As a follow-up to my previous Craigslist post, I was asked to explain in a little more detail the steps I took to get on page 1 of Google within 24 hours posting my Open House listing to Craigslist. Here is what I did and my thought process in creating this post. I'm keeping it pretty detailed in case the basics are needed ;) :
- I logged into my Craigslist account (Create one if you haven't already. It's free. 'nuff said!)
- I selected post to classifieds --> event--> events-->(location of open house which was Seattle for me)--> Continue
- I entered the event start date (the day the open house was going to take place) and filled in the rest of the contact info.
NOW THIS IS WHERE IT GETS TRICKY...
I knew I needed to create an ad headline that is 1. Something a potential buyer would actually search for on Google. 2. Was specific enough (think "long tail search") so my post had a chance to show up in Google but not compete with the "big boys" (Trulia's, Zillow's, Redfin, Brokerages...).
So... I had to think of something unique but still potentially searchable. So I put on my buyer's hat and thought, if I wanted to do a quick search for open houses that weekend what would I search for?
My first thought was "Seattle Open House" -- but I knew that was way too broad so included the popular neighborhood of the listing instead and searched "Wallingford Open House". I typed that into Google and a ton of hits from large sites showed up... So I knew I had to get more specific, but still something a buyer might enter.
Then I thought-- because the open house was on a holiday, I included "Mother's Day" in my search and not a lot of relevant hits came up.
So my ad headline evolved to "OPEN HOUSE in Wallingford on Mother's Day-- Sunday 1-4".
And Voila! The test turned out to be a success. To finish, I entered in the listing description from my MLS and included a link to the listing detail page of my website and I just put in a conversational description of the listing and followed the rest of the steps to complete the post.
Then I used pretty much this same ad and put it in the "real estate for sale" section (everything was pretty much the same except you don't have to enter an event date and links aren't live)...
Here's the proof! 
Now go forth and be successful in all of your lead gen endeavors!
Comments(2)