All Realtor blogs are based on the concept that the followers (blog visitors) of a blog form a community with common interests and issues of home ownership(i.e. buying a home, selling a home, neighborhood communities, etc).
In Business to Consumer (B2C) marketing, Realtors to consumers, agents should seek to leverage the phenomenon that members of a community tend to “talk among themselves” when making a home purchase or home selling decision. By developing audiences interested in your services, blogging has immediate and long-term benefits for you as a Realtor and for your community members.
Short term benefit…Getting the conversation started:
Conversations are started and dialogues begin with just a single post. So each post begins the process of establishing a realtor to consumer relationship…that can then be built upon and nurture trust between the consumer and you.
Long term benefit…Nurturing trust:
The conversations allow opportunities that didn’t exist before the conversation began. As you develop more conversations, which builds trust, with your “community” you can expect to receive referrals and ultimately have more satisfied clients for life.
Let me know your thoughts on this post.
More blogging tips for Realtors to come…
Here is a list of the top 3 blogging tips for Realtors to keep in mind when updating their blog:
1. Consistency – take one day and plan ahead for your next months posts. This should include the topics and a sentence to jog your memory about the post content.
2. Progressive Posts – don’t post content just for the sake of posting content. As a Realtor you blog should be an opportunity for you to nurture relationships…to move a relationship forward…gaining more of your readers trust. Move your readers through a process to deepen your relationship (watch for a new post on this topic).
3. Test Their Level of Trust in You – Blogging Realtors, this is done by asking your readers to take some form of action while on your blog. As a Realtor you have access to real estate related information more readily than an individual…so perhaps you can offer something for nothing (i.e. sales stats, download free report, free CMA, click on this link, etc.)
More blogging tips for Realtors to come…
Get a blog started if you don’t have one
Write a blog post every week
Focus on using 2 or 3 Social Media sites
Create one cohesive online presence (website, blog and social media sites)
Understand the results you are getting (traffic, from where, how much, what pages are being viewed, SE ranking, etc)
The sooner you lay out a plan, the sooner you’ll reap the benefits of blogging and social media and the integration of these into your online marketing strategy.
Make it happen this year!
I don’t know about you, but I cannot stand taxes. In fact, I cringe when I hear the word “taxes”…Oooooo – it’s horrible. For years I dreaded it only because I wasn’t very organized and it would take me hours and hours to gather all the “papers”, organize them, add up the totals, then recalculate to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. It all seemed like such a waste of time but I knew it was necessary in order for me to reduce my tax bill each year.
Help yourself make tax preparation quick and easy!
Several years ago I created an Excel file with 12 spreadsheets that continue to help me each year to see:
what my total expenses are
what my expenses are, broken down by area
and how close I am to staying on budget
As a small business owner this information is critical to staying in the black.
Vow to get your taxes done early…here’s how to make your 2009 tax preparation quick and easy…click to learn more
Blogging has exploded!
And yet every week, I run into people who still don’t get it.
If you have only a website today, that’s like having a billboard out in a cornfield on a dirt road. Wouldn’t you rather have your billboard on a busy freeway where thousands and thousands of people can see it?
Delivery of information changed the world when Google joined the game around 1997 with a mission to organize links and back links, to digitizing the world! You have a question? Google it! You will find your answer in seconds!
Blogging is misunderstood and underutilized by most! They started out as boring journals that didn’t look all that great. A place for people to vent, share their thoughts, whatever. They have now become robust online magazines with short easy to read articles! The top bloggers in the world figured out the more they post, the faster their audience grew.
What is a Blog?
Wikipedia defines blogs as:
A Blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.
The Blogosphere is the collective community of all blogs. Since all blogs are on the Internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked. Discussions “in the Blogosphere” have been used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues.
But as the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site become less clear. Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs.
Blogs are the NEW website. So you can have an old-school website, out in the cornfield…or a new-school website on a super highway. Or have both, and just link them together.
The need for speed!
It is imperative for you to consider a blog if you don’t already have one – and if you do…CONGRATS!
Blogging is essential to achieve a higher organic search engine ranking for your blog or website. Blogging also makes SEO fun.
SEO 101
Google and other search engines love relevant information. In fact, they like it so much they will reward you for it, by increasing your ranking on their search engine. Blogging regularly with helpful information to your audience will help you achieve a higher search engine ranking.
Below are 3 main areas that blogging can help you quickly achieve better organic search ranking.
1. Keywords
This used to refer to the meta tags for your website, now it includes the content on your blog pages and even the names of your images.
2. Relevant Linking for Your Blog
Agents used to link to sites like the Dept. of Transportation and Weather – those really aren’t relevant links that will help you with your SEO. Link on your blog and website to information about:
Property Information
Home Loans
Real Estate Sales Stats
Links that will help a consumer make a better decision are important and therefore relevant. Find a great link, put it on your website, blog and then post a blog about it.
3. Inbound and Outbound Links
That’s right. The number of links you have coming into your blog or website (inbound) and going out to other sites (outbound) help determine your organic search engine ranking.
These few tips will help your blog and website move up the search engine rankings.
Blog on!