Marketing for Real Estate Agents: How to Write a Real Estate Blog
We’ve talked about how to brainstorm compelling content for your real estate business, but how can you format your blog to optimize engagement? Here’s your guide to writing and maintaining a real estate blog that positions you as the go-to real estate expert in your region.
Offer real solutions to actual problems
Think about questions your target audience might have and provide thorough answers. Is it a good time to sell a home? How do I deal with multiple offers? What renovations add the most value to a home? These are all good examples of common questions people put into search engines. Your real estate blog should be centered on answering questions and solving real-world problems for readers. The more useful your content, the more shares and referrals you can expect to get.
Write for the internet
A blog is much different from essays you may have written back in college or even newspaper articles – your writing can be less formal and more conversational. Information should be written in a clear, concise manner, breaking things down into short paragraphs with subtitles that grab a reader’s attention. You should include the most compelling information at the top to entice people to read further. Be sure to break lists up into bullets or sub-sections to add structure to your writing and enhance readability.
Add images
You should strive to add photos relevant to the text to increase viewer engagement and retention. Research indicates that most readers click off a web page within 10 to 20 seconds. This gives you a very short time to demonstrate your value proposition. In addition to clearly communicating your message, you can hold people’s attention longer by adding crisp, professional-looking photos to your blog posts. Make sure your images are optimized to load quickly and try to present information in easily digestible visual formats, such as infographics.
Go narrow and broad
Your blog should position you as an industry expert, while also demonstrating your insider knowledge about the communities in which you operate. You can show your knowledge in your field by posting feature articles about broad topics impacting the real estate industry. This could include federal mortgage rates, reports from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and forecasts from prominent real estate experts. At the same time, it’s important to focus on your local community. Buyers typically want to know everything about the communities they are house searching in, including school quality, employment opportunities, dining options and new planned developments. Sellers usually want to know the value of properties in their areas, so they can decide on a price.
Focus on evergreen content
To get the most from every blog post, you want to write content that will remain useful for years on end. While home values and mortgage rates will fluctuate, there are plenty of real estate topics that lend themselves to evergreen content. You can write about home improvement projects that add property value, detail the benefits of a home warranty to protect systems and appliances from unexpected failures and repairs, and provide home maintenance tips for new buyers. Whatever the case, be sure to add plenty of evergreen content in addition to topical posts that focus on timely data and events.
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