On the 407th episode of Mail-Right Show, Robert Newnan, and Jonathan Denwood provide comprehensive discussion and techniques to improve website traffic, attract potential clients to a real estate agent’s website, and generate quality leads. Robert Newman is the founder and CEO of Inbound REM, an inbound marketing firm, and has 15 years of experience in the SEO industry. Jonathan Denwood, on the other hand, is the joint founder of Mail Right, a platform that builds beautiful websites on WordPress and combines digital marketing tools in a streamlined, user-friendly package.
MVP (Minimum Viable Post)
When it comes to most viable content (MVC), look at what you’re competing against, but also ensure that you have a structure to your posts to present different elements. Provide something different or better, but it doesn’t have to be longer. The only problem with it is that you should have some level of awareness and a certain level of knowledge to assess what a minimum viable post compared to your competition is.
A long time ago, Bruce Clay popularized the term “skyscraper” in the SEO world. Now, everyone from Neil Patel to Brian Dean talks about it when discussing SEO strategies. The term skyscraper is essentially trying to outdo existing content. In the past, this meant making your content longer or better than the competition. However, today, according to Seth Godin, content success is more about how engaging and helpful it is rather than just making it longer.
When you look at a post, you must see what valuable content you can provide that is missing. One example you can provide is video because it’s interactive content you can easily put on the website. If users watch the video on the website where they found it, they often spend 1 to 4 minutes there. Google registers this as “hang time,” or the time users engage with the site, and it’s a huge SEO signal. When a user clicks on a video and goes to YouTube, it indicates user engagement. Even if the user leaves the website or goes elsewhere, having a video on your site still has value. It changes how the content works. Imagine you write a post similar to what someone else wrote, almost word for word. But, if you add a video with an informed opinion about the topic, you’ve made your content much better. It’s like adding commentary that makes people connect with the written words more effectively.
Another hack you can do to create a minimum viable post is adding a table of contents. This feature allows readers to navigate through long articles easily. For example, if you’ve written a long 5,000-word article, a table of contents helps users find specific sections quickly. Instead of scrolling through the entire article, they can click on the table of contents to jump directly to the information they want. Another effective hack is using accordion menus. These are features that reveal hidden content with a simple click. Accordion menus are the straightforward and cheapest way to make your content more user-friendly.
If you look at the Inbound REM website and its blogs, you will notice how it is highly optimized. On their blog posts, there’s a handy table of contents on the left, then videos, recent posts, and categories on the right. Additionally, you’ll find sections for recent comments, reviews, and testimonials about inbound marketing. Their pages are well-structured, consisting of tables, written content, and images, all following a consistent layout depending on the blog post.
Consider as well creating infographics using tools like Canva. For instance, if you want to highlight the top five most expensive things on the cost of living in Costa Mesa, you can create an infographic with pictures that represent them. Readers can quickly grasp the key points through images without reading lengthy paragraphs.
Producing “Information” Posts — It’s All About Ideas
When creating website content, one crucial point realtors often stumble upon is selecting the right topics. This is important because it can impact whether the website attracts organic visitors from search engines without paying for ads. This process involves simple SEO research, and it doesn’t require the latest information. Selecting the right topic is similar to choosing the right ingredients for a recipe to boost your website’s popularity online.
The easiest way to find content ideas nowadays is to let Google suggest topics. For example, when you do a broad search in Fairhope, Alabama, a well-off coastal area, one doesn’t need specialized tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Ubersuggest for keyword research. Google already provides primary questions people are asking about the area, such as what it’s famous for, the cost of living, the distance from the beach, and prominent people associated with it. Google can already give potential article ideas. Furthermore, looking at what others are writing about for SEO purposes, like the city, community, parks, trails, Fairhope Museum of History, Fairhope Docs, and the Marina, can be a valuable source of inspiration for content creation.
Knowing what your target audiences’ common questions are is also helpful in creating content. You can write your answers to their questions that may not exist elsewhere. This not only helps clients but also makes for great blog content. To find these questions, real estate agents can use platforms like TripAdvisor, Core, and Google, which are very helpful to find questions that potential buyers and sellers have.
When it comes to content ideas or writing content, many people make it more complicated than it needs to be. So, if you want to write about the cost of living in Beirut, Alabama, keep the blog title straightforward unless you’re in a highly competitive market where your rivals have SEO and copywriting experts on staff or have hired agencies. In that case, conducting basic research, as mentioned earlier, will put you ahead of most of your competitors.
Overall, the only thing you need to know as a real estate agent is that you should be a lifestyle and transactional expert. That’s what your profession dictates that you should be.
Semi-Copy Your Competition Post Titles
Titles are essential in improving your real estate website traffic and leads and are one of the main things that Google looks at. When creating a title, do not copy your competitor’s title word by word; instead, swap some keywords with similar words.
Including many list-style articles that cover several topics, not just real estate, is also recommended. For instance, most articles often feature odd numbers in their title, like “Nine Essential Blogging Tools.” Surprisingly, odd numbers grab more attention and engage readers effectively. This might be new to some, but it is quite a quirk of online content. The idea is that the title of your article is closely related to SEO, which is all about how well your content appears in search engines. When people search for something and see your article in the results, they’re likelier to click on it if the title is catchy and easy to read. In simple terms, using odd numbers in list articles can boost your online visibility and get more people to click on your content.
However, it’s essential to note that there are instances that it came from ChatGPT’s overuse of odd numbers and might compromise the uniqueness of a blog. Relying solely on AI or behaviorally-generated content could diminish the blog’s distinctiveness. Additionally, when searching for information in ChatGPT, it will say odd numbers might generate more clicks. However, this conclusion is drawn from data sources like Bing and Microsoft, as ChatGPT lacks permission to access Google data, which comprises 85% of available information.
H2 And H3 Titles Are Important
H2 and H3 titles are essential to explain to the audience what a header is. Blog posts are created using HTML. When coding using HTML, the main titles of blog posts are labeled as H1, typically found at the top of a webpage or blog, like in WordPress and other website builders. Subtitles are marked as H2, and it’s recommended to have only a couple of them, though this is not a strict rule.
Experts suggest that the wording used in H2 and H3 titles is a key factor in how Google evaluates a webpage for search ranking. While Google considers many factors, optimizing these titles without overloading them with keywords is crucial. Google takes the titles and makes assumptions about the content of the entire page with headers confirming it. This process is known as semantic keyword recognition. Instead of analyzing every word, Google uses language density and headers to understand what a page is about. Once it identifies these “signposts” and assesses language density, it forms an assumption about the page’s topic.
Internal And External Links Are Important
While Google considers user engagement as a key factor in ranking, it also considers the interconnectivity of pages within a website. How easily users navigate from one page to another is crucial for a website’s overall performance.
When people click on links and go to other web pages, the question is: do they stick around on those pages, and do those pages help with the main topic? If the answer is yes, it benefits all the pages.
Google is moving away from the authority of individual pages to more domain authority because of advances in AI and technological changes. Domain authority is gaining importance, and it’s also important to include links within your website’s content. Linking three or four pages on a similar topic is a good practice. There’s a term called “silo,” a structure where it groups pages that feed the main authority to one main page. Silo is like a central hub with pages that boost the authority of the main page.
Link building used to be a significant part of SEO, but it’s become more complex and less critical. It’s not considered a top-ranking factor anymore. However, links remain crucial for establishing a website’s authority, especially for competitive keywords. For less competitive keywords, user behavior matters more.
Regarding external link building, the key players to target these days are ActiveRain, Inman, and RealT News. These platforms have long been trusted sources for real estate news among real estate agents and professionals. If you get a link from these reputable sources to your real estate website, it can significantly boost your standing with Google. A single link from such an authoritative source can establish your website’s credibility. If you get two or three links, it will help boost your website’s reputation in Google’s eyes.
Moreover, localized SEO differs somewhat between regional and national. In less competitive areas, one can build external links using directories and various resources and fill in the details. However, in highly competitive locations such as Beverly Hills, New York, or San Francisco, where many real estate businesses and agents actively invest in SEO, the task becomes more challenging. These areas require more advanced SEO strategies due to the fierce competition.
