Writing Real Estate Articles

There are a lot of home buyers and sellers online these days. But a website alone cannot give you the Web presence you need to capitalize on it.

With billions of documents on the Web, a single website becomes a needle in a haystack ... a grain of sand on a long beach.

So what you need is a way to be more prevalent online — a way to put your message in front of consumers who use the Internet to search for local real estate professionals. And you need to do it effectively, affordably and repeatedly.

That's where article marketing comes in!

Growing Your Real Estate Business With Article Marketing

Article marketing is the act of publishing articles online for marketing purposes. It can do wonders for your real estate web presence. By publishing articles over the web, you extend your communication reach and increase your search engine ranking (by way of relevant links back to your website). You also give your key audience more ways to find you online.

In other words, article marketing supports the notion of thinking like a publisher, which is a key component of your future web presence.

With a little online research, you can find dozens of websites that seek articles from real estate authorities. EzineArticles.com is a multi-topic article directory, but it also allows submission of real estate articles. HomeBuyingInstitue.com (a real estate-specific website) welcomes articles from real estate and mortgage professionals. A link from HBI could help your search engine visibility a great deal, because the site is real estare-related and well-established in search engines.

Let's look at a hypothetical real estate scenario. John and Jane Doe use Google to research "Austin, Texas real estate." On the first page of search results, they find an article entitled "Austin Real Estate: Ten Tips for Buying a Home in Austin, Texas." They read the article and find it well written, engaging, and above all helpful.

At the bottom of the article, they see an "About the Author" note that talks about Sally Smith, an agent with 20 years experience in the Austin area. And it also mentions Sally's website and blog, where they can find more articles, as well as market news, property listings and more.

Now let's assume they continue their research, and at nearly every turn they encounter more articles published by Sally Smith. There's a good chance they would contact Sally with their real estate needs, since she is (A) knowledgeable and up-to-date, (B) more of a known quantity now, and (C) everywhere they look online!

These are not far-fetched assumptions -- this kind of thing happens every day. But it mostly happens to those agents with a broad web presence, the agents who think like publishers.

When done right, article marketing combines the benefits of public relations, positioning, search engine visibility and branding. Best of all, it costs you nothing but time and effort. Try to get that from traditional advertising!

Now combine the value of article marketing with the website and blog strategies we discussed earlier, and you have three of the six elements needed for a strong web presence. Do you see how these individual elements add up to provide major benefits (in addition to their individual benefits)? That's the whole point of the web presence over the website alone.

How Articles Can Help With Real Estate Marketing

This approach could make a powerful new addition to your real estate web presence. So how can article marketing help you, and why should you invest your time and energy? Here are six advantages articles have over traditional advertising:

Article Marketing Advantage #1 - Reach
Articles have much greater reach than advertisements. The reasons why are obvious. Most web publishers and editors are happy to republish quality articles. But who would republish an advertisement? The answer is nobody -- unless, of course, you pay them to do so!

Articles have a viral quality. When you publish articles online through a distribution website designed for that purpose, you offer that article to hundreds of potential publishers. If your article matches a publisher's needs and is well written, it will likely be published. This can happen any number times, for every article you publish. The length of this reach is limited only by the quality and quantity of the articles you submit.

An advertisement will be published where you pay to have it published, and nowhere else.

Article Marketing Advantage #2 - Credibility
Articles help you build credibility among your target audience and position yourself as an expert. When your articles appear on other websites -- especially if those sites are prestigious or well known -- you gain credibility you cannot get from traditional advertising.

Article Marketing Advantage #3 - Cost
Writing articles is free! You don't have to buy any special software or pay any fees. You don't have to hire a designer or sign any contracts. You can write articles in a word processing program like Microsoft Word, or in a text program like Notepad or TextEdit.

And all you need to publish them is a computer, Internet connection, and an article distribution site (free). Popular article distribution sites include EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com and iSnare.com

Advertising, on the other hand, will cost you a lot -- too much, in this humble marketer's opinion. Despite their decreasing effectiveness, banner ads cost in the hundreds. Magazine ads are even worse. A half-page ad in a full-size glossy mag could easily cost you thousands.

Article Marketing Advantage #4 - Effect
Articles do not interrupt people the way ads do. Good articles are helpful. Good ads are still only ads. People are also learning how to ignore ads, evidenced by the declining effectiveness of the advertising industry (many of whom are scrambling to write "white papers" with titles such as "Advertising: Alive and Well").

This is especially the case with new or small companies. Traditional advertising can break the bank before anybody knows or trusts you. Articles, on the other hand, have the power to educate your audience, build your credibility and your brand, while costing you nothing but time.

Article Marketing Advantage #5 - Versatility
The no-cost nature of article marketing lets you experiment freely with different tactics. You could write articles around key search phrases to increase your website traffic. You could introduce a topic and then promote a book or e-course that delivers the topic in full. You can do a number of things you couldn't do with traditional advertising.

Article Marketing Advantage #6 - Website Traffic
Article marketing can increase your website traffic in two ways. First, when you publish articles online (and those articles get published on other websites and blogs), you increase your audience. And if you've included a link to your website within each article, readers can easily find you.

Also, because you've written your article with pre-selected search engine phrases in mind, there's a strong chance prospects will find the article directly, by using search engines to find information relevant to your article's title and theme.

Conclusion
Online articles can make an excellent addition to your real estate web presence. They can help you broaden your web presence, position yourself as an authority, and reach a large but targeted audience -- and with not cost but time and effort. Can advertisements do all that?

Brandon Cornett is the author of The Agent's Guide to Article Marketing. He has taught hundreds of agents how to publish their way to a stronger web presence. And he can do the same for you!