Obviously we're in a competitive industry. There are literally over 6000 agents in the Cincinnati MLS, so obviously consumers have no shortage of choice when it comes to real estate agents.
I'm not from Cincinnati (although I have been here since 1991), so I don't have a pipeline of high school buddies and their families to fill my business pipeline.
There are other ways we can gain business: paying for leads, direct mail, door knocking, getting heavily involved in the community, etc.
Or we could choose to blog. Perhaps a niche that we want to work is the ticket to attracting business.
But just grabbing a keyboard and throwing out volumes of posts isn't a guarantee that your phone will ring.
The way I look at it, there are two main ways to make a blog work for you, and they both require creating value for the consumer:
1. Give your sphere a reason to follow your blog and keep you top of mind. That may be why posting recipes and pet pictures may work for some agents. They've got an already established following so they're not dependent on Google to send traffic their way, otherwise I'd expect Betty Crocker to kick my rear all day long on the recipe search results front.
2. Provide information home buyers and sellers want and can't find elsewhere. Unique real estate content (market reports, subdivision reviews, etc.). This is why IMO niche blogging can be very effective.
My patio home blogging fills a void. Other agents and home builders aren't providing information in decent quantities, so I can rank on page 1 in multiple spots.
My blog creates extra value for me by driving traffic to patio home community IDX pages. That's the need for my target audience: information about patio home communities and patio homes for sale.
As long as we can create value with our blog posts, we have a reason for consumers to contact us.
If I ever stop writing what they want, my calls will decrease, and decrease even faster if I didn't stock my blog archives with evergreen posts.
So what makes your blog valuable?
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help!
Bill of Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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