7 Things that are vital to help buyers find your property online

In an age when people are doing more and more things via the internet, it’s no surprise that 97% of buyers find their next property online. Property portals Rightmove and Zoopla, lead the way in the UK, with 127.5 million and 58.3 million visits per month respectively. But with 1.1million properties listed on Rightmove alone, it is vital you do everything you can to make sure your property stands out from the crowd.

Here are 7 things you can check yourself on your property listing, to ensure that you are doing everything you can to attract a buyer.

1. Are the property details all correct?

Sounds obvious doesn’t it, but I have lost count of the number of times I have spotted a property with the wrong number of bedrooms or wrong property type - e.g. a bungalow advertised as a house.

Most buyers will be searching specific criteria such as number of bedrooms, detached or bungalow, and by not being listed correctly you may not show up in the searches of buyers who are in fact looking for a home just like yours. Even if you do show up, the wrong information such as lower number of bedrooms could put buyers off looking further as it is confusing and highly likely the price will seem wrong to them and you could appear over or under priced

2. Does the headline target your ideal buyer?

Talk to any marketing expert, and they will tell you that in order to market effectively, you need to identify your ideal customer. When it comes to selling houses, this means identifying who is your most likely buyer and targeting them with your marketing.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to think about you when you bought the house and what stage of life you were at. Even though the house might not be right for you now, it was once – otherwise you wouldn’t have bought it! So, lets say for example you were married with young children and chose the house because of the garden and its location in the catchment area of the school you wanted your children to go to. Then it is highly likely to appeal to someone in that situation now, so you should ensure your marketing ‘talks’ to them and that the headline lets them know this one is worth looking at.

This means the leading paragraph on the description should immediately let them know this is for them e.g. ‘a wonderful family home in the catchment area of sought after schools’. The headline is the first part of the description that shows up in the search alongside your main photo and so should be used to sell your house – not your estate agent. So if yours starts with ‘Joe Bloggs Estate Agents are proud to present……’, I would suggest requesting they alter this.

3. Does the main photograph sell?

It is a fact that a front image of a property with a blue sky get will get more clicks on property portals. If the main image on your listing is the front of your house and it doesn’t have a bright blue sky behind it, then I would suggest getting a new photograph done as soon as possible. It is also important that the main image is current and reflects the current season, so if your home has been on the market for a while and the seasons have changed in that time then new external photographs will help refresh your listing and keep it looking current.

However, we all know that all houses are not created equal in the beauty stakes! If the front of your property is not particularly appealing or if there are a lot of similar style properties for sale in your area, choose a picture of one of your best internal rooms or the garden as the main picture instead to really make your listing stand out.

4. Are the photographs named and in a logical order?

This is a pet hate of mine! Rather than having the images in your listing numbered they should help the buyer understand what they are looking at. Ok, its pretty obvious if it’s a bathroom! But a utility could easily be confused with the kitchen or an en-suite with the house bathroom. It is even more important if you have several reception rooms or bedrooms repurposed, e.g. as a home office, to label what the room is – you can also use the label to help buyers imagine what it could be. Providing your floorplan is also correct, buyers can then easily see which part of the house they are looking at and how the house flows.

Which leads me nicely to the order of the photographs. If you have a featured or premium listing then the first three photographs after the main image should be the next three best images of your home as these show up alongside your main photograph in the search results. You could also use lifestyle images here to paint of picture and add appeal, helping buyers imagine themselves enjoying living there. 

Next, it is important to ensure that the photographs follow a logical order which runs alongside the property description. Imagine the buyer is mentally touring your house so it should start from entering through the front door and then follow the order they would be likely to visit the rooms in, finishing with the outside space. What is absolutely vital in helping avoid any confusion is, with the exception of the first images for a premium listing, having all the photographs of each room or outside space together. This avoids buyers having to scroll backwards and forwards to try and understand how a room fits together.

5. Are the key features used to highlight your homes strengths?

Most property portals, including Rightmove and Zoopla, have bullet points at the top of each property listing. Here you can add the key features which highlight the selling points of your home and the benefits to your ideal buyer. E.g. ‘amazing views from the beautifully landscaped gardens’ or ‘modern, open plan kitchen and dining area which is ideal for growing families’. This is another opportunity to ensure potential buyers can immediately see the things that are likely to matter most to them and ensure they read on.

If yours says things like ‘close to local amenities’ – then your listing isn’t working hard enough to attract potential buyers for you. I would suggest making a list of the key selling points yourself and ask your agent to update the listing with these. Just think about all the reasons you bought the house and what you have loved about living there.

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Knowing exactly where your property is located can not only help buyers find you when they want to view, but also ensure you are maximising the number of ticks in boxes for them which may be a deciding factor in them viewing or not. Imagine if you are tucked away at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac but the location pin is in the wrong place and shows you near a busy main road – both of which are quite possible within the same postcode!

To check yours is correct, click on the map location and check it is showing exactly where your property is located. This can be confirmed by clicking the street view which should take you directly outside your property. This also means potential buyers can easily check out the neighbourhood around your property without having to search for hours on the street view first to find your home.

7. Is the floorplan present and correct?

First of all ensure there is a floorplan. No mater the size of your property, there should be a floorplan to enable potential buyers to understand the layout of your property and how it could work for them. A lot of buyers will simply dismiss a property with no floorplan and move on to the next.

If the floorplan is there, is it clear and does it contain all the information it should? Room dimensions, windows and doors in the correct place, opening in the correct direction etc. These are all vital to ensure the floorplan is as useful as possible to buyers. 

My preference is a 2D floorplan colour coded to show types of living space, wet areas and bedrooms etc. Fancy 3D floorplans or branded floor plans with an agent logo might look good, but they are less use for buyers when they are trying to understand the layout of the property and imagine how the space could work for them.

If you have reviewed all those things and you are happy with them, fantastic you are good to go! If you still aren’t getting the interest you would like or are not sure about something, feel free to send me a link to the property listing. I would be happy to review it for you and give you my thoughts on how it could be improved. Just pop me an email to [email protected].