Transform Transform July 2014 | Page 6

Copywriting Ideas to Improve the Quality of Your Real Estate Listings Real estate listings suffer from a common problem - most of them just aren’t that well written. While the real estate agents who sit down and pen the listings do their best, many do not have the copywriting chops necessary to effectively draw in their readers. Fortunately, there are several steps that can be taken to improve the quality of your real estate listings. These steps will entice the reader to look further in the listing and find out more information rather than skip over and go on to whatever catches their eye. 1. Optimize for a keyword Centering an article around a keyword is a common practice in Search Engine Optimization, but not for everyday readers. However, when done properly, the brain will catch on to the repeated usage of the phrase and instill it into the mind. The reader will take away the overall topic of the listing with just a quick read, which allows them to quickly recall the information later. The trick is to use the key phrase in moderation – use it too much and the copy looks like it was meant for a computer to read, not a human. 6 2. Include a Call-to-Action at the End more effective way of ending the article. One of the main struggling points for people who write articles is the closing. There are only a few effective ways to close an article that is meant to garner a response, and abruptly stopping is not one of them. Not only does it gracefully close the article, but it informs the reader about the next steps they should take. Asking the reader to call the phone number for more information or visit a website to set up an appointment is a There is a prevalent idea that run-on sentences convey more information, but this is not the case. The brain processes 3. Keep Sentences Short and Sweet