Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Gone are the days when several articles in well ranked sites, some directories listings and a site with great content were enough. Content marketing was a trend a few years ago and is not something everyone does, including real estate professionals and real estate companies. This means that it gets harder and harder to make it in the SEO world, to generate traffic, to have your website appear in the first ten results in search engines and so on.
The content marketing can be a useful tool for realtors to do SEO for their business – if done properly. There are many channels one can use and the benefits are visible.
As an infographic from Brafton (included below) reveals, people and businesses are influenced by content before making a purchase. The percentages are quite impressive actually: in the B2B (business-to-business) area, 99% said the content affects purchase decisions, while 27% said it has a major effect; in the B2C (business-to-consumer) part, 88% of US consumers research products online before purchasing them. How does this apply to the real estate domain? It is obvious that, when buying a home, people look up information on-line: data about the area, previous owners maybe, information about the community, amenities, schools, etc. Homebuyers want properties that accommodate their needs: neighborhoods with families with children or quitter ones, areas with kindergartens or schools nearby or some only with houses and a hypermarket/mall close enough – and so on. Given the constantly increasing number of people expressing on-line their opinions and sharing their experiences (social media, blogs, articles sent to various magazines) it is impossible not to find relevant information on almost any topic, and the real estate domain is no exception to the rule.
Creating valuable content, relevant for your target audience and potential clients has a number of benefits: from the SEO ones (detailed below in the infographic as well) to the traffic generating ones, from personal branding and thought leadership to gaining trust and credibility. Don’t forget that regardless of the value of the content, it is always important to promote it – social media channels, even articles directories are great ideas.
Yes, indeed, it's always a good idea to repurpose content, Ben:)
Another use for the content you create? Package it in short "how to guides" and checklists and offer it on lead-generating "squeeze pages". It can help to generate more buyer and seller leads.
Good infographic here on using content with these lead pages:
It's a proven method of lead generating in real estate and just about any business/industry.