Member Article

4 Reasons why estate agents need to blog

Written by Howard Standring of Property SEO

One of the most overlooked and neglected areas on most estate agent websites are a blog. Either they don’t have one at all or they are not kept up to date and fresh a look a little neglected.

I know researching writing posts on a regular basis can be difficult time consuming but the negatives of doing it are far outweighed by the positives.

If you don’t run a blog on your property website or are approaching it a little half hearted then here are 4 good reasons why you should be.

Expert positioning – Writing about property and the market in a local area with an air of authority will position you as an expert. When people see the research and insight that you include in your articles they are far more likely to trust your judgment and advice. 2. Build Trust – Being seen as an expert does give people more trust in your services. Also having fresh and regular content on the site shows your business is keeping up to date with what is happening in the local area. 3. Helps build a social following. – By sharing your content on your on your social media pages such as Facebook, Google+, twitter, pinterest etcetera you will attract more people to these channels who will in turn start to follow you because you have something interesting to say read or view rather then just posting listing after listing. 4. Attract more visitors to your site. Adding regular new content has a double benefit for bringing more visitors to your site. One your rankings will improve as search engines love fresh content being added to a site on a regular basis and secondly you will pick up potential customers who come across your content once it has been indexed by the search engines.

Ok great you’re thinking I can see blogging is a good idea for my property business but what do I actually write about.

Well if you want to connect with your readers and really position yourself as the good guy or girl in your local market then you want to be posting information that adds value and helps people out.

Your potential clients and customers have a lot of questions, problems and goals when buying or selling a property so it you can get content out there that gives solutions and advice that deals with all these issues they will appreciate you for it.

To get you started or reenergized for your blog here are 5 topics you can focus on that will have most impact in your local area.

Advice for sellers

Tell them what they need to do to make sure they have the best possibility of selling their home quickly and for the right money.

Advice for buyers

Give them checklists and guides about the steps the need to think about and prepare for when going through the buying process. Especially helpful for first time buyers.

Local Information

What is happening in the local area that can have an impact or influence in the property market. Speak with or promote other businesses in the area or just let people what you have been up to.

Industry updates

As well as local news keep people up to speed with bigger picture in the property market. Talk about trends and stats and explain why they are important or what the potential impact could be.

Keep promoting

If you have an active and fresh blog that gets a steady number of visitors each month then there is no reason not to promote your services or property. Exclusive, special or new properties are good to showcase on your blog.

I hope now you can see why blogging is an essential tool in your online marketing strategy and one that can pay off in dividends if given the attention it deserves. People now demand engagement and insight from the property services they use and blogging along with social media is great way to do this. Howard Standring is the owner of Property SEO providing online marketing services for estate agents and other property related businesses.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Joe Graham .