Hi Nico - my wife is a real estate agent here in the States, and I'm doing SEO consulting for other agents in addition to being her marketing guy.
To answer your question, I'd suggest that a great blog is the #1 thing that differentiates one agent's site from another. You're right that most agents have the same content on their pillar pages -- buying, selling, IDX listing pages, etc. Those pages will help an agent cover keywords like
- Home page/agent profile page: agent name/business name keywords, "CITY real estate agent" and so forth
- IDX listing pages: "homes for sale in CITY", "CITY real estate" and the like
- Buyer/Seller pages: "how to buy a home in CITY", "how to sell my home in CITY", and maybe "homebuying/home selling process" keywords depending on the page content
But those pages don't have a chance at ranking and getting traffic for the millions of other ways buyers and sellers search -- i.e., all the questions they Google at different stages of the real estate journey. Consider:
"do i need a real estate agent to sell my home"
"CITY housing market"
"is now a good time to buy a home in CITY"
"how much money do i need to buy a house"
"what is earnest money"
"pros and cons of living in CITY"
"cost of living in CITY"
"moving to CITY"
"what credit score do i need to buy a home"
"what credit score do i need to get a mortgage"
"is CITY a good place to retire"
etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.
You want a blog with lots of great articles answering those buyer/seller questions. I don't know how it is in the UK, but here in the US there aren't a ton of agents doing that kind of content at a high level and doing it consistently. So if you know what you're doing and can commit to the content, there's a huge opportunity to get more website leads.
That's pretty much the "system" that we're using on my wife's site, and what I'm trying to implement with my real estate clients.
