Real Estate Blogging for Leads

REALTORS blog for various reasons. Typically, blogging in real estate consists of blogging for blogging’s sake, or blogging for leads and commissions.  Or, maybe you think you’re blogging for leads, but you’re just not getting any.

Why waste time and effort if you’re not ending up with qualified leads that result in transactions and commissions?  You can balance your other lead-generation activities, like networking and traditional advertising, with your blogging.  It can be a valuable resource for more deals every year.  We decided to consult with some real estate agents who make more than half their commission income from leads they generate on their blogs. Here are some tips they shared with us that you can use.

Blogging Tips From Real Estate Professionals

1. Blog for your site visitors; buyers and sellers:  you will be using SEO-friendly strategies, keywords and phrases, and stuff like that, but your blog posts should be written to meet the needs of your visitors.  They need to be easy reading and informative.
   
2. Use images and video:  today’s user is using high bandwidth mobile and desktop technology, so you want to present them with stimulating image and video content that helps them to know your market area, not just your listings.
3. Write about the process:  this is for SEO as well, as people are searching every day on terms that relate to the real estate negotiation and transaction process and real estate in general.  One blog’s statistics show a great many visitors arriving on searches with the market area name followed by terms like:  “property taxes,” “title insurance,” “first offer price,” “repair negotiations,” “mortgage brokers,” and more.  This is all about establishing you as a local real estate expert.
4. Statistics, statistics, statistics…:  Whether buyers, sellers, investors, appraisers or other interested parties, everyone loves the “numbers.”  Blog posts on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis with statistics about sold properties, sold prices, trends and more will draw a loyal and repeat audience.  Again, you’re positioning yourself as the local market expert.  You should be able to get these statistics right out of your MLS software. Check out our post on real estate statistics here.
5. Use third party content:  JetPack or Postie as a third party plugin will make it easy for you to post via email, sending the content of a post into your WordPress blog with an email.  This feature is handy, but for a reason few have considered.  Encourage third parties, like homeowner associations with email newsletters, local inspectors, title companies and others to send you current updates via email.  They’re all using email, but few are into blogging or posting their email information on websites.  Getting their updates via email, you can forward them into your blog with a few clicks, taking a couple of minutes but adding informative and SEO-friendly content to your blog.
6. One topic with one key phrase optimized:  if you find that you’re talking about several things in one post, it’s probably best that you break your content down into multiple posts, each concentrating on a single key phrase or idea.  An example would be to not write a long post about “title insurance,” when you can write several about “title insurance binder,” “title insurance exceptions,” and “title insurance requirements.”

Take these six simple tips under your wing, make them happen, and you’ll find that you get more stickiness on your site, as well as better leads and more closings from your site. If you’re interested in learning more about blogging-on-the-go, check out our post here.