How To Get More From RealEstate.com.au Without Paying Extra Money – Part 2

6 minute read

Before uploading your listings onto realestate.com.au, it’s important to look at what you are trying to achieve within each part of the site. Plus, it’s important to look at realestate.com.au from an internet marketing perspective, rather than simply uploading your listings and hoping.

With this in mind, this article takes a look at how agents could improve their results from the perspective of an internet marketer and achieve the best click-thru rate that they possibly can from realestate.com.au.

In the first article on ‘How to Get More From RealEstate.com.au Without Paying Extra Money’ I discussed the Find An Agent Section of the site, in today’s session we’ll look at how to get the best results out of the Search Results Pages of realestate.com.au

The Search Results Pages are that part of the site where someone does a search for property within your area and all your listings plus your competitors’ listings appear all together under an area search, price range search or both.

For example, here’s the Search Results Pages for a search on the suburb Balmain.  http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?id=balmain&a=qfp&cu=fn-rea&t=res

Within the Search Results Pages of the realestate.com.au site, 10 listings are displayed per page, (except for the first page where the ‘Guaranteed Top Spot’ listing appears, to make it 11 listings).

When looking at how to market your listings effectively within the Search Results Pages, it’s important to learn 3 simple internet marketing concepts.

1.    The Image Catches Their Eye
2.    The Heading Grabs Their Attention
3.    The Text Makes The Sale

Now there are a lot of agents who write ads that may look alright on paper, but these ads don’t actually convert very well once they are uploaded onto the web.

Plus, normally the same ad that is placed in print is also used online, which means that typically the same AIDA method of advertising ends up being adopted onto the web.

A = Attention
I = Interest
D = Desire
A = Action

Whilst the AIDA method still works online, to get the most out of your advertising on realestate.com.au it’s important to use AIDA twice within the same advertisement.

You see, with a typical AIDA style advertisement the call to action is left at the very end of the copy, which ends up appearing on the Property Details Page.

On realestate.com.au it’s absolutely critical to capture Attention, create Interest, develop Desire and include a call to Action within the very first part of the advertisement, because this is what the majority of people will see within the Search Results Pages.

Now you may be thinking that’s too hard or even impossible. I can assure you it’s not, because when you look at what the first call to action really is, you’ll discover that your job as a marketer within the Search Results Pages is simply to ‘Sell The Click’.

That’s right! Your listing within these Search Results Pages of realestate.com.au is racked up side by side with 9 other listings (or 10 other listings in the first page ) and your strategy at this point should be simply to ‘Sell The Click’ because once the browser has clicked open your listing, that’s where all the magic happens.

At this point the browser has not only opened the Property Details Page but at this point…

• That’s when you get a visit registered against that listing

• It’s where the client can find out your contact details

• Where they can see how professionally you promote a property

• View videos, virtual tours, floor plans & see more photos, etc

• They can share the listing with their friends on Facebook

• Send you an email enquiry or email the listing to a friend

• Print out a brochure of your listing

• See how many visits the listing has had

• View a map, get local sales information & write a street review

• Gateway to them finding out more about you & your company

• And, if you use a strategy that I’ll be teaching in an upcoming article in this series, there’s a good chance that more people will end up clicking through to your company website as well.

But, none of this happens unless they click the red ‘View Property Details’ button in the Search Results Page & open up your listing.

Here’s How To ‘Sell The Click’

There are a number of ways that you can ‘Sell The Click’ from within the Search Results Pages.

Firstly, upload the best photo of the best part of the home as the main photo (or Hero Photo as some like to call it). The main photo should preferably be an interior photo or an enticing outdoor entertaining area photo.

By using internal images, you’ll stand a better chance of catching the browsers eye because people love looking inside other peoples places. Also, you’ll find that your listing will not only stand out from your competition, but browsers will also have a tendency to click open the listing to see what the front of the property looks like too.

Additionally, selecting the right main photo to use for your listings will also have an impact on the number of visits you generate from the new Gallery section within realestate.com.au.

In the new Gallery section 10 listings appear per page, displaying only an image, property address, price, icons for number of bed – bath – garage & a red “View Details” button.

Secondly, use a great headline, not the same old boring copy like ‘4 BR Home + Pool’ or ‘Don’t Miss This One’. Put some real thought into it.

Thirdly, remember what I said earlier, that “The Text Makes The Sale”. You’ve got approx. 300 characters to write some copy at the beginning of the advertisement that can help you to ‘Sell The Click’.

You’ll find that’s plenty of space to build Desire, Interest & include a call to Action.

Finally, you may not get this right the very first time & it may take some practice but that is the beauty of the internet, you can easily make changes as you go.

I hope this helps you to drive lots more traffic to your listings on realestate.com.au without costing you any extra money.

Back soon with the next instalment. Cheers. 🙂

PS: If you’re not great at writing short copy that converts well, try using Twitter where you only have 140 characters to ‘Sell The Click’ or seek out a professional copywriter for some help.