Blogs have now become an industry standard in the real estate business. In fact, blogs are common not just in real estate but practically in every industry existing. This is due to the fact that online presence is given so much premium by customers and clients.
Business owners and other professionals are now investing on blogs because it can help a business or an enterprise. Blogs do more than what websites offer-websites, after all, often directly sell the property or the service; on the other hand, blogs are “soft sell,” or they sell something without the potential customer realizing it. This makes blogs great marketing tools.
But what makes blogs efficient in marketing? Remember that many experts claim that common marketing and advertising methods are losing their edge because of the saturation of similar materials in the market. Remember, too, that the people or the real estate agent’s market, to be exact, is usually adverse to hard sell or direct advertising.
Blogs address these two weaknesses in marketing. Real estate websites that serve as blogs are not direct hard sell. This is because a good and effective real estate website should be content-based rather than advertising-based. Instead of listing down the agent’s good traits and why he or she is equipped to address a customer’s needs, the blog should contain useful information about real estate, with the ‘selling” part a secondary concern. In a way, it’s advertising-but not quite. This is because the website’s primary purpose is as a repository of information. The more visitors it generates, the higher the chance the blog will be of use to the realtor. And it will only attract visitors if the content is good, among other factors.
It is also proven that consumers, before they buy a product (or in this case, a property), first look for information. Therefore, an agent should be at the forefront. Also, an agent has every interest to maintain high Internet visibility-and blogs are great for that purpose, too. Blogs can easily be optimized to appear as one of the top search engine results, depending on the keywords used by the blog’s author. This, combined with the fact that people often turn to the Internet when they want to know something or clarify something, bodes well for the real estate agent. People who seek information and found it on the agent’s blog are more likely to do business with the agent who maintains the blog.
However, what potential client’s like most about real estate websites such as these blogs is the interactivity and its function to connect client and agent instantly. Blogs can make both parties instantly engage. At the same time, the content of the blog can make a visitor feel compelled to participate. At its very core, blogs are good for agents because they can become a venue for clients to contact the agent.
Of course, for such a blog to do all these things listed here, it has to be done properly. But just the same, blogs are among the online tools agents can use to their advantage.
Beverly Manago is a freelance writer focused on the real estate