SEO, Blogging, SEO for Beginners
Well, hello there, friend. Are you looking to start doing Real Estate content marketing, but you’re not sure exactly what it is or how to get started? If so, you’re in the right place. I’ll break it down for you to choose which channels you want to focus your Real Estate content marketing efforts on.
If you’re not already using content marketing to grow your Real Estate business, you’ll want to start now. Content marketing is a fast-growing marketing channel. It’s free. It’s loved by Google and customers alike because it provides value and helps.
Content marketing is when companies or businesses (Realtors) create content that helps their ideal customer and provides value for them regularly. You can stay top of mind with your potential customers because they like the content you’re creating and want to read more. When they’re ready to make a purchase, they’re more likely to choose you because you’re a resource for them, but also, they don’t feel like you’re constantly pushing for a sale. You never outright ask for a sale in content marketing. You focus on providing value and serving your Ideal Customer, and in return, sales come.
As a Realtor, you can create any content you’re comfortable creating. You can have a blog, have a YouTube channel, be active on social media, make Reels or TikToks all day, and go live on Facebook or grow a Facebook group. You can also have a website, a blog, or an email list you email each week.
This is going to be up to you, honestly. Which type of content do you like the best? A YouTube channel or blog is probably going to drive the most leads because of search engine optimization (SEO). Still, you can use SEO strategies for your social media channels, too.
YouTube channel content – people love video; it helps them feel connected and as if they’ve gotten to know someone because your personality shines through. They have the opportunity to see you and hear your voice allowing them almost to feel as if they’ve met you before meeting in person. YouTube is also the second-largest search engine, only behind Google, which means there are a TON of searches every day. People are looking for information on buying or selling homes, moving to new cities, etc.
Website content – your website (the one that’s yours, not from your Broker) is an important piece of your content marketing plan and overall business marketing. You want to have information that helps your Ideal Customer on your website. You’ll want to create pages that talk about buying and selling a home; you want to create pages for the communities you work in and focus on; you’ll want to create an opt-in that helps you capture the email addresses of your potential leads so that you can continue to nurture them and develop a relationship with them. Your website content won’t change often. Once you have your Real Estate website up and running and the SEO is done right, you probably won’t change it more than once or twice a year unless you find you need to add a new page.
Blog content – this is the other big opportunity for content marketing. A blog is a great way to get leads for your Real Estate business because every blog post you write is an opportunity for Google to find you and share your information with people searching for what you’re writing about. You’ll want to write blogs on topics that appeal to your Ideal Customer – you’ll want to provide value for your buyers, sellers, farm communities, and maybe even specialty areas.
Social Media – You should use social media as part of your Real Estate content marketing plan. Social media is a great opportunity to be found by new leads and nurture them through videos, DMs, and more. But social media alone isn’t enough because you don’t own your social media followers. The only thing you own is your email list. If the algorithm changes and you suddenly have zero visibility with your followers (it’s happened), your leads will slow down. You want to think of social media as your content promotion and nurturing channel.
You want to create a great opt-in to help your Ideal Customer and offer it on your website, in every applicable blog post, on each YouTube video, or on social media posts. Add the link to your opt-in to your bio in your social media profiles. If you have more than one opt-in, consider building a link landing page on your website or using a service such as Linktree that allows you to create a landing page for your opt-ins and freebies.
Email marketing – as you add people to your email list, you will want to send them an email each week and share your content. If you’re creating YouTube videos, you want to send them to your YouTube channel to see the full video. If you’re blogging, you want to link them to the blog so they can read the post.
There isn’t a best content option here; I always tell my students and clients that the best content is the type that you’re going to enjoy creating and do the most consistently. You’re not going to see results immediately, especially from longer-term investment content such as blogging and YouTube. You will need to have patience both YouTube and your blog rely heavily on SEO (search engine optimization) for success and take time to work, but man, once they start to work, they take off.
Your YouTube or blog content could take up to 12 months to start getting a lot of traffic (sometimes it’s much faster than that, but on average, it’s 12 months), but once it starts, it generally stays high and can continue to drive traffic for years to come. Think of your blog or YouTube channel as a long-term investment account. You put a little bit in each month, and then suddenly, you’re shocked by how much is in there one day. The first time you get an email from a potential customer who says something similar to the one I got this morning,
“Hi, Rachel!
I have listened to quite a lot of your YouTube videos and think that your explanations of SEO are fantastic! I hired a so-called SEO specialist to build my website, and I’m beginning to realize that I need how to learn to do this myself and not rely on someone else whom I don’t think is doing it very well!.
So I am interested in your SEO for real estate course that you mentioned in one of your YouTube videos. Is that open for enrollment?”
It’s all going to be worth it. Wouldn’t that be an exciting email to wake up to? For you, it would be about buying a home, not enrolling in my Real Estate SEO course, but you get it; you’re smart. :)
How do you do content marketing for Real Estate?
Ideally, you want to choose four topic areas that you’ll teach about each month.
Create one piece of content for each of those areas each month. Follow SEO best practices so it gets organic visibility from Google. This process allows you to create content that will address the questions of your Ideal Customer in different stages and markets. A potential buyer needs different information from a potential seller; if you want to work with both, you need to create content for both.
Use your base content – your blog post or YouTube video to create your social media content and your email content. Everything you share across your digital marketing channels should relate to the four topic areas you choose to focus on.
If you’re ready to learn how to do Real Estate content marketing to grow your business, start with my Beginner's SEO Guide and know what to do on your blog or website to ensure they’re ready for Google.