So, you’ve got a passion for real estate and want to share it with the world, huh?
Maybe you’re in the real estate business already and want to use a blog to build your brand and attract more clients? Or perhaps you’re simply looking for a new exciting (& profitable) project to sink your teeth into.
Regardless of your reasons, you want to know how to start a blog about real estate.
And you’re in luck because you can have one running as soon as today.
It can seem like a daunting task. But don’t worry. I’m here to guide you every step of the way.
Let’s dive into the world of real estate blogging and get yours started!
Why Start A Real Estate Blog?
Why should you start a real estate blog? Three powerful words: visibility, value, and credibility.
Though the competition is fierce in the digital world, maintaining a persistent online presence is key to staying relevant. Blogging helps you improve your online visibility, reaching prospective clients who are exploring the real estate market from the comfort of their homes.
Blogs also provide immense value to your audience.
Houses, apartments, offices, lots… it’s all significant investments.
Real estate buyers need all the help they can get.
Being in the business, you’ve got knowledge they crave. Share your insights, tips, and experiences on your blog. Take their hand and guide them. Educate them, and they’ll trust you.
When people see the value you offer, your credibility goes through the roof.
A real estate blog helps you establish yourself as an industry expert. People seek out trustworthy, knowledgeable people when dealing with real estate matters. A blog lets you show your audience “you know your stuff”.
In short, a real estate blog not only helps you find your prospective clients but also builds trust with them.
And in the business of selling homes, trust is everything.
Can You Make Money Blogging About Real Estate?
Absolutely, you can. In fact, many people are making an impressive income from real estate blogging.
It won’t happen overnight, of course.
Like anything worth doing, it’ll take time, effort, and a dash of patience. However, once your blog attracts a steady stream of traffic, several monetization opportunities become available.
First, you can earn money through real estate affiliate marketing programs.
It means you promote others’ real estate related products or services, and earn a commission each time your blog visitors make a purchase using your affiliate links.
Also, ad revenue can be a huge income source.
Tools like Google AdSense or Mediavine allow you to place ads on your blog. Each time a visitor clicks on these ads, you earn. The more traffic your blog gets, the more opportunities for ad clicks.
Finally, you can leverage your blog to attract and convert highly qualified leads for your real estate business.
This can be incredibly lucrative if played right.
The possibilities are many! With some work and strategy, your real estate blog might become a significant income source.
How To Start Your Real Estate Blog In 8 Steps
Let’s face it; entering the blog space can seem like navigating a labyrinth.
Not to fear, below is an overview of what goes into starting your real estate blog. At the end, I’ll also show you a way to get help with all these steps.
Without further ado, let’s get started with step number one.
Narrow Down Your Real Estate Niche
The world of real estate is vast – residential, commercial property, real estate investment, property laws, and so much more.
Trying to cover it all is like trying to eat an elephant in one sitting—it just isn’t possible.
Instead, find your focus. Choose a niche. Here’s a quick glimpse into how this works:
- Define your audience: Who do you want to help with your blog? First-time homeowners? Real estate investors? Commercial property buyers? Identify your target readers first.
- Use your expertise: What aspect of real estate do you know the best? Use your skills and knowledge to your advantage. If you are a mortgage broker, maybe you want to blog about the ins and outs of financing a home.
- Consider your interests: What are you passionate about? If you love restoration and redesign, a blog focused on flipping houses could be right up your alley.
Remember, a more specific niche often has less competition.
It allows you to connect more deeply with your audience. It also makes creating content a whole lot easier. Start small, then expand as your blog grows.
Now, onto step number two.
Decide Your Blogging Platform
At the heart of your blog lies the blogging platform you choose.
It’s the backbone, the architecture, the foundation. It’s essentially the tool you’ll use to get your blog online, to design it, and to make updates.
As you may already know, there are many platforms available, but for a hands-down winner, I humbly suggest WordPress. Why? Well, it ticks all the boxes.
- Ease of use: WordPress is very user-friendly, even for beginners. Don’t know how to code? No problem. WordPress doesn’t require any knowledge of coding or technicalities.
- Flexibility and scalability: Whether you’re looking to create a small blog or a massive real estate website, WordPress can handle it. It’s designed to grow with you. Plus, with over 55,000 plugins, you can add pretty much any functionality.
- SEO-friendly: WordPress is built to love SEO. It makes site optimizations easy so your blog can perform better on search engines.
- Large community: With a wealth of forums, tutorials, and resources out there, you’ll never be alone in your WordPress journey.
Just know that WordPress.com is different from WordPress.org.
I’m recommending WordPress.org (self-hosted) in this context as it gives you complete control over your site.
Once you’ve decided on WordPress, you’re ready for the next stage.
Let’s talk about what your blog will be known as, the domain name.
Find A Catchy Domain Name
Your domain name is more than just a web address.
It’s your online identity, the name that your readers will identify and remember you by. Since you’ll likely live with it for quite a while, you’d better make it good.
When brainstorming a domain name for your real estate blog, remember these key pointers:
- Keep it short and simple: The shorter your domain name, the easier it is for your readers to remember. Aim for somewhere between two to four words.
- Make it unique: In a world with millions of blogs, make sure your domain name stands out.
- Include keywords: If you can, try to include keywords related to real estate in your domain name. This can help your SEO a bit and it helps describe what your blog is about.
- Avoid numbers and hyphens: They complicate your domain name and can create confusion.
- Check availability: Before you get too attached to your chosen domain name, make sure it’s available. You can check domain availability through various domain registrars like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or Bluehost.
You should also pick “.com” as it’s the most popular and most recognized domain extension.
Many things can go wrong when choosing a domain name, so I’ve dedicated an entire blog post to choosing the perfect domain name. Over there I’ll also share some common mistakes I’ve made in the past when it comes to domain names.
Choose a domain name you’re proud to share and move onto the next crucial step: web hosting.
Choose A Reliable Web Hosting Service
Now that you have a catchy domain name, you need a place on the web to host your real estate blog. That’s where web hosting services come in.
A web host is like a storage unit for the content of your blog. It ensures your blog is accessible to readers on the internet at all times.
Several hosting services are available, but here are some factors you should consider:
- Reliability and uptime: You want a host that’s reliable. This ensures your blog is live and accessible all the time.
- Speed: The faster your web host, the better the user experience on your blog. No one likes a slow website!
- Customer support: Look out for hosts with timely & effective customer service. You never know when you’ll need it.
- WordPress compatibility: Since we’re sticking with WordPress, ensure your chosen host is compatible.
- Scalability: As your blog grows, you need a host that can grow with you.
You can consider hosting services such as Bluehost, DreamHost, or SiteGround.
They’re recommended by WordPress due to their reliability, features, and great customer service.
I’ll also show you an even easier hosting alternative soon.
After setting up your hosting, it’s time to dive into designing your blog!
Pick A Theme For Your Blog
A theme determines the look and feel of your blog.
It’s like the decor of your online home. WordPress has an extensive library of both free and premium themes you can take advantage of.
So how do you choose?
A theme should not just be about looks but also about functionality.
It should be responsive, fast, SEO-friendly, and compatible with popular plugins. Most importantly, it should align well with your blogging goals and the real estate niche you’ve chosen.
One such highly recommended theme is GeneratePress.
GeneratePress is a multipurpose theme that gives your blog a professional look.
It’s incredibly fast and lightweight, ensuring your blog loads quickly. It’s also fully responsive, meaning your blog will look great on devices of all sizes. Not to mention, GeneratePress has excellent SEO capabilities to help your blog rank better in search engine results.
It also allows plenty of customization so you can adjust your site’s layout, colors, typography, and much more. Plus, it’s compatible with major page builders so you can construct your perfect blog design easily.
I use GeneratePress on every website these days, and even this website uses it.
Once you have set up your theme, we can now move on to the next step of the process: creating compelling content.
Perform Keyword Research
Once your blog is live, don’t rush to pour your thoughts onto the screen just yet.
Not until you factor SEO into your plan.
SEO or search engine optimization is how you make sure your content reaches the largest possible audience.
Keyword research is a significant part of that.
It’s the process of identifying popular words and phrases people enter into search engines relevant to your real estate niche. The aim? To optimize your content around these keywords and rank higher on search engine results pages.
Here’s a basic workflow:
- Identify broad topics: These are the larger categories under your niche. For your real estate blog, it could be “Residential Real Estate”, “Commercial Real Estate”, “Real Estate Investment”, or “First-time Home Buyers” among others.
- Generate keyword ideas: Now, come up with specific keywords tied to those broad categories. These could be “How to buy residential real estate”, “Best real estate investments in 2023”, “Steps to buying your first home”, etc.
- Use keyword research tools: Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or AnswerThePublic can help you find more keywords and check their search volume.
- Check out the competition: You’re looking for moderate to low competition keywords. Those that are relevant, have decent search volume but aren’t too hard to rank for.
- Refine your list: Finally, choose a blend of long and short-tail keywords based on relevance, search volume, competitiveness, and your gut feelings.
Keyword research isn’t a one-time process (even though you can create a large list in one go). You’ll need to revisit it regularly as trends, market dynamics, and competition evolve.
This is something I can help you figure out as I’ll be sharing a helpful resource at the end of this post.
Right, let’s push to the final step now: Creating your content.
Start Creating The Best Content You Can
After nailing your keyword research, it’s time to put words on the page.
This is the heart of your blog – original, valuable, and engaging content.
Consistent quality content creation does not only help to rank higher on search engines but also to connect with your audience and establish your authority in the real estate sector.
Here are some steps to create compelling content:
- Understand your audience: Tailor your content to your readers’ interests, concerns, and questions. Keep in mind their demographics, preferences, and real estate needs or challenges.
- Plan your content: Based on your keyword research and audience insights, plan your content in advance. It can be in the form of a content calendar, outlining what content will be published and when.
- Write valuable content: Ensure every piece of content provides value to your audience. It could be how-to guides, advice, market updates, case studies or even your personal experiences in the real estate world.
- Optimize for SEO: Include your keywords naturally in your content; the introduction, title, headers, and meta description. Also, include internal and external links where appropriate.
- Engage with your audience: Encourage interaction by inviting your readers to comment on your posts, asking questions, or running polls. Respond promptly to comments and queries.
- Revise regularly: Edit your posts for better readability, update your posts with new information, and always ensure your content is accurate and up-to-date.
Lastly, promote your content across various channels like social media, email newsletters etc., and track your performance using analytics.
Creating content is an ongoing cycle, and takes some time and effort to become good at, but if you keep doing it consistently, you’ll improve really fast.
It can also be very rewarding, especially when the money starts rolling in.
Monetize Your Real Estate Content
Turning your real estate blog into a money-making endeavor is absolutely possible with a few strategies.
My absolute favorite method is using Affiliate Marketing.
This means promoting other company’s products or services on your blog, and earning a commission for any clicks or sales made. Affiliate marketing is free for anyone and can be started by joining something called affiliate programs.
You want to make sure to promote products that are relevant to your audience.
Another fantastic monetization option is Advertising.
This could be through pay-per-click (like Google AdSense and Mediavine), direct advertisements, or sponsored posts. Advertisements are generally easy to set up, but can take time to generate substantial revenue.
Some other common ways to monetize your blog are:
- Offer Paid Memberships or Premium Content: If you’re providing high-value content, your audience may be willing to pay a subscription fee for access. This could be premium blog posts, ebooks, webinars, or exclusive market reports.
- Sell Products or Services: Depending on your expertise, you could generate income by selling real estate related products or services. This could be consultancy services, real estate courses, books or even physical products.
- Generate Leads: If you’re a real estate agent, your blog can be a powerful tool to generate leads. Provide incentives in the form of a free consultation or ebook to encourage visitors to provide their contact info.
While monetizing a blog takes time and effort, it can certainly be a good source of income.
Just make sure to choose a method that best suits your audience and the content you provide. Don’t sacrifice user experience for the sake of revenue.
Successful Real Estate Blog Examples
To inspire you on your blogging journey, here are some successful real estate blog examples.
You can study what they do well and tailor their strategies to your blog.
But don’t outright copy their work!
- Redfin Blog: Redfin focuses on bringing real value to their audience, whether they’re buying, selling or just interested in real estate trends. They publish market trend reports, renovation ideas, advice on home buying or selling, and more.
- Zillow Porchlight: Here the focus is on interior design inspiration, home improvement tips, and spotlights on unique properties. Zillow succeeds in creating high-quality, engaging content rich with beautiful images.
- Realtor.com’s Advice Section: This blog offers tips and advice to homebuyers, sellers, and renters alike. With a range of topics from how to improve your credit score to what to expect when buying your first home.
Note how each of these blogs knows their audience well and offers valuable content consistently and ties their content to their broader business strategies.
You can use these as inspirations for your real estate blogging journey!
Frequently Asked Questions About Real Estate Blogging
How often should I post on my real estate blog?
This depends on your time commitment and resources. Consistency is crucial. Aim for at least once a week. Quality is also critical, so don’t sacrifice it for quantity.
How long should my blog posts be?
It depends on the topic, but generally, posts that are around 1,000 to 2,000 words are good for SEO. Some topics may require more extensive coverage. The goal is to fully cover the topic for your reader.
How can I get more visitors to my blog?
Optimize your content for SEO. Use social media, email marketing, or guest posting to boost visibility. Engage with your audience by answering comments, and provide engaging and useful content.
What if I’m not a strong writer?
You can consider hiring a freelance writer or using writing assistance tools. Alternatively, you can improve your writing skills through practice and use of online resources. To be honest, you don’t have to be a great writer to write on the Internet.
Can I copy others’ content?
No, plagiarism is illegal and unethical. You can take inspiration from others, but ensure your content is original. If you use someone’s data or quotes, make sure to give credit.
How soon can I start earning money from my blog?
It varies. It might take several months to a year to start making significant income. It depends on factors such as your blog’s traffic, how you monetize, and how effectively you implement your strategies. It requires patience and persistence.
Start Your Own Real Estate Blog Today
Venturing into the world of real estate blogging may seem daunting, but with the right tools and guidance, you can create a blog that stands out and even generates income!
Ready to get started? There’s no time like the present.
By joining Wealthy Affiliate, you’ll get access to comprehensive training, a supportive community of 2.7 million, and tools to help you set up, manage, and monetize your real estate blog.
It streamlines the whole process so you don’t have to figure things out on your own.
Not only will you learn how to create quality content, but you’ll also discover effective strategies for SEO, keyword research, and website design that can spearhead your blog’s success.
Start Your Blogging Journey Today and lay the foundation for your successful real estate blog.
Make sure to check it out before you go!
