Blogging for Home Builders
Many of the New Homes Section Blog readers are already familiarized with the benefits of maintaining a company blog. Unfortunately, many of our clients – home builders, are not aware of the value that blogging can have on their companies.
Perhaps it’s the term blog? It seems that the general perception of a blog is that it’s a personal account of an individual’s activities and not a marketing tool. Few understand that if done right, a company blog can greatly increase a website’s presence in search engine results.
Note that I stated, “if done right”. What this entails is contributing a new blog post daily, providing information that offers value – sharing exciting news and developments about your company, and offering industry insight.
Let’s take a closer look at some of these attributes, assuming we are discussing a home builder who wishes to start a blog.
First, posting daily blog posts is the quickest way to develop publishing power. Take a moment to think about the term publishing power and ask yourself, do I want publishing power? Of course, this is a no-brainer question, and yes, of course you want publishing power. Having publishing power means when you have something to say, the search engines are willing to listen and share your message with their visitors.
Now let’s do the math. It’s no secret that search engines love websites with loads and loads of content. If you are a local builder, the chances are you can count the amount of webpages on your website on one hand! Five to ten-page websites are not viewed as powerful resources in the search engines’ eyes. So if you are posting a new blog post every day, guess what… you’re also adding a new webpage to your site. And if my math is correct, after your first year of blogging, you’ll have added over 350 new pages of content to your website. Guess who’s the big dog in your respective market now?
On to quality and providing information, that offers value. Let’s see, you’re a home builder intending to blog so that you can attract more Internet home shoppers to your services. So with this in mind, start by directing your posts towards home shoppers. Do you have a new community that you’re about to have a grand opening for? Why not tell the world in a blog post? Do you have a new incentive or special offer on move-in ready homes? Why not tell the world about it? You can create quality by sharing information that your readers find useful. It seems to me that home shoppers want to know about new communities and special offers, so start there.
Finally, share your thoughts and insights about your market and of course the home building industry as a whole. Steve Doyle, President of Brookfield Homes San Diego/Riverside Division, is one builder who appreciates the significance of sharing his experiences with his blog readers. For example, Steve has recently written a post titled How Do You Fix the Housing Problem?; which discusses the various proposals put forth intended to mend the housing crisis. What makes Steve’s views valuable? Well… the fact that he is the President of a home building company who is willing to share his knowledge and views with the general public. After all, there’s only a handful of people who can truly understand and evaluate new-housing market conditions based on personal experience.
Now let’s go over what we’ve learned. A company blog is not an opportunity to tell co-workers about your new chocolate-lab puppy. A company blog is to tell home shoppers in your market-area about your services, offers, and why your company is so much better than your competition. We blog daily to create publishing power, which increases your website’s standings in search results, plus to build a bigger and better website.
The fact of the matter is that very, very few home builders have taken the initiative to create a company blog and those who have, don’t post on it daily or even weekly for that matter. So if you want to attract some of the 80 percent of home shoppers who begin their new home search online, start blogging! It’s inexpensive and a great start to dominating your market via the Internet.
Got questions? Want some additional blogging advice? Just post your question(s) using the comment form below.
I am a Managing Partner, Internet Marketer and Blogger at New Homes Section. Follow me on 
“Perhaps it’s the term blog?”
I don’t think it is so much the term as it the technology. When I first started teaching real estate agents how to setup a blog and market it, I couldn’t believe how many of them were actually scared of the computer.
I always used to hear the excuses like, computers don’t like me, I am not tech minded and so on. I think that just educating these people, grabbing them by the hand and saying “Look! This is what you need to do to build a presence online!”, will make a world of difference.
The good thing is that articles like this one are exposing these crowds, whether they be home builders or any other profession, and allowing them to become more comfortable with the process. Nice post!
Patrics last blog post..Minnesota Real Estate License
That’s a very good point, Patric. I agree, technology does detour many people… even myself at times.
Thanks for the comment.
Rick NHS
Blogging seems to be a really simple way to inform your clients of market conditions, research them so you yourself are aware of the conditions, and present yourself as an expert realtor who’s not afraid to tell people information.
It’s the most positive way to present yourself available right now in my opinion.
Robert Eskiw – Edmonton Homes For Sale
Once you learn how to blog it really is a wonderful way to keep clients, potential clients, vendors, subcontractors etc. informed on what is happening in your life and business. It really gives me and my company a real edge over competition.
It is such a good way to interact with your customers and it can be fun! We help people start off with their blogs and it is great to see such valuable information they can impart. Often the hardest thing is to get them to just chat away!
If I move to Texas I have a Realtor! I wouldn’t if you hadn’t been blogging
Thanks for stopping by Suzanne!
You’ve just given me an idea for that daily content post! Why have the builders blog when we can blog for them and get the buyers!
I would have never imagined the power of blogging had I not taken a bloggin course from Mariana Wagner and saw my website go from page 18 to page 1 (on occasion!) for my keywords.
If you aren’t blogging, you are defintely behind the 8 ball (so to speak).
I am a Realtor/Builder and I blog a lot.
I have written many posts on the housing crisis. A few have been pick up. The Fed is working my mortgage ideas and Cramer used my blogs for a by 3 weeks ago.
If the fed keeps putting money into new mortgage paper with Fannies and Freddie, the money will eventually hit the market. So far it is only hitting in the conforming mortgages. I wrote about 10 weeks ago for the fed to borrow on long term treasury’s and put the money directly into new mortgages at low rates to get the market going. I also said they should provide investor financing to get the foreclosed homes bought and rented. Investor will bring a lot of capital to the market. All buyers must qualify under normal standards.
My investigation also finds the heavily hit markets are reacting to the lower prices and lower rates and volume is picking up nicely.
The banks can not get the money directly, they won’t lend or at least not at the rate and quantity we need. When a purchaser gets a mortgage, buys a property, the old mortgage gets paid off to the bank. The bank receives the money and the mortgage is retired. If the bank’s reserves we short to retire the mortgage that is another issue for their solvency.
@Richard – thanks for stopping by
You’ve got some pretty good ideas and are channeling them in the right direction. keep it up – I stopped briefly by your blog http://newhomesbyrichard.com/blog/ and will be back on over, unless, of course there’s no room for 1 more reader
Good article. Blogs is the quickest, easiest, fastest and the best way to information and get clients. Remember that Google ranking your new information often in 20 – 25 minutes in the SERP so work very hard and get the right keyword in the title, text relevance, H1, H2,ect, headings, Meta Keywords, the keyword density and keyword placement in the text and you have your blog on the 1 page in Google.