As much as people talk about online marketing, REALTORS® know that the most effective way to sell a home is to publish the listing in the MLS. Aside from making sure that the listing is accurate, there are a few other things that you can do that will leverage the MLS as a marketing tool.

1. Great Photos

Great photography does a lot to impact the effectiveness of marketing your listing. If the photos are well done, high resolution, sharply focused, and have good lighting, they will "pop" when viewed. Moreover, many of the Internet sites that will display your listings now support high-resolution photography. Always put in the best photo with the highest resolution possible.

• Read about tactics and tools for creating great Listing Photos

2. Price Change Strategy

Remember, in the MLS and on most IDX websites, there are alerts. Most of these alerts will notify consumers whenever there is a price change – up or down. Even if you only change the price $1, these notifications are sent to anyone who has saved your listing to favorites or who has search criteria that include your listing as a result.

• See Using Price Changes to Advertise Listings

3. Description Text

Many of the software solutions for yard signs actually use computers to read the description text in your listing. If you use abbreviations like approx. instead of approximately, the text to speech will sound really bad. Also, never repeat the information that is in the listing details. You do not need to say three bedrooms, two baths in the description because that is already on listing page.

• See Write Listing Descriptions That Sell

4. Mention the Home Warranty

If your seller is providing a home warranty on the house, be sure and put that in both the agent remarks and the public remarks area. It helps give buyers confidence. If your MLS allows you to upload documents to your listing, attach the coverage documents and the home warranty transfer documents. If the buyer's representative has questions about the warranty, they will be able to access them easily.

Do you have any tips for enhancing MLS listings? Share them in our comments section below!