Your secondary portal is not your primary portal: a worked example with Fotocasa

Most estate agents publish the same listing on every portal they use. Same photos, same text, same price. It is understandable: managing two different portals with different content takes time. But agents who do invest the time notice the difference, because no two property portals work the same way.

This piece uses Fotocasa — the leading secondary portal in the Iberian market, part of the Adevinta group alongside Habitaclia and Milanuncios — as a worked example. The principles travel to any other secondary portal in your market: Zoopla and OnTheMarket alongside Rightmove in the UK, immowelt alongside ImmoScout24 in Germany, Jaap and Pararius alongside Funda in the Netherlands. Each has its own algorithm, audience and ranking rules.

If you already have your primary portal listing optimised, here is what you need to adjust to make it work on a secondary portal.

The photo matters even more

Many secondary portals have invested heavily in visual interface design. Photos take up more space in the search results than on the more text-heavy primary portals, and the gallery experience is more immersive. That has two implications:

Good photos stand out more. On the primary portal, a listing with mediocre photos can survive if the price and the description are strong. On a visually-led secondary portal, the photo dominates everything. If the cover does not catch the eye, the user scrolls past faster.

Bad photos penalise more. A dark, vertical or blurry photo on a visual-first portal is like turning up to an interview in a creased shirt. It does not matter what you say afterwards.

If you are going to improve only one thing on your secondary portal listing, make it the photos. Everything else is secondary.

The group effect: one listing, multiple platforms

In the Iberian market, Fotocasa Pro unifies the management of Fotocasa, Habitaclia and Milanuncios Inmobiliaria. When you publish on Fotocasa Pro, your listing can appear across all three. But performance varies:

• Fotocasa is stronger in Madrid, Andalucía and Valencia.
• Habitaclia dominates Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.
• Milanuncios has a more peer-to-peer profile, but with high traffic across every region.

The principle generalises: secondary portals are often part of a portal group that publishes the same content across several brands. Your listing is competing in three environments with different audiences. The cover photo has to work for all three. And the description, if you can, should be adapted for each one (most multi-portal systems allow per-portal variation, although few agents take advantage of it).

The algorithm differences

Secondary portals do not publish algorithm details. But there are clear signals of what they reward.

The energy performance certificate. Many European secondary portals (Fotocasa among them) give preferential visibility to listings that include the energy certificate. It is not optional — in many searches, listings without it are relegated. If you have the certificate, upload it. If you do not, obtaining it is an investment that pays back in visibility.

Complete fields. Every blank field is a lost opportunity. Secondary portals often have their own fields (detailed heating type, viewing availability, etc.) that do not exactly match the primary portal's. Many agents leave them blank for that reason. Fill them in.

Response speed. The system measures how long you take to respond to enquiries. Agents with fast responses get better positioning. If you cannot respond in under an hour, at least set up an automatic reply with basic information.

Update frequency. Listings that have not been touched in months lose positions. Updating the photos, adjusting the description or even changing the order of the images reactivates the listing.

The description: less list, more story

The audience on the visually-led secondary portals tends to skew slightly more emotional than on the primary, text-heavy portals. There are more individuals looking for their first home, more people browsing for inspiration before they start serious searching.

This does not mean writing poetry. It means the description can afford a touch more narrative.

Instead of: "3-bedroom flat, 2 bathrooms, refurbished, bright, garage included."

Try: "Three bedrooms with morning sun and oak floors just installed. Kitchen open to the living room, with room for a table for six without crowding. Garage included in the price."

Same information, different feel. On a visually-led portal, this tonal difference moves the needle more than it does on the primary.

Recurring mistakes

Copying the text from the primary portal exactly. Cross-portal duplicate descriptions are detected. There is no visible penalty, but originality never costs you anything. If you can, vary at least the first paragraph.

Not uploading a floor plan. Listings with a floor plan perform better. The plan does not need to be professional — a basic one made with a phone app is enough.

Vertical photos. Visually-led portals display photos in landscape format. A vertical photo crops automatically and loses half the information. Every phone has the option to rotate to horizontal. Always do it.

Ignoring the statistics. Most professional portal accounts offer an analytics dashboard with view counts, contacts and a benchmark against similar listings in your area. It is free, useful information for understanding whether your listing is working or needs adjusting. Few agents review it.

Virtual staging on the secondary portal

Because the visually-led secondary portal is the platform where photos weigh most heavily on listing performance, it is also where virtual home staging has the biggest relative impact. An empty flat with virtual staging on Fotocasa (or any equivalent secondary portal) gains more positions than the same flat on a text-heavy primary portal, simply because the algorithm rewards visual quality more.

If you have to choose where to invest first in better photos, the visually-led secondary portal gives you more return per image than the primary one. It is not a commercial statement — it is the logical consequence of how the ranking system works. (For the primary portal, we have a complete optimisation guide with specific tricks.)