John Merse
on

Peter Drucker once said “quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it." I’m an evangelist for Union Street Media, and the real estate industry. I work day in and out to make sure we’re creating a product that prioritizes our client's needs. By understanding a realtor’s day-to-day, I can help design efficiencies around it through our software. On top of that I have an extensive background in marketing campaign and strategy management. If I can save a client time and money - while growing their business with successful digital campaigns - we’ve done something important.

How to Get Your Real Estate Blog Noticed

So you started writing a blog, but no one’s biting. No comments, no “likes,” no mentions on Twitter. One of the biggest challenges that real estate bloggers face is getting their blog noticed on a larger scale and expanding their reader base beyond their friend circle. While blogging success is a lot about diligence and plain ol’ luck, there are some proven tactics to get your writing noticed by a bigger audience.

1) Dig into social.real estate blog

Promote your real estate blog on social media platforms. We recommend that all real estate agents and companies create business pages on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ (at the very least). Use those pages. Every time that you post something new on your blog, promote it with a status or tweet.

Be sure to optimize your posts with a handful of targeted SEO keywords that are related to real estate. Tag your tweets with relevant hashtags – like #realestate – so that people who search for those terms can find your blog.

Most importantly, be sure to engage with people who comment on your status or reply to your tweets. When you respond to comments, it shows that you care about your blog and your audience.

2) Optimize your content.

You’ve invested a lot of valuable time in writing your blog post, so make sure it doesn’t fall flat with SEO. Optimize your posts by paying special attention to titles, meta descriptions, image alt text, and image titles.

Make sure your titles are short, sweet, and to the point. Your post title should capture the attention of your readers and accurately describe the content of the article. Set the right expectations for your readers with descriptive titles. If your post is called “10 Creative Ways to Wow Home Buyers,” you better make sure those tips are creative. If your tips are the same old, ho-hum bits of advice already online, you might have an unhappy reader on your hands. Be as specific as possible, and include targeted keywords as needed.

Although Google does not analyze keywords within meta descriptions, it’s important to still craft interesting meta descriptions for each of your articles. Meta descriptions that contain words from a person’s search query will appear in bold on the SERPs and likely attract the attention of the searcher.

Then there’s alt text and image titles. Because Google can’t technically “read” images, the alt text and file name hint at the content of the picture and it’s relevancy to certain keywords. Make sure to include one or two targeted keywords in the alt text and file name of your pictures to optimize your images for search engines.

3) Post on a regular schedule.

We’ve talked about this idea before: a real estate blog tends to be most successful when its readers know exactly when to check in for new posts. Whether it’s daily, weekly, or biweekly, stick to a regular schedule for your blog. A regular schedule builds rhythm and momentum for your ideas. Readers who love your blog will anticipate your next post and build excitement around your content.

In many cases, writing inconsistent blog posts is worse than not having a blog at all. Inconsistency tells your readers that you’re not truly dedicated to the material you’re writing and that you won’t respond to any comments that they may have about your posts.

4) Join an online community.real estate blog

Online forums are some of the best places to give your real estate blog added exposure. Forums provide thousands of niche communities across all types of backgrounds and interests. All you have to do is find the forum that fits your business goals. For example, in the real estate industry, there are forums specifically for agents, and there are forums specifically for home buyers.

Agent forums give you the opportunity to converse and share your blog with other agents. While this strategy won’t directly influence lead generation, these forums give you the power to share your knowledge among colleagues and build authority within your network.

Consider participating in LinkedIn communities. Do a search for real estate related groups, join those groups, and start talking. Comment on popular discussions and create your own discussion threads.

Local forums for home buyers can directly influence lead generation. If you find first time home buyers who have a lot of questions about the home buying process, take the time to answer their questions and build trust. Other home buyers will likely take notice and check out your website.

Caution: Don’t link spam in your forum comments. If all of your comments are links to your website or blog, other members of the forum will likely flag your comments as spam, and your online authority will plummet. Instead, spend some time answering questions without including links. Then, once you’ve built some trust, begin to include links to your blog with context.