Content marketing helps to gain proper online footing, attract prospects, and establish enterprising operations in the real estate business. Without it, it is like shooting arrows on the wrong or irrelevant targets without attracting any traffic. Thus, your website, however good it may look will not rank on the SERPs. You won’t be able to establish the reputation, expertise, or credibility, which is crucial to brand building and of course, to gain business traction.
First Steps in Your Content Marketing Journey
1. Begin with the Website
The first impression of the website gives visitors a glimpse of your professionalism and manner of providing service. The design of the website should be user-friendly, mobile-friendly, sleek, and streamlined for a more organized look along with the content that attracts traffic. Using the right keywords for your particular niche is crucial. The Home page should be “welcoming” and give the impression that you have the answers to all the queries of the visitors. Here are a few tips for starting content marketing on your website:
- Homepage – Make sure your keywords are on titles and meta descriptions including visuals. Make sure you have the right CTA for subscriptions and actual contact, so check phone numbers and addresses too. The homepage is your first Landing page so it must give a brief description of the company, the services, and your niche.
- About Page – This page is about your brand story, your aspirations as a real estate agent, and what makes your services far better than anyone else in your niche. Again, be mindful of the keywords. Your brand story must convince readers that your services are in synch with their objectives. This is the second landing page for brand awareness and promotion services. Check out our article How to Write an Irresistible Real Estate Agent Value Proposition.
- Blog – The Blog page is where the action happens. This is where you can connect with your readers, visitors, and future clients with content that provides useful information and answer their questions or find solutions to issues that are bugging them.
Hi-def pictures and videos help in gaining plus points in content marketing and SE ranking. After setting up your fabulous website, create a strategy for releasing relevant info and topics.
2. Create a Calendar and Strategy
Strategic planning helps in maintaining the quality of the content. A calendar will help you with two things – developing and presenting ideas and meeting your deadlines. It makes integrating into your different channels easier – social media, guest postings, and blogs. Two great free tools for making and planning your content calendar are Trello and the Editorial Calendar plugin for scheduling.
- Start with the Blog – A blog is a good starting point in developing quality content. It is efficient in providing new information, ideas, and solutions to target readers. It also establishes personal and brand credibility, and expertise in your niche. Examples of content marketing via blogs are – “10 Ways to Maintain the Exterior of Your Home”, “5 Things to Look for in a Pet-Friendly Community”, “7 Tips in Staging Your Home”, and “10 Things You Need to Know Before Buying a House in San Diego”. See our articles 9 Tips for Starting and Promoting Your Real Estate Blog, and 12 Real Estate Blog Ideas to Dominate Local Search.
- Email Content Marketing – You need to build an email list to start content marketing via emails and newsletters. This is where your landing pages come in handy. As mentioned before, your Home, About, and Blog pages are the best landing pages with a clear CTA for email/newsletter subscriptions. Emails are more personal and able to address what you think your target leads need to know about the market, ongoing prevailing issues that you have a solution to, and news about your brand – how you can support present and previous clients. To test various newsletters and measure the efficiency of email content marketing, use tools such as GetRespone and Sendinblue. After measuring efficiency, organize your content marketing list to suit various buyer types for more conversions.
- Social Media Platforms – Choose social media platforms that will best suit your content marketing strategies. Facebook and Instagram are the go-to channels for personal and business brand building. You can post excerpts of your blogs, events, and visuals of listings. Remember to put keywords on descriptions and summaries. Twitter is good for content marketing for events such as open houses, virtual tours, and Zoom Q&A. YouTube video content is good in showing your listings, explainer videos for computations, taxes, and various How To’s.
In Starting Your Content Marketing for Real Estate Agents
Know Your Niche
Real estate is a very large industry, and competition is very tough. Choosing a niche narrows down the area you market and build your expertise in.
Tie Your Personal with the Business Brand
As a real estate agent, you’re up close and personal with your clients. For them to come to you for help with their property journey, they must know you on a certain personal level so that they can count on you. Be the expert, but don’t be a robot — it’ll allow you to make stronger, long-lasting connections with your clients.
Find the Right Networks
Content marketing is not just what you can offer or provide but also your connections. Choose the groups, businesses, and individuals you connect with that can help you in spreading your content to reach more targets but also help in building your brand and SE credibility.
Do Not Forget Free Business Listings
Search Engines have set up free business listings to make it easier to find the right searches for users. You want to be on those pages, ranking on the first page as the right search for your target. Optimize on these listings with content-rich profiles.
Do Not Be Afraid to Advertise
Organically building your brand is great but if you have the means to advertise, do it to gain traction on the right traffic going to your website. Paid ads also bring in lessons in content marketing on how your target consumers behave and how ads platforms work in putting out the advertising post.
A Run Down on the Benefits of Content Marketing for Real Estate Agents
- Content marketing enables you to provide immediate solutions to clients. Information from Blogs is helpful to readers looking for answers to their queries or issues such as proper staging of homes or buying a particular type of property.
- It boosts brand awareness. Your content represents your personal and business brand. Brand awareness is a building block of credibility and expertise.
- Content marketing for real estate agents directs traffic to the site. SEs love good content and the more they see it on your site, links, and social media, the better ranking for you. Traffic to your site is based on your ranking on SERPs. When you are seen on the first page, the better for your traffic and credibility.
- It creates quality leads. You want consumers or users who will jump into your service funnel – for you to serve as their agent in finding their dream home, maximize their profit in selling their home, start all over, move to a bigger or smaller space. You want to nurture these leads, for their present concerns, to keep coming back, and to refer you to their network of family, friends, and followers.
Do not be afraid to start, plan, and begin gathering your content. Get creative with your topics to be engaging and relevant.
