It’s no secret people use the internet to shop and gather information about their buying decisions… Especially when it comes to buying and selling real estate.

It’s easy to go online and search for homes and gather information about the local community — schools, best neighborhoods to live in, etc.

In order to be successful and grow your business, you need to match the way you market your listings, to the way consumers go online to search for information.

Real estate blogs are a great way to get found, build relationships and close the sale. Here’s how…

5 Ways a Real Estate Blog Can Help You Sell More Houses: 

1. Helps position yourself as the local market expert. 

A real estate blog gives you the opportunity to showcase your knowledge of the local real estate market by writing articles such as local market reports, financing programs, tips for home buyers, and things to do around the community. Every time you write a local market report, you’re showcasing your knowledge of the local real estate market. Every time you write something about the local community, you’re showing people that you really know the area.

Each of these things helps establish your authority of the market within your reader’s eyes.

2. Helps you develop relationships before the sale. 

Remember the saying, “people do business with people they know, like and trust.” Well, a real estate blog helps you develop long-term relationships with readers long before you close the sale.

A real estate blog helps consumers discover your site and your content just as they begin their home buying process. They might be searching for things like:

• Homes for sale in [your market area].
• Best schools in [your market area].
• Things to do in [your market area].

Let’s assume you’ve written about each of these topics. So Jack and Jill (our imaginary home buyers) stumble across your site and start consuming your content. It’s well written, friendly, and informative. The more they read, the more they come to like and trust you. They might not know you very well (yet). But that’s the beauty behind blogging. As they read your content more and more, they get to know you. And soon, it’s like they’ve developed a relationship with you without ever having met you. So when it comes time to buy, guess who they’re going to call first?

3. Helps you differentiate yourself from the competition. 

While you’re competitors are out passing flyers and cold-calling, your blog is doing the prospecting for you. The trick is to write articles that demonstrate your knowledge and expertise of the local market. To show consumers how you’re going to make their home buying or selling process, easier.

They don’t have to get on the phone to listen to your sales pitch. They’ve already decided based on what they’ve read from your blog (so it better be good).

4. Helps you get discovered in search results faster. 

Every time you publish something new, you’re helping improve your search engine rankings. The trick is to properly optimize your posts so that they rank for specific keyword phrases.  But basically, every time you publish something new, you’re creating more pages on your domain. And the more pages Google has, the more likely your site is to show up in search engine results for dozens of keyword phrases.

The most important part of your blog posts is going to be the title. When Google starts to match what is being searched for among all of the pages in it’s index, it’s going to match your post title with the phrase being searched. So make sure your post titles are closely tied to the type of search queries your target consumer is typing when they go to search for homes online.

5. Helps you spread the workload among other members of your team. 

Simply put, writing takes time. Which is why most real estate blogs fail, long-term. But, it’s easy to bring guest contributors on-board to help spread the work-load. Here’s two scenarios that work well:

a.) Start a multi-author blog with other agents in your office. 

Ewingsir.com is a great example of a multi-author brokerage site where multiple agents are contributing their knowledge and expertise by frequently posting new content to the main site. In addition, each community has it’s own dedicated site with select agents contributing content to those community sites.

By following this model, you no longer have to worry about finding the time to blog as a real estate professional. Instead, every member of your team is helping contribute their knowledge and expertise to rank better and drive more traffic.

b.) Allow for guest posts from industry partners. 

If you’re a real estate agent, here are a few ideas for getting others to help contribute content to your site…

• Invite a loan officer to post mortgage updates (weekly or bi-weekly) on your real estate blog. The fact is, they want your business. So why not partner with them by having them contribute content to your site? It’s content for you, and an audience with potential leads for them. It’s a win-win.
• Invite a home-stager to contribute content on your real estate blog. Again, they want your business. So why not have them contribute some articles that discuss the benefits of home staging and how it helps sell a home faster.
• Invite your clients to guest post. Do you have clients that are foodies and/or really enjoy the local night-life? Why not treat them to lunch in exchange for a guest post? It’s a great way to add a different voice to your blog and hi-light the local community.

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Yes, blogging is hard work. But it’s well worth the effort when done right.