There’s plenty agents can do to make their listings stand out, but of course not everyone has the time to create a dazzling showcase for every single property. If you’re resources are stretched, aim to hit these five basic targets to ensure your listing isn’t overlooked:

1. Accurate details. You might not know everything there is to know about a particular property, but even still you can make sure the information you do include is correct.

2. Photos. Both trulia.com and zillow.com have shown that one photo, at least, goes a very long way in terms of attracting viewers.

3. A catchy headline. What’s special about this property? A great view? A quiet street? A drop in price? Rather than simply writing “new listing”, grab home hunters’ attention with your headline.

4. Contact details. It’s surprising how often important agent contact details are left out of listings. If you’re keen for leads, make it easy for people to get in touch.

5. Proofread. Spelling errors and typos are all too easy to spot on property portals. If possible, get someone who hasn’t seen your listing before to look over it and pick out any problems before it goes online.

Looking for more advice on how to make your listings the best they can be? Check out our series on maximising leads from portal sites, along with our advice on what makes a good property ad.

Floor plans are often the missing piece of the puzzle for listings. Great photos and an informative description are covered by a lot of agents, but not all are in the habit of adding a floor plan to the mix.

This is a shame because a floor plan is an important part of maximising the number of leads agents receive from property portals. In fact, research from Dutch company Heliview found 53 percent of house hunters were more likely to spend time looking at a listing if a floor plan was included. (For an in-depth look at how to maximise your portal leads, check out Simon Baker’s articles here.)

One floor plan provider, floorplanner.com, has just been upgraded to offer a new layout for its “plus” and “pro” users, who pay upwards of US$29 per month.

The new layout allows users to add more relevant information to their floor plans like photos, videos, and 360 virtual tours. They can also show the exact location of a property on Google Maps, and see its surroundings on Google Street View.

floorplanner.com is also aiming to give premium users more branding opportunities, allowing them to choose a custom background that visitors will see when they load the plan. On top of that image, they can also place a custom preloader image that can link to their website.

To get a better idea of floorplanner.com’s capabilities, check out the video below:

Google Street View has been added to so many real estate websites by now that it’s almost an expected part of the listing landscape. But there could be a change on the Street View horizon.

A report from cnet.com explains that Google previously floated the idea of ads appearing in Street View that are tied to the listings in its Local Business Centre and Favourite Places program (click here for a full run-down of those Google offerings).

What makes it seem like more than an idea is Google’s recent filing of a patent application titled “Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising”. In other words, we could soon see something akin to virtual billboards appearing in a Street View image as users browse through an area.

Of course, this might sound like an extremely bad idea – a sure-fire way to turn people off Street View altogether. But searchengineland.com’s Greg Sterling remains optimistic. “Google will very carefully align what it perceives to be relevant ads with consumer queries and interests,” he says.

In the world of online advertising, this could open up a huge new advertising space. Much like the Augmented Reality applications developed by websites such as trulia.com, Street View could become a source of leads in itself. But exactly how this will all play out remains to be seen.

Leading Dutch property portal funda.nl recently commissioned market research to find out what consumers thought of it. The results are as revealing for agents as they were for the portal itself.

The research, conducted by Heliview, showed just how important video and interactive floor plans are when it comes to listings. 53 percent of respondents said they were more likely to spend time looking at a listing if a floor plan was included, while 61 percent said they were likely to prefer listings if a video was available.

Heliview’s results were also enlightening when it came to public perception of the market-leading portal. A huge 81 percent named funda.nl as their preferred listing location when it came to promoting their house.

So, for Dutch agents at least, it seems skipping the market leader when placing property listings simply isn’t an option. In terms of listing content, the survey confirms what many already know: the more content, the better.

Looking for more ideas on listing content? Click here to see our tips on making your listings stand out.

Not only is this a great way to promote your listings to an international audience, it is also a great tool to differentiate yourself from your competitors when marketing to potential sellers.

If you would like to be a guinea pig and help us test the application for free, just go to www.listglobally.com and click the link on the home page to register for a free trial. Once we receive your request, we will be in touch via email with your login details.

home.co.uk isn’t convinced these agencies have the best online marketing strategy. The search engine had this to say about the importance of advertising on multiple portals:

“Does it mater how many property portals an agent advertises on? Yes indeed it does. Further analysis by home.co.uk shows that the agents that advertise most widely have by far the lowest typical time on market figures. Hence, just being on rightmove.co.uk isn’t enough to have the best property sales turnover.”

The survey also revealed that nearly seven percent of UK agencies don’t advertise online at all.

home.co.uk maintains that the best sales turnover rates are seen by agencies that advertise on seven or more of the major UK property portals. According to the survey, agencies that follow this strategy see properties on the books for 56 fewer days than agencies that advertise on less than seven portals.

“As we’ve being saying time and time again, agents really need to consider reach when planning their online advertising campaigns. More portals equals greater reach and a much faster sales turnover,” said Doug Shephard, business development director at home.co.uk. “Moreover, prospective vendors can easily find how widely an agent advertises online and this encourages more instructions.”

According to home.co.uk, the top five portals in terms of sales are rightmove.co.uk, zoopla.co.uk, primelocation.com, findaproperty.com and fish4.co.uk.

We knew something was up at zillow.com when it posted a “site down temporarily” note on its blog on Monday.

The next post confirmed our suspicions: zillow.com was adding the option to list rental properties on its US-based real estate marketplace. By the next morning, zillow.com was already touting the first ten listings to take advantage of the new option, and dealing with a wave of questioning regarding its new pricing strategy: US$9.95 for a 180 day listing.

The comments were relatively quiet on zillow.com’s own blog, but over at 1000watt blog and agentgenius.com things were different, prompting zillow.com’s spokespeople to respond.

“[W]e have moved all manually posted listings to featured listings (which have always been a paid product on zillow.com),” wrote community director David Gibbons on 1000watt blog. “Featured listings receive six times the traffic that normal listings do on zillow.com. There’s significant value for a very nominal charge here.”

Over at agentgenius.com, broker relations director Sara Bonert assured agents that if their listings come to zillow.com via a third-party feed they will still be free, and emphasised that 97 percent of listings to zillow.com are received from feeds.

While free listings through applications such as vFlyer and Postlets are still an option, it seems clear zillow.com wants to emphasise the value of featured listings. “Featured listings typically enjoy six times the traffic of our standard listings, so you are getting a lot for your ten dollars,” Bonert told agentgenius.com’s readers. Gibbons also quoted the “six times more traffic” statistic in his response to 1000watt blog’s post.

The move raises a number of questions for US agents. Should they feature their listings on zillow.com? Would this really result in six times more traffic? Does more traffic equal more leads?

The key, as at least one commenter astutely pointed out, is in tracking where your leads are coming from. If zillow.com is bringing in business, then perhaps these featured listings are worth the investment. But if your leads are coming through your website, social media, or another source, then this change at zillow.com need not be cause for concern.

With so many new releases from Google over the past week, you could be forgiven for feeling a little over-saturated. As we’ve already discussed, Google’s new real-time search and personalised results raise some questions in terms of online advertising for agents. Thankfully, Google’s latest release looks positive for the world of online real estate advertising.

On Tuesday, the Google Earth and Maps team announced a new type of mapping imagery available to developers through the Google Maps API: high resolution overhead imagery that shows both the rooftops and sides of buildings at a tilted angle.

When Google made the announcement, it pointed out that both US property search engine trulia.com and US online brokerage redfin.com have already integrated this new aerial view into their websites. The two real estate websites were chosen, along with travel website orbitz.com, to be the first to try out the new imagery.

trulia.com’s example gives an idea of how the new perspective will enhance listings:



At first, the addition of a slightly new angle on Google Maps imagery might sound insignificant. But once you start moving around in the new view, it becomes obvious how much more clearly the buildings are being represented. Things like building height and where the building sits in the landscape are aspects home hunters could only guess at in the previous aerial view.

One problem with the new Maps perspective is that, so far, it’s only available in two locations: San Jose and San Diego. Of course, Google says it will be adding more cities in the coming months, but doesn’t hint at when the angled view might become available outside the US.

Do you think this new aerial perspective view would enhance your listings? As always, feel free to leave us your thoughts in our comments.

As well as providing a property search, fizber.com distributes listings to a network of 80 websites including olx.com, Google Base, oodle.com and vast.com.

US online auctions website realtybid.com also has a Christmas offer for agents, discounting its US$150 listing fee to $25 until 31 December.

As rismedia.com reports, buyers are also being encouraged to bid on realtybid.com properties, with the website’s one percent buyer fee dropping to a flat rate of $500.

So how do you walk that fine line, outlining all the positives a property has to offer without stretching the truth, and promoting it to the right audience without leaving other buyers out?

Here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for Great Listing Copy:

1. Gather all the information you can about the property itself, the street it’s in, and the surrounding area. Build up a clear picture of what you’ll be promoting.

2. Use all this information to be as specific as you can. Is the property on the high or low side of the street? What will buyers see from the balcony? How is the house heated and cooled? Answering these questions up front will build trust in potential clients.

3. Avoid going overboard with the superlatives. Describing a home as “gracious” or “excellent” might sound nice, but ultimately it doesn’t give home hunters any solid information.

4. Encourage home hunters to see themselves in the property, perhaps by saying that the 10 metre pool is perfect for morning laps, or that the sunroom is ideal for lounging with the Sunday newspapers.

5. Don’t skimp on the details. If the property is in a “great location”, talk about what’s nearby that makes that statement true. Similarly, if it has “tons of extras”, give examples of what those might be.

6. Use details to attract the right buyer. Rather than say the property is perfect for a family, which may cause other buyers to switch off, focus on the large bedrooms or big back yard.

7. Can you give buyers a sense of the property’s history? Mentioning recent renovations, or the fact that it has had the same owner for 40 years, will show property hunters you know all there is to know about this place.

8. Correct grammar and spelling is crucial. If you don’t have someone who can proofread your work, try reading it aloud to spot any errors.

9. Similarly, try to stay away from slang, overuse of capitals and exclamation marks, and creative punctuation.

10. Originality will pay off. Even if true, saying a property is one buyers “can’t afford to miss” will only make their eyes glaze over. Take the time to think of a new way to describe what the property offers.

These tips really boil down to two major points: know what you’re promoting, and explain it clearly without embellishments.