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According to a 2014 Apartment Guide study based on information from more than 200 student-housing communities nationwide, prospect leads from mobile devices are growing at a remarkable rate. Numbers from a few student-housing markets show that almost half of all prospect leads generated are from mobile devices. The top five markets by total percentage of mobile leads are:

• Lubbock, TX, at 45 percent
• Baton Rouge, LA, at 43 percent
• Bowling Green, KY, at 43 percent
• Louisville, KY, at 42 percent
• Dallas / Ft. Worth, TX, at 41 percent

A quick Bing search for “Lubbock Texas Student Housing” turns up four properties’ websites that are owned and managed by American Campus Communities. Aside from each of these websites using the exact same template in the same city, a glance on mobile showed that none of the sites are responsive or in any way mobile-friendly. A click-through to the online application shows a normal desktop web page containing an application form that looks like a sheet of legal paper taped to the screen and does not consider mobile user experience at all. A mobile user would have to zoom in and out on various areas of the form to complete the application and would most likely get frustrated and give up on the application mid process. This means the apartments are potentially losing the sale. With each sister property in the area using the same website template, this website’s design is slowing business down at best, if not stopping it altogether.

While these properties may be doing some harm to themselves by using an unresponsive website, they are doing a good job of creating urgency around availability. Each site is furnished with a large, attention-grabbing call-to-action box at the top of the screen that informs the site visitor of how many apartments remain unleased. This may help counter and overcome the mobile barrier and still give students the needed impetus to head into the office or find a desktop to submit their applications on, but in general, it’s not that hard to update even an old site and make it responsive.

A 2013 study by Noel-Levitz, OmniUpdate, CollegeWeeklyLive.com, and NRCCUA found that 43 percent of high school seniors and juniors use their mobile devices for all of their web browsing, and mobile is only going to increasingly be the platform of choice for the young people who will lease student-housing apartments.

Some quick tips on creating a mobile-friendly website:

  1. Tap friendly: Make sure there are plenty of space and margins around buttons to allow room for fingers on touch screens. Mobile tapping is not as precise as clicking with a mouse, so the space has to be there.
  2. Text phone numbers: Make sure all phone numbers are text instead of images, so the user can tap to call.
  3. Contact forms: Use larger input fields and leave space between them, so users can more easily fill out things like apartment lease applications.
  4. Use images: Since mobile users are on the go, using colorful images that reiterate headlines or serve as infographics will help users take in the important information.
  5. Responsive: Make sure your site is not only mobile-friendly but looks good on tablets as well. Your site should ideally resize for any screen size in the wide range of tablets and phones available.