As If My Blog Wasn't Working Hard Enough Already
After blogging for close to three years, we have developed an extensive library of content on real estate-related articles. Google loves our content and rewards us by ranking us highly for many local real estate terms and neighborhoods.
Our blog works very hard for us, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, helping consumers learn more about the area, find our home search, promoting our listings, and asking them to contact us for their real estate needs. All of this hard work pays off by helping us connect with people who need help with real estate.
We've also been using our blog as a quick and easy way to put together a e-newsletter to our Sphere of Influence. When I go to compile a new newsletter, I have lots of relevant articles to draw from for content which makes creating a newsletter a breeze, and our contacts love it. I'm always receiving positive comments about our newsletter.
Over the summer, I decided that I'd like to really leverage my blog content and get it to work even harder for us. I wanted buyers and sellers who work with us to feel like we were providing them with the knowledge and resources to make their real estate experience easier. I decided to take our library of blog posts and use them in two additional ways:
1.) Created an Online Relocation/Area Guides on My Website - I have lots of Localism posts about Where to Go and What to Do in Missoula and the surrounding communities that would be helpful for people who want to learn more about the area. Since I wanted to create a "Virtual Relocation Guide" on my website, I put together some information about the area but also provided links to relevant Blog posts about specific restaurants and attractions. Here's our Living in Missoula page on our website.
2.) Created a Communications Plan for Buyers and Sellers - Since we've started in real estate, we have made it a priority to communicate to our clients and prospects on a regular basis. We decided to create communication plans for prospects and sellers and provide information on buying and selling with links to specific articles on our Blog.
So for instance, for a first-time homebuyer we will send a welcome email thanking them for working with us with information about us, our website, a link to our home search tool, and a few blog posts or "Articles". A week later we will send them another note with a link to a few more articles, and so on.
Some examples of posts we send are ones about what they need to apply for a mortgage, $8000 tax credit basics, Why They need a Radon test, Why They should use a Buyer's Agent, etc.
Since we've implemented the Online Relocation Guides and the Communication Plans, we've seen an increase in traffic to our website and our Blog and have found that people are also spending more time on the sites. We've also gotten a lot of positive feedback from our clients.
There are lots of ways to leverage your Blog content and make it work even harder for you. I know ours will be putting in a lot of overtime.
How Others Are Using Their Blogs to Enhance Existing Relationships
You certainly do have great content, and I am pleased you are rewarded with Google Juice. Keep those great suggestions and advice coming.
Kevin, thanks for sharing your success tips and details of how you are best using your AR blog. I'll try to implement some of your ideas for more success and effectiveness for myself.
What can I say....You both know I love you more than chocolate......
The ways that you have maximized your content to specifically suit your lead-generation needs is STELLAR!! Seeing as how this is what I do all damn day long...I know good work when I see it.
Very nice!
Nice post, but I always wonder when there are two of you in the profile picture exactly who wrote the post.
I like your relocation page. It's a great way to smoothly link to your other content. And I really like the video tour. Didn't you recently write a post about that?
I like the old train depot. You obviously have invested some time in your blog and it shows!
I'm always linking from my blog to my website, but never considered building a page with a "clump" of blog content that would benefit sellers, buyers, and maybe highlight other local businesses. What a great idea. Thanks for sharing and giving me a new project to get buy with.
Thanks Don, Google Juice is an amazing thing!
Barbara - let us know how it goes.
Clint - More than chocolate? Really, WOW! Thank you, that means a lot to us :)
Rich - good point, I do almost all of the blog writing (Monica) and Kevin does most of our direct client contact. Maybe I should sign the bottom of the posts?
Tammy - Thank you, let us know how it works for you :)
Well this is the first post I have read on Bob's challenge and it is a good one.
Don't forget to link back to his post.
Thanks Missy - I'll do that :)
Interesting ideas. Now if I can just find the time to implement any.
Some great ideas here. I just ran across the contest tonight. Time to put my post together....in the morning...
Well done! It seems as though relocation guides are a recurring theme in this contest - I need to get on the ball with creating one. Thank you for sharing what's working for you and making a few ideas float around my head...
Great Post!! You truly understand the value of AR and how to benefit from it!!!! WELL DONE.....
These are great ideas! I'm planning to bookmark your post & it is being Featured on Blogger's Choice. Thanks for sharing some great ideas about getting more mileage out of our blog posts. :)
Great ideas Kevin & Monica! We are going to start building a Relocation & Area Information Guide and also create a "Series" from our blogging as a link for our web site and to email out to our database. Bob's challenge and great ideas and post like yours have opened a whole new way of thinking and working for us. Thank you AR!
Hey, Kevin and Monica - Very nice work. It's a good thing your blog is open 24/7 since I'm here at 3:00 a.m. LOL.
Kevin and Monica, I love your ideas and the fact that your blog is working round the clock for you. What method do you/did you use to put your guides together?
Lizette, Prest Realty, Lisa and Barbara - thank you!
Lola - thank you for the feature :)
Thanks Lee and Carol - I can't wait to read the other posts in Bob's contest either.
Russel - I do that too sometimes :) Hope you got some sleep.
Kathryn - We use Wordpress and just build the guides into our website.
Kevin & Monica, this is a great post! The description of what you have done is exactly my goal. I have seen Margaret Woda's relocation guide and Jason Crouch's and now yours! I'm sure many other folks have them, and I think they are fabulous.
So you have a Wordpress blog and also an AR outside blog? Or is the Wordpress blog just for your guides? Why don't you just put them on your site via a tab? Or is that more G juice strategy - to link to your site from the Wordpress blog?
Great job of using your blog to work for you. I'm going to use some of your ideas and make some compilations too. Thanks!