The best real estate blogs bring in huge amounts of organic traffic and enjoy excellent click-through rates. But what makes them stand out from the crowd? They focus on the issues that matter to the people in the neighbourhoods where they are based.
The importance of blogging for real estate businesses
Content marketing, also known as blogging, is one of the best ways to increase awareness of your real estate brand and your properties. It offers people something for nothing because the whole point of blogging is to answer the questions people are searching for online. In fact, I’ve built my business purely off the back of answering your questions, too.
Whenever home sellers click on one of your blog articles in Google search results or via a sponsored social media post, you should always take people back to your website. This way they get to know your brand while having their questions answered. It also gives you the opportunity to track visitors to your website and retarget them in your social media ads, ensuring that your real estate business stays front of mind.
But if you’re not answering the right questions, people might not even get to see or read your content, so time and effort in making sure you focus on the best SEO terms for real estate are critical.
How else can you turn this around? Give your blogs a local focus.
Real estate blogs should be locally focused
People care about what’s happening in their local neighbourhood. If you are producing regular, informative and interesting articles about the suburb in which your real estate business is based, you will come to be seen as an authority on what’s going on in the area. This will keep people coming back to your real estate website time and time again – whenever they want to know what’s going on where they live.
When you blog about local issues, your content will attract local homeowners or property investors with a vested interest in local area news and real estate market insights. If they enjoy and trust your content before they are thinking of selling, then they will be more likely to trust you as an agent.
Real estate blogs will build trust
Remember, blogs are part of the long game and build visibility for your brand. This is how a locally-focused blog can build interest in your brand long before someone decides to sell a home, engage a property manager or search for a buyers agent.
If people trust your blogs, they will keep coming back to your site for more local news and information. As your site receives more traffic, Google will come to trust your website more, too. This means your content will rank more highly in search results, so a lot more people will be able to discover your site organically (for free) whenever they type a real estate question into Google search. And because they are based in your suburb and your content talks about your suburb, there’s a higher chance that Google will serve up your website pages over and above others.
Focus your blog articles on local issues, because that’s what matters most to local homeowners and will pique their interest. This is also a great way to generate more engagement on social media or via your email database. Many of your followers or subscribers will be based in your suburb, so they will be more likely to share, or engage, with topics focused on where they live, enabling their friends to see your content pop up and become familiar with your brand too.
Stuck thinking of real estate articles for blogs?
If you want your content to keep pulling in traffic to your website, you need to keep it fresh and write about things that people in your suburb care about. But sometimes it can be difficult to think of new topics to cover.
Some real estate agents make the mistake of thinking that their blogs all have to be focused on their brand and their properties. That’s incorrect. Talking about yourself online is just as boring as it can be if you are chatting to someone around the barbie! You need to pick topics that will interest your local audience. Not everyone is about to sell a home, so find a wider variety of information about the local area and home life, in general, that will interest people when they are out of the market.
Real estate lifestyle blogs
Consider what local homeowners are most likely to be searching for online. Focus on events which are happening locally, or interesting facts about the neighbourhood, as well as insights about the local property market. Think of it more as a real estate lifestyle blog for people who live in, or are interested in moving to, the area.
This opens up the breadth of subjects you can talk about greatly, giving you a whole host of topics to write about. The real estate industry is particularly lucky, as many topics can in some way be linked back to property or homeownership. Think how difficult it must be for a tax accountant or pest inspector to generate engaging content!
Real estate also has another advantage in that it is something most people are interested in. Even if they are not in the market to buy or sell right now, they still enjoy looking at, reading or talking about real estate. If you keep your topics varied but locally focused, your blog can give the Generation X-ers and Baby Boomers plenty more to discuss!
How to create top real estate blogs that get you noticed
Creating effective and engaging real estate blogs is a skill which you can learn over time. However, there are a couple of rules which really matter here:
1. Use the suburb name
When people are searching for information about your local area, their search will almost always include the name of the suburb. For your blog to match their search and rank highly in Google search results, it has to include the suburb name, too.
You should include the name of the suburb prominently in the titles of your articles and throughout the body of your content, as well as in your posts on social media. Doing this consistently will improve your click-through rates and search engine rankings, so it makes your brand more visible and ensures your articles are seen by the maximum numbers of people.
2. Mix up your content
Not all of your content has to be written articles. It is a good idea to mix up your content and include some written blogs and some videos. This works for a number of reasons:
Video performs twice as well as written text on social media, generating more reach, which basically means that more people will see the video than any other type of content you advertise. However, social video does not lead back to your website, so using video exclusively could ultimately lose you some leads.
Google bots can’t yet understand video. They need to see written text to understand what your content is about so they can decide which searchers to send to your website.
Your audience will have different preferences. Some will prefer to read an in-depth article, particularly when they are researching the local property market. However, others will favour the more concise way that information can be conveyed in a video – as long as you don’t waffle when speaking to the camera!
By making your real estate blogs interesting, varied and locally-focused, you can reach your target audience more effectively and grow your online presence, ensuring you are the first choice when potential clients call in an agent for an appraisal.
Get professional help to create real estate blogs
Creating an engaging blog isn’t always easy. Many of the best real estate blogs are a team effort. At Hoole.co, we have several years’ experience of ghostwriting real estate blogs for clients, so we understand exactly what is required – we know what people search for and all the most popular topics which are guaranteed to get users clicking through to your real estate website.
In addition, we are Facebook and Google marketing experts so we can ensure your blogs get maximum reach and engagement!
We are always here to help with all your real estate digital marketing needs so please contact us if you would like to find out more.
Written by Melanie Hoole
My team and I specialise in helping real estate and property professionals perfect their personal brand, build a first-class digital profile and implement inbound marketing activities to attract leads. If you are unsure which direction to take with your digital marketing contact me for help.
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