I have been blogging about real estate for about 20 years and really started to get serious about it 8 years ago.
There are a few things I know today, that I wish I knew years ago when I started a real estate blog. Having this knowledge from the beginning would have saved me time, money and aggravation.
Maybe you have started a real estate blog. Or, you have had a blog up and running for a while with lackluster results.
Writing a great article is one thing but getting consumers to visit your article is another. Your great real estate article is useless if no one sees it.
#1 Blogging For Business Is A Long Game
Blogging for the purpose of getting business is a long game. It takes 6 months to a year before you see results.
So why blog? When you start to get phone calls and inquiries from your blog you have already established some credibility with the consumer.
It is far easier to convert a consumer to a client from blogging than converting a consumer from a Facebook ad or other means of internet lead generation.
#2 Be Consistent
If you start a blog, commit to being consistent. Add two to four articles a month at a minimum (four is better). It is a waste of time to start a blog and ignore it for a few months and be inconsistent with article submissions.
Even if you decide once a month works for you… be consistent with it.
#3 Quality Longform Articles
Write quality, lengthy content for the consumer. Do not stuff your articles with keywords for the sake of getting keywords into your article. Give the reader what they want and not write for the search engines.
Articles should be over 1200 words and even longer is better. There is a direct correlation to the length of the articles and how the articles rank in the search engines. Longer content ranks better and gets more social shares.
Does every article need to be 2000 words or more? No, but your key topics should be longer articles of 2000 words or more.
#4 Keyword Research
Do not ignore keywords. Yes, I said not to focus on keywords, but you need to pay attention to them. I spent a lot of time, in the beginning, writing what I thought were great topics. Spending countless hours crafting that perfect blog post.
But guess what? There was no traffic for many of those topics! I thought they were topics home buyers or home sellers would search for. But, later on I found that they may have 10 search results a month! That would be alright if I could capture all 10 but the likeness of getting one reader is slim with all the competition.
Here is an example: You may think “home seller info” is a great keyword. But using Ubersuggest, a site that helps identify keywords, only shows 90 searches a month are performed for that keyword.
Or take “how to sell a home” which gets 480 searches a month. A bit better.
Alternately, “sell my house” has 2400 searches a month.
You can write the same article around all three keywords but you have the chance of more eyes on the keyword with 6500 searches a month if your main focus is on “sell my house”. You can still use the others keywords as secondary keywords but focus on the keyword that gets the most traffic.
Another example is “home inspection repairs” which gets 90 monthly searches vs. “what fixes are mandatory after a home inspection” which returns 720 monthly visits. Both topics are of similar scope, but how you approach it with the main keyword can return traffic almost 10 fold.
Take the time to do some keyword research. Shoot for at least 400 searches a month for your main keyword but if you can get above that even better!! And you can still use other lower volume keywords to augment your article.
Surprisingly, many real estate topics you think you should write about get very little traffic from consumers. Tweak the keyword through research a bit to get the right spin on a topic.
#5 Don’t Skip On Graphics and Pictures
Most visitors scan an article. Very few will read it word for word unless you captured their attention. Great blog post graphics and pictures go a long way to getting eyes on your article, especially on social media. Pinterest is a great source of website traffic for real estate bloggers and it is primarily image-driven.
Images also go a long way in getting your article noticed by the search engines. Properly fill out the image alt text. Make sure you include a picture or graphic for every three to five hundred words.
#6 Promoting Your Real Estate Blog Articles
After you have reached 12-20 blog articles on your site, you need to spend more time promoting your articles than you do writing them.
Your efforts are in vain if no one sees your real estate article.
Social Sharing
Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumbler, Social Book Marketing Sites, etc… are an opportunity to get more eyes on your article. The more you share the more opportunity you have for others to share.
While social signals may not directly affect SEO there is an indirect impact social sharing has on rankings will make your site or article more visible to the search engines.
Backlinking
Backlinking is getting a link back to your site from another site. The anchor text is usually some version of your keyword in the article you are linking to.
If you want traffic, backlinking is essential to your success and is the single most important factor in getting ranked by the search engines.
You can write articles yourself that backlink to your site on popular sites like ActiveRain, Realty Times or Realty Biz News. The more quality backlinks you get pointing to your site the better. Backlinks need to be from a variety of sites, not just one or two.
As your site gets more visibility, other sites will naturally backlink to your site.
#7 Follow The Leaders
Pay attention to what some of the best real estate bloggers are doing in the business.
A great place to start finding other real estate bloggers is the Facebook Group Real Estate Bloggers. It is a place to share your articles and connect with some major real estate bloggers. Ubersuggest also offers tools in analyzing another site, how they are ranking and see what they are ranking for in the search engines.
Monkey see monkey do! See what they are doing and replicate how they do it. Plus, it is a great source to get other bloggers to backlink to your real estate articles from relevant sites.
Summary
Writing great real estate content for your blog isn’t enough to get noticed.
Once you start writing pay attention to keywords and the traffic it receives. Tweaking your keywords can make all the difference in the world.
As you build your blog concentrate 50-80% of your time marketing your articles. If you don’t your awesome content won’t be found.
Backlinking is critical. You will live or die by backlinking.
And, don’t forget to follow the leaders. Learn by following what they do for results.
I just touched briefly on these topics. It is a starting point for you to delve into the key points in-depth and get some traffic to your real estate blog.
Happy Blogging!
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