How to create real estate ads with excellent coverage

"Your ad on 20 different real estate portals!" - while mass publication was still a central argument of some providers for successful real estate marketing a few years ago, it has become increasingly less important today. For the marketing of special properties such as castles and manor houses, it does not necessarily bring added value. Especially not if the respective real estate sites predominantly serve the local and consumer-oriented mass market. If your experience suggests that a property offer will take longer to market, it may make more sense to focus on one or a few specialized providers. But also here it is important not to rely solely on the presence there as well as indicated user numbers or the popularity of a provider.

REALPORTICO offers you the technical prerequisites to reach your target groups at home and abroad. In order to create a perceptible offer with permanent inquiries, a property for sale must of course first have a basic potential. Read in our guide how you can decisively influence the reach of your real estate advertisement on this basis and how you can receive more inquiries from prospective buyers.

1. Determine a realistic price

Realistic pricing is of great importance, especially when it comes to the private sale. Before you offer your property on the public market for the first time, you should carefully check what price is realistic. The desired price of many private sellers is often influenced by personal emotions and other factors and often cannot be reconciled with the actual market value. An offer with an unrealistic purchase price can have a negative impact on further marketing activities - the consequences are often difficult to correct. Therefore, it is important to know the market and the potential demand for your individual property.

There are now numerous providers and services that offer free real estate appraisals. It is advisable not to leave your details on all sorts of websites. Instead, rather seek out a reputable real estate agency that you trust. A reputable agency will be able to provide a realistic estimate of the achievable purchase price.

Especially in the case of special historic properties such as castles, the choice of a suitable provider is important. If necessary, find out about references and experience in the sale of historic properties. Do not let yourself be pressured and do not hesitate to ask for further estimates from similar sellers if you are unsure.

Keep in mind, however, that a real estate agent can only provide an estimate of an attainable purchase price, but cannot provide a legally binding appraisal. In some cases, it may make sense to commission independent experts. Depending on the type and scope, costs of at least EUR 1,000 or more must be taken into account.

2. Meaningful Title

The heading of an offer is one of the most important elements of a real estate ad. In the search results, it helps decide whether the offer is interesting enough for a user to hit the detailed view. It also gives you the opportunity to make your offer clearly findable via search engine queries. Therefore, it is of central importance to include relevant keywords in the title. Unsurprisingly, very many real estate ads still use weak standard headlines. Slogans such as Space for your dream or Special offer! are used in the daily housing market but in this particular segment they tend to have a negative impact on potential buyers. Such phrases make your listing hardly noticeable or findable outside the published real estate portal. Also, the use of superfluous punctuation and special characters does not create any added value in terms of reach and visibility. Their use in connection with non-localizable phrases is particularly unfavorable:

+++Top property for capital investors!!+++

A good guideline for meaningful headings is, for example, the combination of adjective, type of property, (relevant) special feature and location. The individual criteria can be used more than once, but should be used no more than twice. Headings consisting of six to a maximum of ten words are ideal. Adjectives with an objective character (monument protected) are weighted more heavily than subjective catchwords (dreamy).

Charming renovated château in private location near Paris

Large country house in Alsace, France

Cannes: Historic villa in the south of France with panoramic sea view

Tools such as the Google Keywords Planner can help if needed,
find high-reach keywords and terms. Also, keep regional specifics in mind when choosing a property type. Terms such as castle, manor, hall, palace, château or country estate are often used synonymously, but are used differently in individual regions. Also the combination of these designations can be meaningful:

Romantic castle/manor near Lyon, Rhône-Alpes region

3. The perfect sales text in the age of ChatGPT and AI

Factual, appealing and error-free texts are another central component and form an important quality feature. For example, search engines use the quantity and quality of a text to decide how quickly an offer is visible in search results. Offers on REALPORTICO with good texts and images are usually indexed by Google within 2-3 hours. With weak texts or little content this can take much longer.

The key here is to find the right balance between relevant information and a manageable amount of text. Keep details to interested parties, but equally make sure that the description includes what is most important. Also address potentially new interested parties and provide information about estimated renovation costs or sample invoices, for example.

AI: Using artificial intelligence the right way

With the rise of AI-based services such as ChatGPT, which provide automated and self-learning information, automatic text generation has made its way onto websites. Some brokers use fully auto-generated text for exposés, properties and sites. However, this is not advisable because trained readers quickly recognize generic content and such programs have no knowledge of individual facts. This leads to orthographically correct texts that do not correspond to the facts.

In the future, search engines will also take artificial intelligence into account when displaying search results. In the process, fully generated content will be recognized and classified as less relevant, resulting in lower visibility of the page in question.

It is preferable to provide the bot with fact-based templates or text modules and optimize your own intellectual content on this basis. One's own adjustments can then be passed to the program again and further optimized if necessary. Spelling errors can also be quickly corrected with ChatGPT. Here are some simple examples of how to use ChatGPT to create exposé texts:

Combine the key points into a short text: castle, for sale, near Paris, in need of renovation, 20 rooms, 20 hectares of land.

Write two more variants of the text: [Content]

Write a summary of the text: [Content]

Is the text grammatically correct? [Content]

Correct the text: [Content]

These are just some of the many possibilities. When creating exposés, it pays to familiarize yourself with the new technology. As a rule of thumb:

For texts in which individual facts play a major role, artificial intelligence only works as well as the basis provided by the human user.

4. Meaningful Pictures

Images are the most important medium on the Internet. A good photo is the first entry point for attention, especially because in the age of social media, people read long texts less and less often. It is frightening how many real estate listings in the seven-digit range are advertised with snapshot-like photos. Although prospective buyers also get a first impression from blurry cell phone pictures, if aspiration and quality are dispensed with at this point, the result is that users tend to spend less time on a real estate listing page.

Did you know that many prospective buyers do not use real estate portals as their first point of entry, but direct search queries?

Castle for sale Saxony

In order for your offer to have a chance of becoming relevant in search results outside of portals, you need to achieve that users spend as much time as possible with your ad and are animated to spread the word about your offer. Almost all social platforms try to capture interaction times - the more people see your offer and the longer they stay there, the more relevant your offer will be for search services like google. Even if you don't otherwise expect your buyers to be in the social media environment, they can help you reach them in this roundabout way as traffic engines.

Therefore, high-resolution, expressive images in combination with the correctly chosen motifs are another important part.

Image checklist for real estate ads

Use current and meaningful media in good exposure, sharpness and as high a resolution as possible (min. 1,600 pixels wide). Large-format images attract more attention, but do not cause longer loading times!

Refrain from using sample photos, dominant watermarks or image overlays with advertising messages - they disrupt the homogeneous appearance in the search results and hinder attention for the actual motif. If necessary, place logos discreetly and slightly transparently in a corner of the image.

Class instead of mass: 20-30 carefully selected images are more than sufficient for most offers.

"Fair weather photos" are generally recommended, but not mandatory. However, pictures should be appropriate for the season. In the summer months, no one wants to see snowy winter landscapes.

Avoid excessive use of photo effects that distort a property or its surroundings.

For interiors: focus on space and interior design, not on photographing private objects.

For vacant properties or properties in need of renovation: Clear away existing trash, cardboard, private items and any junk.

For drone pictures: A drone doesn't automatically take good photos - pay attention to weather, light, sun position and subject. A shot of the roof from above, for example, is less suitable as a preview image.

Pay attention to photo alignment and use, for example, free tools like ShiftN to give your images a more professional look.

Make sure to use meaningful file names and assign a relevant keyword to the images to make individual photos of your ad visible in the image search as well.

On our Instagram channel @realportico_com you can find many examples of high-reach images. Get inspired!

3. Use modern presentation formats: Video, virtual tours, home staging

On REALPORTICO you can upload videos to a real estate ad and provide a link to a 360-degree tour.

Moving images and interactive presentations give prospective buyers a better overall impression of a property and its surroundings.

Real-Estate-Videos

A few years ago, they were considered more of a nuisance on websites. Today, videos are more popular than ever. However, they also carry the risk of premature abandonment. The key here is to convince the potential buyer in the first three seconds. This is usually best achieved with professionally produced videos that also take into account psychological aspects of film and advertising.

But "in-house productions" can also be convincing. Here, pay attention to the added value that such a film can deliver. It makes sense to show areas that cannot otherwise be captured with a conventional camera. Think, for example, of a drone approaching the property for sale at a slow speed, flying around the property or the plot from above, showing a few details of the facade and finally going inside through the opening entrance - if you manage to create a wow effect with your video, these are the best prerequisites for giving your real estate ad attention and visibility.

Virtual real estate tours

With the emergence of the corona virus and limited visiting options for real estate, the demand and provision of virtual tours has increased significantly. Cell phone apps such as Google Street View or special cameras meanwhile make it possible to create such tours with manageable effort even for non-technical users. On youTube, for example, you can find numerous instructions on how to create such 360 Grand Tours yourself. Incidentally, by including a complete tour, you can also avoid requests for additional images, which interested parties often request.

Home staging: stimulate the imagination of potential buyers

Many prospective buyers have clear ideas about a purchase object. However, they have equally diffuse ideas and do not have all criteria, possibilities and alternatives in mind. Home staging can be an impulse generator here and stimulate the imagination of your customers. Especially for redevelopment-needy and vacant real estate, a good interior design opens up new possibilities and perspectives. Skillful and tasteful arrangements give an individual touch to a sales offer and can become a trigger for a viewing appointment.

Modern presentation formats: Conclusion

Of course, modern real estate marketing using videos, drone flights, 360-degree tours or home staging involves significantly more effort and cost and is certainly not equally necessary or worthwhile for all sales objects. However, those who opt for at least one additional type of presentation give their potential buyers a more comprehensive impression, which can avoid further question and encourage inquiries.

Especially when it comes to marketing properties that require a longer marketing period or that address an already small target group due to special characteristics such as size, purchase price or investment requirements, a seller should pull out all the stops that are conducive to successful marketing.

4. Consider foreign interested parties

What hardly plays a role in the sale of high-demand single-family homes and apartments is imperative in the marketing of historic properties and real estate in the high-price segment: Think of potential buyers abroad. Many private individuals, investors and companies are interested in acquiring foreign real estate and maintain residential and secondary residences or company locations in other countries as well. This potential target group will not necessarily find your ad where you would expect them to. Therefore, you should always provide your offer at least in one selected foreign language as well. It should be taken into account that a foreign potential buyer may not know the location of a property for sale and tends to search for foreign properties on the basis of a country or region. For example, if you provide a headline

English Title: "Renovated mansion in Albenga, Liguria"

it may be advantageous for other languages to give priority to a region or the country and to dispense with the specific location in the headline.

German Title: "Renovierte Villa in Ligurien, Italien"

In this way, you multiply the potential of an ad and create the basis for interested parties in in addtional target countries, to take notice of an ad. Again, the interest in your offer depends on many other factors. Providing additional languages alone does not guarantee success, but it should not be neglected.

5. Maintain ad - keep content up to date

Surely you also know real estate offers that were already created a long time ago and have been persisting somewhere on the Internet for year and day without any changes. For users and especially for search engines, outdated content is not very attractive. Even if you have disclosed all the facts about an offer for sale, it is important to modify texts and the headline at regular intervals or to supplement them if necessary. In particular, you should also provide new images or, if necessary, other media at longer intervals. Only continuous maintenance grants "long-term candidates" a chance to remain visible in the search engine ranking. Of course, this does not include real estate listings that have been marked as sold or archived and are still publicly available.

6. Use Hashtags

The use of hashtags has become established especially in social media for finding content. However, you can use hashtags just as much on any website to enrich texts with any keywords. Google, for example, has supported hashtag search for a long time. Although the search results prefer to display content from social media, the targeted as well as sparing use of individual hashtags can - without a guarantee - help to give even a real estate listing more visibility. If you want to make use of this possibility, you should also think about tags that have been little used so far, but are nevertheless self-explanatory. You can place tags at the end of your description, for example. Try it out and feel free to be a bit creative.

Examples:

#smallmanors #bargain_castles #lake_maggiore

However, hashtags should be used very sparingly overall. We recommend a maximum of 5 hashtags per language!

7. More reach for real estate ads: Conclusion

In 2023, real estate offers no longer have to be published on dozens of local portals. With our tips, you create the optimal foundation for lasting good online visibility throughout the entire marketing period. If a real estate ad has not found a new owner even after a long period of time despite a large reach, the sales price called up is often the first aspect that could be checked and possibly adjusted.

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