When an agent advertises on a portal site, they want to maximise the leads that they are generating from that site. Agents tend to upload all their listings onto a site and sometimes, when the responses from that site is lower than they expect, they blame the site claiming that it “doesn’t work”.

Few agents think about the process a consumer is going through and therefore they don’t tailor their listings to maximise the leads they generate. This article looks at how agents can maximise the number of leads they can generate for a particular listing from a portal site.

To maximise leads, agents need to think about two things – the quality of the advertisement and the positioning of that advertisement on the portal site. In part one of this article we’re going to look at the quality of the advertisement.

Quality of Listing Advertisements

Firstly, let’s look at the process a visitor to a web site goes through. Users conduct a search and are presented with the search results page - a list of properties that meet their request. They usually see one picture, a brief description, the price and some basic information – eg: number of bedrooms, bathrooms etc. Once they see a house that may be interesting to them, they click through to the full property details page.

Many agents upload multiple pictures, quality text, floor plans etc in the hope of providing enough information for a visitor to enquire about the property. What they tend to forget is how their property will be presented on the search results page. If the property is not presented at its best on this page, the visitor won’t click on the listing and is therefore unlikely to see all the other information the agent has uploaded.

To stand out on the search results page, agents can follow these tips:

• Make sure that there is a catchy title for the property as many sites display this at the top of the advertisement on the search results page.
• Make sure the first picture uploaded is the best picture of the property. It should be a quality picture and should show the house in the best light. This picture is displayed on the search results page.
• The first paragraph of the description needs to stand alone and be tailored to the length of the description on the search results page.
• Finally, the price and basic information about the listing (beds, baths, garages etc) need to be completed as they are usually presented on the search results page.

Assuming that the quality of the advertisement on the search results page has been optimised for click through to the property details page, the next step for an agent is to make sure that there is enough information on the details page to qualify the visitor and to generate a lead.

Now there are a number of schools of thought at this stage. Some people like the minimalist approach and do not give too much away as they want to generate leads. In theory, this could work well. However, visitors to sites now days are more sophisticated and less trusting of agents, and therefore more likely to skip a listing than to enquire about it if the level of information is scant.

The approach I would be taking is to do the following:

• Ensure that there are at least seven photos.
• Ensure that there is a floor plan attached to the listing.
• The longer version of the description on this page should talk factually about the features of the property – keep the marketing language to a minimum.
• Additional suburb information should also be included if it exists as it provides the out of area buyer with good information on what it is like to live there.
• Make sure the fielded information (e.g. beds, baths) – is all completed, as this will help ensure the listing is displayed in searches that are more refined.
• Virtual tours and videos are not necessary.

In part two of this article we’ll go on to look at how you can maximise the placement of your listing and the benefit of tracking your listings.

[flower image: flickr/matze_ott]