Running a blog may seem daunting—especially for anyone just getting acquainted with social media—or it might even seem like a pointless marketing ploy, but custom builders with something to say could find blogging to be a solid investment of time and effort.
Several custom builders who have been blogging for anywhere from a few months to a few years have found that publishing their thoughts, opinions, and company news in the blogosphere reaps multiple benefits. Some started blogging as part of a marketing strategy, others as an outlet for thoughts about the business of custom home building, and others simply to communicate with clients. Whatever the reason, they all report that blogging has increased their company's visibility, marked them as leaders and innovators, and built an online community of people who could become customers.
Blogging can create a more dynamic and valuable experience for visitors to your site, giving them a reason to return and possibly consider your company for future projects. Through a blog, a custom builder might:
- Educate clients about home building or buying topics;
- Discuss home design or construction trends;
- Track the progress of current projects;
- Promote special events, such as open houses or seminars;
- Address building industry issues or market conditions;
- Highlight quality work by trade partners.
Marketing Power
"Our IT guy pushed us toward blogging," says Brad Beeson, director of marketing for Bethesda Bungalows in Bethesda, Md. "He said we needed to start using social media as a key element of our marketing plan." At first resistant to the idea, Beeson and the company's owners finally launched a blog in November 2008 to track the progress of a LEED Platinum showcase home (The Incredibly Green Home), and soon noticed both an increase in site traffic and that visitors stuck around a lot longer to read the blog.
Beeson also notes that the company's Google search ranking improved significantly. Posting to the blog once a week, sometimes more frequently, helps keep the company's search ranking high and ensures visitors have something fresh to read.
Beeson says the company gains in other, less tangible ways, too. "It provides kind of a personal view of our company and into our projects," he says. Along with readers among the general public, the company's blog has garnered attention from its suppliers, manufacturers, and trade partners, who Beeson says have responded positively.
Even though The Incredibly Green Home project is now complete, the company intends to continue blogging about projects, events, and other topics because of the results it has experienced. "The fact is, we're one of the busiest builders here in town, and our marketing efforts in the past 24 months have been 100 percent critical to the fact that we're still surviving," Beeson says. Now that they've got blogging under their belts, the company is ramping up efforts on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter to expand its visibility and drive more traffic to its site.
Search engine optimization (SEO) to increase traffic to a Flash-based website was the driving force behind custom builder Mark Johnson launching his company's blog. The owner of Mark Johnson Custom Homes in Wilmington, N.C., saw site traffic jump almost immediately. "We started to get 60 or so hits a day, and it almost didn't matter what the story was about," Johnson says.
The key, Johnson found, was to post frequently—up to six times a day—and to begin each blog entry with the same phrasing. But blogging so frequently was easier when the custom home building business was slow. Now that business is picking up again and his staff is busier outside the office, blogging has decreased to just once a week.