Do you really need to include real estate community pages on your website?
No. Community pages aren’t necessary. Neither are buyer and seller advice pages and pages
that inform readers about your niche.
But including all of them a good idea. If you want prospects to stay, read, come back again, and see you as the expert they need, you need to give them good information.
Strive to provide information that they won’t find on other agent’s websites.
Real estate community pages make a statement,
Many agents make the claim that they know the area inside out. If they’re describing a limited area, it might be true. However, where’s the proof?
Community pages are the proof that yes, you do know the area.
Your area knowledge is important to both buyers and sellers.
Sellers care because it means that you can extol the benefits of living there while answering questions about specific details. In addition, you’re familiar with the other homes that have sold and are for sale, so when you prepare a market analysis it will be based on facts.
Buyers care because it means you not only can answer questions, you can help them find a home in a location that will be convenient to the places they want or need to go on a regular basis.
In other words, you know things that aren’t evident from browsing websites or looking at a map.
Real estate community pages help you define your territory.
Defining your territory will naturally help you attract more listing clients in that territory because over time the residents will come to see you as “their” expert. And of course, the more you work there the more knowledge you’ll gain and the more expert you’ll become.
You’ll become more and more well known as people see your signs and discuss you and your service with their neighbors.
You can add to that effect by sending just listed/under contract/just sold cards and by inviting neighbors to come early to your open houses. You will, in effect, be bringing them in as members of your team.
But don’t worry.
Just as creating a niche does not mean you can’t help clients outside that
niche, defining a territory doesn’t mean you can’t work outside your territory.
It simply means that your territory or niche is the place where you focus your marketing efforts.
Developing a territory means spending less time driving from place to place.
Your time and the fuel for your vehicle are both valuable. Wasting less of both is a good thing.
Should you include more than one real estate community page on your website?
Of course. If your territory encompasses several small communities or neighborhoods, you could post one page as an overview of the area, then post separate pages for each of them.
When writing a set of such pages for a client, I found that each smaller community had its own flavor – something that set it just a bit apart from the others. Finding those differences and including them in your community pages could help a potential newcomer decide which would be best for them. And of course, the fact that you know those subtle differences could be important to a potential listing client.
What if you’re in a sprawling metropolis like LA, Dallas-Fort Worth, or Phoenix?
Do include a page offering an overview of the area, but then focus on the part of that metropolis that you serve.
Just as it would be impossible for any North Idaho agent to really know every town, lake, river, mountain, and valley in the 4,000+ square miles in our northernmost counties, it would be impossible to know all of the towns and suburban areas within major metropolitan cities.
In my opinion, those who claim to “know it all” in either place simply make themselves look foolish.
Real estate community pages are good for search engine optimization.
If your website simply states that you serve clients in Houston, you’ll be competing with
every other site that offers listings in Houston. For instance, every franchise site with a listing in Houston, plus Realtor.com, Redfin, Zillow, and a host of other sites that compile listings from across the country. When directly competing with all of them your site might be found on page 50.
However, when you get specific, your odds of being found rise exponentially. Those mega sites aren’t going to tell people details about the dog parks or health clubs in a small segment of a mega-city. They also are not going to inform newcomers about annual parades, fireworks displays, and holiday gatherings.
Think about what someone might search for if they were thinking of moving to your area. It might be health clubs, sports arenas, golf courses, volunteer organizations, private schools, or senior citizen organizations. It might be employment opportunities.
Think about the details you’d like to know about a community if you planned to make it your new home. Then include those details in your community pages.
Use your blog to enhance your community pages.
There is always something going on in communities – so use your blog to give your readers the latest news and to remind them about coming events. You can also use it to post pictures and report on events that have come and gone.
Those blog posts, especially if you take time to link back and forth between them and your community page, will add to your SEO. (While at the same time making more information easily accessible to your web visitors and positioning you more firmly as “the” expert.)
As you prepare to write your real estate community pages:
Please do NOT simply go to Wikipedia to copy and paste whatever is written there. It may be accurate, but it will surely be dry as dust. Additionally, since you’d be posting duplicate copy, it would do you no good in the search engines. Unfortunately, some agents do follow this practice. I’ve come across it more than once.
My method for writing real estate community pages:
For me, the project begins with doing research and more research. I start with Wikipedia for a general overview, history, and hints about what to look for as I move on. Then I visit sites such as city-data.com to get demographics and information about population, most common occupations, major employers, schools, etc. I also visit the Chamber of Commerce, historical societies, and the city pages.
After that I just keep searching under the name of the city. Sometimes I find interesting tidbits that the other sites don’t mention. For instance, some neighborhood groups have their own web pages or blogs. These offer insight into small, local events that Chamber of Commerce sites don’t mention. Some also provide fascinating historical information.
To learn more about the information I believe should be included and about my methods for turning it into interesting copy, visit: www.copybymarte.com/real-estate-community-pages/
