You already know that you need to continuously create great content in order to rank well in search engines.
But some days you just don’t feel like writing or you simply don’t know what to write about.
If today’s one of those days, don’t worry, I got you covered…
Here’s 10 ideas to help you feed the blog beast!
1. Answer frequently asked questions.
The easiest way to come up with fresh content ideas for your real estate blog is to answer those frequently asked questions that you get from customers and potential customers day-in an day out.
How’s the local market?
Write a market report for the month that covers what sold, the average D.O.M. (days on market), and highlight the latest listings for sale.
Post title: Laguna Niguel Real Estate Market Report – March 2013
Have any advice on how to successfully price my home for sale?
Write a list post that covers your “7” best tips on how to price your home for sale.
Post Title: 7 Pricing Mistakes and How To Avoid Them.
2. Keep a journal of things to write about.
The easiest way to ensure that you never run out of things to write about is by keeping a journal of post ideas for easy reference. I have a moleskine notebook that I try to write potential headlines in daily. But Evernote is a great place to capture blog post ideas too.
Every day, make it a goal to write at least 5 – 10 headlines in your notebook. This way, the next time your short on things to write about all you have to do is open up that notebook and look up a post title that looks like it’s worth writing about.
3. Review local businesses and restaurants.
As a real estate agent, you’re always out in the field. Previewing homes, driving around town and just all around spending time in the community. You probably frequent some of the same businesses and restaurants often, which means you can easily talk about them. You can talk about which ones are good, and which ones are not so good. So do just that… Write a local business or restaurant review.
Write about your favorite local business or restaurant. Why is it so good? What do you recommend? How long have they been in business?
People buying real estate in your area are interested in what homes are for sale, sure. But they also want to know what else is good about the community. Including the best businesses in town, and the best places to eat, etc.
4. Share what you know about the local real estate market.
Are we in a buyers market or sellers market? How many homes sold in the last month? What’s the average list price in “this” or “that” neighborhood? What’s the average days on market? How do predict the local real estate market to perform in the next 6 months?
When you run out of things to write about, look up the latest stats and write a piece that shares the latest market statistics. While boring to some, it’s definitely the type of content someone wants to read if they’re in the market to buy right now.
5. Use Google Alerts.
Setup Google Alerts so that you get daily email updates on what’s going on in your real estate market. Mine those email alerts to find things to talk about. If you’re community is too small, and you’re not getting very many alerts, try setting up a few alerts for national news. Then, inject your own opinion into it. Why is this important and how does it impact your local real estate market?
6. Revisit your post archives.
Every couple of months you should revisit your post archives to find good pieces of content that maybe need a little bit of updating. So when you’re sitting there, wondering what to write about, or you feel like you’ve already written on a topic before, you probably have. But maybe that post needs a little bit of updating.
Revisit some of your older posts. Look for posts that seemed to resonate with your readers and give it an update to make it better. Or expand on it. Who knows, with enough posts in your “For Buyer’s” category archive, you might have enough content to turn it into a downloadable ebook you can giveaway as a freebie for email subscribers (hint: this is a great way to build your email list).
7. Mine your analytics.
First and foremost, you should have Google Analytics installed on your real estate website. Once you do, you can mine your analytics data to see what’s popular with your readers. You want to look for:
- Terms that people are searching to arrive at your website.
- The most popular content pages on your website.
Knowing this information will tell you what you should focus on writing more of.
8. Share your hobbies.
I live in a city called Laguna Niguel. One of my hobbies is running (trail running). Laguna Niguel has 2 community parks, 23 neighborhood parks, and 2 county parks. That said, there’s plenty of places to hit a nice trail run.
For a short run, I’d go to the Laguna Niguel Regional Park. For a longer, morning long run, I recommend Wood Canyon Wilderness Park.
If I were a real estate agent, I’d write a blog post about the best places to go running. And I’d upload tons of pictures and talk about all of the wonderful trails.
See, authoring a real estate blog doesn’t have to be all about boring market statistics. You can write about things you like to do too. Who knows, your readers might share your same passion for running and choose to do business with you because of your shared hobbies.
9. Create a weekly feature.
The Weekend Sherpa is a free weekly email newsletter that gives subscribers the inside scoop on fun activities for that weekend. Emails go out every Thursday. And tell you what, I bet they get a pretty good open rate.
I lived in San Diego for a year and while I was there, being new to the area, I was always looking for fun things to do for the weekend. Real estate agent Carol Farrar’s website always came in handy: http://www.carol-farrar.com/category/365ncsd.
She always published a list of things to do in the area and I always read her stuff.
So if you’re looking for ways to create new content that’s of interest to your readers, create a weekly theme to your content by creating your own version of the “Weekend Sherpa.”
Publish a weekly series that talks about upcoming events and things to do for the weekend. Similar to how Erika Napoletano writes over at YourBoulder.com:
Read: What’s Shakin’ in #Boulder? Weekend Events, 3/28/13 Edition
10. Attend local community events.
There’s no better way to establish a relationship with the local community than by attending local community events. Take lots of photos, maybe some video then publish it all for the community to share.
Here’s a great example from local SEO pro and Chiropractor Michael Dorausch who took photos from the 2013 ASICS LA Marathon. He published all of those photos on Flickr, added a Creative Commons license and a description below each photo requesting a link-back should anyone want to use his photo:
As someone who runs half-marathons, first off, I appreciate the fact that a photographer takes time to spend the day out there and take photos. Number two, I’m damn happy to use a photo of me in all my sweaty glory and provide a link-back to the photographer to give them credit.
Now that’s a lot of runners and a lot of links. But also, it’s building good relationships with the community and it’s an easy way to create fresh new multimedia content for your real estate website.
Over to you…
The success of your real estate blog is dependent upon your ability to write fresh new content consistently, over time. The more you write and the more helpful your content, the more leads you’ll generate.
Sure, blog topics don’t always come easy. But if you implement just a handful of these ideas you’ll never run out of things to write about!
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Mahalo Ricardo! always like how your share what tips that work. Q: Google Alerts, what is the best way to set this up? Also, what about a mortgage guy like myself, what do you suggest?
What worked great for me when I had my mortgage site years ago was writing weekly mortgage rate updates like this: Los Angeles Mortgage Rates Report – April 5, 2013.
I’d share 2-4 sentences on what’s happening on the economic calendar that might impact mortgage rates. I’d give the latest pricing on a 30-year fixed and a 5/1 ARM or 7/1 ARM with all of the necessary disclosures. And then I’d close with a float or lock recommendation. I published these once a week (sometimes more).
What I’d set Google Alerts for is things like: Orange County Mortgage Rates, and Mortgage Rates. Keep an eye on what’s hot in the world of financing, ya know.