How To: Write a $10,000 Real Estate Blog Post
I spend a large portion of my time blogging and attending seminars by the top bloggers in the country. There is a theme that has emerged of late that is undeniable when it comes to blogging yourself, as a Realtor, into actual income. Hyper local keywords are imperative to seeing success quickly and that is what we discussed in depth in the above interview!
I spoke with Jeremy Blanton of 210 Consulting, also the former community manager for ActiveRain (largest real estate blogging community), and he shared with me that when he takes on a new client they are thinking way too big. You will never be #1 in Google for “Your City Real Estate”, so don’t even bother trying. The other point that Jeremy made that was right on was that the keywords searched are a good indicator of where the client is in the buying process. Once someone has decided the city where they want to move to they are going to start searching hyper locally. These hyper local searches will include the names of the neighborhoods they are interested, price points, property types, amenities, etc.. in their later stage searches in Google. So this means they need to be included in your blog post title, tags and body, then rinse and repeat as often as possible. Jeremy even told me a story of an agent that after meeting with him and writing her first post earned a listing the next day because she was already #1 in Google and a prospective seller found her immediately. $10,000 commission check later, she is now an avid hyper local real estate blogger!
This is the 4th post by Tech Savvy Agent on blogging, keywords and taking a hyper local approach in the past few weeks. It keeps coming up because it works! If you have any questions for Jeremy you can check him out via his social media company 210 Consulting.
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I think that blogging is certainly something we should do more of. This is a great reminder for all of us. Thanks again for such great information. Tech Savvy rocks!!!!
Now, if we could just train consumers to search Google starting with “Hyper local blah blah blah “. I don’t think using that term is your point but many agents are naming their blog posts like ” Hyper Local Vienna VA real estate ” as though consumers are using that term. Are they? I know that they aren’t.
My understanding is that the concept is to use hyper local topics for your blog posts such as mentioning “Bazin’s Restaurant on Church Street” and what you had for dinner there or a discussion you had with Patrick, the owner/chef who… get my point?
Yes, I did not understand this concept when I first heard about it about a year ago, and titled some of my posts as “Hyper Local Sales Stats…” and I still see agents using that title late in 2010. My Vienna VA sales stats posts did get looked at but the readers never used the term “hyper local”.
Hope I wasn’t rambling too much…
@Doug Certainly, the term “hyper local” is not a keyword phrase.
“Hyper local” means drilling down into your KEYWORD generated list for low competition-some traffic “hyper local” keywords.
You don’t get the huge traffic numbers, but you don’t get the insane competition either.
I LOVE this strategy for 2 reasons:
1. Newbies get quicker return on their investment.
2. Newbies see the reward and stick with it. Quality content produced & distributed consistently over time creates the real value. You see, the more backlinks you generate, the MORE difficult it is for competitors to knock you off your page 1 position, provided you never stop creating & distributing quality content.
Good job, Jeremy.
It’s a strategy that works for niche mortgage products as well. Anyone can do a 20% down Conventional loan, but for 203K, USDA, HomePath Renovation a lot of buyers / borrowers want to work local.
Renovation loans especially, homeowner’s often need contractor assistance, special inspections, etc. You need to have local connections for that.
Sadly, I’ve noticed that many agents aren’t “getting it” when it comes to blogging. They don’t realize that a regularly updated blog can help them achieve better search rankings and more paying clients.
As a freelance writer, I’m keenly aware of the benefits that a blog can provide for many businesses, but agents stand to benefit significantly. Unfortunately, many agents aren’t tech savvy, and they assume that blogging and social media efforts can’t offer them anything.