By Ellie Shaw
Today, most people start the search for their dream property online. Whether it’s sifting through property listings, scanning social media or reading an article about what to look for in a house viewing, the internet is a powerful tool that instantly connects buyers to properties – so it only makes sense that estate agents are doing everything they can to utilise it.
One of the most useful and (sometimes overlooked) tools for generating new leads and attracting new visitors to your website is your blog. If your website doesn’t have a property marketing blog packed full of insightful, interesting content, you’re really missing a trick – and you’re likely missing out on lots of potential new vendors too.
Companies that produce blogs generate 88% more leads per month than those that don’t, and websites with blogs have 434% more indexed pages. In a nutshell, blogging is incredibly important in order to generate a steady stream of traffic to your real estate website, and an effective way to reach new people while generating more leads. If you’re struggling to generate organic leads, you need to be blogging – there are no two ways about it.
However, this doesn’t mean that your blog should be filled with any old content. You want to produce articles that are educational, insightful and beneficial for your readers – articles that target the right keywords and really speak to your audience. The very last thing you want is to produce repetitive copy that says the same thing – or worse still, duplicate content.
Duplicate content is content that appears on the internet in multiple places. Basically, if the same content appears on more than one web address, it’s classed as duplicate content – and this can have a huge impact on search engine rankings.
Search engines don’t like duplicate content. In fact, all search engines strive to show only one single version of a page to its users; the last thing they want is for users to be bombarded with the exact same content over and over again. They want to provide the very best search experience possible, and therefore they very rarely show multiple versions of the same content. Generally, search engines only show the first version of a page that was published and ignores duplicates.
So, if you’re copying your content from another site or publishing copy that already exists at a different URL, you’re effectively damaging your website. Your content won’t be visible in search engines. Not only does this mean that your real estate website will suffer rankings and traffic losses, but your content won’t achieve the search visibility it otherwise would – in other words, you’re pretty much wasting your time. Each piece of content you produce needs to be unique, new and fresh.
If you’re wondering how to avoid duplicate content, here’s a few things you can do.
Using your blog to generate more leads and attract more people to your website is smart, but it’s absolutely crucial that each blog post you publish is unique. It should never be copied or duplicated and you should not be able to find your content on another website. Instead, all content should be completely fresh – as well as insightful and engaging, of course!
As we mentioned above, your blog is one of the single most effective tools for generating new leads – but if users can’t see your content when they search, it’s not going to be doing much for you. A great way to ensure that you’re publishing unique, insightful content regularly is to get some content marketing specialists on board (especially if you don’t have the time to do it yourself). A reliable company that specialises in real estate marketing can provide you with fresh, search engine optimised content for your blog to make sure that you’re showing up on search engines and attracting as many people as possible to your site.
As your MLS board sends the exact same data to every real estate website in the area, property listings are technically adding duplicate content to the site. Therefore, the more listings your website has, the more pages of duplicate content it has too – and of course, this can be problematic for your website’s visibility.
The best way to combat this issue is to limit the number of listings on your site. In fact, a real estate website with only 250 listings is more likely to have those listings rank than a website for 2,500 listings. Aim to focus your website on the areas you serve; this will leave you with a site that is more concentrated and more visible – leading to more traffic.
Your content may be unique, but you could still run into duplicate content issues if you have separate versions of your real estate website. If your site has separate versions (for example, “www.yoursite.com” and “yoursite.com” – both with and without the “www” prefix) and you have the same content on both of these versions, this will be classed as duplicate content. You don’t want the same content living on both versions of your website, as this just means that you’re creating duplicates of each page.
This applies to websites that have versions at both http:// and https:// too. If both versions of a page are live and visible, you’re likely going to run into a duplicate content issue – and both versions will no longer be visible in search engines.
Finding the time and resources to create fresh, regular content for your real estate blog can be challenging, and producing content that is engaging and inspiring, yet search engine optimised, requires skill. At Property Webmasters, we can help take the pressure off.
We provide content marketing services for estate agents worldwide, helping to build brand awareness and ensure that your content is appearing in search engines. As we discussed above, your content is the backbone of your business – it’s an effective way to generate new leads and create a steady stream of traffic to your website, so it’s important to have some experts on board to help you make the most of it.
With over 30 years of experience working in the property industry, you can rely on us to deliver first-rate content marketing services for your business. Our services are tailored to help boost your traffic, conversion and revenue. You never need to worry about duplicate blog posts when you work with us; our team will always provide you with fresh, engaging content that gets your audience talking.
Contact us today to find out more about how we can help!
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