If real estate blogging has been on your marketing to-do list forever, but you never seem to find the time to make it happen, it may be time to bump blogging to the top of your list. Blogging for real estate—when done well—is one of the single most effective things you can do to nurture new leads and build top-of-funnel engagement.
When prospects don’t even know they’re in the buying or selling phase, this is the perfect time to get them hooked with valuable content that speaks to their interests while also tying back to real estate. The best thing about a high-value, SEO-optimized real estate blog is it does the lead nurturing for you. While you are out in the field closing deals, your blog content is attracting top-of-funnel prospects who may soon become loyal to your brand—and think of you first when they are ready to hire a real estate agent.
So, what type of real estate blog content attracts top-of-funnel engagement? At this stage in your sales funnel, you don’t want to scare off prospects by being overly explicit in terms of discussing your services or actively selling to them. Instead, you want to regularly post content that genuinely interests a wide variety of prospects and anticipates their needs.
To get you started, here are five real estate blog ideas that work to pull in top-of-funnel leads and keep them interested enough to stick around.
1. Local Events & Restaurants
Blogging about local events and restaurants is a great idea because it sends you local website traffic (eventually helping you to rank in searches for your city + real estate), positions you as a local expert, helps you engage with your community, and because there is a never-ending source of ideas for this type of real estate blog content. Plus, these posts are fun, informative, and low pressure, making them ideal for top-of-funnel engagement.
Here are a few example topics in this category:
- Best romantic date night spots in your city
- Burger showdown: 5 best local burgers
- Upcoming street festivals
- Best kid-friendly summer events in your city
One real estate blog that gets this focus on local events right is Jennifer Pollock of Keller William’s Denvering blog, which successfully positions her as an in-the-know local who’s up to speed on Denver’s best festivals and events.
2. Housing Market Trends
Even if potential leads aren’t technically in the market at the moment, many of them want to keep up on housing market trends, both nationally and locally. These blogs should be informative but also scannable and engaging, rather than super dry and academic.
Posts about topics such as rising interest rates and hyper-competitive or over-saturated markets should steer clear of being overly alarmist or dramatic, but still make the case for a sense of urgency. These are the sorts of posts someone comes across casually and then shares on Facebook or sends to their spouse with a “Honey, maybe we shouldn’t keep putting off becoming homeowners.”
Redfin’s real estate blog strikes a great balance between helpful advice and factual data, all presented in a way that is easily digestible. Their recent post about home prices jumping at the beginning of the year is informative, backed by easy-to-understand stats, and leaves top-of-funnel leads with a strong feeling that they may want to buy now instead of later and that they need the guidance of an experienced real estate agent when they do so.
While not as meaty, we also love these posts about real estate trends over at the Great Colorado Homes blog because they make such effective use of fun infographics and (our fave) gifs.
3. Homeowner Tips & Hacks
When it comes to evergreen content that delivers value to prospective leads, you can’t go wrong with posts focused on the life of a homeowner, especially when these alternate with more local-specific blogs. Homeowners love to read easy tips and home hacks regarding everything from home and landscaping maintenance, to ways to make cleaning easier, to how to stay organized when you have kids. Top-of-funnel readers who are still renting will find some of these tips useful while finding others aspirational, helping to ignite their homeowner fantasies.
The “Home Improvement” category of Zillow’s excellent Porchlight blog is the perfect example of this form of real estate blog content done well: zippy, easy-to-scan posts on everything from DIY weekends to spring gardening that leave readers feeling empowered to tackle their home improvement goals like they have their own HGTV show.
4. “10 Reasons Why” Lists
Or “5 reasons” or “15 reasons”…you get the idea. Blogs about your city or state in the form of listicles are fun to read and likely to be shared. Even more importantly, this type of content is easy to seamlessly blend with shout-outs to the local real estate market.
Here are a few ideas for harnessing this topic idea on your real estate blog:
- 10 Reasons People Are Moving to (Name of Your City)
- 5 Reasons (Your City) Is the Perfect Place for Families
- 8 Reasons Why Now Is the Time to Buy In (Your City)
This Sindeo blog that focused on the 10 reasons everyone is moving to Austin, Texas is a great example. This type of real estate content engages locals who get to feel proud for discovering their gem of a city before everyone moved there, while also involving leads in other cities or states who are thinking of moving to your city…and will most certainly need a real estate agent once they take the plunge.
5. Day Trips & Local Adventures
Blogs about easy day trip ideas and local adventures engage local readers looking to break out of their rut and make better use of their weekends. This form of real estate blog content also attracts non-locals who are daydreaming about moving to your area, making it seem like an even more adventurous and appealing place to live.
Movoto has mastered this type of post, as you can see in this fun article about easy day trips from Detroit.
While these five blogging ideas for real estate are proven winners when it comes to attracting clicks and prospective leads, the truth is this is just the tip of the blogging iceberg. By continuing to provide prospects with fun, engaging, and useful content, you will develop new leads and build a more credible and cohesive real estate brand.
At Verblio (formerly BlogMutt), we eliminate the frustration, time commitment, and guesswork by letting you outsource your content marketing to our pack of talented writers. We will be there with you every step of the way as you design a blogging strategy for real estate and see it pay off in more effective SEO and website leads.
Looking to find out some past examples of content we’ve developed for the real estate industry? Fill out the form below and we’ll send some your way.
