Most websites will talk to you about "staging".
Some might even recommend staging "professionals", who, for a fee, wll re-arrange your property to make it look pretty, but you don't need a so-called professional to prepare for showings.

Here are the things most of them will recommend:

• Depersonalize. Remove your family mementos and put them away, if there is not enough room in your property, lease space in public storage.
• Try to remove all items not included in the sale, make sure that the contract itemizes what will be included.
• Paint and clean, put flowers, deodorize the property.
• Lots of lighting.
• Put dogs away.

All this is fine and of course we agree, but there is something which we do not agree: most recommend that the owner step away and let the buyer's realtor do the job.
The reason why we do not agree is simple to understand: the buyer's realtor does not know more about the property than the buyer, who only knows what he saw in the listing, maybe.
So if the listing agent cannot be present to explain the property in-depth to the buyer, then the owner should be present to help.

Lastly, there is something that none of these realtors will tell you: once you stage your property, those pictures or slideshows should be shown in the property's own website, pardon our insistence that the property's website is the one essential thing.