5 Dreadful Mistakes That Can Kill Your Property Listings

Your commercial real estate website has approximately 10 seconds to make an impact on a visitor.

According to a study by Nielson Norman Group, the first 10 seconds of a web page visit are critical for a visitor’s decision to stay or leave. The research shows that web pages have a negative aging effect and after about 30 seconds the curve becomes relatively flat.

So how do you create impact in 10 seconds or less?

Avoiding these 5 mistakes will help make sure you keep your potential clients engaged to learn more about your property and increase your chances of generating new prospects.

Let’s dig in.

1. Poor Quality Photos

It’s cliché but we all know this: first impressions are critical.

If you’re thinking about saving money by not hiring a professional photographer, you’re making a very costly mistake.

Photos provide the first impact of your listing (not to mention all other marketing materials) and are key to capturing the initial interest of a prospective tenant or investor during those precious 10 seconds.

Make the investment on high-end professional photos.

Professional photographers can turn your property into a beautiful composition, capture essential building details, and transform uninteresting properties into attractive ones.

Whether you have a beautiful class A office building or an unappealing lower class B industrial space, professional photos can provide impact across all your marketing touch points.

In addition, hiring a professional photographer helps you save time and reduce stress compared to doing it yourself. Touch-ups, resizing, sky changing, and exporting photos all takes up valuable time and can be frustrating if you don’t know what you’re doing.

2. Generic Property Description

Do not create a property description with generic, thin copy.

Words can be powerful: make sure your property overview is informative and provides important highlights about the property. They key is to get to the point quickly and keep it short and sweet (aim for 80 to 150 words).

A lot of CRE professionals provide a general overview but with diminishing attention spans, it’s important to craft a well-thought-out commercial real estate description to hook interest quickly.

Here’s a good example:

If you don’t know where to start, here are some questions worth answering:

• What type of property is it?
• Where is it located?
• Who is it for?
• What benefits could the prospect enjoy?
• What tenants are already there?
• Are there any recent upgrades?

3. Weak Benefits

What makes your property special?

Why should anyone choose your property and not a competitor’s?

Provide clear, compelling advantages and make sure it is relevant to your audience. If you are targeting millennials in a high-tech market, then focus more on building amenities and relevant local area amenities than technical building specifications.

It’s important to spell out descriptive qualities that makes your property stand out.

Look at the adjectives used above to help drive the message home:”fully flexible”, “excellent signage”, “prompt customer service”, “abundant parking”, “superior access”, “extensive onsite amenities”.

Remember, it’s not just what you say but how you say it.

4. No Floor Plans

After photos, floor plans are the most important element on your property listing to help drive engagement and capture interest.

Floor plans are key for three reasons.

1. They keep your visitor engaged with your listing for more time
2. Prospects scan start visualizing their space and further elevate their interest
3. Saves you time by reducing any prospects that are not a good fit

If you don’t have floor plans, capturing serious interest from prospects is going to be an uphill battle.

The good news is that it’s a battle that can be avoided.

5. Missing Call-to-Action

The primary objective of your online listing is to get prospects to contact you. Therefore, it’s important to have a convincing and visible call-to-action.

Essentially, tell your visitor: what should they do next?

Do you want them to schedule a property tour? Request more information? Contact a broker? Execute a NDA?

Always help point the way to the main objective of the page. Don’t think a random telephone number or generic contact form by itself is going to convince visitors to get in touch.

Provide a short, clear instruction that is very visible on the page and lets your visitor know what you would like them to do.

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What other mistakes do you think could be ruining your property listing? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.