Posts

Real Estate Data Feeds Are A Great Resource For Bloggers

real estate bloggerReal estate data can help you write that all important 1,000-word plus blog.

A 1,000-word real estate blog you might say? Are you kidding? Doesn’t “War and Peace” have that many words?

Yes, coming up with something to write about on a regular basis is certainly not easy.  Most people have a hard time writing any blog. To think of one every week, well that’s downright torture. And now you want a 1,000 words?

Sure, the first month that a blogger starts they are chock full of great ideas. Then comes month three, four and five, etc. In fact, the months don’t stop. They just keep coming.

All of a sudden that keyboard isn’t so friendly anymore.

The key to writing a blog on a regular basis is to have a source of information that provides you with fresh ideas on a regular basis.

One of the best sources for hyperlocal ideas is a hyperlocal feed of real estate data from providers such as Home Junction.

With a real estate data feed, you literally have a fire hose constantly feeding you constantly changing local information.

  • Recent homes sales.
  • Trends in home prices.
  • School information.
  • Local business information.
  • Demographics
  • Cost of Living Indices
  • Crime statistics.
  • Etc.

Use local real estate data to lengthen blogs

Because here’s why you need as much hyper-local information as you can gather.

Google and Bing. That’s why.

The search engines Google and Bing and all the others like content. (Inman says so.) Fresh content.

And they like in-depth content.

The quality of content is one of the main factors that Google and Bing use in determining rankings. (Sure, there are about 200 other factors as well, but Content is a Big One. Be sure you have that one nailed down. It’s within your reach).

What do Google and Bing prefer in regard to content?

First of all, the verbiage needs to be relevant.

So, if you want your website to rank for Lucky Putter Country Club, it’s smart to have content about the Lucky Putter Country Club on your website and add words related to the club.

With a WordPress real estate website (also offered by Home Junction) you can easily upload tons of content on any subject. WordPress is one of the best platforms in the world for Search Engine Optimization. The software is coded in a way that Google and Bing can easily understand and index in their rankings of websites.

That’s why more than 25% of the content based websites out today use WordPress.

The second item that Google and Bing look for after relevant content is updated content.

Sure, someone can set up a web page about the Lucky Putter Country Club and not touch it for years. But if someone else posts updated and fresh content about Lucky Putter, well Google and Bing are going to notice.

Search engines are all about determining which sites offer the best answers to search queries. Fresh content is one criterion they use. Too many sites are just created and left abandoned with outdated and many times, wrong information.

Google and Bing see that a website that is continually updated, is a website worth paying attention to.

Third, there’s the length of the content.

Sure, the bots that Google and Bing deploy are very sharp. They are equipped with many mechanisms to determine quality content.

But after all, they are still bots (mini-robots).

They aren’t human.

So, one of the factors these bots rely on to measure quality content is the number of words written about a subject. Most experts say a blog or any bit of content should be at least 300 words. Many say the optimum length is 1,000 words (Yikes!).

Some experts will claim blogs should really be 2,500 words. (You’ve got to be kidding. That’s the length of a phone book, right?).

Yes, those numbers are daunting. Or writing anything on a regular basis, say weekly, is challenging as well.

That’s where real estate data can come in handy.

With your own real estate data feed, you have access to an incredible database of local and yes, relevant information.

For example, you could talk about certain neighborhoods you are targeting.

Provide a write-up about the community. The type of homes. The number of homes. The location.

Then go into your real estate feed.

Start pulling up charts for Recent Home Sales in that community. Talk about the results.

Do a screen shot of the chart. (Another key factor that Google and Bing like are images with blogs. Images, break up long blocks of text and make it easier for people to read).

property sales data charts

Do the same with trends in Home Prices in that neighborhood. Talk about where the market is going – up, down or in between. Give some predictions on where you think it is going.

With your real estate data feed, you can also talk about recent homes sold in the community. Point out how that home over there sold for a record amount per square foot, or how that home over here sold in record time for that neighborhood.

Dig deeper.

Talk about the demographics of the community. Maybe the average income is above average for the area. Or perhaps there are a lot of young people who happen to live in this particular area.

Check out your real estate data feeds for the latest school information. Talk about enrollment sizes, student-teacher ratios, rankings for the middle school that sits in the middle of that particular neighborhood.

If the population skews older, use the information from the feed to talk about the different medical facilities in that community.

Crime statistics are always important.

Not only can you use local real estate data to talk about a particular neighborhood, but it’s also great as a comparison tool (in fact Home Junction offers a comparison function that consumers can use themselves).

Comparisons are powerful for helping people sort out information and make decisions. It gives them perspective. A way to evaluate.

For example, perhaps Neighborhood A is a hip, super-desirable neighborhood. The perception that everybody has is that this is the place to be. But, with your real estate data tools, you can do a comparison with Neighborhood B and show it has as many of the EXACT same characteristics as the other neighborhood, but with home prices that are not as inflated.

Perhaps by now, the point is sinking in. Real estate data provides you with plenty of information to elongate your blog posts or your posts about a target neighborhood you want to farm.

With that information, it makes it a lot easier to reach 1,000 words in length. Just like we did here.

Do yourself a favor. Tap into real estate data feed. Your fingers and your followers will thank you.

 

 

 

Property Sales Data Will Add Punch To Your Real Estate Blogs And Content

property sales data chart artProperty sales data on your website in the form of charts can have an incredible impact on the readability of real estate blogs and frankly, any content that is produced.

This is why. Google (and don’t forget Bing) has been on a mission these past several years to create algorithims that can detect quality content. (And they’ve done the same with detecting quality links to a site, but that is another matter all together).

They have teams of computer scientists who do nothing all day but try to figure out what makes a blog post a great blog post.

In the old days of early Google, all a webmaster had to do was continually fill their website with target keywords, such as Pahokee Homes Sales, Pahokee Homes Sales, Pahokee Homes Sales, and chances are they would get a decent search ranking for those terms.

As you can imagine, webmasters gamed the system and “stuffed” all the target keywords they could stuff onto a page.

Today, Google hates that.

In fact, Google’s ranking algorithims have increased tenfold since those days and they’ve become much more sophisticated in evaluating the value of content.

We’re talking to the point where they now measure every noun, verb, preposition, comma, number of words in a sentence, characters in each word, etc.

Other factors they have determined to be important in judging the quality of content are the extras that writers add to a page.

Through their search data, they have found that blogs that include images, graphs, links, bullet points, subheads and other visual features tend to have a higher readership than blogs that don’t.

After all, on the web, where people have the attention span of an ant, content is read quickly and in “chunks.”

Property sales data charts are a magnet for visitors

As a real estate broker or agent, how well do you break up your long blocks of text with these pleasing elements that help the reader?

Geez, you might think, it’s hard enough as it is to come up with the words for  a blog or content. Now you want me to add visual elements in there too? Ouch.

Don’t fret. There’s a very simple and powerful solution.

Property Sales Data charts.

property sales data charts

With today’s big data technology offered by providers such as Home Junction, brokers and agents have this incredible ability to add monstrous feeds of hyper-local real estate data to their website.

Property sales data. Market trend data. School listings. Boundaries. Business listings, etc., etc., etc.

A giant treasure chest of local data – not just down to the zip code, but even to the neighborhood level.

For those of you who remember the old days, in essence it’s like adding an encyclopedia of local knowledge to your website.

Not only do you get the data embedded on your website, with providers such as Home Junction, you can determine how that data will appear on your pages.

As we said, consumers don’t like long lists of words and numbers. So, you can also embed charts and graphs on your website. Show a chart with property data sales for example.

Here’s the beauty of having access to all that content.

You can also take screenshots of your graphs for property sales data and insert them into your blog. (This is very easy by the way with WordPress, the most user-friendly content management system on the planet).

People love images. Think how great your blog about current market conditions would be if you included an image showing a chart with trend lines for homes sales or home pricing.

It would be huge!

Use home sales data graphs in social media posts

An agent can take this even further. Post those charts for property sales data on your social sites – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. People will click on the chart and then sent to the agent’s website. How great is that? Qualified visitors. All for free.

Provide those charts in email blasts to prospects. Promote them right in the all-important subject line.

Headlines could be: “See Latest Property Sales Data For Your Neighborhood” or “Check Out This Chart On Home Sales In Your Town.”

How can a consumer NOT click on those posts or emails?

Wow. This agent is presenting information on the most valuable asset a person owns, their home, or the most expensive purchase a potential home buyer will make in their lifestimes. They will be interested.

These aren’t just electrons floating through the air, this data is golden.

Another benefit is that charts for property sales data can be used over and over again.

Hand them out at open houses.

Include them in any brochures.

Refer to them in podcasts.

Call up the local newspaper or radio station. Reporters are always looking for stories. Tell them you have some super-valuable, breaking news on the latest property sales data trends taking place in town.

What’s super-important about these data feeds, is that you have solid information to back up your claim. Sure, any agent can call the local media and ask them to interview them about local market conditions.

But reporters will give more credibility to the agent who can show they actually have access to that data. Real data. Not just conjecture or opinions.

If you have a regular email newsletter, put those property sales charts right at the top of the page. Consumers will look forward to receiving that chart regularly in their inbox.

And when you make those critical presentations to potential sellers, show them these charts and immediately establish in their mind that you are the go-to agent with local knowledge and the tools to attract buyers.

That includes FSBOs. They won’t have the data you have. That will have an impact on them. They will quickly realize they don’t have all the tools it takes to get the attention of prospects. Not just one buyer. But multiple buyers with offers.

Let these visual charts with property sales data do the talking for you…you will find a simple chart can go a long way to establishing credibility, generating better search engine rankings and attracting valuable clients.

 

 

 

 

Use Real Estate Data To Create Your Own Google-Type Alerts

real estate data alertHere’s a way to use real estate data for one of the greatest and often overlooked inventions of the Internet.

We’re talking about “alerts.” That beautiful byproduct of web technology that is an effective way to attract customers and build valuable email subscribers. It’s a simple gift that can bring in major deals.

On the web today, you can get alerts for anything. Go to Google News, pick a list of your favorite subjects – any subject from your favorite local sports team to your favorite stock to your favorite pop star.

Google will congregate all the information it can find on that subject. Then send it to you. And you will read it.

Okay, you might say, Google is a gazillion-dollar company. How can I as a local real estate broker or agent offer the same service?

With hyper-local real estate data.

While people can choose to get an alert for any little silly subject, you can provide alerts for one of the most valuable items that people own – their homes.

With real estate data from providers such as Home Junction, you can offer consumers a Market Trends alert for their neighborhood (or for home buyers, alerts for areas they are interested in).

Call it a Market Trend Alert. Very simple to do, with the right tools.

With the advanced big data technology that is available today, you can easily embed a widget on your website that will provide you with a treasure chest of local real estate data.

You don’t have to go out and find that information like Google does. Data providers such as Home Junction gather it for you from several different (and reliable) sources. And then send it to you in a data feed.

Now you have the ingredients to create your own Market Alerts.

Hyper-local real estate data will draw people to your emails

For example, say you want to you offer an alert for the neighborhood around Bashful Bear Country Club, a neighborhood you are farming.

Send out a mailing to home owners in that neighborhood offering to provide Market Alerts. Make the same offer with posts or ads on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest.

In that offer, you could give a brief outline of what your will provide. Market Trend data and charts for the number of sales in that neighborhood. A snapshot of what is going on with recent transactions and prices. Show charts with trend lines either pointing up or down.

With in-depth real estate data, you can go even further.

Provides Home Sales Data as well. Show recent sale prices, sales date, year the home was built, number of beds, number of baths and square footage.

Then, to be super-helpful, add in a geo-spatial element. Show the actual location of those sales on a map on your website. Then below it, show homes for sale in that same area.

How cool is that? How helpful is that insight for people who live in that area?

And most importantly, how important is that real estate data going to be as a catalyst for people in Bashful Bear County Club who are thinking about selling their homes.

When that market data hits their email inbox, illustrating how home prices are taking off for example, it might just prompt some home owners to decide it’s time to sell.

Who are they going to call to list their homes?

One strong contender will be the broker or agent who supplies them with that super-valuable information. He or she is going to certainly have top-mind-awareness and a leg up on all the competition.

Data creates a competitive advantage

For one, providing that data shows that this broker or agent is a real pro.

Secondly, talk about local knowledge. This agent not only knows about the neighborhood – the schools, the sales trends, the local amenities, they invested in being able to provide the data to back it up. That’s  true local knowledge.

Finally, that local real estate data is embedded directly on the agent’s web site. For potential sellers to view that information, they need to go to the agent’s website.

That’s a perfect lead generation opportunity. Provide a lead form. Perhaps make it a pop-up a visitor needs to fill out to see that data. Or provide a post visit pop-up before they leave the site with an offer to put together a market comparison proposal.

Alerts are an amazing tool. With the right real estate data tools, you can create your own amazing neighborhood alerts and start attracting consumers just like Google. You don’t need millions of visitors, you just need a few with properties to sell.