An attractive headline

A great headline draws visitors’ attention right away. Remember those magazines on the checkout counter of grocery store? For an online ad, it is even more important with all the distractions that one can get while surfing the web.

Providing a clean and user friendly ad page is always the highest priority of our site and we put the headline at the most visible location and stay away from things like popups. However, we sometimes see ad with title like “Condo for rent”, which doesn’t really say anything and probably will be ignored by the visitors. Your can make your ad’s headline better by simply adding some specific information to start with. For example, comparing with “Condo for rent”, “Two bedroom condo at a convenient location for rent” looks much better; or to make it even more appealing, how about “Two bedroom condo in [insert city name]’s most sought after neighborhood”?

Be specific

What is the best feature that you love about your property? Nice jacuzzi tub, cabinet space, or the big swimming pool you enjoy during the summer? For an existing homeowner these may be taken for granted, but for a potential renter/buyer, these “little things” can be exactly what they are looking for.

We provide ways to include these important features in ad publisher so make sure include your “fenced in yard” or “swimming pool” in your ad. When someone search these specific terms on FindMyRoof.com or online, what do you think the odds of your ad showing up if you don’t have these keywords included?

One of the biggest advantage of advertising online is that you are not charged by the number of words that your ad has (in our case, it’s free) and you have better and more ways to present your property. So in order to make your ad stands out, list the things you like the most and present them as best as you can, which leads to my next point:

A picture is worth a thousand words

I know, the phrase itself has been used zillions of times. But it still holds especially true for real estate ads. Photos truly benefit the ad viewers and that’s why we allow unlimited number of photos at FindMyRoof.com. With the quality of today’s digital cameras, there’s really no excuse to skip the photos. You can upload them easily form your computer or an online source using our ad publisher, so take as many shots of your favorite features about the property as possible and let them be seen.

“Online” can not replace “offline”

This may sound ironic since FindMyRoof.com itself is an online platform. But the fact that most of the real estate is still marketed to the local people makes offline effort equally important, if not more.

There are several ways that you can try to advertise offline:

• Place a for rent/sale sign in front of your property with a brochure box.
• Spread flyers about the availability locally in public places where bulletin boards are installed. Best places are schools, work place, or churches. FindMyRoof.com offers flyer generation tool which you can use to create pdf flyers for your ad with a couple of click.
• Consider the local papers. It’s probably a waste of time and money to try to put classified ads on big newspapers these days. But sometimes great spot can be bought cheaply on some local publications with small circulations. If targeted correctly, an ad can gain some good visibility.

Lastly, understand the risk and protect your identity

When your ad is on the Internet, it can be viewed by anyone with a computer and Internet connection. Although WE BLOCK the access from visitors outside of United States, there are still spammers who manage to scrape our content and re-post them on other websites. It is a hassle for property owners, to say the least.

Besides using more diligence when describing your property without revealing your personal information, you can also consider using our privacy protection feature like “hide your address” so the identity of your property can be better protected as well. And as always, do not trust anyone who don’t want to meet, or have an excuse to avoid meeting in person.

EDIT:

After watching this video I think “being honest” should be added to the list above. Even it is “painfully honest”.