You’ve heard it over and over: Blogging is a great way to attract attention to your company, build a brand name and gain new clients. But there’s much more to blogging than writing a few hundred words and posting them online. Blogs that sell residential design-build firms to customers strike the solid balance between great content, design and search engine optimization.

Think About What Potential Clients Want to Read

Everyone searches the Internet for advice when they’re looking to buy a product or service. Home buying is no exception. Before your potential clients reach out to any residential design-build firms, they’ve already done significant research online. This presents you an opportunity to get your name in front of a customer before any of your competitors. If your blog comes up in a web search, and the person finds it both informative and entertaining, you might have just picked up a customer then and there. At the very least, you’ve created some brand awareness in the mind of that customer. He or she might share your blog on social media or with friends who are looking for advice on homebuilding.

Think about what potential customers might want to know about home building or residential design-build firms, and structure your blogs around those topics. When you consult with prospective clients, what are they asking? Do they want to know about design trends or the average product costs? Avoid blatant self-promotion; it won’t help you sell.

Make Your Blog Visually Appealing 

You’d think good content alone would be enough to attract a following, but it’s not. If the design and layout are unattractive, many people will click away from the page without reading past the first few sentences - or without reading at all. The longer people stay on the page; the more likely they are to remember you, and design plays a role in keeping them there.

Residential design-build firms should incorporate photos into every blog; visitors are more likely to read blogs with photos. Make sure the photos are a high resolution because grainy photos look unprofessional. The photos should be related to the topic, but feel free to post photos of homes built by your firm. The picture just might sell them.

Avoid long chunks of text. In addition to breaking up the text with photos, use subheadings and bulleted lists too. Blog readers want to be able to quickly scan a piece to get a general idea of what’s discussed before they commit to reading. Long, uninterrupted blocks of text will deter some people from giving the blog a chance.

Insert Keywords for Search Engine Optimization 

A fantastic blog is of little use if no one finds it. Keywords related to the blog topic help people who are searching for the topic find you. Search engine optimization, or SEO, can be tricky, but it’s not impossible. Essentially, you want to find a key phrase relating to your blog and insert it sometimes. A good benchmark is about 1.5 percent, or 9 times for a 600-word blog. But you can’t be unnatural; don’t stuff the keyword where it doesn’t make sense. (The keyword in this blog is ‘residential design-build firms.’ Did you notice?)

Residential design-build firms should pick keywords that are relatively specific - there’s too much competition for general terms. But you can’t be too specific because the term won’t be searched very often. When brainstorming keywords, think about what you would write in the search bar and phrase the keywords according to that. When you are just starting out, it helps to have a resource you can turn to. Take a look at First Site Guide. They have interviews with hundreds of bloggers and provide helpful guides for building an online presence. If you need additional assistance writing your blogs, schedule a call, we can help.