Once you’ve found the best real estate script for your site, it is your job to populate it with as many listings as possible to cater to a wide audience of home shoppers and help them find their dream house. A real estate site is mainly about property listings. It is one thing to add a listing, another thing is to pack your listing with the right information, keywords and make it appealing to various user categories.
Even if you think you have the ultimate real estate software for your site, it is only the first step for your business.
It is important that you understand consumer trends in the home search process in order to generate more leads to your listing. In this short post, we will share the most essential tips specifically tailored to real estate sites, based on our experience and Google research.
Make it local
According to Google data, 69% of home shoppers who land on a real estate site begin their search with a local term. For instance: “Arizona homes for sale” or “buy a house in Phoenix”. With this in mind, you need to localize your listings depending on their location. Rather than just naming your listing “a three bed-room apartment” consider adding a location as well, to help the search engines index your properties and present the home shoppers with what they’re looking for. This tip is part of an effective SEO strategy that you should implement on your site in order to increase traffic.
Include short community description
Did you ever think what home shoppers are primarily looking for when they land on your listing? Aside from the price and the number of rooms, 86% of the users want to find out more about a specific community where a property is located. It is likely that home shoppers will abandon your listing if they don’t find the information on the surroundings. If you wish to create your listing based on users’ preferences, make sure to add at least some information on the community or a neighborhood.
Offer home hunters a video tour
Video is becoming increasingly important for house hunters and presents an excellent opportunity to market a property. According to Google data, 70% of home shoppers prefer to use the video along with a listing to take a virtual tour around a house. If possible, you should add a video along with pictures thus enhancing your listing and making it more appealing and informative for a user.
Consider Senior House Shoppers
In the past, senior home shoppers preferred to buy a house based on a newspaper ad; however, the situation is changing, and according to a Google survey, 75% of senior home shoppers go online to search for a property. Senior home shoppers highly value neighborhood information and interactive maps. If you want your real estate site to cater to “retirement home” category searches, consider adding appropriate information to your listings. More seniors will land on your listings, if you think of keywords, such as “best retirement communities”, ‘”retirement calculator”, “neighborhood for retirees” and others.
Cater to Vacation Home shoppers
There is a particular niche of home shoppers who are looking to buy a perfect second house, mainly for vacation and recreational purposes. According to Google survey, 93% of vacation home shoppers use the Internet during their home search. However, their search criteria differ from first home buyers. To start with, people who are looking for a second house are normally looking for a perfect and peaceful getaway. Top states appealing to them are: Florida, South Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, and Ohio. Second home buyers often start their search with words “Vacation homes” , “beach house for sale”, “seaside houses for sale” and similar others. If you are a real estate agent with houses for sale in the above mentioned states, make sure to add the right information to your listings in order to encompass the growing category of vacation home shoppers.
You need to understand that a perfect real estate script and a fancy design for your real estate site are merely tools to help you go online. Once your site is active, you need to attract users by offering them the right content as it accounts for 90% of user retention. If you use these tips as guidance when arranging your listings, your site will be able to cater to a much wider audience of home shoppers and appeal to more users.