Everything you need to get the most out of your listing on Bear Cribs. If you don't find what you need, call 254-300-8216 or email us — we'd love to help.
Go to the login page on Bear Cribs and enter your login info.
No problem! Click here and answer a couple of quick questions.
We'd be happy to add a new listing for you. Just contact us and we'll get you set up.
To add photos to your listing, log in to your account and scroll down until you see "Photo 1." Upload your property photos one at a time, in the order you want them to be seen. A wide range of photo sizes can be used, although we recommend a minimum size of around 1100 pixels wide.
We can add your photos for you. Click here to send them to us.
We enforce these guidelines for all properties on Bear Cribs to ensure fairness and provide a better experience for renters. We reserve the right to remove or replace any photo at our sole discretion. Any advertiser who repeatedly violates these guidelines may forfeit eligibility to advertise with us. Thank you for your cooperation!
Want a detailed record of the calls you get from your property listing? You can add phone tracking for only $10/mo per property. Renters call the phone number (with your area code) on your listing and are routed to your phone number through our tracking technology. You'll be told the lead came from our website when you answer the phone, and we'll email a record of your phone leads every month. Ask us about this exciting opportunity!
Renters can email you while they're looking at your property listing. Those emails are clearly tagged so you know where the lead or referral came from. You don't need to do anything to get email tracking — all listings are already included!
Using email leads and adding phone tracking will allow you to identify every lead or referral except for in-person visitors. You probably have a visitor card that asks where they found out about your property. But most visitors only recognize the name of the website when they see it, so the all-too-common "Internet: __________" will fail to identify the referral source. Don't miss this important information! Add Bear Cribs to your visitor card and ask each visitor who comes into your leasing office.
You want your property to be a "match" for as many renters' searches as possible. Those searches look at your property's Units/Floorplans first to determine whether you offer what the renter is looking for. You can easily maximize your chances of matching a search by adding one Unit/Floorplan for every rental option possible.
Let's say you have 3 "floorplans" in your brochure — a 1-bedroom, a 2-bedroom, and a 3-bedroom. Now think about any variations a renter could get. Can they get a furnished apartment? Is there a corner apartment that costs a little more? Any units with slightly different square feet? For each of these add-ons or options, add another Unit/Floorplan. The 3 "floorplans" in your brochure may translate to 6 or more Units/Floorplans on Bear Cribs. That's how you set your property up for the most referrals.
Every day on Bear Cribs, hundreds of renters look through the list of properties that match their search. They'll glance at the primary photo thumbnail and quickly scan the first line or two of your property description. For many of them, you have less than a second to grab their attention and entice them to click on your property to dig deeper.
How can you set your property apart so they give it a real evaluation? Start with an attention-grabbing line and quickly highlight the most appealing things you offer. Don't disappoint them with a short or cliché property description — this is your chance to sell them on your rental property!
There's one more consideration when writing your property description: SEO (search engine optimization). See the SEO section below for details.
Not to toot our own horn, but we're pretty good at writing compelling marketing material and would be happy to help with yours. Just reach out.
Property photos can make or break your Bear Cribs listing. There are three characteristics of good property photos: size/resolution, content, and quantity.
Size/Resolution — One of the biggest complaints renters have about searching for rental housing online is the poor quality of property photos, often the result of photos that are too small or grainy. Always upload large, crystal-clear photos and you'll stand out from the crowd. We recommend photos at least 1000 pixels wide. Not sure how to tell what size your photos are? Just ask us to look at them for you.
Content — Maybe you have affordably priced apartments and don't think your property looks good in photos. We've been working with these kinds of properties for over a decade and know all the tricks to make them look great! Our professional photographer can come out to your property and give your listing new life with beautiful photos.
Quantity — Every manager wants renters to tour their property in person, but the reality is that renters now visit far fewer apartments before signing a lease. Rightly or wrongly, they rely on photos on sites like Bear Cribs as a quick and easy substitute for tours, and they often skip properties that don't have enough photos to give them a good sense of what it's like. You can upload up to 20 photos to your listing — take advantage of all 20 slots!
You don't have to be an SEO expert (or even know what SEO is) to use it to give your listing a boost. Simply put, SEO is writing your property description in a way that gives your listing priority when a renter searches Google or other search engines for rentals.
You can instantly improve your property description's SEO by mentioning relevant keywords a few times throughout your description. For example, if your Waco apartment property is exclusively for senior adults, you'd include the terms "Waco," "apartments," and "senior adults" in the first sentence and repeat them 2–3 more times throughout the description.
Be careful though! Going overboard with SEO — known as "keyword stuffing" — can actually cause Google to demote your listing. Don't make your property description stilted by inserting keywords where they don't make sense. Your goal is a compelling property description written with SEO in mind, not a description built around keywords.
One of the best ways to get more leads and referrals from your Bear Cribs listing is to take advantage of the Special Offer section. You don't have to break the bank! We've seen tiny offers like "Take a tour and get a $5 Starbucks gift card" have a measurable impact. These small incentives are also a great way to help you track where leads are coming from.