At our conference this year, Tom Flanagan, Director of Information Technology at Residential Properties, spoke about the importance of unique and engaging content. According to Tom, last year 200 of the top Real Estate sites accounted for 95% of the real estate traffic online. Because of this, it’s crucial to find ways to set yourself apart from the competition.

By providing sticky material to our websites, we are able to enrich the user experience as well as improve our company’s SEO. Today, we’d like to showcase Residential Properties and a few of the ways they’re reaching customers through various platforms and reinforcing the importance of content.

Earlier this week we posted a blog discussing the need for telling a story in regards to our property listings. We showed a great example of how good writing can increase SEO and create an emotional connection with consumers. At Residential, they’re taking this a step further. Below is a video posted on YouTube that provides a great description of not only the property listing, but the community as well.

Yet another way Residential is providing content to consumers is by hosting a radio talk show called, Real Estate Insight. Every Sunday morning at 10am Eastern Standard Time Sally Lapides and her team discuss today’s hottest real estate topics. By going to their website, you can listen to the live show or catch a past airing in the archives section on Podcast. This not only allows users to hear more about the world of real estate, but is another way Residential can keep people on their site. You can also find a more in-depth discussion on the show’s blog, www.realestateinsight.com.

Finally, we’d like to mention what Residential is doing to get the entire company involved in the process. Every Season, they hold an internal photo contest and everyone in the company is encouraged to submit a photo they have taken of the community. The winning photos are then displayed on their homepage slide show as well as the blog. Your blog is a great publishing platform and is a vital way to engage your consumer. Click here to see this year’s spring winners.

So take these examples as advice for advancing your company’s website. Social networking, blogging, and contests allow for dialogue with the consumers and are just a few of the ways you can reach them. The longer you keep a user’s attention, the better your odds that they’ll remember you!