Posted on by James

What You Need to Know about a Commercial Real Estate Blog

Opening and maintaining a commercial real estate blog is not the easiest of tasks.

There are many hoops you need to jump through before achieving success with this type of digital marketing.

But the best thing about a blog is that once you’ve gotten it off the ground, it can only go up!

Why Do I Need a Commercial Real Estate Blog for My Business?

Working in real estate, you probably don’t have a typical day at the office.

One morning you’re scheduling listing appointments for the afternoon. The next day you’re working with your photographer to highlight the furnishings in that new apartment. Maybe you’re about to show off a vacation home in a well-off area, so you need to get it prepared.

With that much work on your hands, do you even have the time to think of what your clients want from you?

These invaluable questions serve as a starting point to find out what you’re doing wrong:

  • Is my marketing strategy working out in my best interest?
  • Have I gained the trust of my customers and the public?
  • How many clients has my current policy brought me this week/month/year?
  • How satisfied are my clients with my services?
  • Will this strategy work or be relevant one/three/five years from now?

If you don’t keep track of your clients’ needs and feedback on a regular basis, you might find it hard to answer some of these.

Keep track of your clients' needs and their feedback on a regular basis. Click To Tweet

How Do I Keep Track of My Clients’ Needs?

The answer is pretty straightforward: With a commercial real estate blog.

Just think of this: Your office is extremely crowded. You want to get to know who you’re selling to, or who wants to do their listing with you. Are you going to dedicate an extra room for interviewing?

You don’t need to create a new department in your building to keep records. Maintaining a blog in the real estate business might sound counter-intuitive, but hear me out.

Here’s some useful information a blog can tell you about your clientele and your company:

  • What your clients need, in their own words
  • How satisfied they are with your services
  • How likely they are to recommend you to their friends
  • How many readers are likely to become leads
  • How relevant you (still) are

Do these sound familiar? You’ve guessed it. They’re answers to what you’ve been asking yourself since the beginning of this article.

And that is just scratching the surface of a blog’s capabilities.

Using Your Blog for Problem Solving and Showcasing Expertise

Most people looking to do business in real estate would rather have a quick way of solving an issue. No emails, no calls, just a straight-up answer from a professional.

Have your friends ever had a question about real estate? Do they call you asking for answers? Possibly. What about all the other people who need help, but who don’t have friends in real estate?

That is the moment when you swoop in with relevant information on your commercial real estate blog.

When I was looking for an apartment in my current city, I didn’t know who to turn to. The papers had lots of ads, but somehow they were all booked when I called.

Luckily, a friend pointed me to a gentleman’s blog who had all the right info about where to look. He also happened to post about areas where people were more likely to rent out apartments.

That way, I got to rent an apartment in the quiet zone I’ve always wanted – instead of just settling for a worse deal someplace else, after weeks of searching.

That is how you build a trust-based relationship with your audience. Being helpful goes a long way.

Quality of service doesn't matter if you can't provide relevant information. Click To Tweet

Leverage Social Media Along with Your Blog Posts

If you’re in the business, you probably know that a majority (91%!) of REALTORS® use social media in one way or the other.

Emails are a fine contact method when you have time on your hands. But if you’re on the road a lot, social media can be helpful in keeping in close contact with multiple clients at once.

Or you could showcase the best deals you’ve made, showing people you mean business.

The most important thing you CAN do with social media, however, is to use it to promote your blog. It’s no use having relevant, well-thought out content if it doesn’t reach a larger audience.

And social media these days is all about large audiences:

  • Facebook? A total of 1.65 billion users
  • Twitter? 310 million users
  • Youtube? Over a billion daily users
  • LinkedIn? 433 million users

With those numbers, just think of all the marketing potential.

Even if you reach 0.000001% of people on social media, you can still have thousands of viewers. Click To Tweet

Taking Advantage of Google

You might think of making use of Google because of their AdWords service. But you would be wrong.

AdWords is a Pay-Per-Click service that might get you a lot of traffic if you’re really well off. But even then, it’s not organic traffic. That means you have lower chances of actually getting leads.

Now for the best part. Google has a funny way of letting people know if your website is not active.

If you don’t post regularly, you fall in rank. Meaning your blog will be sent to pages 2 and beyond, lowering the chances of being found.

That seems fair enough. Remember the part I mentioned about offering relevant content?

That’s what Google tries to do all the time. If you really think about it, why would they rank your blog higher if you don’t keep it up-to-date? It would be like being offered free hosting for your website!

And that’s just bad business.

Increasing Traffic to Your Website

A beautiful thing to have, website traffic. You increase revenue from online ads AND your chances of getting leads for your business.

That is probably the most obvious advantage of a commercial real estate blog anyone can think of.

But before listing it, I wanted to show you exactly HOW that traffic is created.

Sure, you can post a link and your phone number in an advertisement and call it a day. You’ll get a few calls; your site will see a few clicks. You’ll probably even manage a sale.

But how do you keep people coming back to your website long after they’ve done business with you?

By creating the necessary conditions to rise above the competition. It all comes down to that relevant information I’ve been mentioning.

How Will I Find the Time to Do All This?

It can be hard to take time out of your busy schedule to also maintain a blog. That is true.

You’re out in the field, scanning the neighborhoods for prospects, talking with your current clients about a meeting.

Maybe you’re giving one of them a tour of your latest find, showing them the fine woodwork. The modern appliances somehow work well in the overall décor.

But who wants to come back to the office after driving around town in the hot sun wearing a tight suit? AND work for a few more hours?

You have to create all the social media buzz I’ve talked about. Then you have to write quality content to post on your blog to use in tandem with social media. Next, you have to get your content SEO-ready.

What this means is you optimize your website content so people can find you much easily on Google and other search engines.

SEO can have an enormous impact on your business. All of your competitors are going through this process just to stay on top.

Conclusions

We’ve established that to run a successful business, you have to know your client. You also have to make social media and search engines do the work for you.

Show your customers you mean business with a human face. Show them that you’re up-to-date. That you care.

James
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