How to Get 10,000 Views of Your Real Estate Listing

If viral content has taught us anything, it’s that there’s no predicting what an audience will find fascinating.

As a real estate agent, you’ve probably tried various tactics — digital ads, Just Listed postcards, social media posts — to generate traffic to your listings. Sometimes a home’s price or its location in a hot market draws the views, and sometimes it’s just been on the market for a long time.

So how can you get more real estate listing views? We looked at median-priced homes for sale on Zillow that have more than 10,000 lifetime views to see what they had in common.

Here are the top tactics we gathered to get 10,000 views on your online listings.

Grab a buyer’s attention with great photos

Getting high-quality photos isn’t rocket science, but many real estate agents don’t make the effort to get exceptional photos and settle for merely average ones.

Forget listing photos that are undersized, time-stamped, watermarked, blurry or unidentifiable. You want buyers to look at the snapshots and say, “I want to see more!” instead of asking, “What IS that?”

You’ll get more buyers to look at your listing when you start with an eye-catching image and include 20–25 thoughtful and professionally taken photos that highlight each home’s best features. For example, if you mention the home is on a spacious, secluded lot, include photos of the exterior that demonstrate the privacy it offers.

Write outstanding descriptions to keep them reading

While pictures catch a buyer’s eye, a well-written listing description draws them in further and helps them better imagine what it’s like to live in the home.

The listing description for the highest viewed home on our roster — more than 22,000 all-time views — paints a captivating picture of an al fresco lifestyle. Potential buyers read it and can immediately picture themselves entertaining their friends on the covered patio overlooking the landscaped yard and in-ground pool.

It’s easy to rely on clichés like charming, must see and unique, but your listing description can and should include objective quality words to describe specific features. If the home offers granite countertops, energy-efficient features or a landscaped yard, you should definitely mention them.

Be upfront

Sometimes there’s no getting around a home’s less marketable features, so be honest and forthcoming about them. Buyers will appreciate having details that allow them to dive deeper into a property if they’re interested in it or save them time if they’re not.

If the home is selling as-is or requires renovations, say so in your listing description. If you position the home as an investment or long-term opportunity, recommend that as well. If it’s particularly suited for a smaller household, say that, too. It’s also OK to let buyers know what to expect when they tour a home that has been vacant for a while. Homes in these conditions can still attract thousands of buyers who are specifically in the market for them.

Get the sellers to help themselves

One of the keys to generating real estate listing views is to give each home a personal story, which creates rapport with buyers so that they want to keep reading. When your sellers claim their home on Zillow, they can provide more accurate, complete and unique content to help buyers decide if it’s a home they want to explore further.

When potential buyers read the description, they’ll see additional details that the sellers added, such as upgrades and remodels that buyers should know about the home. Not only does this provide a more polished profile of the home, the information might also be enough to affect the Zestimate® home value.

The listing description might also include What I Love About the Home. Sellers who claimed their home have the opportunity to add more personal details about the listing and describe what they enjoyed most about living there.

Many of these tactics don’t take any money at all, only time and planning; other efforts, such as paying for professional photography, are well worth the investment. The key to increasing your real estate listing views is making each home look and sound like a top-tier property, including giving it an engaging backstory that buyers want to know more about and, perhaps, become part of.