Not only do I write and manage this blog, but I am the ghostwriter behind dozens of other real estate blogs in this country.
In fact, an average day in my life frequently requires me to write 10,000+ words!
On top of that, I have to worry about SEO, graphic design, social media, and a million other tasks that come along with running a real estate media company.
Often, people ask me how the hell I manage to get so much done. Especially when it comes to creating so many blog posts each week. Well, I have a few tricks up my sleeve that allow me to get it all done which I’m going to give you today.
I know not all of you can afford to hire me to write your real estate blog for you and others get so much enjoyment out of writing their own real estate blog that you prefer to do it on your own. However, no matter how much you love or hate to write your real estate blog, I know most of you struggle to find the time to squeeze it into your schedule.
Again, I want to remind you that you should be adding a new SEO-friendly post of at least 500 words to your real estate blog every week. Ideally, you would add 3-5 posts per week if you really want to dominate the search engines and significantly reduce your marketing costs.
Here are some of my best tips to help you make that seemingly daunting task much more manageable. But before we dive in, I want to invite you to join my private Facebook Group Blogging For Real Estate Leads where you can find more encouragement and actionable tips for building an effective blog for your real estate business.
Create A Kick-Ass Content Calendar
Success with your blog is not random. If you really want to attract high-quality traffic, convert readers into clients, and earn passive income from your affiliate placements, your real estate blog needs to have a killer strategy which originates with your content calendar.
Not only will a content calendar help you to convert more business but it will allow you to stay more organized and manage your time more effectively.
Just like with any goal setting, I want you to take a step back and determine what your monthly, quarterly, and annual goals are going to be for your blog. You should also take seasonal promotions into consideration as you plan ahead to release your content.
As always, I want to encourage you to select topics that are going to solve your ideal clients’ problems and help them accomplish their goals. If you are a real estate agent, lender, or another local real estate vendor, you also need to incorporate plenty of hyper-local posts like local events and features of other local businesses.
I suggest brainstorming a list of blog topics long enough to populate your blog for at least 3 months so that you can time-block the writing. That might sound like overkill but trust me when I say life will get in the way and before you know if you will begin to let your blog slip through the cracks before most other things.
Once you have your list of topics that you want to cover for the quarter, put them in order of when you want to release them on your content calendar. Having this visual calendar of what posts are going out when will enable you to plan your promotional schedule.
Keep Your Links Organized
As I was approaching the end of my first year of this blog, I found I was spending an ENORMOUS amount of time going back into my archives to find blog posts I wanted to reference or my affiliate links, not to mention a million other things.
Then the lightbulb went off!
I created a spreadsheet that contains the link to every blog post, youtube video, podcast episode, social media account, affiliate account and link, and everything else I need to quickly reference. I use tabs to separate them by category to make it even easier to grab the link to whatever I’m looking for.
This spreadsheet, which is always running in my browser, literally saves me at least an hour per day! It took some time to set up in the beginning but I couldn’t function without it now as I have thousands of links that I need quick and easy access to.
Use Pre-Made Templates For Graphics
Yes, you need cover images and graphics for your blog. No, you don’t need to hire a professional graphic designer or spend more than a minute or two designing them.
All you need to do is create a template for your graphics that will allow you to simply change out the image and title for each post. I use Canva for this and for all of my graphic design needs.
As an added benefit to using a template, it will add to the overall branding of your blog and your real estate business and help your followers to identify your posts on social media with greater ease.
Start A Series
I’m a big fan of implementing a series into your blog because it accomplishes several things for you:
It allows you to turn one topic into multiple posts
It increases your reader’s loyalty because they will keep returning for the next part in the series
It allows you to maximize SEO for a particular topic or keyword
It saves you time on graphic design because you can use the same cover and pins for the whole series (just add part one, two, three)
You can use a series for your hyperlocal content by having a series that features local businesses, events, charities, or new developments.
You can also use a series to feature a particular real estate advice topic. My favorite way of doing this is by breaking up a topic into the what, why and how. For example, let’s say that you wanted to do a series on staging and prepping a house for the market. Your 3-part series would look like this:
Part One: What You Need To Do To Sell Your House This Spring
Part Two: Why Staging Your Listing Is Non-Negotiable
Part Three: How To Stage Your House Without Spending Thousands
Each part in the series relates to its two counterparts so that people will be compelled to read all three posts. That translates into more opportunities to sell your affiliate products, get them to opt-in to your email list, or decide to hire you.
Need More Help With Your Real Estate Blog?
I’ve got you covered!
In addition to being able to write your blog for you, I am also happy to offer you one-on-one coaching on how to get the most out of every post. You can book a free consultation to discuss either here.
Of course, I also have dozens of other articles like this one to help you do the same and I would also be thrilled to have you join my Blogging For Real Estate Leads FB Group.
