Why Real Estate Online Leads Get a Bad Wrap
As one of my last blog posts of 2016, I want to tackle a question that I get very often when teaching my real estate marketing classes in the Northern Virginia area. “Is it bad if I’m outsourcing real estate content marketing?” The answer to that question is YES…and NO. There are pro’s and con’s to each, and I want to discuss each below. I realize as busy real estate agents that delegation is part of your business. Without proper delegation it makes it hard to grow year over year. It also becomes impossible to wear all the hats and still keep your sanity. Many Realtor clients of mine have expressed their interest of ditching the company website and upgrading to a custom WordPress site, (I highly recommend it) and with that comes adding content to make it go. Think along the lines of adding gas to your Ferrari. Here are my pro’s and con’s to outsourcing real estate content marketing.
Pro’s of Outsourcing Content Marketing
- There is the obvious positive of outsourcing your content marketing; it saves time and you don’t have to come up with blog topics and spend an hour or so writing. This works well especially if don’t like or want to write. Fair enough, many people feel the same way.
- It gives your website fresh content so that it’s updated on a regular basis for your followers and blog subscribers. It also allows your audience to read new and informational content that keeps people on your real estate website.
- Many content writing companies also can embed outbound links within the blog content that will drive traffic to other sources, such as your social media accounts and even video content. Also, saving you time.
Con’s of Outsourcing Real Estate Content Marketing
- The content put on your website is “canned” and not yours. People can tell when they are reading something that is clearly not yours. There is a good chance that the exact same content on your website is also on hundreds of other real estate websites. Not good for the search engines.
- Not optimized for the search engines. Yes, you have content on your site, but is it optimized for the search engines so they can rank it in the index (search results)? Does the content writing company know your short tail or long tail keywords that you want to rank for online? If not, it can be very difficult for your target audience to discover your blog content on their own.
- You lose control by outsourcing. I write ALL of the content on this website…always have and always will. I can control what content is put on the site and pushed out to my audience/readers. What videos I post, any edits I want to make, alt tags, SEO, forms, etc. I control everything and that freedom is pretty cool. By outsourcing your blog content, most of that control is gone.
- Money. Outsourcing anything means you are “paying” someone else to do the work. You will have to add this into your monthly marketing budget and in many instances, freelance content marketers aren’t cheap.
What I Recommend
There is no “right answer” as it depends on how each Realtor runs their business and their overall goals are aligned. If your goal is to create an effective content marketing strategy, build web authority, and gain an online audience than I highly recommend posting your own content. Set a goal of a blog/video a week, brain storm on relevant topics that your target audience wants to know about and go! On the other hand, if those things are not high on your marketing list, but you want some basic information on your website (even if it is canned) so can point your clients to something helpful, then outsourcing real estate content marketing might be for you.
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DCTitleGuy
Director of Sales/Marketing at Stewart Title
My name is Wade Vander Molen and I am the Director of Sales and Marketing for Stewart Title in Northern Virginia/Washington DC.I work with Real Estate agents and Mortgage Lenders helping them grow their business with Outbound and Inbound marketing strategies. If you wish to meet and set up an appointment call me at 480-203-6452 or email at wvander@stewart.com
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