3 "Best Neighborhoods" Blog Posts You Should R&D

"Best neighborhoods in [LOCATION]" is a popular buyer search term. It's also a keyword framework that works in nearly all markets and can be a lucrative source of clients. Whether you're in Topeka or Tacoma, Boston or Bozeman, people who are planning to buy a home – whether they're relocating or already living there – are likely to search "best neighborhoods" at some point.

To give you some inspiration, here are three "best neighborhoods" blog posts, plus some concrete data (where I could) on the success of these posts.

1. Retire Better Now: The 10 Best 55+ Communities in the United States [2025]​

Word count: ~1400
​Neighborhoods included: 10
​Includes individual property listings: No

Even though this article addresses communities across the U.S., it's a good fit for this list because it follows the same kind of structure you'd use in an article about neighborhoods in a single city. The content is straightforward and what you'd expect: a couple paragraphs about each community and a gorgeous photograph of each.

The SEO is solid and doesn't make the article hard to read. For example, take a look at the different ways it refers to "55+ communities" in a completely natural way from one location to the next. The article also does a good job of internal linking to the Vegas-area communities featured elsewhere on the RBN site, and links out to the non-local communities so readers can learn more if they see a community they like.

When I search in an incognito browser, I see this article ranking #1 organically in Google for "best 55+ communities" and "best 55+ communities in the us," and #2 for "best 55+ communities usa." According to Semrush, it has 36 Top 3 rankings. 😲

Retire Better Now is a Las Vegas-based and focused website from Realtor® Matiah Fischer. I spoke last month with his brother (I think), Ty, who confirmed that this blog post generates top-of-funnel leads. He says it gets about 50,000 impressions and between 500-600 clicks per month...just this one blog post.

2. ViewHomes.ca: The 10 Best Neighbourhoods in London, Ontario​

Word count: ~2800
​Neighborhoods included: 10
​Includes individual property listings: Yes

This one is really interesting because the city shares a name with one of the most famous cities on the planet – a city that gets way more searches and has more content written about it.

When I search "best neighbourhoods london" and similar phrases (without "ontario" or "ont"), Google shows results from London, England. Even when I set my location to London, Ontario, the Google results are still a mix of Ontario and England, with the latter dominating. That's quite an SEO challenge from this outsider's perspective.

In any case, this is a strong blog post. I like the way it establishes local knowledge and expertise in the second paragraph – essentially saying, "You can trust us; we live and sell homes here." The content is similar to other articles, but more in-depth and comprehensive. (Again, 2x the words of the retirement article, and it's not filler or fluff.) They're generous about linking off-site, which I think makes the article more helpful in Google's eyes.

Unlike the other two articles I'm featuring today, this article has widgets with the 3-4 most recent listings in each neighbourhood. On a shorter article, you might risk not matching search intent with your content, but that doesn't seem to be happening here since there's so much good neighborhood content.

I see it ranking #2 for "best neighbourhoods london ontario" and a little further down page 1 for "most expensive neighbourhoods in london ontario" and "london ontario safe neighbourhoods." Author Kurtis Forster says this one blog post had almost 7,000 visits and generated 39 leads in 2024. (Thx to Philip Pasma of Asterisk Marketing for helping me track down these results.)

3. Josh and Jolene Baijot: Your Guide to Bellingham's Neighborhoods [2025]​

Word count: ~4200
​Neighborhoods included: 24
​Includes individual property listings: Yes

You may have thought the London, Ontario post was long, but this is 50% longer. 😲

I'm not gonna lie: There's some stuff I don't like about this blog post. It starts with a lot of CTAs and SEO copy/links; it's about 400 words until we get to the list of neighborhoods.

But what I love is how comprehensive and detailed the post is: 24 neighborhoods!! Granted, there's not much info about the first few neighborhoods they list, but after that, most neighborhoods have very in-depth info written by someone who obviously knows the area really well. Some of the neighborhood profiles have enough depth to be separate articles. If you're a serious Bellingham home shopper, this is a really helpful article.

Another thing I love: They link to this article from their main site navigation. That tells Google this page is important. It's really smart because blog content typically disappears into the depths of your site as you add more blog posts. That's not happening with this one.

I don't know how much traffic or business this post generates. I do know that Google loves this post; it ranks #1 for "best neighborhoods in bellingham" (ahead of Reddit and the official City of Bellingham site) and #2 for "bellingham neighborhoods," sandwiched between two pages from the official city site.

Your takeaways: "Best neighborhoods in LOCATION" is a really popular buyer search. It's also a content framework that works in just about every market.

As you can see, there's no one perfect formula for "best neighborhoods" articles. Some posts include property listings; some don't. The posts above range from about 1400 words to 4200 words. (I shared two bonus posts in my mastermind community that are shorter than all three of these, but still crushing it.)

My suggestion if you have (or plan to create) this kind of blog post: R&D the stuff you like from each one. Then do a "best neighborhoods in LOCATION" search for your area and check out your competition. Then write and publish something better than what's already on page 1. You got this. Holler at me if you need help.

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