Definitive Guide to Self Storage Websites

Building or redesigning a self storage website can feel overwhelming. Advice comes from every direction, SEO, design trends, software integrations, automation, but rarely with clarity on what matters most. Many operators end up with sites that look fine on the surface but underperform where it counts: converting visitors into paying renters.

This guide was created to cut through the noise. We’ll look at the real job of a self storage website, the outside factors that influence conversion, the most common mistakes that kill performance, how to measure whether your site is working, and the main options available to operators today. The goal is to give you a definitive framework for evaluating your website and making improvements that actually grow your business.

Outline

1. The Job of a Self Storage Website
2. Huge Conversion Caveat – What Can We Expect from a Website?
3. The 5 Most Common Website Mistakes in Self Storage
4. How to measure conversion rate
5. Website Options Compared (Pros & Cons)

The Job of a Self Storage Website

But if you were to ask, operators and vendors what a website should do they might say something a little vague like it should be digital brochure, a tool to show up in Google searches, or that it should be fast, mobile-friendly, and SEO-ready. Those things are all great of course, but the absence of clear agreement about the number-one job a website needs to do creates lack of focus and poor investments.

In practice, nobody really talks about the job of a website.  Generally websites are discussed in a way that implies we already know, or they're talked about in terms of must need features that will help achieve the implied job.

Integrators and vendors are often very good at expanding the value of a website—adding reporting tools, boosting SEO value, or adding nice design features. Those things are valuable, but they only scratch the surface.

If complete failure was possible through one trait of the website, what would that be?

So often in design discussions the arguments are subjective, it should look and feel like this. But when personal bias and subjectivity gets involved, it's very difficult to make progress as a team. That's why we believe that how we define what the website should do should also be measurable. So that if we add features or customizations, we know if it's getting us closer to what it needs to be.

We believe the answer is simple:

The job of a self storage website is to nurture and convert traffic into paying customers.

It checks the boxes. It's objective, and measurable.

But what about SEO? We will address that at a later time, but we believe that conversion can still be a top priority while also helping with SEO. It depends on your customer journey, as we discuss later.

This belief shapes everything else in this guide and is why we are starting by put so much emphasis on it. If you keep this job in mind, it reframes how you think about design, integrations, and marketing. It keeps you from getting distracted with flash-bang or lost in advice traps. Instead of asking whether your site looks nice or checks SEO boxes, the real question becomes incredibly objective : "How well is it converting traffic into renters?"

There are some other caveats about what you can expect your website to do, and that's the subject of the next section.

👉 For a detailed breakdown, also see our article What Makes the Best Self Storage Websites?

Huge Conversion Caveat – What Can We Expect from a Website?

A website plays a central role in converting renters, but it cannot control every factor that affects conversion. Market conditions, pricing strategy, and unit availability all have major influence.

With market conditions, for example, if you’re surrounded by competitors we might expect more price comparison behavior and subsequently conversion to drop if you aren't the most affordable. If a specific unit type is in high demand and you don’t have it, no website design will convince them otherwise. Similarly, if you’re the lowest-priced facility in town, we would expect your facility to see higher conversion.

Timing also matters. Facilities early in lease-up often need aggressive promotions or discounts to improve conversion, while stabilized facilities may rely more on brand trust and convenience. Stabilized facilities can sometimes be less competitive on pricing as a tradeoff for maintaining stronger economic occupancy.

Customer journey also plays a role. Not every visitor is sure that a storage facility is the right solution for them and many could just be researching or comparing their options.

Recognizing these external factors is important because it sets realistic expectations. A website can’t change your market, pricing, or inventory. These are variables that are constantly at play, and needs market expertise to not make web performance obsolete.

What a website can do is help answer questions that visitors have to help them advance through your funnel. Measuring performance here, gives us a framework to test, improve, and optimize.

So what are the hallmarks of the best converting self storage website designs? We address that next.

Most common conversion killers

If the job of a self storage website is to convert traffic into move-ins, then a really useful way to think about design is through the lens of friction and what not to do. When you use a site, where do you experience friction? Visit two separate sites and start working through the workflow and take note of what is easy and intuitive and what isn't. In this section we have 5 common mistakes that increase friction to conversion that we frequently in self storage website design.

1. Overstuffed or confusing location pages
   This is one of the more difficult problems to solve. We have a lot to say in a very small amount of space, and too often we see careless design that tries to cram everything—maps, hours, unit lists, promotions, and reviews—onto one page. This focuses more on dumping information than on empathizing with the user, who is has a decision to make.
   
   
2. Lack of transparent unit details
   Usually operators are good at displaying pricing if the units are online, but it’s not uncommon to see a call for availability or an invitation to contact the facility for pricing. To a renter, nobody knows what that really means—and it doesn't reduce the friction to helping someone choose you.
   
   Even more problematic is what we call “feature roulette,” where it’s not entirely clear what features come with the unit being reserved. In some cases, a renter might even be willing to pay more for certain features if only they were clearly described. When prices, features, or availability are unclear, trust evaporates and renters will prefer competitors who provide upfront information.

3. Broken or Overloaded Forms
   There are two common directions we see forms go wrong. In some cases, selecting a unit leads to a form that demands way too much effort. The details themselves may be necessary—move-ins require information—but when presented like a DMV application with endless repeated fields, renters abandon. On the other end, we see sites where a clean unit selection process suddenly leads to a generic contact form. Renters have to retype unit size and dates, which feels disconnected and casts doubt on whether the unit actually exists. When the checkout flow feels this messy, customers start to doubt the move-in experience itself.
   
   
4. Checkout Redirects to Another Domain
   This often happens as a workaround when a business launches a polished new website but can’t fully integrate it with their management software. Renters pick a unit on the main site, but when it’s time to move in, they’re redirected to an outdated checkout page on a different domain. Even if everything is technically secure, it feels like a bait-and-switch. Renters question whether their credit card is safe and double-check that the unit details are still correct. The perception of risk in this moment kills conversion.
   
   
5. Outdated, Trust-Killing Design
   A dated, broken, or clunky design instantly erodes trust. Renters hesitate to put in their credit card, and by extension question whether their belongings will be secure. In self storage, an outdated site communicates much like an unkept facility: it doesn’t feel safe or reliable. In the case of the website, you can say the right things, but if the site design is poor, users doubt that they can trust what the website is saying.

This is also where most gurus are on track—they’ll say design matters, and they’re right. The problem is that most stop short of connecting design directly to conversion. Good design isn’t just about looking modern; it’s about building trust so that visitors complete the move-in process. Conversion is the true purpose of design, and when that’s forgotten, even a sleek site can underperform.

👉 For more, see our article on The Most Common Website Mistakes in Self Storage.

When sites solve these mistakes, they naturally adopt the traits of the best self storage websites. Together, these hallmarks create a website that looks professional, feels reliable, and most importantly fulfills its core job: converting visitors into renters.

How to Measure Conversion Rate

There are multiple ways to measure conversion, and which you choose often depends on the maturity of your organization and how you think about your customers. There are a few ways to measure this, but at it's simplest:

• take the number of move-ins that occurred through your website in a given month and divide it either by the total number of monthly users.

It looks something like this: monthly website move-ins ÷ monthly website users. For example, if 50 move-ins happened in a month and there were 1,000 users:

50 ÷ 1,000 = .05 = 5% conversion rate

The power of this approach is its simplicity, ease to understand and share internally, and it's an objective top-level number you can track over time.

Its shortfall is that it isn't super actionable. It requires more analysis first. It doesn't reveal the mechanisms driving conversion. It doesn’t tell you how many times someone visits your site and it doesn’t tell you what they do when they visit your site.

This is a reason that we like to measure conversion in customer journey stages, it gives us more actionable data for improving the performance of the website. 

👉 To get some quick numbers on your site, and what that could mean in revenue, check out our Conversion Calculator.

Customer Journey Stage Conversion

In customer journey stage conversion measurement we build a model of customers and their readiness to buy. It consists of the major leading indicators that users are about to move-in. It might look something like a marketing funnel:

Awareness > Consideration > Move-In

But that's a little abstract and we like to use very measurable data, so it could look something like this:

Search Volume > Search Impressions > Search Clicks > First Time Website Users > Visits Per User > Call's/Move-Ins.

Each > is a conversion point in their journey that has a measurable ratio that means something, and you can formulate tests to improve.

Keeping track of these conversions gives you a framework to evaluate whether your site is helping renters move forward—and ultimately whether it fulfills its core job of turning traffic into move-ins.

Website Options Compared (Pros & Cons)

Whether you’re thinking about building your first self storage website or you already have one that leaves you dissatisfied, you’re not alone. Many operators find themselves frustrated—sometimes because their site looks outdated, sometimes because it lacks features or integration, and often because it just isn’t converting visitors into renters. In other cases, a site might look fine on the surface but quietly underperform in terms of move-ins, making it feel more like a liability than an asset.

When you start looking for solutions, you’ll quickly find there’s no shortage of choices. But each option comes with its own trade-offs. Broadly speaking, storage businesses tend to land in one of four categories:

• DIY builders (like Wix, Squarespace, WordPress with page builders, or newer AI-driven tools)
• Facility management software add-ons that include a basic website module
• Agencies that build custom sites, sometimes with marketing support
• Self storage–specific website providers focused solely on this industry

In this section we’ll walk through each of these options, highlight the pros and cons, and as well as what we have personally seen and our research has showed regarding expectations for conversion rate for each option.

👉 For a detailed breakdown, also see Self Storage Website Options Compared (Pros & Cons).

DIY Builders
These platforms are designed for people with little or no coding experience to get a site live fairly quickly, with subcategories ranging from traditional DIY platforms (Wix, Squarespace) to WordPress with page builders and even AI-assisted “vibe coding.”

• Pros: Affordable, fast to set up, approachable interfaces, and flexible in the case of WordPress. AI tools can create unique designs and keep you current with new tech.
• Cons: Typically lack storage-specific move-in flows. Integrating with FMS systems may add cost or complexity. AI-assisted tools are still evolving and can produce quirks. Often better as a stop-gap than a long-term solution.
• Baseline Conversion Rate - Conversion rate for these options are often based on the tool that displays your available units, so it's a function of that tool. A good baseline of what to expect here for conversion rate for the overall experience is somewhere between 2-3%

Business Software Website Builders
Some tools you may already use—like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, or Square—offer website builders as add-ons.

• Pros: Easy integration with existing tools, extensive support, sometimes included at little or no extra cost. Good if you’re already familiar with the software.
• Cons: Built around non-storage use cases (CRM, payments, marketing), which may not align with storage operations. Limited customization for move-ins, and costs can rise quickly as features are added.
• Baseline Conversion Rate - Similar to DIY builders, conversion rate is most likely a function of the tool you use to integrate units. A good baseline of what to expect here for conversion rate for the overall experience is somewhere between 2-3%

Facility Management Software Websites
Most operators already use FMS for operations, and many providers bundle a basic website option (e.g., SiteLink, StorEdge, Easy Storage Solutions, Yardi Breeze).

• Pros: Direct integration with your unit inventory and pricing. Real-time updates, often bundled or low-cost, and convenient to get online quickly.
• Cons: Designs often feel outdated or generic, limited customization, conversion optimization is difficult, and ongoing support can vary. Pricing can add up, especially at $200/location/month or more.
• Baseline Conversion Rate - For a conversion rate baseline for this category, we've seen it skew a little lower in the 1-2.5% range.

Web Agencies
Agencies offer custom development and marketing support.

• Pros: Can create highly tailored sites with custom move-in workflows, integrate FMS, and deliver full creative freedom. Some bring strong marketing expertise as well.
• Cons: High upfront costs and longer timelines. Agencies without storage experience face steep learning curves. Reliance on third-party developers for updates and support.
• Baseline Conversion Rate - Due to the custom nature of the site you get, we've seen it skew higher, in fact we've seen up to 5.5%.

Self Storage Website Providers
These are companies that specialize in websites for the self storage industry.

• Pros: Pre-configured with industry-specific features, modern designs, often faster to deploy, and designed around storage customer needs.
• Cons: Customization can be limited, you may be locked into their move-in process or FMS, and costs can rise as you scale.
• Baseline Conversion Rate - We've seen some companies report out of the park numbers, like 30%+ users finish the self storage checkout process, but we can't validate the claims. The best we've seen in this category is similar to web agencies in the range of 3.5-6%.

Each of these paths comes with its own balance of convenience, flexibility, and performance. But first question shouldn't be features, it should be conversion rate. After you are comfortable with your website performance, then the features come next.

I'm sure it's clear by now, your website has one core job: to convert traffic into paying customers. Everything else—design, features, integrations, and even SEO—only matters to the extent that it supports that outcome. External factors like pricing, competition, and availability will always influence conversion, but your website should make the most of the traffic you do earn.

We’ve looked at the biggest mistakes that kill conversions, how to measure success, and the pros and cons of the most common website options. While each path has trade-offs, the right choice for you depends on your goals, resources, and growth stage. The common thread is this: define success by conversion, measure it consistently, and choose solutions that move you closer to that goal.

If you keep this lens in mind, your website becomes more than a digital brochure—it becomes a measurable growth engine for your storage business.