How to Create a Vision for Your Real Estate Blog


Last week, we talked about how to build a strong brand voice for your real estate company. This week, we’re going to take the brand voice you created and push you one step further; we’ll teach you to create a vision for your real estate blog and incorporate your brand voice into your writing.

Blogs are essential to the success of your real estate company. In fact HubSpot found that 92% of companies who blog multiple times a day acquired a customer through their blog. Blogs are lead generators – especially for real estate agents.

Since blogs provide critical opportunities for agents to acquire new leads, you should have a solid foundation for your blogging plans. You’ll need to develop short term and long term goals for your blog. (There’s a reason this sounds familiar; we talked about this strategy in our post “How to Create a Vision for Your Social Media Presence.”)

real estate blogShort Term

1) Create a schedule for your blog posts.

Many people – myself included – sometimes have trouble consistently publishing blog posts unless they’re held to a firm schedule. First, decide how often you’ll post to your blog. Weekly? Biweekly? Daily? Part of this answer comes from how much you have to say to your clients; you don’t want to post so rarely that people won’t follow your blog, but you don’t want to run through all of your content in a few weeks. We generally recommend that agents start off with weekly posts to gauge how often they should publish content.

Think of your blog post schedule as both linear and cyclical. You should always move forward with timely and relevant content for your clients, but you should also repurpose and repackage old blog posts to continually drive traffic to your site.

2) Determine the type of content you’ll produce.

Your company’s brand voice plays a huge role in the type of content that you produce for your clients. Did you develop an informative, concise brand voice for your real estate company? Use it in your blog. Publish FAQs and studies on local market trends. If mortgage interest rates are dropping, tell people about it. What if you developed a fun, family-oriented brand voice? Write narrative stories about local attractions and events to tell your readers about the unique opportunities that your town offers.

Determine how you’ll promote blog posts.

The content of your posts certainly matters, but it’s critical that you promote them on the right platforms. Where do your clients live online? If most of your clients interact with you on Facebook, post links to your blog posts in new statuses every week. No matter where you post about your blog, always include a link that directs people back to your site.

Long Term

1) Build a group of followers.

If you post it, they will come. As you post more and more content, people will start to anticipate your blog posts. They will become regular readers, and – with some time and luck – they will start commenting and talking to you about your posts. Once you have a loyal set of followers, those people will begin reposting your content to their friends and slowly build your network. You should also publish your blog posts on your social media accounts. Social media is a relatively easy way to get your blog in front of new readers and build a group of followers.

Additionally, the more posts you publish, the more indexed content you’ll create for search engines. This means that your blog will be more likely to appear under specific search queries, and you’ll have an even larger audience looking at your content.

2) Measure engagement, and adapt your approach accordingly.

Successful blogs come about through trial and error. Don’t be afraid to screw up every once in awhile. As you build your content, pay attention to – and measure – your engagement (hint: think blog comments). While you might have thousands of readers coming to your blog every week, true engagement comes in the form of social shares and comments on your post. Try different methods, mix up the type of content you produce, and see which posts resonate best with your audience.

3) Become a thought leader of real estate.

Most business bloggers write to be recognized within their trade or industry. As a real estate blogger, one of your biggest long term goals will be to find recognition within the real estate world as an authority blogger. Dare to be different. Write posts about real estate that no one else has. Network with the folks at Inman News. Do what it takes to get your content in front of new eyes. The more diligent you are, the more likely your blog will be noticed.

Thoughts? Questions? Let us know in the comments, and share this post with anyone who might need help with their blog!