A leasing director gets a monthly report. Organic clicks up 40 percent. Average position improved by three places. Good news, presumably.
Presumably, because there's no way to check it. Up 40 percent from what baseline? Against what a similar 180-unit community in the same metro would get? Measured over what window? The report agrees with itself, and means nothing to anyone else. We went looking for a published benchmark that would settle it. We wanted one that names the properties, states the window and shows its method. We didn't find one. What you find instead is percentages with no source attached. So we're building one.
Why we can build this and most agencies can't
Kihan Marketing builds, revamps and assists on apartment community websites. So we know what sits under the reports.
Olympic Multi-Family Management
An ongoing engagement covering live community sites across Washington state.
Pacific Crest Real Estate
Five community sites we assisted on, alongside the corporate rebuild. We rebuilt a 5-page AppFolio-based site into 250-plus pages. Every managed property got its own page, carrying its live availability listing with amenities, features and photos. The full story is on the project page.
That's a real portfolio, built and maintained rather than observed from the outside. It is what tells us how little most comparisons in this field are worth. A benchmark that overstates its sample is worse than no benchmark. It hands people false confidence in a comparison that doesn't hold.
So before any table is worth printing, two things have to be settled. First, why two community sites that look identical on a spec sheet almost never behave the same way in search. Second, how to read your own numbers once you accept that. Both are below.
Why these sites resist comparison in the first place
Every management company we work with runs AppFolio. That platform decides more about how a site shows up in search than most benchmarks admit. It's one of four things that break a comparison.
Stock listing pages against rebuilt ones
AppFolio hands you listing pages in a fixed format. A rebuild can give every property its own page, with its live listing. Our AppFolio Listings Pro plugin draws those listings as the site's own markup. So button styling and CSS aren't locked to AppFolio's defaults. We also built a chat leasing tool on the AppFolio API that shows real active listings with full detail. A community site running stock listing pages and one running rebuilt listing pages are not the same site for search. That holds even at identical unit counts in the same submarket.
Unit count and submarket
A 40-unit building in Poulsbo and a 300-unit property in Seattle are not a fair match. It doesn't matter how neatly their numbers line up side by side.
Page type
A floor plan page and a contact page earn nothing like the same click-through rate. So one average for the whole property hides what most operators really want to know.
Audience
A management company's marketing has to reach three groups: vendors, owners and residents. When we run that work, we target all three. A single community site mostly speaks to one audience: renters. A management company's own site speaks to all three. Benchmark one against the other and you're comparing two very different sets of searches.
Keep them apart. Our property management SEO page works through how search differs for a portfolio and for a single building. So does multifamily SEO.
Branded against non-branded
The cut that matters most is branded against non-branded searches. A branded search is one that includes the community's name. The split shows whether a site is only catching its own name demand, or really reaching new renters. Two sites can post almost the same headline numbers and sit on opposite sides of it. Doing it right means sorting each property's search terms one by one, not eyeballing them.
A benchmark that overstates its sample is worse than no benchmark.
How to compare your own community against this
Pull your own Google Search Console data over 12 months. Take four numbers at property level: clicks, impressions, average position and CTR. Impressions are how often you appeared in search. CTR, or click-through rate, is the share of them that got a click. Read the four against each other, not one at a time.
High CTR on a low impression count
You're most likely measuring name demand: people who already knew the place, searching for it by name. Worth having, and it isn't growth.
Lower CTR on impressions in the tens of thousands
You're ranking past your own name and into searches where you're one of ten options. Harder position, more upside in it.
Low impressions and low CTR
The site probably isn't ranking for its own name reliably. That's the first thing to fix, before anything else on the list.
Average position worse while clicks went up
Check whether you now appear for more searches before treating it as a problem. Say a site starts showing up for a far wider band of searches, most of them deep on page two. That drags its own average down, while its total clicks climb.
Do you manage apartment communities and want your own Search Console read against this? That's what a marketing audit covers. Working out where community search fits against portfolio search? Start at property management and multifamily marketing.
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What clients say
Nicholas Riley
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Kiran and his team are simply fantastic! I've worked with 16 different third party marketing teams and they are by far the best. They are incredibly smart, responsive and an overall pleasure to work with. Since working with them over the last 2 months my ask of them constantly changes and their ability to quickly adapt and figure out new ways to quickly add value is incredibly impressive. I can't recommend Kiran and his team enough and will continue to work with them for the foreseeable future!
Reika
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Kihan Marketing is a fantastic team to work with, friendly, professional, and highly responsive. They are highly responsive and quick to take action, ensuring projects move forward efficiently. Despite working in a fast-paced environment, they remain professional, organized, and attentive to detail. Their dedication really show in the quality of their work, and they consistently deliver results while maintaining clear communication. Highly recommended!
IDR Office
Island Dreams Realty
Kihan Marketing Organization is friendly, professional, and very responsive. Kiran and his team move quickly, communicate clearly, and deliver high-quality work in both website development and social media marketing. They stay organized, pay attention to detail, and make the whole process smooth and efficient. Highly recommended for anyone looking to grow your online presence!
Watcharaponne Chaiyadee
Samui Elegance Real Estate
I highly recommend Kihan Marketing. Kiran is an incredibly talented, skilled, and thoughtful web designer. What impressed us most was that he didn't simply build a website, he took the time to truly understand our business, our vision, and the local Koh Samui real estate market. Throughout the process, Kiran provided valuable advice and creative ideas that helped shape the brand and support the growth of our business. His attention to detail and understanding of what makes a business unique resulted in a website that feels truly personal to our brand. He created the beautiful website for Samui Elegance Real Estate. It represents the elegance, professionalism, and identity of our business beautifully. Thank you, Kiran and Kihan Marketing, for bringing our vision to life. Highly recommended!
Listya
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Working together felt very collaborative and aligned. Communication flowed easily, tasks were well-organized, and we shared the same attention to detail throughout the process. It genuinely felt like working as one team.
San Innovation
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Kihan Marketing Organization has been great to work with. The team is professional, responsive, and focused on delivering real results. I'm very satisfied with their service and would highly recommend them.
vittoria garrafa
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Very fast and professional. I love working with Kihan Marketing. Definitely recommended
Wei Landgraf
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I can't recommend Kihan Marketing highly enough. Kiran and his team truly went above and beyond in helping me with both my social media and my website, and the results speak for themselves.
Shelley Stroeve
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I recently worked with Kihan Marketing to design my new website, and I couldn't be more thrilled with the experience. From start to finish, they were incredibly responsive, communicative, and attentive to every detail.
