How to Get FREE Real Estate Blog Content in 2023
On my article about ranking #1 on Google, I have 10 categories of blog posts that you can write in a few minutes and can easily account for 100s of blog articles.
- Neighborhood names
- Local builder names
- Local real estate categories (e.g. HOAs, pool homes, condos, etc)
- Contracts (e.g. “seller’s disclosure”)
- [your city] + [loan type] (e.g. “Killeen USDA loan”)
- MLS statistics (e.g. “[your city] + real estate market”) and updates on market trends
- Local places and events
- Transaction steps (e.g. “[your city] home inspections”)
- Buyer niches (e.g. “[your city] + investors”)
- Local vendors (e.g. “[your city] + lenders”)
- Housing market updates
- Information for local real estate investors
- Opinion pieces about industry news
Writing these articles are free! It costs you only your time, and you can use tools you already subscribe to for unique content, like MLS listings and information.
But you want something even easier, more “free”, and a quick way to post stuff to your blog? Well I will brainstorm some ideas for that, too, below.
Free Real Estate Content Sources
Realtor Content Resource
NAR built the website HouseLogic which is the source of their REALTOR Content Resource. This is a library of content that NAR members (also known as Realtors!) can repurpose for your own newsletters, email campaigns, and, yes, blog content.
Because this is not unique content and is owned, you still must attribute your content correctly.
And because this is duplicate and not original content, this content on your website is unlikely to earn Google love. Google harshly penalizes duplicate content. If SEO is a major concern of yours, then you do not want to use content like this. You need original content.
But if you just want some content for emails, newsletters, or to make your website look alive for customers, this is a quick answer to quickly build out blog articles.
ChatGPT
If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT yet, go sign up! It has a free version, and some people speculate it will take over the world.
In the meantime, it can help you build your blog content quickly.
With a simple text prompt describing what you want, it will write an entire article for you!
It has some limitations. It doesn’t get very hyperlocal. It doesn’t have data more recent than 2021. And the quality is highly dependent on how good a question you ask it.
Google also says that it does not want to see AI content when it chooses what to rank. So using ChatGPT to populate your blog is taking a risk if SEO is important to you.
But it’s not clear if Google can even tell the difference between AI and human-generated content at this point.
At a minimum, it’s an incredibly useful tool for brainstorming ideas of what to write about!
Guest Posting
How about having someone else write posts for you?
I get emails like the above almost every day from randos wanting me to put their free blog posts on my website here at Hooquest.
Why?
Their article will include a link back to their profile or website. Backlinks are an important ranking factor for SEO. So, in theory, this is a win win. The writer gets backlinks for their website and the website accepting guest posts gets free content.
The vast majority of these posts are terrible quality and I personally ignore all these requests. But with a high-quality guest post, this is a legitimate way to grow your website.
In fact, I recommend writing guest posts for other sites like Inman if you want to boost your own website!
But most guest writers want to write for sites with an audience or established website with domain authority. Why would anyone write anything for your one-month-old local blog?
I might consider reaching out to your vendor network. Maybe your favorite lender, title company, or home inspector would be willing to write 1000 words about tips for home buyers and sellers that you can share on your website. They earn a relationship with you and exposure on your site, and you get expert content. Win win!
HARO
HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out.
Publishers, including some major newspapers, magazines, and journalists, post questions. They’re emailed out to subscribers multiple times daily. You can respond with your expert commentary on those topics you know, and will often earn a backlink if your answer is incorporated into their article.
You can also use it as a publisher to ask questions and get expert answers. Use those answers to write half your article with minimal editing!
However, this is a more advanced strategy only available to established websites. Your website must be in the top 1,000,000 for traffic in the United States before you can solicit requests.
That may sound daunting, but isn’t as hard as it sounds if you take your website seriously.
My dinky site here at Hooquest is the 242,257th most visited website in the United States! That represents about 30,000 visitors monthly.
You can find your own site’s ranking on Similarweb.
If you’re in the top million, read more about writing a great HARO pitch to get writers to help you out!
Blog Services
There are a variety of third-party services that offer to help you build or share blog content. If your goal is hands off blog content, the below might offer some opportunities.
Keeping Current Matters
$39.95+/mo. Keeping Current Matters is a content marketing service for real estate agents. They create blog posts that you can share on your social media accounts. The content features call-to-actions that pass leads to you. It is a way to keep your social media busy with quality real estate content.
Conclusion
Real estate blog content ideas are free and abundant. It only costs your time.
Lots of Realtor blog posts are ranking on the first page of Google.
If you are not serious about blogging, then don’t! It’s that simple. Not everyone needs a blog. You might not even need a website!
If you are serious, I recommend learning more about the pros and cons of blogging for Realtors and how to build a business on passive lead generation!
