Guest blogging simply means publishing an article or blog post on someone else’s blog, website, magazine or newspaper — in fact, this is a guest blog post for Inman. (Interested in learning more about Inman’s contributors program? Email contributors@sandbox.inman.com.)
If done correctly, guest blogging is an excellent way for real estate agents and brokers to generate lots of buyer and seller leads, and it’s also a reliable tool for farming your niche.
Guest blogging is one of the top five real estate marketing ideas I highly recommend to any agent who’s serious about farming an online niche.
Guest blogging is a tool for three major real estate areas:
1. Farming your niche
Guest blogging is a free way to farm your niche online — and also to showcase yourself as an authority in your niche.
Guest blogging is also a win-win situation; it helps the blog publishing your work by providing free, high-value articles, and it gives you link juice, lots of leads and exposure to a select market.
Writing an article about local real estate that’s published in one of your town’s most read, most respected media outlets will boost your brand to another level. In the eyes of the general public, writers for that media outlet are authority figures — and when your article is featured there, it means you are definitely an authority in your field.
2. Brand awareness and promotion
If you have just launched a new product or have recently started targeting a particular niche, guest blogging is a vital way to create brand awareness and publicity. What better way to let your target audience know about your news?
3. Link-building
Though marketers are now trying to dissociate guest blogging from link-building, the fact remains that guest blogging is the best way to cultivate editorial links from domains with high authority.
How to find guest-posting opportunities
I have a friend who always says, “If you have a question, ask Google.” And the most effective way to source for guest-posting opportunities is to ask Google.
Below are some keyword phrases you can use to search for guest posting opportunities in Google:
- “write for us” + “your market”
- “contributor” + “your market”
- “guest writer” + “your market”
- “guest author” + “your market”
- “guest post” + “your market”
How to get your guest post approved
1. Read the publishing guidelines of the guest publisher and make sure your articles follow those guidelines. (Email contributors@sandbox.inman.com to request a copy of our contributor guidelines.)
2. Look at the other guest articles that the publisher runs.
3. Always submit your best articles for a guest post — don’t send the one you didn’t research and spent very little time writing.
4. Make longer articles scannable by breaking them down with headings, subheadings, numbers and bullet points.
5. Although you will gain a backlink for submitting a guest article, that should not be your focus. Your focus should be to provide a quality article that is engaging and educational.
6. Stick to the word count provided by the publisher. Aim to write more than the minimum; don’t ever fall below the required word count.
7. Always proofread and edit your article before submitting. Grammatical errors don’t make anyone look good — yourself or the publisher.
8. Submit to websites with very high domain authority. That will give you great “link juice.” A single backlink from a website with high domain authority is worth much more than many backlinks from sites with low domain authority.
9. Make sure you have read and that you understand the guest publisher’s linking guidelines.
Guest posting is one of the most underrated real estate farming ideas; many agents neglect this pathway because they think it’s too difficult. However, if done correctly, it can be a source of generating prospects, day in and day out.
Ibemere Obinna is a Realtor and an Internet marketing expert. He blogs about real estate Internet marketing and SEO on his blog, Realtor Guide.
