Mastering Rightmove: Choose your words carefully

Mar 6, 2023

When you’re marketing a property, Rightmove is hugely important – it’s where almost 100% of buyers start their property search, so it's important that you’re getting the most out of it.

At Open Door, we use lots of tricks to make sure that our properties’ clickthrough rates remain high. After all, potential buyers need to focus on your home in order for you to sell.

If there’s one thing you absolutely must get right, it’s your summary description.

Headlines are meant to grab attention. Think of the front page of a daily newspaper or the bulletin summary before the 10’o’clock news – they are both fighting for our immediate attention before we get distracted by something else.

The same is true for property marketing – you need to fight for the buyer’s attention. You shouldn’t, therefore, simply repeat the main description of your property in the 200-word summary description – this will result in a flat, boring and unfinished yawn-fest with a “dot dot dot” (“…”) ending. Why would somebody want to click this?

Instead, we recommend the following:

  • Start with a punchy opening. Forget “We are delighted to offer a three-bed semi-detached house…” and go with something a little more exciting. For example, “WELCOME TO PARADISE! On offer, a three-bed family home…”;
  • Call out the important features in CAPITAL LETTERS so that they jump out at readers who have potentially already seen hundreds of properties on the site;
  • Where possible, highlight something unique about the property – what is special about your home that buyers need to know about? Outbuildings, acreage and annexes normally fall into this category;
  • The condition of the property is also important. Is it modern throughout? Are there lots of character features? Does it require modernisation? There are target audiences for all three, so capture their attention;
  • Is this an investment opportunity? If so, what is the annual rental yield and potential return? If it’s more than 7-8%, let the world know;
  • Finally, always end with a call to action that actually tells people to click on the property (e.g. “CLICK NOW!” or “CLICK TO SEE MORE!”) It’s simple but effective, and tells browsers that we genuinely want them to read on.

Is your summary description good enough? Does it make you stand out from the crowd? If you’re not sure, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to give you our expert opinion.

You might also be interested in our other blogposts about making the most out of Rightmove:

Don’t forget – you can receive more insider-only advice on selling and buying property by signing up to our Property Supertips emails. Just complete the form on the right-hand side of the page!

 

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