Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Keeping your real estate blog fresh with interesting market information and engaging content is extremely beneficial for both home buyers in your area, as well as all the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Just as it does with readers, frequent blogging gives search engines another optimized web page to read, ultimately giving your website yet another opportunity for buyers to find your pages and just one more way to achieve a high page rank. But with so much search engine optimization emphasis now being placed on content, just how much content is enough when it comes to blogging?
photo credit: Scott Beale via photopin cc
One thing real estate website administrators need to realize is that while more content is always better in terms of search engine optimization purposes, home buyers viewing your blog rarely have time to read each and every one of your blogs with hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of words.
Instead, heavy content is better served for your actual web pages rather than your blog posts. Should you have a web page solely dedicated to a condo building, neighborhood, or community for example, this is the space you should focus on providing relevant information and quality content about such properties or areas in your market. Blogs on the other hand, should give readers quick tidbits of information and discuss topics relating to market news, events, or various other community happenings that may be of interest to clients, residents in the area, or potential home buyers.
In terms of length, writing at least 250 words is the best practice to get the most SEO benefit out of a blog post, while the general recommendation is to limit each post to fewer than 500 words. In general, readers will tend to finish a blog post in full if it’s between 400 and 600 words, but depending on the topic, writing style, and of course the quality of writing, it also isn’t unlikely for readers to stick with a post that’s much longer.
The bottom line when it comes to blog length is this: your real estate blog is your space to express your thoughts, opinions, and inside information when it comes to the local real estate market. Blog length guidelines are there to help your blog be as successful as possible, but the fact remains, they’re just guidelines—not rules. So regardless of how long—or short—your real estate blogs may be, just make sure you’re blogging on a frequent and consistent basis and length really won't matter. And just for your information, this blog post comes in at 431 words.
Joe Heath is a graduate of Indiana University and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Real Estate Development from Drexel University. After working as a Market Research Associate at Hanley Wood Market Intelligence in Chicago, Joe now works as a Web Marketing Specialist and is a managing partner at Real Estate Web Creation, LLC.
