I’m not a realtor. But I’ve worked with a number of them over the years. They’re competing all the time. Then they have the regular aspects of their job. There isn’t much time for marketing. The ones I’ve worked with are often frustrated because they see their competition creating content for social media and for websites and they wonder how they do it.
There can also be fluctuations in income. Sometimes things can be tight. Spending extra money on marketing can seem daunting. There needs to be return.
Here are some tips on how to make blogging profitable if you’re a realtor.
1. Set A Timeline
Blogging is a long-term marketing strategy. That is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that you have to put a lot of time, energy and money into it to get return. The blessing is that not many are willing to do that so there is opportunity.
If you see that your competition is ignoring blogging, consider their reasons why. Also consider if you prefer writing content. If you don’t, it might be better to focus on something else. Something that might be more competitive. Posting on social media. Posting video. Recording podcasts.
If you are interested in blogging regularly still set a timeline in your head for 6-12 months. I like to tell people to focus on writing 50+ posts the first year. Focus on the creation. Then in Year 2 start looking at the analytics and response and adjust from there.
2. Set Tracking
Definitely set the tracking from the first day of blogging. Or right now if you haven’t. This could be WordPress stats or Google Analytics. You want to see the traffic coming to your site and posts. It’s not a perfect method of tracking, but it usually correlates well with how successful your blog is doing.
3. Set A Frequency
Once a week is probably the floor if you’re looking to make blogging profitable. It depends. If you’re a larger brand you can bring more benefit to a lot of marketing channels just because people know that you exist already. If you’re small it can be difficult to get visibility to a blog at least for awhile. But the more you write the more you learn what works. The better you become at writing. And there is more content for people to discover.
4. Determine CTAs
I like to recommend that your blogging strategy be about question and answer. You identify questions your target customer is asking in relation to your industry and you answer them. That’s what they’re searching for online. This brings in traffic, but it also means the person reading your post may not be in buying mode in the moment they’re on your site.
So asking them to call you on a blog post can work for a small percentage. And that leads to profit. But consider what the next step in the relationship might be. Signing up for email or social media. Or just put your photo, name and logo prominently after the post. This way when they are ready to buy or sell real estate they may likely remember your name and google it and find your homepage.
5. Titles & Strategy
I’ve worked with companies that want to basically write sales copy for their blog posts exclusively. I can’t say I remember one time that it worked.
Don’t get me wrong, I love sales copy. But it belongs on your homepage and other pages on your website where people are looking to buy what you’re selling. I think it belongs in social media profiles. I think it belongs in email newsletters, probably toward the end. And I think it belongs at the end of blog posts.
To make your blog profitable you may need to adjust your title strategy. Again, I like focusing on the questions your target customers are asking and use those to provide the best answers you can. Start with your current customers. I bet you can think of 20 common questions you get. That’s 20 blog posts right there.
Ask for questions on social media. Search on social media for questions. People ask questions all the time online.
6. Snippets
One way to get more out of your blogging content is to create snippets. Write a 500-word blog post and take 2-3 quotes or sections from it. Share those on social media like Facebook and LinkedIn. Even put it on an image for Instagram.
It’s not about putting a link to your post on social anymore. You have to create native content for each channel. But that doesn’t mean you can’t reuse your blog content.
7. Promotion
Many platforms allow you to pay to promote your posts these days. Not necessarily the posts on your own blog, but you can create snippets and promote them. And some platforms even allow you to blog. LinkedIn is like this. You can publish both on your own blog and on LinkedIn. And you can promote it on the platform. And you can get hyper local to only focus on potential customers.
8. Increase Branded Traffic
I mentioned earlier that it is fairly common for someone to discover you via your blog. Then leave your site. Then remember your name and google it and come to your homepage. This is often missed in analytics software. Some, usually paid, software can track this. But many people don’t worry about it. And even the prospect may have forgotten that they read one of your blog posts.
But look at monthly traffic to your homepage especially from organic search. This can be an indication that your blogging and other content efforts are driving profit.
Conclusion
Blogging might not be for you. And that’s okay. But if you’re looking for a long-term way to beat the competition, blogging could be the answer. Most aren’t willing to do it. But you need to have the right expectations and the right strategy. Then blogging can become very profitable.