Writing a land listing isn’t enough—you need to make sure it gets noticed, too. You’ll need to get the word out to the right audience, especially online. That means making sure your listing shows up well in search engines and makes the right impression on potential buyers. Photography, search engine optimization, and social media are all essential tools in making sure your land gets the attention it deserves.
Put your best foot forward
You only get one chance to make a first impression, so design your land listing website to wow your potential buyers right from the start. The best way to impress them is with high-quality photographs showing off your land at its most beautiful. Put your best photo first and don’t include any images that are less than great. Consider your photographs a tour of your land and organize them in a way that guides a buyer logically through the property. All photos should be accompanied by informative captions that make it clear what the buyer is looking at.
Your website should also include a well-written, informative description of your property’s attributes and location, so that prospective buyers know exactly what to expect. Paint a picture of your property in words to go with the photos in your listing.
If you have high-quality videos or aerial footage, add that too your site as well, along with maps showing the exact location of the property.
People don’t want to buy from an anonymous seller, so make sure your prospective customers know who you are. Upload a headshot to your listing website, and include a brief bio.
Optimize your listing for search engines
To make sure your listing shows up well in search engines, you need to implement some basic search engine optimization (SEO) tools. Your goal is to make search engines rank your site among the top results for particular keywords.
The primary things to focus on when creating your land listing website are quality and relevance. Think about what search terms buyers looking for a property like yours might enter into a search engine. Choose a few keywords or phrases—the more specific, the better. There’s too much competition for you to rank high for general keywords like “ranch for sale,” but if you use more targeted keywords like “Teton County ranch” or “ranch near Jackson Hole” you’ll show up in searches for people looking for exactly what you have to offer. Use your keywords or phrases several times on a page, in a natural-sounding way. Search engines will penalize you for obvious “keyword stuffing.”
Above all, make sure your listing provides high-quality, useful content that is relevant to people searching for your keywords. This content should be unique and not duplicated elsewhere. In addition to a detailed description of your property, it’s helpful to include information about the surrounding area and local community.
Do a check to make sure your listing website is mobile friendly and loads fast. At least 50 percent of users now view websites on mobile gadgets, and every second of delay in loading counts.
Remember to map the location of your listings
The Land.com Network has some very powerful mapping functions and displays across our sites, but they only work if you map your property.
Our map search tool is becoming increasingly popular with land buyers. Ensure your listing is property mapped to allow your property to display on map views in which potential buyers look over an area to see exactly where properties are listed.
In addition to providing an accurate location for prospective buyers, there are also optional boundary tools that can be used to show the entire property to people using our map search or looking at your property details. Instead of manually drawing lines in paint or scanning a low quality image, you can put the boundaries directly onto an interactive map that will be shown on your listing page.
Check out our how-to guides to get started mapping your listings.
Go beyond just photos with hi-res video & virtual tour displays
On all three of our sites, you can add a Matterport virtual tour, and/or upload a Vimeo or YouTube video to your property pages.
Matterport 3D tours provide buyers with a realistic walkthrough of your property, while a high-quality video to show off your property’s best features, from exterior drone footage to interior layout views.
Adding one or both of these new listing features will allow you to showcase your properties virtually to anyone, anywhere, AND your property will receive a boost in search results rankings.
To give buyers the experience of walking through your listings completely online, learn more about uploading a video and/or virtual tour.
Use social media effectively
Social media is one of the most effective ways to expand your network and help your listings reach a broader audience. Each of the major platforms has its own pros and cons. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are highly visual and are great for sharing photos of your land. If you are able to make high-quality videos on a regular basis, try setting up a YouTube is channel. LinkedIn is a good place to connect with other land professionals, while Twitter is a place to follow land-related news and trends, and to engage in short conversation.
Whichever you choose, make sure your posts don’t come across as too sales-oriented. It’s fine to post links to your listings now and then, but overall, focus on engaging with your followers. Don’t make every post about business. Be professional, but don’t be afraid to be personal, too. The more your followers get to know and trust you, the more likely they are to send potential clients your way, or come to you directly if they are looking for land.
Connect with our social media accounts to engage with us, other land professionals, and thousands of land buyers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.