4 Real Estate Blogging Ideas To DOMINATE Your Market
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Originally Posted On: https://inboundrem.com/real-estate-blogging-ideas/
Types of Real Estate Blog Ideas
Generally speaking, it’s smart to take a two-pronged approach to your blog content strategy. The very best real estate blog ideas focus either on lead generation or broad engagement.
We provide excellent model articles for each kind of real estate blog topic. We break down what makes each piece of content exceptional. Once you know how to match the quality of each article, we explain how to surpass it.
Lead Generation Posts
Lead generation posts are self-explanatory. They get prospects knocking on your digital door. However, these kinds of real estate blog ideas often focus on quite niche topics (or long-tail keywords in SEO speak) and may not generate lots of traffic and user interaction.
By user interaction, I mean things like clicks, comments, shares, newsletter sign-ups, and most importantly, backlinks. Also sometimes called votes, backlinks are when other websites link to your website. The more authoritative the website, the more valuable the backlink. In the SEO world, we often call this SEO juice.
Broad Engagement Posts
On the other hand, engagement posts fill the role of generating interaction. They signal to Google that your website is authoritative, helpful, and appreciated. Of course, the Google algorithm doesn’t track or care how much of your traffic converts to commissions. It measures the value of your site according to the metrics listed above, as well as a thousand others.
The more interaction on your website, the more valuable it becomes in Google’s eyes. In turn, that boosts your lead generation articles even higher, resulting in more leads.
Best Blog Ideas for Real Estate Lead Generation
1. Neighborhood Guides
There was a time when simple neighborhood pages generated leads. Now the game has changed. Neighborhood guides need to include lots of helpful content.
Paige Martin produces probably the best Neighborhood pages and perhaps the real estate blog content in the world.
Her articles are perfect examples of evergreen content that provide choice information, drive insane traffic, and generate a wealth of leads. Each article dominates the search results, usually ranking #1 for the focus keyword and every related keyword.
Here’s an example from her Tanglewood, Houston Neighborhood Guide.
What’s Great About This Article
It’s Extremely Comprehensive (Must Read)
Every HP neighborhood guide is so developed that they also function as eBooks. In fact, she creates downloadable PDF versions of each article, a clever repurposing of the content that gets clicks and email signups.
Her content is so comprehensive, she even has to use a different format for the Table of Contents to make it more scannable.
Paige’s neighborhood guides are typically 3000-5000 words, divided into these sections:
- Neighborhood Overview/Highlights
- Multiple Maps
- Downloadable PDF Guide
- IDX Listings with Large, Beautiful Photos
- Contact Form with Her Headshot & Awards
- Things Buyers Should Know
- Detailed Location Breakdown
- Social Proof (Recent Awards & Reviews)
- Nearby Neighborhoods
- Property and Scenic Photos
- Detailed School Breakdowns
- 10-Year Real Estate Trends (Including Charts & Graphs)
- Property Sale Trends (Single-Family, Condos & Townhouses)
- Neighborhood History
- Things to Do (Dining, Nightlife, Parks, Shopping, Groceries)
- Related HP Article Cards (Example Below)
Can you create an equally impressive article without a team of graphic designers, coders, and writers? It’s doubtful.
Leverage This Real Estate Blog Idea
But with WordPress and Elementor, you can produce a close approximation of this article that can still dominate the search results. Contact forms, related article bars, downloadable PDF bars, slideshow-style review bars, and many other features are available on Elementor.
The formatting, stylization, and graphic design of HP articles is pretty flawless. But those elements have little to do with SEO, apart from encouraging readers to stay on page and easy navigation.
The clean design also demonstrates professionalism, which can help with generating leads, especially for luxury real estate. But far less aesthetic websites produce a flood of leads.
For now, take the sections above as a model for your neighborhood guides. Try not to skimp even if you have zero competition. Ideally you create an article that will be the most comprehensive resource for the next 5 years.
Think of it this way–you want to create content so good that your competitors hesitate to create similar content. Include lots of external links, for example to the websites for local condos and schools. Fortunately, you should be able to easily compile all of the recommended information.
This is one area where Houston Properties outshines the competition. Maps, local scenery photos, listing photos, realtor and client headshots, related articles with featured images, graphs, and tables elevate this article significantly.
Large blocks of text bore and overwhelm readers, while a variety of visual elements provide value and encourage readers to keep reading. Plus they have SEO benefits, which we cover in the On-Page SEO section in the step-by-step blog writing guide below.
Loads of Social Proof (Must Read)
Aim to include as many of the same kinds of visual elements as possible.
Obviously Paige has LOTS of social proof to leverage. However, you do not need to be an award-winning realtor to optimize a comprehensive neighborhood resource into a lead generation machine. But if you have it, flaunt it!
Practically every realtor should be able to collect convincing customer reviews, ideally including at least a few with portraits. Like Paige, you should intersperse these throughout the article. Provide a block or three of useful content followed by social proof. Then repeat.
Related Real Estate Blog Idea Hacks
Another super clever tactic is a slideshow of customer reviews. This encourages visitors to click and interact with the article, which is increasingly paramount to SEO.
Beyond client reviews, you can express your USP and core values at the bottom of the article. It may be wise to create a block of content similar to HP’s “Our Commitment” section and provide client reviews proving each point.
It’s also highly effective to include your face as much as possible. In this article, Paige has 4 professional, smiling headshots. It’s the next best thing to a video.
Personally, if I was a direct competitor to Houston Properties, I would create a 10-15 minute neighborhood tour video and place it near the top of the article. Then I would create a 2-5 minute personal introduction video and place it at the bottom.
How to Outperform This Article
I talk extensively about the INSANE power of neighborhood video tours. For now, suffice it to say that even low-budget videos elevate an article from an encyclopedic resource to a window into real life.
Video does a better job of convincing people to contact you than any other website feature. The introduction video on my homepage has generated over a million dollars in sales.
Houston Properties creates near flawless content. The one chink in their armor is a lack of video marketing. Apart from spending tens of thousands on backlinks, it’s the only way you could outperform such a powerhouse article if Houston was your market.
IDX Map Listings are another great resource that Houston Properties lacks. Here’s an example from Cabo Real Estate Services.
The above IDX Map is a feature available exclusively to my clients. It’s one of the many ways we can elevate a real estate website to a whole new level. To find out more about how we can create a powerhouse website for you that generates leads year after year, give me a ring!
Sugarloaf Country Club Neighborhood Guide
A client of mine specializes in golf course homes. The neighborhood pages include lots of detailed information about the local golf courses for each neighborhood, including tee times, rates, and info on the course layout.
Their website traffic increased 3000% from these pages, and they are generating so many leads that we’ve lost count.
Take this as a great case study for your efforts. Select unique aspects of a neighborhood, and provide as much info as you can. Is there a local school? Mention the sports and academics, sure, but also the parking, outstanding teachers, and every little detail you can find.
In this case, the article is even more specialized. It covers information about a specific golf course, Sugarloaf Country Club. From this page alone, the Farkas Real Estate Group gets around 650 monthly visitors. It even outranks the official country club website!
What’s Great About This Article
Check out the Sugarloaf Country Club article from Atlanta Dream Living.
The article includes an interactive map, property listings, a clickable image carousel, and well-displayed links for local hospitals, schools, and services. The clickability of the article is probably the main reason it outranks the official country club website.
I can’t say it enough–Google’s algorithm prioritizes user interaction more and more. It’s essential that blog articles include numerous features that invite visitors to engage with the content.
Pro Tip: Set the timer on your image carousels to slow intervals. On ADL’s Sugarloaf Country Club page, the images change about every 5 seconds. That’s a bit longer than people are willing to wait to see the next image. Accordingly, visitors click 10-15 times to power through the images. Then Google’s eyes turn into red cartoon hearts.
How To Outperform This Article
The article only includes about 400 words of text, which is relatively few. In this case, it’s enough because the competition isn’t fierce.
But if you wanted to outperform it, the first step after matching the interactive elements would be to include more textual content. In particular, the additional content should pivot around local properties, rather than the club itself.
Because 1200 people search for “sugarloaf country club homes for sale” each month, it would be worthwhile to do a video tour of the course. And who knows? Perhaps asking permission from the owner would lead to a mutually beneficial relationship.
2. Local Real Estate Niches Articles
Los Angeles Victorian Homes
So far we’ve covered neighborhood guides. Another excellent blog topic is anything related to your real estate niche. Take this article on Victorian homes from Ruby Home. It generates 2500 monthly visitors. It ranks #1 for the keyword “Victorian homes in Los Angeles”, for which 50 people search every month.
Beyond that, it reaches at least 2500 people every month with information on Victorian homes. This broad net means that it also functions as an engagement blog article, which we cover below.
What’s Great About This Article
Check out the Victorian Homes in Los Angeles article from Ruby Home.
What’s Great About This Article
Check out the Victorian Homes in Los Angeles article from Ruby Home.
Typically speaking, blog articles should be at least 2000 words. However, local real estate niche pages can be an exception. They used to rank well with only a couple lines of text, so this 1000-word article is relatively robust.
Another rule of thumb you can use is to create a blog article with at least 1000 words and at least 25% more words than the longest competitor article.
The Ruby Home article includes key information like which LA neighborhoods are the best for Victorian home shopping, a tutorial on how to analyze online listings, and a brief history of Victorian homes in Los Angeles.
Strong Calls-To-Action (Must Read)
A Call To Action is an invitation to the reader to take a further step of contact. It could be writing an email, downloading a resource, signing up for a newsletter, and a hundred other things.
This article has two CTAs. The first is at the top, inviting the reader to sign up for a free account so they can receive real-time updates about new listings. It’s a tempting offer, as all CTAs should be.
The second CTA is at the bottom, informing readers that Ruby Home realtors are ready to assist readers with buying or selling a home.
I would note that the vast majority of people reading this article are more interested in buying a home rather than selling one. It would have been smarter to spend more time trying to hook homebuyers.
A juicy, relevant statistic like “Ruby Home realtors have helped hundreds of people buy Victorian homes in Los Angeles for 7% less than the average listing price compared to other agencies,” would have been the cherry on top of this CTA.
MLS Listings (Including a Map)
The system that allows realtors to integrate MLS listings onto their website is called an IDX (Internet Data Exchange).
It can be a little complicated, but it’s not impossible to learn. For a real estate niche page related to actual listings, it’s essential if you want to rank and drive leads. Of course, this is one of those complex tasks that a real estate digital marketing company can take off your hands.
InboundREM’s claim to fame is providing clients with amazing long-term ROI. Agents typically don’t track exactly where every lead comes from. One rare exception is Dean Short, a client of mine who enjoyed a 3:1 ROI after 18 months during COVID. Now that the epidemic has subsided, his agency is on track to have a 12:1 ROI next year.
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It’s important to avoid keyword stuffing, but it’s still smart to place your focus keyword and related keyword phrases in headings. Many neighborhood pages that are smart enough to include a significant text fail to organize that text according to headings.
In this case, the article has 5 headings:
- Los Angeles Victorian Homes for Sale
- Available Victorian Homes
- About Victorian Homes
- Victorian Home Search
- LA Victorian Home Realtors
The use of the phrase “Victorian Home” in all 5 headings is not the best practice. It would be better to replace 1-2 headings with the phrases “Victorian Properties” or “Victorian Listings”. But generally speaking, the use of varied phrases in several H2 or H3 headings is a great way to stand above the competition.
How To Outperform This Article
Neighborhood Video Tours (Must Read)
Real estate video marketing is the present and future of a powerhouse lead funnel. Google loves it because readers spend several minutes on your article. Readers love it because they don’t have time to visit every neighborhood and check out the vibe. It’s a massively valuable feature.
Unfortunately, agents often hesitate to get on camera. But that actually spells a great opportunity for you.
I can almost guarantee that agents who make a series of neighborhood tours videos will consider it one of the best lead generation moves they ever made.
They work and work and work. Check out the User Interaction section for a beginner’s guide on making neighborhood tour videos. As an example of an easy-to-make, low-budget Los Angeles neighborhood tour video, check out this content from Christophe Choo.
3. Financial and Tax Information
You may be surprised to hear that many potential clients do not have access to this information, especially in a highly-readable format. People get frustrated because they can’t get a straight answer from anybody, and that’s a huge opportunity for you.
Important sub-topics include property tax, sales tax, inheritance rules, and whatever topics affect your niche and area specifically. For example, if you sell mountain homes around Asheville, you’ll want to write a blog post on vacation home taxes.
I have a client in Atlanta that at times generates 30-40 qualified leads off a single blog post in a month.
Farkas Guide to Property Taxes in Atlanta
When you first look at this article from Farkas Real Estate Group, you may not be extremely impressed. It’s relatively simple.
But it also generates insane leads. Read on to find out how and how you can take this amazing real estate blog idea and top it.
What’s Great About This Article
The content is digestible because it provides answers in terms of statistics, calculations, and FAQs. Beyond the basic formula for calculating property taxes, the article answers related questions like when taxes are due and how you can pay them online.
Many real estate finance topics have simple answers that give way to plenty of other questions. When writing these kinds of articles, it’s best to anticipate as many of these concerns as possible. Try to cover these topics in no fewer than four H2 (main article heading) sections.
How To Outperform This Article
In fact, this particular article is fairly basic and has lots of room for improvement. The fact that it ranks well and generates lots of leads is a testament to the cleverness of region-specific financial articles.
Google would favor the article more highly if the FAQs were built into dropdown boxes and the calculations included a calculator. You want visitors clicking as much as possible on your article.
A simple way to bolster your content is providing 2-3 examples that at least reflect real life situations. Across all your content, strive to include specifics over generalities and real life examples over theory.
The article would greatly benefit from an excellent CTA section. I say “section” because Calls-to-Action should be more than text. They should include colorful graphic design, headshots, sign-up buttons, and the whole nine yards.
Ruby Home Guide to California Closing Costs
Another powerhouse financial-topic blog piece is this article on California closing costs from Ruby Home.
What’s Great About This Article
1000 words is a decent length for a topic with a fairly straightforward answer. People searching for this information surely want to know the simple answer: 2-3% for homebuyers and 5-9% for sellers.
Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a simple question that raises many others. What exactly is the client paying for? What are seller concessions? Are there any costs specific to California that experienced homebuyers from out of state might not expect?
Conversion Hacks
You get the gist. But let’s still take a step further. It’s important to raise and answer questions that allow you to demonstrate your value as an agent. For example, how can closing costs be mitigated by a savvy realtor?
For an article like this one, that’s the million dollar question. You may even want to find a way to incorporate it into your title:
“Closing Costs In California: Complete Guide + How to Cut Costs By 15%”
First, everybody that clicks on your article is going to read that section. Everybody wants to save money.
Second, it puts you in a position where you can switch your writing style. Instead of an expository writing style, you can begin “speaking” directly to the reader. Tell them how you’ve saved money for a past client. Reference your negotiation skills and then pivot to an invitation to get in touch.
Internal links are hyperlinks that direct readers to other articles on your own website. It keeps people on your website longer, taking them further down the lead funnel.
It also signals to Google that people love your content. Never underestimate the long-term SEO benefits of getting people to interact with your article. The case study article above has 6 opportunities for visitors to click on related articles. It’s a mark to aim for and even beat if possible.
A strong mix of relatively short paragraphs and bullet point lists are essential to almost every blog article. In addition with clear headings, they make your article scannable. Giant blocks of text scare away readers.
How to Outperform This Article
A lot of online content is written very generally, but people crave real-life examples. It makes your information more helpful and you more authoritative. A few real cost breakdowns for different price points, organized in a clear table, would go a long way to differentiate you from competitors.
You can easily embed a calculator into blog posts using Omni Calculator. They have 350 financial calculators, including for example this Home Affordability Calculator shown below.
They provide the embed code for you, and you simply copy and paste it into the “Embed Code” option for WordPress or whatever platform you use to publish blog posts.
In this case, there isn’t an Omni Closing Costs Calculator, but you could embed a simple Percentage Calculator for visitors to find a typical range of estimated closing costs. Apart from being useful for visitors, it generates clicks on your webpage and extends the time spent on-page, which Google interprets as positive signs when ranking.
3. Google-Friendly FAQs (Must Read)
Frequently Asked Question sections are great because they demonstrate a boots-on-the-ground perspective that many real estate articles fail to achieve. In this case, simply consider what questions first-time homebuyers or sellers ask you about closing costs.
You can also Google your keyword phrase and check the bottom of the search results for questions that people commonly ask. If you have Ahrefs, there’s also a Related Questions section that can provide additional insight. We recommend finding at least 3 valuable FAQs.
Ideally, you’ll go through two more steps before your FAQ section is fully optimized. First, you’ll create dropdown boxes for the answer to each question. This generates more page interaction.
FAQ Schema Markup Hack
Second, you’ll want to create FAQ Schema Markup code for your FAQs. This simply means your dropdown FAQs will appear below the description of your article on the search results. Here’s an example.
The second search result has twice as much space in the search results as its competitors, which is fantastic in terms of improving the visibility and clickability of your article.
We provide you with a simple How To Guide for both creating FAQ sections and adding FAQ Schema Markup in the User Interaction section of this eBook.
However, if you’re creating blog articles through Elementor on WordPress (which we highly recommend), then you simply add a Toggle section to your article, fill in your Q&A, and click the FAQ Schema button. It’s a wildly simple, but super effective way to double an article’s presence on the search results while supplementing your content with useful information.
Engagement Blog Articles
“Living In” and “Moving To” Blog PostsRuby Home Guide on Moving to Los Angeles
This is my favorite type of engagement blog post because it also functions well to generate leads. Check out this Moving to Los Angeles blog post from Ruby Homes.
What’s Great About This Article
As with almost all of their Living In blog posts, Ruby Home creates 2000-5000 word mammoths replete with amenities. This article includes video, maps, neighborhood descriptions, architectural info, activities, restaurants, bars, shopping, and natural scenery. And then so much more.
For articles like these, it’s much smarter to write one giant post rather than three normal sized posts. Check out the best current article for whatever topic you’re doing, and then add at least 1000-1500 words.
This article isn’t a shining billboard for life in LA. It tells you clearly that the traffic, pizza, and smog suck. It’s not trying to convince anyone to move there, but instead gives a fairly transparent view of the lifestyle without being whiny.
On top of that, it succeeds well with a difficult task: actually giving you a feeling about what LA life is like. Here are some example sentences that accomplish that:
- “One of the first things you’ll notice, after moving to Los Angeles, is the alarming number of people hanging out in cafes during business hours. You might ask yourself, “Why are so many people not at work on a Monday at 11:00 am? Does anyone have a job in this town?”
- “You think I’m kidding about valet parking at a dive bar? We even have a complimentary valet at Denny’s!”
- “L.A. is the kind of place that encourages anything new and healthy, a mindset that is fairly typical for the entire West Coast. Depending upon your tolerance for trendiness, you might find the constant introduction of the latest diet and exercise fads as a small, regular annoyance.”
Sentences like these make it clear that the writer actually lives in LA. Little details are key to painting a realistic picture. Ideally, you’ll turn this aspect of your article up to 11.
More Authenticity Hacks
As a starting point, it’s fine to do online research. Get a list of local museums or a chart of the average monthly temperatures.
But talk to your audience like you’re talking to a real person. Tell them that you enjoy going to the Getty Museum because it’s free, although too crowded on Saturdays. Explain that you feel nostalgic for a white Christmas, but being able to wear sandals in the same month makes up for it.
Don’t hire a freelancer to write this article if they haven’t lived in your city for a long time. Even better is someone like the example article’s author who clearly knows what people’s first impressions of the city are.
Again, Ruby Home does a nice job of turning this targeted engagement post into a lead generation funnel. There are two highlighted texts encouraging the reader to redirect to LA Home Listings like this one:
Honestly, they could probably add 1-2 more CTAs and make them stand out even more. Checking out home listings is interesting, and when you’re providing a free resource to people you don’t have to be shy about the fact that you want them to search for local homes on your site.
You might consider adding a widget to your article that allows readers to preview 3 current listings in a horizontal bar halfway through the article. Or you have a lead magnet resource like “450 Ideas to Sell Your Home Faster”.
How To Outperform This Article
1. Video Neighborhood Tours (Must Read)
This feature bears repeating again and again. A five-minute video can give a more authentic taste of local life than a 5000-word article. It also only takes a fraction of the time to make and encourages potential leads to contact you much more effectively.
You already know that forming personal connections is the best way to do business. Video tours accomplish that by putting your face, voice, and personality forward. It allows people to like you before they talk to you.
If you have an agency, consider assigning different neighborhood video tours to different agents. Depending on your CMS, it should be straightforward to assign leads from that article to the agent who made the video.
Alternatively, you might have multiple agents create neighborhood tours on the same article. This provides your page visitors with lots of great content, plus options for choosing a well-matching agent. In this case, you’ll need to provide contact links for each agent below their video.
A “Living In” blog post for a luxury real estate agency should not only talk about burgers and pizza for local dining options. There’s nothing wrong with providing info that appeals to a general populous. However, the lack of content directed toward wealthy individuals is a failure of the article.
Put in broader terms, the article forgets to write for their target market demographic. If you sell mountain cabins in Colorado, your article should have insider info on the best mountain bike trails. If you sell real estate in Vermont, you need to give the low-down on the best farmer’s markets.
You get the idea. Write for broad engagement, but remember your target client.
All Ruby Home did was take local expertise combined with some basic research and put it down in words for everyone to read. I myself have built a million-dollar business using this technique. It works and works and works, and the long-term ROI benefits are staggering.
You can take this strategy and apply it to a city, county, or neighborhood. To decide which locations have the best SEO potential, you’ll need to do keyword research on each possibility. We cover that in a section below.
Best Real Estate Blog Ideas Recap
There are plenty of articles online with dozens or even hundreds of real estate blog ideas and topics. However, your blog content is too important to choose willy-nilly.
If you’re going to succeed in driving significant traffic and generating great leads through blogging, you should stick to proven and wildly effective types of blog article ideas.
To recap, that includes these 4 main types of posts:
- Neighborhood Guides
- Local Real Estate Niches
- Financial & Tax Guides
- Moving To & Living In Guides
These examples of the best kinds of real estate blog post ideas are probably all you need to generate years of content.
How InboundREM Can Help You
If you have any hanging questions about real estate blog post ideas or friendly pushback on our article, we will happily respond to your comment.
Beyond that, InboundREM is a top provider of real estate lead generation and digital marketing services. We build cutting-edge SEO-driven websites and then leverage those websites to drive inbound leads to you. Our claim to fame is an impressive long-term ROI.
How We’re Different
We’re also unique because we allow you to own your real estate website. Almost all similar companies lease them out. That prevents you from owning the very tool you’ve paid thousands for, but it also keeps you from switching companies. I won’t call it a racket, but it’s not how I do business.
For more information about our commitment to transparency and how we can drive high-quality leads to your digital door, get in touch!