You know those smooth-talking consultants who wanted to charge you thousands of dollars to “get you to the top of Google?” There’s one very important message that it seems they often fail to deliver:

CONTENT IS KING.

I cannot understate how often we run into folks who spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about attracting visitors, but little to no time worrying about capturing/closing them.  SEO is important, for sure, but is it more important than content?

If you don’t have a property search that gives buyers a multitude of search options, along with metrics such as neighborhood values, distance to amenities, and comparable sales, then they will look elsewhere for that information, no matter how great your search engine placement is. And if your website is just a keyword-packed bunch of blog posts without content that is useful to your audience, you are similarly missing the boat.

Today’s buyers and sellers want information, and lots of it.  The agent that gets their business is not necessarily the one who is #1 in Google, but the one who does the best job of balancing being “found” and presenting great information and data to potential clients.  I would bet that if you looked at a list of the top producing agents in your area, a decent percentage of them are not at the top of Google!

We’ve been in the real estate technology business for 6 years, and the common thread among our most successful clients is a rabid commitment to producing good content.  In fact, the ones who sell the most are, in my cases, not even receiving the most leads!  They just do a great job with the leads they do get, and are diligent about continuing to add content to their sites and direct traffic to their property search, where they can capture leads.

SEO is important, but nothing beats good content. Ever.