Entrata Powers Property Management Traffic with Yext

Entrata, a property management software company, serves 41 software-based products to management companies across the United States with the goal of making life easier for property owners, property managers and residents. One of the solutions offered is a website platform that helps build a client’s website so it can actually be found online. “That’s our role,” says Romney. “Our clients can technically build websites and do the meta-tagging, but do they know how to do it? No. Do they have the time to do it? No. We come in to do it for them, to take care of everything from on page, off page, to business directories.”

When Romney took over Entrata’s search engine optimization and pay-per-click (SEO/PPC) department in June 2013, Romney wanted something better than the existing solution and set out to explore replacement and enhancement options. “As we explored and learned more, we discovered that Yext was just perfect,” recalls Romney. “Yext is worth every penny—it’s the best. Yext is the Maserati of business directory listings.”

Soon after partnering with Yext, Entrata turned on its 1,200 clients over the course of a couple months. By December, some of its clients were witnessing a remarkable 300% increase in traffic. “Aside from using Yext and sunsetting our previous solution, we had done nothing different.” Entrata has since continued to broaden its partnership with Yext. After initially only looking to Yext for business directory solutions, Entrata has since leveraged the reputation management tool as well.

Yext prides itself on its customer service and partner relations. “Yext has been such a savvy and passionate partner, from the sales process through the onboarding of our 1,200 properties and now our superb account management,” says Romney. “What’s really compelling about Yext is that I am clearly paying for the publisher relationships that Yext is paying for. While Acxiom, Neustar, or Localeze just push information into the universe, Yext’s approach is to partner through proprietary integrations with YP, Apple Maps, and other vendors such that it truly allows us to control our information.”

Beyond all this, Romney points out that no one else offers Yext’s unique duplicate suppression capabilities. “The apartment industry is like Monopoly with lots of trades and name changes: a phone number and address might not change, but every time a property gets traded or bought the name changes. This can result in multiple Yelp and other accounts especially when both management companies try to make updates or pass the task on to staff, and this then has a negative effect on listings,” she explains. “Duplicate Suppression has helped us the most,” she adds. “We want to stay cutting edge and stay ahead. The Yext platform helps us do that.”