Well of course, you should pop your blog on your website. That will mean that the content will be fresh, lots of people will visit your website and both parts will make you better in the eyes of Google, its great for social media and all that SEO stuff (SEO is Search Engine Optimization stuff .. eg how well google finds you and how it gets you up to the top of the google search list). So, get your blog on your website .. no brainer then? …. well no.
How many landlords type into Google … ‘letting agents in Birmingham’ (or whatever town or city you are in) .. not many at all and 99% of them will be tenants looking for a property.
Putting your blog on your website is totally the wrong thing to do when you are a letting agent. I say this not as an internet freak, SEO guru or an IT guru. I talk as a regular guy who has thought about this long and hard through the eyes of a landlord, read a few books about it and came to a conclusion, a conclusion that is backed up with hard and fast proof IMHO .. but you need to come to your own conclusion blog reader.
Let’s just think about our local landlord.. a 50 yo/ 60yo middle aged middle class chap. He probably runs his own business and works 12 hour days. He has a family and wife and doesn’t even have enough time for them, let alone spend hours a day surfing the web looking for letting agents. He has a hobby or passion, some ‘me time’.. that could be football, that could collect antiques but it will be his portfolio of property. All landlords are interested in is, (1) how well is my existing property doing (value of the property and rent achieved being in line with market) and (2) where is the next one I want to buy (months or even years before they make the purchase).
Landlords don’t type into Google the phrase ‘letting agents in (insert your town name here)’, nor do people type in ‘swap my electricity supplier’ or ‘swap my current account’. If you are a letting agent, if you want to grow your own business, most of that growth has to come from making existing landlords swap agents from the competition to you.
My methods, and they are quite simple, all revolve around making a landlord, of their own free will, walk through the door of your lettings agency BEFORE THEIR TENANT HANDS IN THEIR NOTICE to answer both of those interests.
Once they have walked through your door, if you could over those following months (before the tenant hands in their notice), using good old fashioned business techniques and build a relationship with that landlord, so that very same landlord says to themselves, “Do you know, I like that (insert your name here), the next time one of my tenants hands in their notice, I will try that chap/lady (you) to see if they are any good”.
Doesn’t sound space age does it? It doesn’t revolve around twitter or facebook or this social media or google or SEO rubbish. It is quite simple. It takes a little time. It doesn’t cost that much to do. It does require a little patience though.
So back to the question, why not have a blog on your website? Well, it’s quite simple. Landlords don’t type in the phrase I mentioned above and more importantly, landlords (in fact people as a whole) don’t want to be sold to (does anyone?). By going to a blog that isn’t hosted on your website, the landlord is taking one step closer to you, without committing to you (which going to your website does in his or her mind). By visiting a blog, it’s on the landlord’s terms, not yours.
Visiting your website is on your terms Mr (s) letting agent. They will feel safer to and will visit more often. Use social media as a signpost for your potential customer to want to talk to you .. because people buy from people, they dont buy from tweets!
PS If you are wondering what the picture ahs to do with the story .. it doesnt .. it just made me smile and i hope it does to.