Low housing inventory means the real estate market is more competitive than ever. Realtors and real estate agencies need to stand above the competition in order to build their client base and secure critical listings.
While billboards, local newspaper ads, and social media ads may help build some awareness and drive traffic as long as you’re paying for them, optimized content will continually reach conversion-ready clients and drive organic search traffic to your site.
One of the best ways to power organic growth is with a content marketing plan based on search engine optimization (SEO) principles.
A content marketing plan is a strategy that outlines how you’ll create and distribute valuable content to attract and retain your target audience. In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of having a content marketing plan for your real estate business and how to create one that is optimized for real estate SEO.
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Why You Need a Content Marketing Plan
A content marketing plan based on SEO principles helps you establish your brand, build trust with your audience, and ultimately drive more leads and sales.
How?
A well-executed content marketing plan includes a strategy for creating content that speaks to your audience’s needs, as well as a plan for promoting that content across various channels.
Combine that with SEO best practices like keyword research and on-page optimization, and you can drive more organic traffic to your website while also repurposing your content for your social channels.
Before You Make a Real Estate Content Marketing Plan…
Before publishing your first post, consider creating a content marketing plan to provide guidelines and systematize your process. Yes, writing and posting whenever you’ve created new content can seem like the first step in implementing a content marketing strategy. However, if you want it to be sustainable, give yourself time to formulate a plan that you can stick to.
Set Goals
First, consider what it is you want to achieve through content marketing. Do you want to generate more leads, increase brand awareness, or establish thought leadership in your industry? Define your goals clearly so you can measure your success and adjust your strategy as needed. Our post on SEO goals can help get you started here.
Identify Your Audience
Next, think about who you’re writing for — i.e., who is your target audience? What are their needs, wants, and pain points? Understanding your audience is essential for creating content that resonates with them and drives engagement.
As a real estate agent, you probably don’t have just one singular audience. Especially if you function as both a seller’s agent and a buyer’s agent. Knowing more about each segment can help you pinpoint the topics they most care about and create content they’re excited to read.
To identify your target audience, start by looking at your current customer base. Who are your current clients? What do they have in common? Use this information to create a profile of your ideal customer. You can also use tools like Google Analytics and social media insights to gather information about your audience’s demographic information, interests, and behavior.
Now you can start thinking about where you’ll reach your audience.
Nail Down Channels
We’ve all published a blog post or a LinkedIn post and heard crickets. There are a variety of reasons a post may fail to gain traction, including using the wrong channels. If you focus on Twitter while your commercial real estate clients are all on LinkedIn, there’s a good chance your posts will go unseen.
To avoid this, research your audience to learn more about their habits and what platforms they engage with. This will help you determine how best to distribute your content so you can achieve the goals you’ve set out.
Set Up Measurement Tools
Let’s tie up our pre-planning with a nice bow: If you want to know whether your content is helping you achieve your goals, you need to be tracking its effectiveness. If you’ve done your homework, you already have clear, measurable goals. Now it’s time to set up the analytics tools like Google Analytics that will help you monitor your site’s performance. If your goals are related to social engagement, make sure your current posting platform offers the metrics and insights you want.
Your analytics will help you:
- Identify trends and patterns, allowing you to create more targeted and effective content.
- Measure ROI so you can make informed decisions about where to invest your resources.
- Optimize your strategy with data-driven insights into what’s working and what isn’t.
As you start working out your plan, keep everything you’ve learned about your goals, audience, and channels in mind. This will help keep you on the right track. Use the metrics to verify that the track you’ve chosen is indeed the one that will help you achieve your goals. If your content isn’t moving the needle (i.e., your metrics aren’t improving), then reassess your strategy to identify potential roadblocks.
Vital Ingredients for a Sizzling Real Estate Content Marketing Plan
Ok, now that we’ve gotten through the nitty-gritty, it’s time to jump into the fun stuff: Content ideation and creation.
Topic Ideation: What Should You Write About?
With your audience in mind, it’s time to start thinking about what you want to talk about and how to best present it.
When brainstorming topic ideas, focus on the questions and concerns your target audience has. What information do they need to know? What problems do they need help solving? Use these questions to create a list of topics that will be valuable and relevant to your audience.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Neighborhood and community guides: Content that highlights local neighborhoods, schools, and amenities can be valuable for home buyers and sellers interested in specific areas.
- Listings and property tours: Visual content that showcases properties, such as photos and videos, can help generate interest and drive leads.
- How-to guides and tips: Educational content that provides advice on buying, selling, and maintaining a home can be helpful for both current and potential clients.
- Market reports and trends: Data-driven content that provides insights into the real estate market can help establish thought leadership and build trust with clients.
- Testimonials and success stories: Content that highlights client success stories and testimonials can help establish credibility and build confidence with potential clients.
- Virtual tours and 3D models: In the era of COVID-19, virtual tours and 3D models have become increasingly popular, offering a safe and convenient way for potential buyers to view properties.
- Podcasts and webinars: Audio and video content such as podcasts and webinars can provide valuable information and insights to clients and prospects.
Remember to localize your content when possible. If you’re focused on the Tampa area, for example, your market reports or community guides should be for Tampa, Tampa Bay, Hillsborough County, etc.
(You can even ask ChatGPT for content ideas. Use these writing prompts to flesh out your narratives.)
Keyword Research & SEO
Social media and email newsletters reach people who already know about your services. If you want to grow your audience, you need to reach people who have never heard of you or who haven’t yet considered your services.
That’s where SEO comes in. Incorporating SEO and keyword research into your real estate content marketing plan can help you improve your search visibility and drive new leads to your site.
There are several tools available for conducting keyword research. Check out our list to pinpoint the best keyword research tool for you and pick up the basics for how to do keyword research.
When choosing keywords for your content, keep the following in mind:
- Search intent: Why are people running the search? What is it they’re looking for?
- Search volume: How many people search for this term monthly?
- Keyword Difficulty: How hard is it to rank for this keyword?
- Relevance to your audience: Is your audience interested in this topic?
When picking keywords, don’t ignore long-tail keywords. These keywords are typically less competitive and more targeted, making them easier to rank for. They may have a lower volume, but they are high intent.
Once you’ve found some good seed keywords, transform them into keyword themes, and then use those primary and secondary keywords naturally in your content, page title, meta description, h1, and alt text. Keyword themes rely on semantically related words and phrases and help you avoid over-optimizing content while creating more ranking opportunities.
Content Creation
Finally! We’re at the point where you can start typing away to draft your content. When creating a piece around a keyword, start by looking to see what’s already out there and brainstorm a unique take you can put on the topic. Use your research to create a brief and outline.
Use these resources to flesh out your topic:
I find an outline helps me structure my thoughts and get into the writing groove more easily. Plus, you can easily work my next tip right into your outline.
Format for Readability
Formatting your content for readability is important for keeping your audience engaged and making your content easy to consume.
- Use subheadings to break up your content and make it easier to scan.
- Add bullet points to highlight important information and make your content easier to read.
- Write short paragraphs to make your content more digestible.
Follow SEO Best Practices
And of course, in the magnificent haze of writing, don’t forget to follow SEO best practices. Here are some key ones to keep top of mind when creating content:
- Integrate keywords naturally. Use semantically-related terms. Keywords should appear in your h1 and subheadings.
- Use relevant keywords in your title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text.
- Add internal links to help search engines understand the structure of your website and the relationships between your pages. Linking to relevant content makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site.
Incorporate Visuals
Visuals can be a powerful tool for capturing your audience’s attention and making your content more engaging. When appropriate, add high-quality images or videos to your posts. I’m not for images for the sake of images — if an image will help you get your point across, then include one.
If you choose to add videos to your site, include a transcript. This will help search crawlers understand what your video is about. And if you want to focus on video, make sure to check out our video SEO tips.
Consistently Create or Update Content
Consistency is key when it comes to content marketing. By creating and publishing content on a regular basis, you can build momentum and keep your audience engaged over time.
To create a winning real estate content marketing plan, you need a repeatable process. Understand what your resources are and how much you can allocate to this project. Then, create a content calendar to plan and organize your content in advance. You don’t just have to focus on net-new content. Create a cadence for updating your most important posts. Google loves fresh content, and keeping your high-traffic content up to date will help it keep ranking well.
A note: In terms of frequency, more is not always better. Consistency is more important. If you can commit to publishing a blog post once a week, great! If once every other week is currently more feasible for you, awesome — do that.
Content Promotion
Once you’ve invested time and effort into something great, show it off! After hitting publish, share your piece on social media and in your email marketing. You can even repurpose the content and spin it into multiple social media posts, infographics, and videos.
Social Media
Social media has become a go-to for content distribution. Remember, you don’t need to be on all the platforms. Maximize your efforts by being selective and curating your content on the platforms your target audience uses most. And of course, don’t just post and run. Engage with your audience — respond to comments and messages and build relationships to increase brand loyalty. Today’s buyer could be tomorrow’s seller!
Email Marketing
Email marketing is another powerful tool for promoting your content and reaching your target audience. Due to evolving social media algorithms, there’s no guarantee your followers will see your posts. If you build a strong email list, though, you can easily share your new content with them via a personalized newsletter. Don’t forget to use clear calls to action to encourage your audience to take action, such as visiting your website or contacting you for more information.
Measuring Success
You’ve amplified your content and shared it across a variety of platforms. Now what?
In addition to continuing your content creation process, you should also start tracking what you’ve put out into the world.
Measuring the success of your real estate content marketing plan is crucial to determining its effectiveness and making informed decisions about your strategy moving forward. Here are some key metrics to track:
- Website traffic: Track the number of visitors to your new pages.
- Engagement: Monitor how many likes, shares, comments, and other forms of engagement your content receives across social media platforms.
- Leads generated: Keep track of the number of leads generated through your content marketing efforts, whether it’s through form submissions or phone calls.
- Conversion rate: Measure the percentage of leads that actually turn into clients or customers.
- ROI: Determine the return on investment for your content marketing efforts by comparing the cost of producing the content to the revenue generated from those efforts. You’ll need to wait a bit before starting this one since the results won’t be instantaneous.
By tracking these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into what’s working and what’s not.
Get Help With Your Real Estate SEO
Whether you want to rank higher across the board or want to outsource your content writing, Victorious can help. Our real estate SEO services and SEO content writing services can help you gain more local search visibility and connect with potential buyers and sellers in your area. Schedule a free SEO consultation to learn more.
