reacosThink of a blog as your own personal take on the field of real estate. You’re on the front lines every day, interacting with clients and following the market, and a blog is a valuable place to do a brain dump to share your insights with your growing network.
To answer the question, “do real estate agents need to blog?” is yes! Blogging is a powerful marketing tactic for real estate professionals to maintain a solid web presence by discussing industry trends, tips for new homeowners and general resources that new and existing clients may find helpful.
Top benefits of blogging
Blogs help drive traffic to your website
Today, one of the most valuable forms of digital currency is website visitors. Clients who know your name can easily type it into a Google search and find your website, but those are clients you likely already have or have been referred to you. With 92% of home buyers using the internet during their journey to buy a home, it’s well worth it to invest in driving new visitors to your website. Launching a blog on your website doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming as many website solutions include built-in blog functionality, including IXACT Contact’s Agent Websites.
Blogging is one of the best ways to drive your organic search engine rankings and lead traffic to your website. When you publish a blog post, it becomes one more indexed page on your website. Studies show that the more indexed pages you have, the more leads you will gain. Essentially, new blog posts are an indicator to search engines that your website is active and you have relevant content that users might be interested in.
Blogs convert traffic into leads
So you’ve started a real estate blog and new visitors are coming to your website, but how do you convert visitors into leads? Blogging is one of the best ways to motivate your audience to take action.
In every post you write, you need to guide visitors what to do next. This “next step” is called a call to action. Your call to action should grab attention, be appealing and entice your visitors to take the next step. Some strong examples of real estate calls to action are:
- What is your home worth? Find out!
- Be the first to learn about off-market listings. Sign-up for our newsletter now.
- Learn more about the neighborhood you’re looking in.
- Your next home is just a click away. Contact an Agent today!
- Take our new home buyers quiz.
- Download our latest market report.
Capturing leads through compelling content will help you automatically add new contacts to your real estate CRM, like IXACT Contact, where you can assign them to a relevant email campaigns for follow up.
Real Estate Blogs Establish Authority
Having a real estate blog is the ultimate online relationship builder. When you deliver content that is relevant, valuable and personal, you create an engaging online experience for your visitors. This often translates into valuable business relationships. It’s all about giving your real estate clients what they want. Valuable content will not only bring visitors back to your blog, but also increases the chances your posts will be shared.
The best real estate blogs answer the top of mind questions their clients have. Consider writing real estate blog posts on topics like:
- What does a real estate agent do?
- How much do I need for a down payment?
- Why do I need mortgage pre-approval?
- When is the best time to sell my home?
- How do I prepare my home for sale?
Imagine one of your clients isn’t sure about a part of the home buying process. Sending them a link to a blog post that answers their questions and addresses their concerns can make a big impact. Credible content builds trust and expertise – two qualities your clients are looking for in a real estate agent. Not only do these qualities build your client base, but reputable news sources can take notice and ask you to provide a quote or guest blog post – which are free publicity for you!
5 tips to get started with real estate blogging
Use emotion and storytelling
“Emotion and storytelling have been part of how we communicate with each other and inspire action for thousands of years.” Be yourself and be interesting. Allow your passion to come through your written word to inspire an emotional response from your readers.
Stay true
The whole point of starting your blog is to put your unique spin on the real estate industry and putting out that content into the digital sphere. While feedback from peers and colleagues about on your blog content is important, don’t let it sway your voice or style – it’s the most crucial aspect of blogging.
Showcase what you know
Don’t hold back on showcasing the encyclopedia of insights you’ve accumulated over the years – it will be what differentiates you from your competition.
Remain consistent
There is nothing worse than starting to follow a blog that you really relate to and find that they only post once every three months. Plan a schedule of topics with target dates for each month – and stick to it.
Keep it digestible
In the digital age of dwindling attention spans, nobody has time to read a complete dissertation. Aim for the 1-2 minute reading mark so your audience can properly digest everything you’re producing.
Start seeing the benefits of a real estate blog right away.
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