Agents tell me that they think it's great that I sponsor a community blog, but that they just just don't have time for this. Instead they spend a considerable amount of time publishing real estate websites or blogs that get some visitors and result in some lead capture, but where the visitors primarily come to use the IDX and then leave. Their sites are not sticky and traffic is sporadic.
Why are real estate agents so focused on creating sites with real estate content? I'll tell you why, because that is where our expertise lies and as real estate sales people, we focus on potential clients that can be converted to leads as soon as possible. In theory, that's great. We are making a straight line from our blog to potential clients. However, in reality, people buy homes once every 7-8 years and they don't go on a website every day.
REASON #1
Branding and name recognition is key to sustaining success as a real estate agent, so we need to get our names in front of everyone in our market area as often as possible, not just when they are about to buy or sell. When someone they know is thinking of selling and ask who to list with, your name had better roll off of their neighbor's tongue without hesitation. That won't happen with a real estate blog, but it can if you sponsor a community blog that becomes the communications hub for your market area.
REASON #2
Creating fresh content every day is arduous work. With a community blog you can encourage community leaders, organizations, merchants, sports teams, artists, and musicians to contact you directly with articles and photos. You spend LESS time creating content, because you are cutting and pasting content and download others photos (which they have given you permission to put on your site via e-mail).
REASON #3
They are reading about themselves, their children, and viewing photos and videos of themselves. One of the highest ranked posts I ever put up was for a mock trial at a local school. The teachers told me that they couldn't keep the kids off of the Internet as they kept showing the photo to their friends. Likewise fans of bands track down their band via key search words, artists, etc. You've heard about the long tail, well this is the really long tail because it comes down to individuals searching your site to see if they were mentioned or included in a photo of an event they attended. Make the blog about your viewers and what they care about, not about real estate. It's about them, not you!
Comments(2)