Introduction
If you want to sell or lease the most property online you need to have a well put together property listings page. In order to do that you need to know what to include and what to avoid. In this article by the Cindtoro team we will take you through the process of a high performance listing page and break down the reasons why each element is important.
Our Experience
Commercial and residential real estate do not do enough to promote their listings online and typically fall behind in one or all of these areas. The elements laid out have compounding affects for how many prospects see your properties.
They also rely too heavily on third party listings platforms failing to realize that a custom solution self hosted on their own website is the best option for improved visibility and control over their property listings. Through the help of our custom design approach we give our clients the ability to gain the upper hand.
Key takeaways
- Quality Images: will help you stand out and make a good impression
- Video: the use of video breathes life into listings pages.
- Drone Imagery: Captures areal views
- Matterport: Enhances virtual tour abilities
- Floor plans: Provides an overview of the inside of a space
- Listing Description: Improves search performance
- Property Details: Improves search performance
- Property Highlights: Allow for quick glances of important info
- Interactive Map: provides geographical support.
- Lead Capture Forms: A must for generating new business.
- Contact Details: Also a must for generating new business.
- Links to related properties: Distributes link authority and improves online visibility.
High Quality Images
In the digital world both commercial and residential real estate is overwhelmingly visual. No matter how a prospective buyer finds your listing online the first thing they will see are images.
Given that images are the first things a prospect will see, it is important to invest money in professional photography.
Better quality imagery will lead to more views and sales.
While there is not an exact number of images there are averages we would recommend you stick to. Ideally, each listing should have 8 to 15 photos consisting of the most important areas of your property.
The amount of imagery required should be based on what is needed to showcase the asset in the best possible way. More is not always better, there is no need for 50+ images if it is not required.
Videos
If a picture is worth one-thousand words a video should be worth a million. Having video on your properly listing page makes it stand out to anyone online. Similar to imagery you want to ensure that you have high quality processional videos. You do not need video for every inch of the property but showcasing the most important parts are critical.
There is no hard or fast rule for the number of videos either. Use your best judgement here
Drone Imagery
Drones deserve their own category for a reason. They allow for a prospect to get an overview of the surrounding landscape, traffic patterns and also helps to enhance your online property listing. Many commercial and residential real estate companies do not take the time to include drone footage of their properties. This oversight provides an entry point for you to enhance your visibility further and stand out from your competition in the marketplace.
MatterPort
For good measure the highly popular matterport service provides another way to showcase your commercial or residential property to potential buyers. Matterport can assist with the virtual tour process to help people see a property before they schedule a tour.
It also helps to provide a “blended” approach between video and static imagery.
Floorplans
Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer who is looking online: you need to know what a property looks like on the inside to see if it will fit your needs. A floorplan is a great way to help guide potential tenants down that path. Especially if your buyers have a specific configuration they are looking for.
Listing Description
The listing description provides a great opportunity to spike interest in a potential client enticing them to fill out a contact form or giving your company a call. The description is also key to maximizing your online visibility of your listings.
It is critical that your written copy contains as much information as you can provide. Your description should contain popular CRE keywords to help provide search engines an understanding of the type of property, where it is located. These two things will help the algorithm show your listings to qualified prospects.
Property Details
A key aspect of a property listing page is the property details sections. These details will include items such as how old the property is, the asset class it falls into, the property type and so on and so forth.
Property Highlights
Every property listings page should have a section for property highlights. Highlights can be anything you need them to be about. These highlights help to showcase the most important parts of a property while at the same time enhance your discovery online.
Interactive Map
An interactive map should be displayed for the ability to allow prospective buyers or tenants to assess how far away they are from areas of geographical importance to them. It also helps to provide an understanding of where your property is located. Additionally, it enhances the average time on site, which is a key visibility signal.
Lead Capture Forms
Every prospect will be located in different places of a webpage as they consume information. It is a best practice to have multiple lead capture forms or at the very least one central form for every property page.
The goal is to make it as easy as possible for a prospect to provide their contact details no matter where they are so you can get in touch with them as soon as possible.
Contact Details
Speaking of contact details you should have contact details of each listing agent on the page. Items such as your phone number, and email address are critical to display. Your most engaged potential clients may want to get in touch with you right away to schedule a property tour. If you do not have these they may go elsewhere.
Links to related properties
We cannot tell you how many property listings pages we have seen that do not have this feature. While not required it is one of the most overlooked aspects of a quality listings page and it majorly affects how your properties show up online. Links to related properties ensure users are able to view other listings that may interest them.
Your firm’s overall property discovery will improve as a result of linking together other related properties by passing internal link value to your other pages which in turn improves your overall visibility.
What to Avoid
It is not enough to know just what should be included, you also need to know what to avoid so you do not make mistakes that harm online listing visibility. We picked these areas based on impacts to performance and overall value to potential prospects.
- Little to no descriptions
- Few property details
- Little to no images
- Blurry images
- Little to no listing updates
Little to no descriptions
Not taking the time to invest in creating a high quality listing description will hurt your chances of success and you will fail to generate any meaningful online traffic as a result. What you put in you will get out. If you skimp out on creating a high quality listing description good luck being found by qualified tenants digitally.
Few Property Details
In the exact same realm comes having few property details. Potential buyers need information to make informed decisions without providing them with as many property details as you can. You are lowering their ability to make any decision. You are also harming your overall visibility online.
Little to no images
You will never be able to sell any property that does not have any imagery (or video) People need to see what they are buying Little to no images translates to lower engagement times, less visibility and overall less money in your pocket in the long run.
Blurry Images
Never present blurry images to a potential client under any circumstances. Blurred images make your firm look unprofessional and show that you lack attention to detail. It will also make your property listings webpage look terrible causing your prospect to go elsewhere.
Old grainy pixelated images with poor lighting are a major turn off for your prospects. Poor quality images This will then cause people to look elsewhere for a property. So, since this we are talking about achieving “high performance” it pays to invest money into a professional photographer.
Little to No Listings Updates
A listing is not a set and forget it type thing. If you want to maintain you edge you need to constantly refine your property page listing with new information, property descriptions and details, etc etc.
Major search engines prefer websites that update their content as frequently as possible. Ideally you should look to make updates every 3 to 6 months to keep your listings pages “fresh” in the eyes of Google and others.
Conclusion
The display and information contained on your listings pages can make or break your real estate marketing success. Effective marketing strategies come down to paying attention to detail and not letting small things slide.
If you fail to address the key fundamentals you will be left behind by others that do. Given that you now understand the most important parts of a property listings page, we encourage you to put the knowledge to work.
If your listings display is no longer aligned with your brand or you would like to have both greater control over and visibility the Cindtoro team can build you a custom internal system to handle your listings.
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