Are you struggling to find interesting, relevant local information to post on your real estate blog and social media to share with your followers? For any agent, local info is the most valuable one. It showcases the best things your area and neighborhoods have to offer and creates you a reputation of a go-to expert. Here’s how to easily uncover more locally relevant info.
Why do you need local content?
Local content is getting more and more important for brick-and-mortar businesses servicing particular areas.
First of all, it boosts local SEO and helps you beat large property portals which usually dominate search results.
Second of all, it’s the best way to promote your area at large and be seen as a leader in the area. You can educate potential clients on the questions they’re interested in. Writing about amenities, schools, market trends, cultural spots or job opportunities is a great way to naturally use hyperlocal keywords you want to rank for.
So the question is how can you create a consistent, automatic stream of useful hyperlocal content to use on your real estate blog and social media?
Set up a few alerts with the right tools, capitalize on the power of social media and you won’t fall short of great content promoting your area.
4 tools for finding the best hyperlocal content to share with your followers
1. Set up email notifications with Google Alerts
You’re probably using at least a few Google apps, and Google Alerts might be another useful tool to add to your list. The tool is straightforward and easy. All you have to do is save your searches and Google will email you a daily update with all the websites that published content you’re looking for.
For example, you may search for:
- your city name;
- neighborhoods;
- local property developers;
- property types you’re marketing plus the name of your city (for example, “Dublin apartments”);
- all major local establishments or companies like resorts, shopping malls, brand shops, restaurants, airports, hospitals, schools, universities, etc.;
- upcoming events.
Once you saved your searches, Google will start emailing them to you. Share the best information via your real estate blog and social media or use the ideas to produce your own content.
Additionally, you might want to sign up for tools like Talkwalker alerts or Mention.
[Related post: 7 Steps to Crafting an Outstanding Real Estate Newsletter]
2. Review and travel sites
A good way to find lots of locally relevant information are review sites like Tripadvisor, Yahoo! Local, Zodio, Foursquare, Bing Places, Travelindex, WhoDoYou, Yelp, etc. (note that some of these sites may not cover your area).
Chances are good you’re already using some of them to ask your customers for reviews. Another way to get even more value is to set up email alerts to monitor your local area. You can then share the best reviews on your social media. Many of the reviews are very insightful and entertaining so it’s a good idea to offer your audience a first-hand experience from their peers.
Likewise, you can set alerts from travel sites like Tripadvisor or Lonely Planet as they publish amazing content that could make your real estate blog more diverse.
[Related post: Real Estate Agent Reviews: Are You Missing Out a Crucial Ingredient?]
3. Twitter
Although in some decline, Twitter is still very much useful. You can uncover lots of hyperlocal content by using its usual search (including advanced search).
Follow any organization that tweets local info (local newspapers, lifestyle magazines, universities, schools, job boards, restaurants, companies, business and real estate journalists, convention and visitors bureaus, etc). Most importantly, you want to find and follow local bloggers. They produce the exact type of contact you’re looking for and might even target the same audiences.
[Related post: 10 Real Estate Growth Hacking Ideas to Inspire Your Team]
4. Feedly
Feedly is another great tool for identifying hyperlocal content. Basically, it’s another place to store the sites you wish to follow for updates. In addition to that, make sure to create Feedly keyword alerts (together with English, the tool supports another nine languages).
As always, use the hyperlocal searches and you’ll get a curated list of resources covering the topics you’re interested in.
5. Google search operators
For more accurate results, Google also enables you to narrow down your search. Here’s a full guide on search operators, meanwhile, let’s take a look at some of the most helpful ones:
intitle
If you type [ restaurants reviews intitle:Dublin ], you’ll get pages with those words in their titles.
inurl
This search operator uses the same principle. If you type [ restaurants reviews inurl:Dublin ], you’ll get pages with those words in their URLs.
inanchor
Use this search operator to search for your keywords in anchor text of the links. Typing [ restaurants reviews inanchor:Dublin ] might give some other results the previous searches didn’t find.
[Related post: Get on the Map: 21 Brilliant Ways to Master Local Real Estate SEO]
6. Nextdoor
Agents from the US, the UK and the Netherlands can also use the Nextdoor app to join neighborhoods groups created by people living in the same cities. You can set alerts and take part in conversations. Answer property-related questions and direct people to your website for more info, if appropriate.
[Related post: Struggling with Local Real Estate SEO? Ramp It Up with Citations]
What’s next?
The bottom line is that local content is the best kind of information to share on your real estate blog and social media. Set these tools to work for you and create an automatic stream of the latest hyperlocal content you can use to engage with your prospects, boost local SEO rankings and generate more business online.
