Real estate writing can feel incredibly repetitive, especially when you’re writing specifically for a search engine optimization campaign. Out of all freelance writing careers, the real estate focus is one of the very few that still often requests template-structured, statistics-backed work, ultimately leading to writer fatigue. It’s not just that you need to hit the same notes over and over again, but you also need to pack in the keywords and the call-to-action — and often within a space of less than 400 words. Obviously, it gets generic fast.
Go Directly Towards Local News Sources
Local .gov sites, on both a state and city level, are usually the preferred way to get information. If all of your information is coming from the same national site, the similarities are going to bleed through in your work. As an additional bonus, this provides more relevant and timely information than working with a more generic resource.
Take Some Time to View the Demographics
Writing to a specific audience persona flavors your text in a myriad of subtle ways that can’t be gained by writing towards a blank audience demographic. Review the specific demographics of the region that you’re speaking to — are they mostly retirees? College students? Of course, you should also make sure that the persona that you choose to write to fits within the demographic that your client requested. But by varying your audience perception, you’ll find that each individual article feels very different. You probably wouldn’t describe a community event the same way to your mother as you would to your best friend.
Insert the Structured Content After Writing
Sometimes it’s better to completely ignore required content until after you’ve already written the articles as naturally as you can. In a real estate article, it’s likely that you have several keywords, place names, a call-to-action, targeted headers and at least two or three required hyperlinks. Trying to fit these in from the beginning will often create dry, awkward text — and it will make each article seem very much the same. Inserting your structured content later often takes longer, but produces a less restrictive end result. And, hopefully, your client will appreciate the efforts you’ve gone through.
But sometimes it’s not just a matter of pleasing the customer. Sometimes the customer doesn’t care if the writing is generic. Sometimes it’s a matter of making sure that you, on a personal level, don’t go completely insane — especially with those high volume orders. By varying your sources, inventing new angles and taking breaks, you can avoid feeling like a robot while still producing highly structured work that meets the client’s requirements.
Writer Bio: Jenna I is a tech-focused writer specializing in search engine optimization and digital marketing. She lives in a small clay animation world with a variety of animals, some fictional.
