Where do you post listings for houses that you’re selling?
Realtor.com? Probably. Redfin? Sure. Trulia? Zillow? Homes.com? Of course. You hit all the big names, the sites that are Alaska-specific, and most likely utilize Facebook and have your own site as well.
All of those things are great. But have you thought about YouTube?
While the site may be famous for videos of funny cat videos, there’s a lot more to YouTube than meets the eye. Post your listings on YouTube and you increase your potential audience by an incredible amount.
Why is YouTube so valuable for increasing listing visibility?
It’s an absolutely giant search engine. You probably know that Google is the biggest search engine in the world. But do you know what the second biggest search engine is? YouTube. That’s right. A staggering three billion searches are processed by YouTube every single month.
Video is a specific search category. If someone searches for real estate listings, they’re going to get every single house on the market. But what if they just want to look at listings that have videos? Search engines like Google and Bing know that people frequently do this, so they have a specific category for video searches. Suddenly you’re not up against everybody else – just everyone that has a video for the listing.
It helps with organic search. The more sites you can put your listing on – especially big sites like YouTube – the more likely your listing is to earn a high search ranking. Moreover, by creating a written listing, adding professional photos, and posting videos, you can rank for a variety of search factors organically – something that also boosts your ranking.
You can post more than just videos. Wait a minute? Isn’t YouTube just for videos? Yes. But where realtors are concerned, this can mean all kinds of things. You can post virtual tours that take prospective buyers through a property room by room. You can post a slideshow of photographs of the property.
You can leverage your YouTube channel for sellers. Don’t stop at videos that feature specific properties. You can post general videos that talk about your business, selling tips, buying tips, investing tips, and more. These can be short – anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes long. How does that help to increase listing visibility? Because these videos make it more likely that your YouTube channel itself will be viewed by more people – which can cause all of your videos to go up in rankings.
Just remember a few tips when posting to YouTube.
First and foremost, use a professional real estate photographer with videography experience. That way you’ll not only get great videos, but amazing photos that really show off the house.
Second, you have to know how to optimize your YouTube posts. It’s not enough to simply upload videos. Metadata is what helps you rank highly. What’s metadata? Things like your title, your description, and your tags. Learn which keywords are used most by people searching for listings like yours and be sure to use them. Thumbnail optimization can also help.
Still not sure how to do it? Contact DMD Real Estate Photography. We’ll help you get the most views for your listing.