If you want your real estate investing website to rank high in organic searches, then you should regularly publish content. This is not always easy to do, especially since search engines value comprehensive articles more than blog posts that are overstuffed with keywords.
And it’s not just algorithms you’re trying to impress – your blog posts should offer value to the website visitors. But how can you make this happen if your audience consists of motivated house sellers? We will examine this, and provide specific examples of topics you can include in your content strategy. However, first, let’s take a closer look at your target audience.
Before you draft your content writing strategy, you should answer two questions:
1) What’s the profile of your audience?
2) What do you want them to do?
If your goal is to attract motivated sellers into becoming your leads, then you can address their problems in your posts. But, what if you also want to find cash buyers through the same website? You’ll have to take into account the variety of profiles when coming up with a content strategy..
In any case, you can’t go wrong if you know your audience and target keywords. To be successful, you need to incorporate both in your overall SEO strategy.
A large portion of motivated sellers have a property that is about to enter foreclosure, or they are well into the process. You can cover topics like “how to stop foreclosure” or “how to sell a house in foreclosure” – they will not only work great for converting visitors into leads, but they might also help you with SERP ranking. If you are into foreclosure-related deals, you can delve deeper into the topic by explaining the differences between pre-foreclosure properties and those that are already in foreclosure. You may also wish to discuss which options are available to owners at each stage.
“How to sell a house fast” is another commonly-used search phrase, and if you add the specific real estate market (“in X”) you can target a very specific audience with that article. Selling a house is a big decision and the thought of doing it quickly might raise concerns with homeowners about whether they’re making a big mistake. You can take this opportunity to bust myths about selling a house in a hurry so that your audience is more at ease with the whole process. Remember, most motivated sellers enter the market with little to no previous knowledge about real estate investing – you can educate them and convert them at the same time.
Some properties are vacant, while the contracts for some house sales allow homeowners to remain in the house under specific terms. In any case, at least some part of your audience will have to move out of the house that is for sale. You can write on a whole host of topics that are related to moving. Here are some examples:
In a nutshell, with these blogs you can show visitors all the reasons why owning a property is a drag. And there is no shortage of reasons: upkeep costs, cleaning the place, bills pile up, property taxes, property insurance, and similar drawbacks are good topics to cover. These types of blog posts are great for converting vacant owners, absentee owners, bored landlords, and estate heirs. You can particularly target landlords by writing about the difficulties of dealing with tenants.
Explain how your real estate investing company works before motivated sellers ask about it. You can create an outline of your typical process, from the perspective of the seller. Something along the lines of: “What it takes for someone to buy their house from you.” These types of blog posts will help manage expectations of sellers, and if your process is appealing, it will also boost conversion rates. Things like how many days it takes from first contact to house under contract; what kind of paperwork is needed; what should property owners do next if they want to go ahead with the trade, etc.
Every homeowner wants to know how much money they can get if their house is listed on the market, even if they aren’t a motivated seller. You can describe to website visitors how property appraisal works in a step-by-step guide. You can talk about assessing damage to property, value of properties based on location, amenities – in short, every aspect that affects the final price.
People inherit properties following the death of the previous house owner. If the death was unexpected, the new estate heirs might not know how to manage the property. You can educate them on probate proceedings, what to expect, how to prepare, what the time frames are, and why selling the property is a good idea.
Most motivated sellers aren’t familiar with the real estate investing industry until they need to sell their house. You can inform prospective sellers on the contract terms you are offering, especially if you can extend creative financing options to them. You may wish to cover concepts like lease option agreements, rent-to-own, nontraditional types of loans, and other terms along those lines. It will serve as a go-to resource for your sellers and your sale process will speed up as a result.
It’s the typical “before and after” narrative of home renovation. For some reason, the audience for fixer upper projects is huge – there are TV shows and a lot of videos shared on platforms like YouTube, so you can join in with your blog posts on the subject. Wholesalers and house flippers focus on the potential for transformation of distressed properties. You can explain the process or write about less known facts. For example, you can talk about the relationship between kitchen remodeling and the increase in value of the whole house as a result.
One big topic is “Pros and cons of renovating a property,” where you can explore the costs involved, time frame for transformation, frustrations with contractors (yeah, this one is a real bummer), etc. And, of course, you can feature contractors in the post, particularly if you’ve cooperated on renovation projects in the past and everything turned out right.
Although it seems unrelated, the services available in your real estate market are a very important part of persuading buyers that property purchase in the area is a good idea. Imagine that the neighborhood is a house and the service shops are its amenities. You can cover transportation links, dry cleaning, car wash, gym, antique shops, social clubs, tattoo parlors, coffee shops and every small business in the area that appeals to future house owners.
Families move in and out of neighborhoods because of the needs of their kids. A blog post on the school zoning district along with details on the number of students, day care centers, and recreation facilities for children can attract buyers to a specific real estate market. Everybody likes kids, they bring out the best in people and they embody our hope for the future. So, you can cover the successes of a high school sports team, the kids’ production of a classic play or local contest (best Halloween mask) – everything that makes people proud of the youth.
This is a huge topic, and works great for attracting investors who are after passive rental income. If you are a landlord yourself, you can share your insights from your experience with the rental market. You can go for any of the following blog posts:
If you want to increase website visitor engagement, you can offer a free night in one of your properties and ask people to provide testimonials.
This is the cornerstone of blogging for real estate markets. You can feature local parks and recreation venues, restaurants, sports games, events, festivals – you name it. It helps newcomers get a grasp of the quality of life they can expect from a given neighborhood. And those who are already residents in the area will feel proud for choosing to live there.
You can write an article about properties with distinctive architectural features in the real estate market. These can be historical buildings, unique houses, or buildings with urban legacy. For example, you can have a throwback piece on the way the neighborhood was built, who were the first settlers, or what living there used to be like. If there are remnants of those past stories – a landmark building (or a whole street of them), you can attract a lot of visits by dedicating a post to them.
Usually, properties are presented through high quality photos and videos (drone footage being one of the latest trends on real estate websites). If you publish them on social media channels or in your email newsletter, the audience engagement will be immediately apparent. However, you shouldn’t miss the opportunity to include a breakdown of the properties that are offered at the moment in an article, either. These blog posts are to be short and to-the-point.
The temptation to include property listings in your real estate blog is natural. You can publish both buying and selling lists, however, keep in mind that these listings are not the primary reason website visitors come to your site. There are other sites that are more popular and stacked full of listings. It’s hard to compete with these types of specialized sites. Publish listings, but don’t push them too hard on your visitors.
The audience for interior design articles is vast. These blog posts might attract visitors who simply want to rearrange their room to be more pleasant, but they can convert years down the line. Content ideas on interior design include:
One way to get more engagement from your readers is to put together a contest, for example, for best Christmas decoration in your real estate market.
You can write articles on landscaping techniques that improve the street view of a house. Also, tips on growing plants in the garden, both edible and decorative, are another fun idea of an article. The space around the house is reserved for outdoor activity and you can share advice on these topics:
Blog posts that focus on topics like “how to save on electricity bills,” or “how to prevent loss of heat in the house” are great for new homeowners. It’s a way to keep in touch with the buyer after the contract was signed. Also, you can cover topics that are beyond maintenance and bills. For instance, you can write an article on improving home security.
At specific intervals, let’s say once every quarter, you can feature a post about the changes in the real estate market. This is a great way to attract private lenders, venture partners, or investors. It doesn’t have to be too complex: just a breakdown of statistics that point out emerging trends. You can use infographics to drive the point home, and you can single out one indicator that has an effect over the whole market. For example, you can cover metrics like employment rate, vacant rental properties, and average cost of rent, if your audience is in the rental market.
A lot of websites fail to convert visitors because it’s hard to build credibility based on posts and pages focused on business alone. If you add a human touch to real estate investing on your website, you will effectively increase the number of leads that come your way. Putting a face and adding a human story to your business can go a long way in establishing relationships with visitors.
Writing a behind the scenes article about the people who work in your company is a great way to add a personal touch to your real estate blog. The about page of your website probably has a professional summary for everyone that’s on the team, but here, we are talking about adding personable details. Share some of their interests that aren’t work related. Things they are passionate about, like – pet enthusiasts, amateur athletes, DIY craftsmen, artists in their down time, home-brewers – single out something unique. Maybe your whole team has poker nights and all the proceeds go to a charity.
The key here is to present a fun and engaging perspective.
You are in the limelight, so you might as well use all that traffic to be of service to others. Choose a charity or a cause you care for, like animals, rare diseases, battling addictions, etc., and support it – the least you can do for a charity is to lend them some of your publicity
There is one caveat though: don’t support a charity just for the marketing effect. If you don’t truly care about the cause, your articles will show it, and that might have a counter effect.
What’s the easiest way to add good content to your real estate blog? It’s to have someone else write it for you free of charge. Look for professionals in your field you would like to build relationships with and try to secure a guest post. This is great for building links and it will provide more exposure for your company, especially if you are also invited to write a guest post on someone else’s platform.
Social proof is very important in the real estate business, so ask for testimonials from people that sold their house through you. Yes, a single testimonial might not provide enough material for an article, but you can get creative. For example, you can arrange an interview, or you can post dozens of testimonials in a long blog post.
If you have a referral program, you can dedicate an article to describe how it works. You can include details on the cash back scheme you use or the finder fee you pay per deal.
There are a number of ways you can multiply the effect of the content you’ve written for SEO purposes. For starters, you can feature quotes from the website articles in your social media stream (including YouTube description section) and add links to blogs on your website.
Another way to sneak a lot of keywords into your website in a helpful way is to create FAQ pages or a glossary of terms. This will be a good resource for those who aren’t familiar with the way your real estate investing business works, while also feeding search engine crawlers with data relevant to rank your website.
Once you publish a wealth of information on your website, you can consider editing all those articles into one long piece of work – an e-book that can be offered for free as a lead magnet.
And if you operate in multiple real estate markets – do a page on each of them. Sometimes, you can create articles that appeal to a general audience (houses in Florida) and sometimes you can target specific markets (houses in St. Petersburg, Miami, Orlando, etc.).
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