Knowing how to write a blog post can be tricky, but as long as you get the basics right, your content has more chances of performing well online. Discover how estate agents can write great-quality blog posts below.
Content is an important factor of any website because it contributes to your organic ranking ability. Having high-quality content that’s interesting to read and is useful to your audience is far better than creating boring pieces of text primarily written with the sole purpose of being found by search engines. Google is becoming increasingly more aware of companies trying to rank for a specific search term, which is why you’re more likely to gain a higher position if you simply write for your audience rather than for the web.
If you have a lot of property knowledge, why not share it with the world? Writing a blog post for your website could potentially persuade someone to buy a property with you, so it’s always worth doing if it’s going to generate more business. Writing the perfect estate agency blog post doesn’t have to be difficult. We’ve outlined some tips and tricks below.
The amount of quality, useful content in your blog could be the difference between ranking on the first page of Google, the second page or even worse. It’s important to put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients or readers and think about what they would like to know in order to solve their queries. If you solve their queries, this will build trust for your brand. Ideally, every new post on your website should be at least 1,000 words long. That may sound like a lot, but in reality, the more useful content you provide and the more time you take to write it, the better it will be received.
Ever stumbled on a blog post that you initially thought was interesting, but then discover that it just consists of large blocks of boring text? That’s what users will think of your blog post if you don’t structure it well. Adding what we call heading tags to your content enables the reader to skim the document and find exactly what they are looking for.
Heading tags are part of the HTML code that is placed around text on a website to distinguish them as headings. Don’t worry if this sounds complicated, because it isn’t! The title of your blog post should already be a Heading 1 (H1), then any headings within the content will be a H2. Any headings within that H2 should be tagged as a H3 and so on. Keep this in mind next time you write a blog post as search engines will recognise the structure easier than if you made your headings bold.
Every blog post should include Meta Data. If you don’t already know, Meta Data is a title and description that can be added to your blog post – or any other page for that matter – which provides a summary of what the page is about. It’s also what appears within the results pages of search engines, allowing people to know straight away whether your content matches their search query. When people are searching for something in Google, if your blog post is relevant to the user’s search intent, Google will more likely show this above other content and your Meta Data will persuade the user to click through to your website.
Have you ever read a piece of content and picked up on the usage of the same word, phrase or term time and time again? Forcing keywords into blog posts was an old technique applied by webmasters in an attempt to gain the top spot on Google. However, its long-term effects can see that page dramatically drop down the rankings. It can be tricky to avoid repeating the same thing, but you’ve got to get a little creative and use variations of it within your copy. Google has the ability to recognise similar search terms and phrases, so there’s no need to use the exact same wording as it will appear unnatural and spammy to readers.
When it comes to writing a blog post, an important thing to remember is that spelling and grammar matters. While it may not directly impact SEO, readers will quickly pick up on typos and errors within the content. And if you think about it, that’s who you’re writing your blog post for. Bad spelling and grammar can lead people to turn away from your business as it could be a signal of distrust. If you want your audience to see you as an honest, reputable estate agency, then having grammatically correct content is a must. Always remember to check your content before it goes live, and then check and check again just to be sure.
Top tip: Avoid using jargon and keep your wording fairly simple – readers may not fully understand the terms you often use in business so it’s best to write blog posts that they are going to be able to read without them having to go off and search for the meaning of words every couple of sentences.
To combat any concerns you may have, there is a useful browser plugin you can use called Grammarly that can point out mistakes, even if you have proofread your blog post multiple times. You can find out more about Grammarly and download the extension here>
To ensure your content isn’t visually boring and to give it a better structure, you should include relevant images and videos within your content. This will provide the user with more to look at than just text and it will tell search engines that you are providing useful media, as well as content.
So you have got your content, your headings, images and videos, what else could there possibly be? Well, if you write content that can naturally link to other pages of your website, you should make the text a hyperlink! You can also do the same for an external website, but only if it’s going to be useful to the reader. In most cases, you should be able to highlight the text you want to link, then in the options at the top of the content click on the link icon and add your chosen URL. This will allow readers to click on it and be redirected to another page.
Note: On WordPress, if you want to open the link in a new window so users don’t stray away from your content, simply click the settings cog icon next to the pencil and click the option for ‘Open link in a new tab’. Doing this enables users to easily come back to your blog post.
If you want to sell more properties in certain areas, why not write a guide about them? That way you can link to some of your top properties to provide a better overall user experience.
Being a local estate agency, you will know what the property market is like. Why not share this with potential buyers to build trust and show that you are the experts who people should buy a property with.
It’s good to talk about market trends, but that information may not be unique to your company. Since you are the professional estate agent, talk about what these latest property market trends mean to you and how it could affect people buying or renting property (good or bad).
Got a client who was over the moon about the service you provided? Ask them if you can talk about this on your website and get some useful quotes off them to include in your article. This is a great way of building trust with people who visit your website for the first time.
Whatever subject you choose to post about, it should be something that your readers can refer back to time and time again. Creating evergreen content – content that is continually relevant – will be useful to your audience no matter what time of day, month or year it is. Now that’s not to say you shouldn’t be posting about time-relevant topics, because of course you should be doing that too. But what’s important is to post engaging pieces of content that can remain relevant.
If you are looking to improve your online presence and beat the competition with optimised blog posts and other useful digital marketing tools, please get in touch with Property Webmasters today! We know how to market property the right way!
By Ben Spowart
By Ben Spowart
By James Sheldon