Very few of us decide to blog about real estate out of a burning desire to communicate our thoughts. For many people, the decision to start a blog was based on (a) an advice book (b) a marketing guru (c) an article from Fast Company or some other business or marketing magazine.
Because we don't have a vision for the blog, because it is a chore, we often end up doing the same tired content over and over. Telling people to leave their faucets dripping in the winter, or a process blog on how to prepare your home for sale is not going to get you the traffic you are looking for, and is not going to keep eyes on the page even if they get there.
If you are looking for inspiration for your real estate blog, here are a few ideas to get you started.
1. Personal Story: Many of us are afraid to get too personal in our blogs because we want to stay professional, but a personal narrative, either as the entire blog or as an introductory paragraph or two, is a great way to help you connect with your readers. Here is an example of a personal story on my blog for @home Real Estate Referrals. Note how this small personal story gives me a springboard for talking about the larger issues people might be facing pre-retirement.
2. Niche Focus: One way to think about blogging is communicating with different avatars who you want to reach in your marketing. For one of my blogs, the avatar is a young, professional woman, so I spoke to her in this post about Why Home Ownership Is More Important for Women. It allows me to focus more narrowly, which means there is less content out there for my post to compete with and, when I promote it on social media, it is easy to promote since it is targeted to a specific audience. Your niche may be a certain age group, gender, sexuality, profession, or other focused group. Talk to them specifically about things that concern them. Don't worry that you will miss out on some other people. Just talk to your niche and bring them in.
3. Feature Story: Choose a local businessperson, small business, or event that you know something about and write a feature about them. It could be anything you are interested in or involved with. Perhaps there is a great farmer’s market, a community organization, etc. It shows that you know your market and, again, it’s something that can cross-promote for social media, guest blogging, etc. This allows you to make friends in your community who you can "talk to" on social media, etc. and who will want to promote you as well.
There are so many different possibilities for your blog beyond just the generic Buyer/Seller process blogs. Let me help you create a calendar of blog posts so that you can plan out what you'll write about and when. Then, if you don't enjoy writing yourself, book my 10 Blog package to quickly build content, or to ensure a steady stream of new content. I love Writing about Real Estate and I want to help you use my great, organic content to grow your business!