Too many real estate agents still see “blog” is a four-letter word.
Blogging is one of the most under-utilized tools at any real estate agent’s disposal, but few agents are using it to its full potential. The number one excuse that most agents use to justify their lack of blogging is, “I’m a real estate agent, not a writer!”
But here’s the thing: don’t think of it as blogging, think of it as sharing your expertise. Your goal is to generate leads, not necessarily to have the most popular blog on the block. Fortunately, simply making a consistent blogging effort can actually give you a boost in your lead generation, since on average, companies with blogs produce 67% more leads per month than those without (DemandMetric). In 2019 and beyond, prospects are almost always going to look you up online before they give you a call. So when they do, what are they going to find?
How creating regular real estate blog posts can shorten your sales cycle
When you have the right content on your blog, it can shorten your sales cycle dramatically since your prospects can get some of their initial questions answered on their own time. By the time you have a prospect calling you after they’ve read your blog, they already have a feel for your brand, your expertise, and what they’re looking for. Content that you write just once can warm up your leads over and over again.
Beyond that, posting regular long-form content targeting the right topics and keywords can enhance SEO , which will eventually help your pages make it to the first page of search engine results. This, too, can cut down on your sales cycle since it brings ready buyers and sellers straight to you rather than having to increase your time and financial investments in paid traffic and networking.
Coming Up With Real Estate Blog Post Topics
Coming up with topics might seem like the most difficult part of the blogging process, but this should actually be the easiest part since you’re writing about something you know about. There are a few different ways that you can come up with real estate topics that have absolutely nothing to do with how much creativity you think you have (a popular misconception about blogging) and everything to do with tapping into your existing knowledge. This is how you make your posts practically write themselves.
Let’s take a look at some real estate blog content ideas and how to write them:
Real estate blog post topic #1: Frequently Asked Questions
If you have absolutely no idea where to start, start with thinking about all of the questions you get on a regular basis from clients and prospects out in the field. What do you find yourself repeating to clients and prospects over and over again?
You can create at least a month’s worth of weekly blog posts just by using this technique. Simply open up a blank document on your computer and start listing all of the questions you can think of. The answers to each of those questions can likely stand alone as its own blog post.
Real estate blog post topic #2: Objections
Similar to answering all of your frequently asked questions, you can also use your blog posts to directly address objections you’ve received from clients and prospects.
Think of those times when prospects have said things like, “I want to find a new home before I sell this one,” or “shouldn’t I just sell my home myself at that price?”, and then write a blog post in response.
Think about how much time you spend going back and forth combating objections during meetings, home viewings, and open houses. Then, think about how much time you would save if your prospects had the answers to those objections before they even stepped foot into your first meeting. Time is money, and while it can seem like blogging is a waste of both, it’s actually one of your best returns on time investment because a post that you only had to write once can do the legwork for you on some of the top objections you receive over and over again.
Real estate blog post topic #3: Market Trends
You probably go out to lunch or for drinks with your real estate agent friends at least once a month and talk about the current real estate market and what you wish people knew about it. Guess what? That’s a blog post!
People want to know things like if they’re in a buyer’s or seller’s market, if the market is projected to do well in the next few years, or if their local market is going up or down in value. Like any expert, it’s easy for real estate agents to get so used to talking about this stuff with their colleagues that it feels “too boring” to write about.
But here’s the thing: even if your prospective clients know a little bit about what’s going on in the real estate market, they want to know that you know what’s going on in the real estate market. Your content is your credibility, and prospects are paying attention.
Real estate blog post topic #4: Community
As an agent, you’re actually selling your community, not just the homes in it. One of your main goals should be to position yourself as a community expert. So, it should be no surprise that when you’re in doubt, you should write about your community.
In fact, the bulk of your blog posts should be community related, and since a lot of agents are missing this important piece in their marketing strategy, it should also be easy to rank for some of the local search terms in your area.
You can review the best cafes, tell people where they can get the best pastrami sandwich, what kind of free weekly events happen in your community, or even which yoga studios offer free trial memberships. The possibilities are endless since your community is likely changing every day.
Real estate blog post topic #5: Round-Up Posts
One of the best ways to make your posts not only write themselves but also promote themselves is to create what are called round-up posts.
With a round-up post, you pick a topic like “The 5 Best Cafes in Santa Monica”, for example. From there, you can pick 5 cafes that you want to tell your audience about.
Now here comes the fun part: send a quick Facebook message or email to those coffee shops and say something like, “Hey! I love your coffee shop and I happen to be including it in a blog post I’m writing about the best coffee shops in Santa Monica. I’m a real estate agent here and my goal is to highlight some of the best businesses in our area.
Would you mind shooting me a quick message back with just a few lines about what you believe makes your shop special, why you love this community, and how it inspires your work? I’m looking forward to sharing this with my readers!”
Most business owners love free marketing, and they’ll respond answering your questions. You can put their answers straight into your blog post, give them credit, and then tag those businesses in your social posts when they go live or send them another message with the link to the blog post. In most cases, people are thrilled to have their business highlighted, and they’ll share those posts with their audiences, too. What you end up with is a post that practically wrote itself and the ability to leverage those businesses’ established audiences.
What if you just want to outsource?
If you’re still hesitant to take a stab at blogging or you just can’t find the time, you always have the option to outsource your blog content.
Before you do, though, it’s still good to familiarize yourself with the kind of content your target market is looking for and what constitutes as effective content. The temptation is to outsource content because you know next to nothing about it, but if you don’t have enough context, you can easily waste your money on the wrong kind of content.
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