You have always liked real estate. In fact, since you were a kid you can remember looking at homes for sale and dreaming about when you could start buying, selling and trading properties. You’re out of school, worked hard to get your first job in real estate, and now you are a Realtor and you own your business!
Marketing has been easy for you, of course, you have a website, but you really want to discover tips that will help your brand, and you know content marketing is paramount. So, take a look at the following five suggestions to get you started:
Write It or Buy It?
Content is key and it needs to be high-quality. If you barely passed English 101 and if writing just isn’t your thing, consider purchasing fresh content for your site. Just remember:
- If you pay $10 for a 500-word article, it’s probably not going to be good.
- Get familiar with a plagiarism checker and use it before your post purchased content.
- Make sure any included photos don’t infringe upon anyone’s copyright.
If, on the other hand, you’re a great writer, by all means write your own articles, but follow the rules:
- Use proper citations for quotes.
- Ensure you’re using proper grammar with a grammar checking tool.
- Don’t just rewrite posts by other authors.
- Make sure your links work before you publish an article.
Become a Thought Leader
If you are a home financing expert, make sure that you become the go-to person. You can do this by writing authoritative posts filled with city-specific, valuable information about rates like this example, terms and types of loans. Sure, a lot of people do this, but bring your firsthand knowledge to the table. Offer to place guest posts on relevant sites and make sure you get a link in return. After a while—if you are writing quality stuff—your site will get more traffic and you and your business will get noticed.
You could be working as a real estate agent and want to make a name for yourself. There’s no substitute for expertise so you need to dive in and learn everything you can about your local market. Become the local real estate expert for your city or town. From homes to neighborhoods, transportation to amenities—these are the valuable pieces of knowledge that will help you grow your business.
Give It Away
If you tell people everything they want to know, they’ll just think that you know even more, and they will keep paying attention to you and your business. Do you know tricks for getting closing costs reduced, for example? Don’t keep these locked up for your best clients; make them available to everyone and watch how your organic ranking will improve.
Aaron Franklin owns Franklin Barbecue in Austin, TX, and his restaurant is almost universally known as one of the top BBQ places in Texas. Franklin spent many years perfecting his craft and after his BBQ business grew from his driveway to a food truck to a free-standing restaurant, he wrote a detailed book explaining every detail of meat smoking. If you read Franklin’s book, you’ll know all of his secrets.
Why did he do that? Because Franklin knew that anyone that read his book and tried to duplicate his efforts would have to come to Franklin’s restaurant to verify their accomplishment. He gave it all away and brought thousands more customer to his door.
Be Consistent
If your blogs are usually within the 600 to 750-word range, keep them there. Sure, if you are having a busy week it may be a bit difficult to write articles, so purchase one from a reliable source if you have to. Dedicated readers will be disappointed if instead of an in-depth piece they find a little 300-word post. Do everything you can to be consistent.
Be Creative
After a while, it may seem difficult to keep pounding out relevant content but take some time to look around at what your competitors are writing about. You can get some great ideas by reading other blogs for even 15 minutes per day.
Bonus Tip
While we’ve spent most of our time explaining how important great content is and how you can write it yourself, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that real estate content does not stop with your website. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are all viable platforms and you need to take advantage of them also. Email can also be a powerful tool, and even direct snail-mail is appreciated by some client segments. If you don’t have time to be a marketing machine, find someone that is, and integrate their expertise with yours.
It’s Your Business
Even in rough times it can be great to own your own business. You can be the beneficiary of unlimited income, and you can control the direction you want your enterprise to take. Those that are successful will of course live and breathe their real estate business every day, but the benefits of knowing one day that your hard work actually paid off are immeasurable. Even consider things like smart technology, as it is changing the real estate industry.
