I was on the phone yesterday with Chris Johnson, talking with him about Realtor weblogs. He mentioned that some of the buyers of his real estate weblogs are having trouble coming up with regular content.
I have a solution for them.
What should they do? Stop worrying about it — and solve the real marketing problem instead.
Instead of building a blogsite around a regularly-updated weblog, it would make more sense to me for reluctant writers to build the blogsite around the mission-critical content instead.
Here’s the deal: There are a finite number of topics that you absolutely, positively need to cover. Whatever target-marketed niche the blog is concerned with, you need to document that niche in a fairly comprehensive way.
How many articles would that take? Five? Ten? Surely not twenty. If you’ve done what you need to do, you can ignore the blog except when you’re burning up with something to say.
A WordPress theme like Equilibrium would give your weblog a magazine-like look and feel. The “featured” section could highlight the three or six or nine posts that are mission-critical for your niche. And the “latest post” section can document your more-recent musings. If you write something crucial later on, you can rotate it into the “featured” section.
Here’s the thing: Everything so-called weblogging experts (including me) have told you about real estate weblogging is probably wrong.
You are not trying to build long-term relationships with regular visitors who will wait for your latest pronouncements with bated breath. Instead, the objective of your blogsite should be to provide mission-critical information to people who will find you by Google when they need you and who will be happy to forget you just as soon as they no longer need you. The magazine-style blogsite fits that approach perfectly.
The purpose of your weblog is not to be available for lonely people looking for friends. It is not to make you one of the cool kids, so that Realtors from all over the world can show up at your place to grouse about how awful the real estate market is. The purpose of your blog is certainly not to make you feel bad about one more ugly chore you’re not getting done.
Here is the purpose of your real estate weblog: To communicate to potential clients that you are the agent for them. You don’t need a huge amount of content to do that. What you need is the content that will inspire them with the confidence that you know enough about their particular problem to get the job done.
This idea — just enough weblog — is a solution to your real marketing problem.
Michael Patton says:
I appreciate your comments – finding time to write all that needs to be written and still earn a living has proven to be a huge challenge for me.
I’ve moved into the use of Video as a way to accellerate the process.
I’d love to see an example of what you’ve referenced above… as I’m sure 1,000’s of agents and lenders would – so here’s one of the first of what I’m sure will be many requests for an example of what you’re talking about.
August 19, 2010 — 8:50 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I’ve moved into the use of Video as a way to accellerate the process.
An excellent solution. If you do them via YouTube, you can get a double bonus on the SEO, two ways for clients to find you.
> I’d love to see an example of what you’ve referenced above…
I can do two examples, not one — neither one truly exemplary.
First, here is an Equilibrium site we have been successfully neglecting for over a year: Distinctive Paradise Valley Homes.
But that’s not illustrating the idea I’m talking about. Our own home weblog, BloodhoundRealty.com, is not quite it, either. It’s built as a blogsite, with the truly critical content off on WordPress Pages. Note, too, that I draw readers back to mission-critical content with the “Posts of Enduring Interest” summary in the sidebar.
I don’t know of any site that works this way now. I came up with the idea in order to suggest it to a Realtor whom I am referring to Chris as a prospect.
August 19, 2010 — 9:08 pm
Keith Lutz says:
I agree with what you are saying, about sticking to your niche, but I would think you need to update 3 times a week, to keep the spiders coming. Am I wrong with that, I have heard it several places.
I am thinking about WordPress blog, I was thinking of Thesis. http://diythemes.com/ I figure if guys like Chris Brogan and Matt Cutts use it, it has to be great.
I do like the layout style of Equilibrium, too!
August 19, 2010 — 8:53 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I would think you need to update 3 times a week, to keep the spiders coming.
I’m not an SEO. Why would you need the spiders to come if you’re not updating? Why not just ping Google when you do add a post? FWIW, we have lots and lots of pages that never change, and they still score well on the long tail.
August 19, 2010 — 9:12 pm
Brad Coy says:
Bravo!
I was talking with a friend about this a while back. Something to add might be to take down post dates as well if your theme allows this. No need to have a stale look on content that’s still relevant for the visitor.
August 20, 2010 — 12:49 am
Greg Swann says:
> Something to add might be to take down post dates as well if your theme allows this.
All themes will permit this, you just have to edit every file that has “the loop” in it. With PHP, you can make every post have today’s date. 😉
August 20, 2010 — 7:36 am
Eric Bramlett says:
Fantastic post. In my experience, a highly focused website will convert much better than a blogcentric site. With a static, focused site, you can analyze your content (bounce, conversion, time on page, etc…) and hone it to best convert visitors to leads to contracts.
Beyond the ~5 typical pages (buyers, sellers, investors, about us, etc…) I find it very worthwhile to write area & neighborhood profiles. Area/neighborhood profiles always (in my experience) convert very highly when you drive targeted traffic to them.
Regarding “blog 3X per week for SEO” – it’s rubbish. Blogging can help your crawl rate, but crawl rate doesn’t mean better ranking. Likewise, you can increase your crawl rate (and ranking) through targeted link building.
Blogging can definitely help SEO, however. If you create compelling content that others naturally link to, your site becomes more authoritative in the eyes of google as a result of those links. If the game were pure content creation, I would have many vendors cranking away on content spinners for me right now.
August 20, 2010 — 5:51 am
Greg Swann says:
> With a static, focused site, you can analyze your content (bounce, conversion, time on page, etc…) and hone it to best convert visitors to leads to contracts.
Quite right. And by using WordPress to create what are, in reality, essentially static pages, you make it easy to do your revisions yourself, rather than having to call in an HTML mechanic. You can build your pages with a landing-page mentality, then use the “home” page to direct traffic.
Inlookers: If you want to write, write. What we’re talking about — for writers or non-writers — is making sure that the content that is intended to convert prospects doesn’t get buried in the archives — or doesn’t get written at all!
August 20, 2010 — 7:42 am
Eric Bramlett says:
@Brad – most themes don’t date pages. If you’re creating static content, I think it’s best to create a page rather than post.
August 20, 2010 — 5:53 am
Joe says:
For what it is worth, we generally blog 4-5 times per week but mainly on community events. We then post those events on Facebook. We have gotten quite a bit of business from local folks who read our blog that so happen to need a real estate agent. Essentially, serendipitous marketing. In regards to Chris’ clients who struggle finding content to post about, there is an endless supply of community events to blog about.
Our college aged daughter does our blogging, and any kid with relatively decent grammar skills can do this. Coupled with a plugin like ScribeSEO that babysits the blogger, even a caveman can do it.
If this type of blogging were left up to me, I wouldn’t do it as I have better things to do. Having said that, our blog brings us 2000-3000 visits a month and mainly local people.
August 20, 2010 — 6:47 am
Greg Swann says:
> Having said that, our blog brings us 2000-3000 visits a month and mainly local people.
Good on ya. I’m not running down weblogging, for folks who are getting it done. I’m just illustrating an alternative strategy for people who want the client-conversion benefits of a real estate weblog without the daily grind.
August 20, 2010 — 7:47 am
Erion Shehaj says:
This post is so spot on, it’s scary. I mean, it’s scary to find yourself agreeing with Greg Swann 100% on something 😉
August 20, 2010 — 11:52 am
Greg Swann says:
> I mean, it’s scary to find yourself agreeing with Greg Swann 100% on something
I will correct this defect with my very next post. 😉
August 20, 2010 — 3:49 pm
Jb says:
Greg is absolutely right. I have several blogs that haven’t been updated for a year or more but are still tracking on Google. As a real estate agent I’ve used some of my internet marketing skills to get the rank in Google for several keywords. Great post.
August 20, 2010 — 1:52 pm
Cheryl Johnson says:
I could see an Equilibrium-themed site set up with important info in the featured post boxes, and an IDX listing feed populating the lastest posts pane. I just might play around with that in the next week or so…
August 20, 2010 — 6:04 pm
Greg Swann says:
> I could see an Equilibrium-themed site set up with important info in the featured post boxes, and an IDX listing feed populating the lastest posts pane.
Brilliant. You have just winnowed the last four-plus years of wired real estate thinking down to one perfect web page. I love this place…
August 20, 2010 — 6:09 pm
Greg Swann says:
Plus which, if you iframe the box for the IDX, other folks can put whatever they want there…
August 20, 2010 — 6:10 pm
Cheryl Johnson says:
iframe in a Scenius Scene…
August 20, 2010 — 6:51 pm
Greg Swann says:
> iframe in a Scenius Scene…
Welcome to my world.
August 20, 2010 — 6:53 pm
Teri Lussier says:
>site set up with important info in the featured post boxes, and an IDX listing feed populating the lastest posts pane.
>iframe in a Scenius Scene…
Ahh! The missing link!!!
I love this place too.
August 22, 2010 — 6:32 am
Cheryl Johnson says:
Reporting back:
I found the Equilibrium Theme (Download here: http://www.wordpressthemesbook.com/equilibrium/ ) required some manual input to display images from my IDX feed.
No doubt Greg would simply write a PHP function to work around that issue. I went looking for a different theme.
I came up with: Magazine Basic. Not quite as sleek as Equilibrium, but close enough. (Magazine Basic 2.4.9 version download here: http://techpp.com/2009/02/19/27-stunning-yet-free-premium-wordpress-magazine-news-themes/ )
Here’s a quick sample implementation of the design we were discussing…. http://symmetry.virtualrentparty.com/ Everything design-wise was done in the Magazine Basic control panel.
August 22, 2010 — 8:17 am
Greg Swann says:
> No doubt Greg would simply write a PHP function to work around that issue.
I made a bunch of modifications to my implementation.
> Here’s a quick sample implementation of the design we were discussing
Wicked cool — and just like that. My hat is off.
August 22, 2010 — 8:29 am
teresa boardman says:
That is two for me today that I agree with. Re bloggs are not about cultivating long term readers although I notice that I have with the local media as I report some news and numbers but in general people find me when they are looking for real estate information and I need to provide it to them. I think they read for awhile before they call. I am guessing they don’t stop buy often after they buy or sell. This blog is different. You have a kind of readership that keeps coming back.
August 23, 2010 — 4:53 pm
Greg Swann says:
> That is two for me today that I agree with.
Here’s what they tell me at the casino cage when I color up my chips: Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. 😉
August 23, 2010 — 7:27 pm