As a Realtor®, increasing leads and exposure for your business is vital for long-term success.

Realtors need to stay ahead of the curve in marketing and SEO to keep up with today's competitive digital landscape - or lose business to other local agents who do.

One of the best ways to boost SEO—without spending a fortune (or hardly any money at all)—is to start a blog.

You read that right: blogging can be an incredibly effective way for Realtors® to gain high-quality leads, attract potential clients, and generate more website traffic for little-to-no money spent. 💸

Don't believe blogging is worth your time? The stats speak for themselves:

Seems to me if you're not blogging regularly, you're missing out on home buyer and seller revenue you don't even know exists.  

In this blog post, we’ll explain the basics of how blogging can help your business, how to get started, and our top tips for achieving success.

What is a Blog, Anyway?

We’ll start with the basics: A blog is a website or part of a website that is regularly updated with content.

The content posted on the blog can be anything related to the topic at hand—from industry news, advice, and relevant topics.

Regarding blogging for Realtors, the content can include topics such as real estate trends and market analysis, tips for buying or selling a home, advice for homeowners, as well as any information that's both valuable and helpful.  

By regularly creating relevant and engaging content, you can provide value to potential real estate clients and establish yourself as an expert in the field.

Why Blogging is Important for Realtors

Now that you know what a blog is, let’s discuss why it’s so crucial for Realtors.

Here are the top four reasons blogging will help your business:

1. Increase Brand Awareness - Blogging helps you build recognition for your Realtor® practice. By regularly publishing content, you can create a loyal following and reach potential clients that you may not have been able to reach through traditional marketing.

2. Generate More Leads - Creating engaging and valuable content can help you generate more leads. This is because potential clients may discover your content when searching for real estate or property-related topics via Google or Bing.

3. Improve SEO - By blogging regularly, you provide search engines with new content to crawl. This can help boost your search engine rankings (i.e., SEO) and website traffic to generate more business leads.

4. Establish yourself as an Expert - By creating informative and useful content covering various topics that get found easily (and first!) in search, you can establish yourself as an expert in the industry. This can help attract potential clients who are searching for advice or guidance when it comes to real estate. It also helps Google automatically know to boost your website rankings ahead of those agents who don't blog and establish themselves as subject matter experts.

Getting Started with Blogging for Realtors

Now that you know why blogging is important for Realtors®, it’s time to get going.

Here is a step-by-step guide to get you started:

1. Create a Specific Audience Strategy - The very first (and most important!) step is to decide EXACTLY who you want to reach. Content marketing works best when you address a specific audience (or set of audiences) with helpful information that's only relevant to that well-defined group. Blogging without an exact audience in mind is more challenging and much less effective. Plus, general information isn't rewarded in Google Search (i.e., SEO). For example, blogging on generic topics for home buyers is too general, whereas writing a post for first-time Millennial home buyers who want to use a VA loan is much better. When you define a specific group of readers you want to reach to grow your business, you also improve your chances of a higher SEO ranking (and make your topic list for blogs much easier to develop).

2. Establish a Plan - Create an outline of topics you want to cover in your blog posts based on the audience you defined in Step 1. Make sure to keep the topics relevant to what a potential client might be looking for when researching the real estate market. Next, decide how often you want to post content. We suggest at least once a week but post more frequently if you can.

3. Choose a Platform - The next step is to decide which platform you will use for your blog. Your blog can be attached to your website, or it can be standalone. If you invest in your website as the center of your digital marketing (good for you!), blogging on a domain (www.yoursite.com/blog) or subdomain (blog.yoursite.com) linked to your site is the best option for building more Google Search organic traffic (and leads!). I recommend using Ghost as your platform for those agents and brokers in this category who also have some tech savviness. If you just want to sign in, do minimal configuration, and start writing, I recommend you use Medium. If you choose the latter, you can be up and blogging in minutes; plus, the platform offers many SEO and web traffic benefits that can get your content seen outside of a website. That said, it's always best to blog on your domain URL, making it easier for web visitors to engage further with your brand.  

4. Outline Your Posts - Creating an outline for each post is essential before you start writing your blog posts. This will help you stay organized and ensure you don’t miss any critical points in your post.

5. Write the Content - Now, it’s time to start writing the content for your blog post. Make sure to include keyword-rich phrases that are relevant to the topic. Check out my post here for a quick primer on choosing SEO keywords. Also, include a clear call to action (i.e., a button with "contact me" or "reach out with questions!") so that readers know what action to take after reading the post.

6. Include Images and Video - Adding visuals to your posts can help make them more engaging and give readers a better understanding of what you are trying to explain. We recommend adding at least one image or video to each post.

7. Promote Your Content - Once your post is written and published, it’s time to promote it. Post your content on all your social media channels and share it with your network. You can also use SEO tactics to help boost your rankings and website traffic.

Top Tips for Blogging Success

Now that you know how to start, here are our top six tips to help you achieve success with your blog:

1. Keep it User-Focused - Your content should always be user-focused, not just a sales pitch. Make sure your content provides value and provides readers with helpful information.

2. Use Keywords - Make sure to include relevant keywords in your posts to help your content get found in search engine results.

3. Make it Shareable - Create attractive and engaging content that can be shared easily on social media with more than just the blog title. You can share the same blog URL link under various social posts over and over each month.  This will help you reach a wider audience and gain more website traffic.

4. Stay Up-to-Date - Make sure to keep your blog posts up-to-date with the latest trends and news in the real estate industry to give yourself a better chance of getting seen as people search Google based on the news, social, and other trends.

5. Don’t Give Up Too Early - Blogging can be a long-term commitment, and it can take time to see results. Don’t give up when you don’t see results overnight. Keep working at it, and the results will come over time. Just keep creating content, and your website will benefit both from each individual blog and the aggregate volume of your content over time.

6. Leverage AI for Topics, Outlines, and Speed - Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT can help you pick topics, write outlines, and first drafts for your blog posts that you can tweak to make your own. New apps built on this technology, such as the free app ReallyBlogIt, make it even easier for real estate professionals to "click and blog" in literally seconds. Give it a try as an easy way to get a blog post out every week and avoid adding to your already-heavy real estate workload.  

Final Thoughts

We hope this blog post has given you a better understanding of how blogging can help your Realtor business.

From increasing brand awareness, generating more leads, boosting SEO, and establishing yourself as an expert, blogging can be an effective marketing tool for Realtors.

So, why not start your blogging journey today and gain more exposure, leads, and website traffic for free?

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