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In our first screencast, we take you through the basics of how to create awesome real estate blog posts and dissect examples from other experts in the industry who are creating great content for potential clients. Watch the video for the full walkthrough.
So, I get asked all the time: “Hey, I need to set up a website, but what do I do with the content? Do I have to create it? If I create it, how do I make sure that it’s going to be effective?” So, what I’ll do today is walk you through some example sites and how they think about content. I’ll show you our site to start, and then we’ll go into individual blog posts, and we can dissect what’s working and what’s not working.
Placester Real Estate Marketing Academy:
We drive all of our traffic through content marketing. We eat our own dog food: we create content every day, trying to figure out how to make it more effective for the folks that are reading and actually useful.
“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.”
— ANDY WARHOL
(1:29) How to Create Awesome Blog Posts with Listings:
The biggest piece here is that every agent and broker has access through their MLS to these really amazing pieces of content, which is property. Each property has images and descriptors about it and you can categorize them in ways that might be interesting.
(5:09) Examples:
1. Weiniger Homes (Curaytor client)
One of the things they do is “Best X in Y” as highlighted in our sample post. So this post is “10 Spectacular Homes in Warren and Surrounding Areas” – it’s got 47 Facebook likes. When is the last time you saw a post about listings have that many likes on the page? And it’s really simple! It’s got a descriptor, a title, hyperlinks back to the post for search, and then it’s got a beautiful image.
That’s all it is. Nothing too difficult about creating posts like this.
2. Malibu Beach Homes for Sale (Placester client)
Here’s a gentleman that has used tons of keywords. He ranks very well in his neighborhood/geographic area for these keywords and you notice he uses them in all his navigation. Again, descriptor, images – you get a 94% increase in viewings and clicks when you have images in your post, so make sure that you include them.
Here’s a gentleman that has used tons of keywords. He ranks very well in his neighborhood/geographic area for these keywords and you notice he uses them in all his navigation. Again, descriptor, images – you get a 94% increase in viewings and clicks when you have images in your post, so make sure that you include them.
“Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.”
— PAUL RAND
3. Boston Lofts
“These Boston Lofts With Fireplaces are Ready for Winter.”
Not the best example for a title. It does have the geography of Boston and it does say something about lofts and fireplaces, but it’s not framed in the way that people search. It’s also not framed in a way that a call-to-action might be interesting. To me, a call-to-action is what piques my interest. What might be a good example for a title would be “The Most Beautiful Fireplaces in Boston Lofts” – that’s sort of interesting and I might want to see what that looks like.
“Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.”
— HOWARD GOSSAGE
The photos are great – I think they do a nice job. The missing opportunity here is that the location is not hyper-linked, so there’s no place for someone to find more information about this property. If I were interested in buying it, I want to know more; I want to see more photos. I want to get a little bit more before I contact somebody.
“Stunning Architect-Designed Boston Lofts at Porter 156.”
Again, the title is a little challenging. It’s not what grabs someone’s attention and it’s also not the way we search. If you’re not going to write a title that corresponds to what someone is typing into Google, you at least want to do it in a way that’s going to grab their attention. So, if they see it on Facebook, they say “Oh! I really want to take a look at this.”
4. LiveEastie.com (Phil Gutowski)
He does a really great job of using visuals on his site. He only focuses on this area of Boston called East Boston and the locals call it “Eastie.” He knows all the shop owners, all the events that are going on, and he does a really great job of highlighting what’s happening in the area.
“10 Reasons We Love East Boston in the Summer.”
He does a great job of hyperlinking, so he links out to other sites, but he also links within his own site. Google likes to see that – it shows there’s depth within a website. Then, when he posts these, he reaches out to the different venues that he’s highlighting and he lets them know that he created a post about something that’s important to them. That is then a reason for them to share it, but also a reason for them to come visit the site and look at the post for themselves.
“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”
— LEO BURNETT
Questions?
Visit Placester.com/Academy where you can see all types of content on how we think about blog posting, creating websites, online marketing, ebooks, infographics, and more. Always feel free to reach out: we’re happy to answer questions.
Key Takeaways:
- Hyperlink Images
- Write titles that match how people search
- Highlight local businesses that you can later shout out to. They will share your content and your business.
