Homes by Ash Content Strategies

THE CHALLENGE

Help an established business clean up and optimize content they’ve been creating for years to enable better visibility and authority of the brand in the search engines. To create new content, unique to the client and optimized for additional brand reach and recognition through a variety of mediums while providing cohesiveness in the brand online and offline.

Lisa Ash, a REALTOR® at Keller Williams Realty Integrity Northwest in Otsego (MN) and the leader of the Homes by Ash Real Estate team, had a desire to tackle a challenging content strategy goal she had been trying to manage on her own over the course of several years.

Lisa had all the components in place; social media, a website with a blog, a newsletter, follow up email campaigns, market reporting for clients, postcard mailings and a great client appreciation program, but something seemed to be missing or was at least missing the mark. And, coordinating it all was becoming an all-consuming task she and her Listing Coordinator didn’t have time to manage on their own.

THE GOAL

Review, refresh or repurpose content already existing on the HomesbyAsh.com website – CHECK
Update or optimize the most recently published blog article content on the site – CHECK
Create a new content strategy reflective of Lisa’s brand-voice and could be sustained long-term – CHECK
Expand the Homes by Ash brand online with newly optimized social media profiles and routine posting – CHECK
Enhance blogs, social media posts and e-news campaigns with branded colorful imagery to reinforce the brand awareness – CHECK
Expand Brand Awareness through uniquely developed meaningful content once a month to publish on her blogs and social media – CHECK
Redesign and streamline the look of the HBA email campaign while creating new backlink opportunities for the website – CHECK

We started by tackling the HTML formatting of the content on their structured website design.

The challenge was in working on a platform where the owner of the site wasn’t really the owner of anything but her photo, logo, and select page/blog post content. The framework of the site and the ability to enhance layouts, SEO, call-to-actions or overall formatting and function was all controlled through a third-party website designer called Placester. The benefit of these types of site developers is their near ‘ready-to-go’ websites that can be up and published within hours vs. days, weeks, or months for more custom designed sites. The hosting and the security are also minded by the provider, taking that onus off the end user/owner. And, all of the IDX functionality for real estate searches is already in place and ready to set up for the individual licensed agent to initiate.

The drawback? You cannot add, delete or alter functionality. You cannot change layouts to your own custom design, and if you leave, there’s no way to export your content to take it with you. And, you cannot use the blogging platform to “schedule” content publications or control the post date data. If you draft something, the publication date lists as the date it was first drafted, rather than the date it actually published live.

ADDITIONAL CHALLENGES

Because of conflicting HTML language between the Placester site and another site the client utilized for marketing, we were seeing a lot of broken content pages published making it near impossible for a visitor to the site to read and navigate, let alone a search engine’s spiders to crawl it easily.

Additionally, the client was using the blogging platform to merely reiterate a new listing post or an Open House post… both could be seen in other parts of the site, and neither was being shared from the blog to social media. Instead, they were sharing open house and listing announcements from another lead generating website. So, what was the purpose of the blog on this site? Not much.

Furthermore, the scheduling options for this site are short of a nightmare for someone who wants to routinely create content but needs publication dates to be reflective of the date they want it to become available to the open public and the SERPS (search engine results pages).

Finally, we needed to have drop dates coordinated with top-of-the-month email newsletter marketing campaigns so all of the corresponding backlinks to the variety of online resources cited in the emails were correct and applicable.

Time was to be everything, and this was not a client who could or would benefit from a fully automated system of content development and management.

SUCCESS

Not only were we able to work out a rhythm with the client and their team, we were able to expand on our original goals and began incorporating additional posts, short animated/video snippets, and a brand design cleanup over the course of a couple of months. We continue to work with this client today on content development strategies.

The services and solutions we provide to Lisa and her team over the years have naturally increased over time as she discovered more about our capabilities, creativity, the value of accessibility to us and our overall abilities to serve her.

In addition to an increasingly growing a number of visitors and sessions to the Homes by Ash website, the team continues to see steady interest and engagement within their social media and newsletter distributions.

We have increased her presence online through the use of several social media platforms, various platform features, and various post types in addition to articles and posts published directly to one of the largest search engines in the world, Google®. And, as a result her reach and overall search engine integrity scoring have gone up as well.

We also continue to monitor and manage consumer feedback and reviews for Lisa Ash and her team across a variety of trafficked online applications such as Google® reviews and others. We needed to help Lisa find ways to engage with consumers, build brand authority, and provide for additional branded communication development associated with these communications online and offline, and potentially outside her own set of go-to tools and resources.

List of Projects Completed for the Homes By Ash Real Estate Team To-Date:

Real Estate Blog Content Research, Creation, Optimization, and Publication Strategy and Implementation
Social Media Content Creation and Monthly/Weekly/Daily Publication Strategies and Implementation
Google® My Business Optimization and Publication Strategies and Implementation
Facebook Business Page Optimization, Engagement Management, and VIP Group Post Strategies and Implementation
Customer Appreciation Event Marketing Strategies, Design, Development and Implementation
- Promotional Postcard Design Work
- Event Page Creations on Eventbrite® and Facebook® when applicable
- Social Media Post Campaign Design Work and Strategy Implementation
Real Estate Listing Promotional Flyer Design Work
Real Estate Promotional Postcard Design Work
Business Card Design Work
Guest Author Research, Consultation, Coordination, and Implementation when applicable
Third Party Software or Service Research and Consulting
Coming Soon and New Listing Social Media & Search Engine Promotion Strategies, Design Work & Implementation
Just Sold Listing Social Media & Search Engine Promotion Strategies, Design Work & Implementation
Client Recognition and Client Appreciation Social Media Strategies, Design Work & Implementation
Client Review Outreach Supplementation
Real Estate Open House Event Marketing Strategies, Design, Development and Implementation
- Event Page Creations on Google® and Facebook® when applicable
- Social Media Post Campaign Design Work and Strategy Implementation
Monthly Email Campaign Design and Implementation – designed and published through MailChimp
Holiday Email Campaign Design and Implementation – designed and published through MailChimp
Holiday Social Media Campaign Design and Implementation
Informational Community and Real Estate Listing Video Design Work, Publication Strategy and Implementation for Google® My Business, YouTube®, Website and Social Media
Thank You and/or Holiday Postcard and Greeting Card Design Work
Live Event Photography – used during Live Event real-time post campaign or for future marketing strategies
Casual Client Photography and Video – used in a variety of video and post creation marketing strategies
Website Landing Page Design, Development and Strategy Implementation

Every client is different. Every client’s needs, goals, and targets are different. Back2Basics, LLC is a small business brand management business who was designed from the concept that we highlight, compliment, or fill-in where you need us most. The services and solutions we provide are as varied as the number of businesses are varied across the U.S.