Consumers go online to search for homes and gather information about the local community all the time. So you started a real estate blog to position yourself as the local market expert … to showcase your knowledge of the local real estate market.
The more you write, the more people will find your website in search results.
But it’s been months now. And while yes, you have a couple hundred daily visitors, your blog isn’t growing.
It isn’t converting.
What are you doing wrong?
Here’s 5 reasons you’re real estate blog isn’t growing at the rate that you’d like…
Reason #1: Your website is too busy and disorganized.
There’s no bigger eye sore than visiting a crowded website where you can’t find what you’re looking for. It’s frustrating. And when it happens, you quickly lose site visitors.
Remember, people are coming to your website for one of four reasons:
- To search for homes. (So you need a good IDX. Here are a few good ones: dsIDXpress & IDX Broker).
- To see how the market is doing. (Altos Research offers some great local market reports).
- To find out what they’re home is worth. (Cloud CMA is a great product that allows you to give homeowners a free report on what they’re home is worth).
- To learn more about the local community. (Issaquah 360, See South Bay, Get McKinney, Your North County, Lifestyle Frisco – all hyperlocal websites creating high quality local community content).
You need to organize your content around those 4 key points. Make it easy for consumers to find your best content about the local community and make it easy for them to find whatever else they’re looking for by creating easy opt-in pages (whether it’s to search for homes or get a local market report).
Reason #2: You don’t post often enough.
You’ll quickly lose site visitors and return site visitors if you don’t publish content often enough. If I visit your website and your last post is dated 4-6 months ago, what incentive do I have to stay?
Instead of giving off the impression that your content is useful and up to date, I immediately think “this site is way outdated.”
So, maybe you’re getting ready to launch a real estate blog or you already have a real estate blog that you need to get back on track. One way to keep your content strategy in check is to create an editorial calendar.
Reason #3: You suck at following up with people.
Ok, so you have your phone number and email listed on your website. But if you don’t respond to people in a timely manner you’re training them to believe that you’re unreliable.
You might be one heck of a real estate agent, but you suck at follow up. And if you suck at following up, you’re never going to win any new business that way. People will seek information elsewhere with someone who’s willing to give them the answers to the questions they’re looking for right then and there.
Reason #4: You’re not promoting your content well enough.
Creating great original content is only half of the work. Once you’ve created that content you need to promote it. It’s not like hundreds and thousands of site visitors are magically going to flock to your site just because you hit the publish button.
Nope. You have to promote your content!
How? Facebook. Twitter. Google+. Email.
Jim Clark has written dozens of blog posts since launching his hyperlocal site in April. He promotes his blog posts on his Facebook page: Issaqauh 360. If you look through his most recent posts you’ll see that they each have a fairly high level of engagement. Heck, his recent post on the new shopping center in the Issaquah Highlands area has well over 400 “Likes.”
Scott Schang, author of FindMyWayHome.com has an email newsletter that he’s built to well over 8,000+ subscribers over the years. Every Tuesday, he sends an email giving readers an “insider’s view on all of the most recent trends and topics that keep home buyer, and home ownership, interesting.”
In both cases, Scott and Jim and leveraging their social networks and email list to promote their content.
So really, creating content is step #1. Promoting your content is step #2.
Reason #5: There’s no clear way to subscribe.
What you need to do early on is build a permission asset. And by that I mean, build a mailing list. Whether it’s to get people to subscribe to local updates and things to do around the community, or to get them to subscribe to get new listings by email.
Get their permission.
Permission to stay in touch.
Permission to send them new listings on homes they might be interested in buying.
Permission to follow up.
Why is this so important? I think Seth Godin said it best…
Permission is like dating. You don’t start by asking for the sale at first impression. You earn the right, over time, bit by bit. – Seth Godin
You might not make a $500,000 sale to the person who lands on your local real estate blog for the first time. But earn their permission (get them to opt-in), continue to send them timely, relevant info over time, and you’re more likely to turn that stranger into a customer.
Change One Thing This Week…
What’s one thing you can change or do differently this week to start getting some better results from your real estate blog?
Maybe you can create better community landing pages or start that email list.
Whatever it is, focus on improving at least one thing this week. Remember, small changes can lead to big results.
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