“I’m a Realtor, not a Writer.”
This is usually the first response I get from my clients when I tell them they need to start blogging if they want to generate free leads.
And they’re right. You didn’t get into real estate to be a blogger. I get that.
But…
The Google algorithm really wants you to be a writer!
The more posts you have on your website, the more content Google gets to index. And the more Google gets to Index, the more comfortable it feels recommending you to its users. Consistently posting new content legitimizes your business in the eyes of Google.
So if you want to generate free leads, you need to figure out how to post to your blog consistently. Even if you suck at writing.
Luckily, we have a few ideas for different ways to make that happen for you!
1. Improve Your Writing – the 5 Minute Quick Fix
Here’s the good news: writing a blog isn’t like writing a term paper. You don’t need to be formal. You can simply write your posts as if you’re speaking to your client.
In fact, if you’re struggling to write, try this little exercise:
Imagine you have a buyer texting you a question (you probably don’t have to imagine – it happens all the time, right?). By the way, the questions you get repeatedly from clients…those are perfect blog topics!
The answer to your imaginary buyer’s question is too long to text, so you decide to call your buyer to explain over the phone.
What would you say?
That’s how you should write your blog post.
Pro tip: if you find it easier to express your thoughts verbally, use the audio recorder on your phone or computer to record your voice, then transcribe it (or pay someone else to! You can find transcriptionists on sites like Fiverr).
That exercise should give you a solid start to your post.
But let’s drill down into some specifics.
Ways to instantly improve your realtor blog writing
Here are a few pro tips and tricks to improve your blog writing in just 5 minutes:
- Use headers to make your posts easy to scan.
- Write in short sentences.
- And short paragraphs. Remember, people may be reading your post from their phone, which makes paragraphs seem longer.
- Stick to a vocabulary a highschooler could understand.
- Add images to break up the walls of text.
- Bullet point lists also help break up the text.
- Use Grammarly to help with spelling and grammar. They have a free version!
- But still, proofread your work. Grammarly doesn’t catch everything.
- There are some traditional grammar rules that don’t apply to blogging:
- Ending sentences with a preposition isn’t something to worry about.
- Neither are sentence fragments.
- And you can absolutely begin a sentence with a conjunction.
- Avoid the “passive voice”. This is a tricky one. It basically means you don’t want to say something is happening to something else when you could say that someone is doing something. Example: Instead of writing, “Your loan application will be reviewed by a loan officer,” say “A loan officer will review your loan application.” It may seem subtle, but your writing will be more impactful the more you use this “active voice”.
Have a little more than 5 minutes to spend on improving your writing? Here are a few real estate blogging resources for you:
- How to Crush Your First Real Estate Blog Post
- How to Write Killer Market Reports
- 7 Easy Steps to Writing a Blog Post
2. Improve Your Writing – the 5 Week Solution
Are you committed to becoming a top-notch writer?
Then I have a great solution for you.
Hire a professional real estate blogger to edit a few of your posts AND to provide detailed feedback on exactly why they are making the edits they’re making.
This will help you publish top-quality posts while you’re still learning and improving your writing.
If you keep your blogger’s notes in mind as you write future posts, you’ll continue publishing great content long after you’ve stopped using your blogger.
Pros:
- You gain a valuable life skill
- You will probably only need assistance for about 5 weeks.
- You’ll be able to produce quality content that boosts your Google rank, resonates with your audience, and brings you buyer and seller leads for years to come.
Cons:
- Unless you know a professional real estate content writer, you’ll need to pay for these services. Expect to pay between $0.05 and $0.08 per word (so $50-$80 for a 1,000-word post) for this all-in-one editing, proofreading, and training service.
The verdict:
This is a solid solution for noticeable improvement. It will be a small financial investment upfront, but it will pay off as long as you continue to use the skills you learned from your pro blogger.
By the way, real estate content writing and editing is actually my primary source of income at the moment! If you’re interested in my services, please feel free to contact me and tell me a little about your needs. I’d be happy to work with you!
3. Find Free Content You Can Use For Your Realtor Blog
Yes, there are legitimate ways to publish free content on your site.
No, you shouldn’t use the free NAR blog posts. They’re short, generic, and already on your competitor’s sites.
Here’s how to use free content the right way:
Step 1: Find a blog post you love on a topic that would interest your audience.
Step 2: Contact that writer and ask if you can feature their post on your blog. Let them know you’d like to publish the full piece with a link back to the original content.
Step 3: Once you have permission, you just need to write a quick introduction (saying who wrote the piece and including a link to the original blog post), then copy and paste the content into your blog post, and publish.
Step 4: When you promote the post on social media, make sure you tag the original author.
That’s it!
I know this may sound like a perfect solution for your Realtor blog, but please compare the pros and cons before you get too excited.
Pros of using free content:
- You don’t have to create any content yourself.
- You still get to promote the post on social media to get more traffic to your site.
- The original content creator will appreciate the link back to the original post and may even link to your post from their social media accounts.
Cons of using free content:
- Your Google rank won’t improve using this recycled content. It could actually go down if you make a habit of using content from other sites.
- You miss the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge to your readers and establish yourself as an authority on the local market. You’re really just boosting the perceived authority of the original author.
- You can’t monetize recycled posts through affiliate marketing.
The verdict:
Use free content sparingly. As great as it looks at first glance, you really miss out on many of the benefits of blogging if you over-do-it with the recycled content. Save it for weeks when you’re excessively busy or on vacation.
4. Choose a Different Medium for Your Realtor Blog
So you can’t avoid writing forever by using free content…
But you might be able to avoid it by using different media for your Realtor blog.
You don’t have to limit yourself to the written word. Maybe give one (or all!) of these alternatives a try.
Images
People love pictures! Just ask Instagram.
So consider making images the focus of a few blog posts. You could write just a sentence or 2 explaining the takeaway from each image and be done!
Here are a few blog topic ideas that work really well with the images as the focus:
- Home Makeovers (curb appeal, backyard, kitchen renovations, etc)
- Staging Your Home to Sell (photos of homes with no staging compared to those with staging)
- Listing Round Ups (the most expensive homes on the market, the homes with the best views, the listings from up-and-coming neighborhoods, etc)
Just be careful with image copyrights if you’re not using your own photos. You don’t want to end up on the receiving end of an image licensing lawsuit.
If you’re just getting started, there are several free sites where you can download royalty-free images:
- Pexels
- Pixabay
- Kaboompics
If you want far more image options and more distinction for your brand, you may want to consider a paid service:
Interesting side note: did you know you can make money selling your photos to these stock image sites? Learn how to make money selling stock photos online.
Infographics
Yes, technically infographics are just images. But they’re so much more!
There are a million ways to do infographics and a million topics for those infographics.
But here are just a few ideas for blog topics that work well with infographics:
- Home Maintenance (what needs to be checked or addressed, when, and how often?)
- The Buying Process (showing the steps from pre-qualification to closing)
- Local Events (listing the festivals and other major events for your town)
Video
Video is a great way to infuse your personality into your Realtor blog, especially if you’re willing to get in front of the camera.
Here are a few perfect-for-video blog post topics:
- Home repairs (show how to reset a pilot light, stop a toilet from running, change air filters, etc.)
- Online processes (how to file a property tax appeal online, how to compare lenders, etc. by sharing screen recordings from your computer)
- Home tours
Audio
You could also try audio posts. But these may be a harder sell than the other media unless you’re actively pursuing podcasting.
I think the best topics for the audio format would be interviews with professionals. Think lenders, appraisers, inspectors, etc.
Pros of using alternative media:
- You get all the benefits of consistent blog posting with very little writing.
Cons of using alternative media:
- You’ll need to be careful to incorporate keywords in your alt descriptions, headers, and whatever writing you include so Google’s little indexing spiders understand what your content is about and can give you credit for it.
- You’ll need to allow time for recording and editing video and audio posts.
- Not everyone will sit through a video explaining a complex topic.
- You may need additional equipment and software to create quality images, infographics, video, and audio. Things like:
The verdict:
This is a brilliant solution for Realtors who hate writing. If you have a working knowledge of these other media (or you’re willing to learn to avoid writing), go for it! This can be an every-week long-term solution to your writing problem.
5. Hire a Professional Real Estate Content Writer
The last option for creating the perfect Realtor blog when you suck at writing is to simply outsource it!
In addition to writing compelling content, a professional real estate blog writer can:
- create your overall blogging strategy to maximize leads
- craft clickable headlines
- optimize your posts for search engines
- find and cite sources to back up claims
- insert strategic back-links to build goodwill in your local community
- include a call to action to prompt your readers to take action (leave a comment, follow you on social, sign up for your newsletter, etc.)
- and even build your blog into its own income stream!
Just make sure you hire a content writer that will agree to ghostwriting services. You should be able to publish your writer’s work as your own work, under your own name (so you’re able to boost your authority with each post). And you should be able to trust that your writer will never expose the fact that they wrote any of the content on your blog. None of the ghostwritten content should ever show up anywhere else, including in your writer’s portfolio/writing samples.
Pros of using a professional content writer:
- You maximize your blogging benefits without spending any time on it whatsoever!
Cons of using a professional content writer:
- It’ll cost you. Great content writing doesn’t come cheap. Expect to pay around $0.10 to $.15 per word for business-changing blog content (that’s $100-$150 for a 1,000-word post).
The verdict:
If you can afford it, outsourcing your blogging is a great investment in our business. It will free you up to spend your time and energy working with buyers and sellers while you watch new prospects roll in from your blog.
Try Mixing and Matching
You don’t have to just pick one of these strategies. Try mixing and matching. Use free content one week, publish a video the next, do a photo slideshow the next, and hire a writer only when you need one.
Oh, and if you need a few blog post topic ideas to help you launch your killer Realtor blog, we have a list of 100+ ideas for you.
