (ex. office for rent in San Jose).
• Here are some additional ways to generate keywords: create lists, keeping your website theme in mind. Research competitor websites and organic listings. Include a search box in your website to find out what customers are searching for.

Writing and Testing Ad Copy
 
It is better not to create ads on a blank canvas, instead consider opening your web browser and enter the search term. This will give you an idea of what creative’s are already being used for a search term.

• Don’t be all things to all people! It is better to create focused, concise and unique propositions in your ads than generic claims.
• Your ad is a window to your site. The message in your ad needs to be consistent with the language on your website.

Paid search marketing is a great way to reach business looking for commercial real estate online. Many well known industry players, such as Regus, or larger landlords such as Irvine Company effectively use paid search to reach potential clients online. We provided a brief overview of paid search marketing above, however there is a lot more involved. As a beginner, we suggest partnering with someone who can help you reach this online audience.

As always we invite your feedback and questions.

Located in downtown Glendale, this luxurious high rise building has over 500 office suites. The building is located at 121 W. Lexington Drive in Glendale and offers tenants access to many great amenities, including an onsite gym, beautiful patios and is within walking distance of retail shops and restaurants.

The lobby level office suite is currently available for lease. This suite includes 5 large windowed rooms, a private patio and 2 private entrances. This Glendale office space is fully furnished, and includes phone and internet connections.

To view the available office suite at 121 W. Lexington Drive in detail, click here.

Below is a press release from San Francisco’s newly appointed mayor. It’s sounds like a bold initiative with real implications for commercial real estate building owners and managers. But is it? There must be something more to this than just entering your energy use into an online tool.

Rofo leases space at one of the few LEED Gold certified office buildings, 100 Montgomery Street in San Francisco. Everything about the building feels normal from a tenants perspective. Typical nice looking lobby, good security, and fast reliable elevators. Nothing is “in your face” about saving the planet. Occasionally the property manager will highlight a recycling initiative and its nice reminder that the landlord took some extra steps to pitch in.

The big question and concern about greening a space or a building is the upfront cost. Is the landlord going to take a financial hit and push rents up? And by doing so are you pushing tenants out. The city has been apparently ‘battling’ to keep Twitter in San Francisco and offering concessions/incentives (I know nothing about that real estate deal but I’ve been involved in commercial real estate leases as a broker where cities compete for a headquarters deal and can honestly say its not about the tax breaks. Its about the real estate.)

So cities have a big challenge and competing interests. Personally, as a tenant, I like the green building initiatives. But I also like keeping the rent competitive.

Would love to hear to your thoughts on this as a broker, tenant or building owner.

MAYOR LEE SIGNS LANDMARK LEGISLATION TO GREEN EXISTING COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
New City Code Improves Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings, Protects the Environment and Creates Green Jobs

San Francisco, CA—Mayor Edwin M. Lee today signed landmark green building legislation that will improve energy efficiency in existing buildings, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs, and create green jobs. Passed last week by the Board of Supervisors, the Existing Commercial Building Energy Performance Ordinance will require owners of existing non-residential buildings to determine how much energy each building consumes, and to make that information public on an annual basis. The new city code will also require commercial buildings over 10,000 square feet to conduct energy efficiency audits every five years in order to help the building owners and managers optimize building efficiency and utility savings.

“San Francisco needs to increase the energy and resource efficiency of existing buildings if we are going to meet our aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets,” said Mayor Lee. “This new green building code will educate building owners about what they need to do to save energy and money, and boost our local green economy.”

“San Francisco continues to provide visionary leadership to protect our environment,” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu. “Making our commercial buildings more energy efficient shows we can work together creatively to make real progress.”

Energy is one of the biggest expenses of building ownership, and will be an even greater financial burden for owners in the future as energy prices escalate. Buildings, which account for about 70 percent of the electricity consumed in the U.S., could be made up to 50 percent more energy efficient with currently available products and services.

Under the new law, Chapter 20 of the San Francisco Environment Code, building owners will be required to benchmark the energy use of their buildings using a free online tool provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the results of which will be filed annually with the city. The code also requires building owners to conduct energy audits, starting with commercial properties larger than 50,000 square feet starting in October 2011, and then phase in so that by 2013, the rules would apply to all commercial properties 10,000 square feet or larger.

The Ordinance codifies the recommendations of the Existing Commercial Building Task Force, which then-Mayor Gavin Newsom convened to identify ways the city could work in concert with the private sector to improve the energy and resource efficiency of existing commercial buildings in San Francisco. The Task Force, similar to the one that developed recommendations for new construction, was comprised of 18 members of San Francisco’s building ownership, developer, financial, architectural, engineering, and construction communities, who the Mayor selected for their knowledge of the building industry and commitment to San Francisco’s long-term sustainability.

“San Francisco currently offers energy efficiency audits for businesses through our Energy Watch program, and we have learned that up to 70 percent of business that have an audit will take action and conduct a retrofit,” said Melanie Nutter, Director of San Francisco Environment. “We expect this Ordinance will deliver similar returns with existing buildings, which could lead to a 50 percent reduction in commercial building energy use within 20 years.”

Today’s signing ceremony was held at the San Francisco offices of Adobe, located in a 1905 building on the national historic registry that has been upgraded to LEED Platinum, the highest level of environmental performance recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council. The building employs extensive energy efficiency technologies, securing an Energy Star rating of 98.

“Adobe is committed to being a responsible corporate citizen in the communities where its employees live and work,” said Randall H. Knox, III, Senior Director of Global Workplace Solutions at Adobe. “Our company takes a hands-on approach to resource conservation and sustainability, achieving Energy Star ratings and US Green Building Council LEED certifications at many of our locations. It’s our hope that this new City of San Francisco law will inspire building owners to be more informed about energy consumption and take action.”

Saul Zaentz Media Center at 2600 Tenth Street is located in the heart of West Berkeley. This building is home to film editors, music producers, and sound engineers.

This center offers tenants looking for office space, access to  many great amenities.  Small unique office spaces along with larger open office spaces are available for lease. Additionally, the Saul Zaentz Media Center has a state of the art screening room available for meetings, screenings and events.

The center is conveniently located between the Ashby and University exits off of highway 80. The center is served by a West Berkeley Bart shuttle, which is free to tenants. There is also free parking available on site.

To view this office for lease listing in detail, click here. Watch the short video below, to learn more about this West Berkeley office space.

Yesterday we made some slight changes to our Linkedin app Real Estate Pro. We first launched the free app in July 2010. Since that time we’ve seen significant use of the app by both commercial and residential real estate agents/brokers on Linkedin. Professionals are using the app as a way to notify their professional network of current listings and completed transactions. As listings and completed transactions are featured on the app, network updates are sent to your professional connections. The basic idea is that 80 to 90% of an agent’s business come from referrals and Linkedin is the social network of choice to keep in touch with your professional contacts.

Free Listings That Will Not Expire

Real Estate Pro for Linkedin is a free app. There’s no limit to the number of property listings you can add to Linkedin. And if your brokerage firm is feeding listings to Rofo, you just simply need to link your Rofo account to Linkedin. Your broker’s data feed will keep your listings updated automatically. If you are manually adding listings to Linkedin we’ve increased the length of time your listings remain active. Originally this was 30 days. But given the fact that many listings remain active for much longer these days, you have full control over a listing expiration (read: you delete it when its no longer active).

Before it Was Free. And Now it is Free!

In the past, when adding listings to Linkedin, users we’re prompted to upgrade to a Rofo Pro account at the end of the listing process. This was confusing to users so we’ve changed our add a listing process. The page flow has been changed. Now, when you click to add a listing from within the app, you go through a very fast input form and you’re done.

Stay tuned for some other upcoming announcements related to the app. In the mean time, keep the feedback coming for more product needs and improvements.

Looking for office space in downtown Maryville Tennessee? On the 2nd floor of 108 W. Broadway Ave, you’ll find this unique office space with original pine flooring, brick walls and contemporary lighting.

The space includes 4 oversized offices with room for several desks in each, a conference room, break room, server room, copier room, and bathrooms. This office space was recently remodeled and includes individually controlled HVAC within each office. Parking is available immediately behind the building and across the street.

Watch this short video and see the beauty of this office space yourself!

To view this available office space in detail, click here. Or visit Rofo.com to find office space for lease near you.

Looking for short term office space in Denton, Texas? This 1,517 square foot office space is available for sublease. Located at 2220 San Jacinto in Denton, this available suite includes: a large reception area, 4 private offices with windows, a conference room and a large storage closet.

This spacious suite was previously occupied by a law firm and is located in the Inwood National Bank building, a 3 story brick building. To request a tour of this space, or view the listing in detail click here.

4900 Warehouse Way in Sacramento offers tenants looking for Sacramemto warehouse space, suites that range from 1,152-6,912 SF. Located in the Sacramento Business Park, this propety boasts two attractive, well maintained industrial buildings. Each suite is equipped with 12’ x 14’ roll-up doors, 17’ x 19’ clear height and fire sprinklers.

Suite 50 at 4900 Warehouse Way, is currently available for lease. This 2,300 SF space includes a 280 SF office. To view this suite in detail, watch this short video.

Rofo hears from tenants daily and we understand that often times office for lease listings lack important information, such as photos, area descriptions and asking price. However, that is not the case for the Sunnyvale office for lease listing below.

Suite 205, is located at 1307 South Mary Avenue in Sunnyvale. This great open office space, also includes two private offices and a kitchen. Conveniently located near the De Anza Square Shopping Center, there are many great restaurants nearby, including Country Gourmet Restaurant and Pizza Pub. The building also offers commuters easy access to highways 85,280 and 101.

As an added bonus we have a short video of the available office suite, for you to view below.

To view this office suite in detail, click here.

Traditional property marketing, such as property signage and email blasts to your broker network, may not be enough to generate the leads you need to lease a commercial space. Based on our own success, we have pulled together a list of online marketing strategies to consider, when looking for new ways to drive exposure to our properties.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
More and more businesses are using the internet as a tool in their search for commercial space. Google is the number one tool used by businesses who are conducting their search online. It is important as a landlord, broker, or property manager to make sure that tenants who are searching for your property specifically (i.e. 185 Berry Street, San Francisco), or generically looking for office space can find their way to your listings. For tips and further information on SEO click here.

Paid Search Marketing
Paid search marketing, is a process of gaining traffic by purchasing ads on search engines like Google. Also known as pay per click (PPC) advertising, PPC search listings allow landlords/property managers to bid for placement within the search results users select. For example, if you have office space listings in Seattle, you can bid for placement on search terms such as Seattle office space for lease, attracting those businesses that are searching for office space in Seattle to your listings.

Mobile Search
Many businesses are using their smart phones as a way to find commercial properties while on the go. There are some interesting mobile tools, which allow a property searcher to access complete building information when physically near the property. As a broker, landlord or property manager, making your listings accessible via mobile applications is a great way to reach prospective tenants who are conducting a live search. Check out our Augmented Reality mobile tool.

Classified Sites
Marketing your properties on classified sites such as Craigslist, is a low cost, effective way to reach prospective tenants online. While the list of classified sites is long, we find that the two most prominent sites are Craigslist and Oodle. It is our suggestion to work with a site that can create a good presentational flyer of your listings, making distribution of your listings to these classified sites professional and simple.

Social Networking
It’s important to get your available listing in the hands of as many potential customers as possible. The 3 most common social media networks include: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Publishing your listings to these sites can be effective, but remember not to spam your connections or followers.

Keep an eye out for a more detailed blog post from the Rofo team on Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search Marketing.