Why is it that some real estate blogs find content marketing success right away while others don’t?
I often tell real estate agents that starting a real estate blog is a long-term investment.
You won’t generate leads right away (at least, not overnight). But with the right approach, you’ll find success sooner rather than later.
What’s the secret formula? Here’s a 5-step approach for writing effective online real estate content that builds your business…
1. Effective content educates the reader.
Content Marketing is simply the art of creating a ton of useful content that attracts and educates your reader and gets them to want to do business with you.
It’s selling, but without the hype. It’s selling through education.
It’s being consistently useful and relevant in an effort to get people to know, like and trust you.
If you’re in real estate, that means focusing on the type of content that your site visitors crave. Things like:
- Highly informational posts about the buying and selling process.
- Local market reports.
- The latest mortgage rates.
- Local business reviews.
- Things to do around the community.
…and more.
The more you focus on educating your reader and providing them with highly useful content that addresses their needs and concerns, the more likely you are to engage and convert some of that local audience into buyers and sellers.
2. Effective content is personable.
If you told me you wrote a blog post about your cat, and you got a client out of it, I’d laugh and think it’s silly. And that’s exactly what I did when Jay Thompson told me he landed a buyer client out of a post he wrote about his injured cat. (Or something like that).
Why did this buyer decide to do business with him?
Because they both had something in common: they both love cats.
Ever hear the saying “people do business with people they like.” In real estate, that saying rings true.
I’m not saying go write a blog post about your dog or your cat. What I’m saying is, add some personality to your content. Give people the opportunity to see the real you. It’s an effective way to boost your “know, like and trust” factor.
3. Effective content is magnetic (think “headlines”).
Every time I’m in line at the check-out counter at the store, I can’t help but glance at some of the headlines on the latest magazines – Cosmopolitan, US Weekly, People, Time. If they’ve done one thing well, it’s that they’ve mastered the art of the headline.
Their headlines are eye-catching. And that’s what your content needs to do in order to grab your reader’s attention and in order to spread far and wide. It needs to be compelling.
That’s how newspapers sell like crazy. Writing staff have mastered the art of the headline. And that’s what you need to do too.
Learn to write Mistake headlines. Things like:
- 10 Rookie First-Time Home Buyer Mistakes To Avoid
- 10 Major Mortgage Mistakes To Avoid
Learn to write How-To headlines. Things like:
- How To Use Gift-Money As A Form of Downpayment
- How To Effectively Price Your Home for Sale
Learn to write List Headlines. Things like:
- 6 Pricing Mistakes & How To Avoid Them
- 5 Ways Staging Can Help You Sell Your Home Faster
You get the idea.
The next time you sit down to write a blog post, make a list of at least 5 potential headlines for your article. Then, before you hit publish, use the most compelling one.
4. Effective content is optimized for SEO.
94% of homebuyers start their home search online.
They’re not only searching homes for sale, they’re also looking for information about the local community: things to do, best neighborhoods to live in, best schools in town, what the lifestyle is like.
Basically, they’re looking to gather as much information as possible about the local neighborhood in order to make an informed buying decision.
But in order to capture their attention, you need to optimize your content for SEO.
You need to do things like:
- Optimize your page titles. This tells both readers and search engines what to expect from the content on the page.
- Optimize your meta-descriptions. This is the copy that users will see when search results pop up. A compelling description will affect your click-thru rate.
- Optimize your images. Don’t forget to optimize your images for search engine traffic too! Especially those property listing photos.
Step #1 is to determine the language your potential customer is using when searching for homes online. Then, optimize your content with keywords that match the language your target customer is using.
If you’re not doing this, you’re not going to get found.
5. Effective content sells without being pushy.
Ever come across a pushy salesman?
No one loses a sale faster than an aggressive salesman.
But I get it, your site has to make money. Otherwise, what’s the point? So how do you sell without being pushy? How do you write compelling content, without the hype?
The answer is simple: forget about making the sale and focus instead on educating your reader.
If people can sense that all you care about is making a sale, and all you do is write hype-driven copy that screams why “now is a good time to buy,” they’ll immediately distrust you. And they’ll never do business with you.
If you focus instead on taking an interest in your reader – the prospective homebuyer – and you educate them on everything about the local market, and about the local community… You’ll earn their trust. And with that trust, comes business.
Seek to be helpful, first. The rest will take care of itself.
Leave a Reply