If you are hungrily searching for ways to increase your Internet leads then you owe it to yourself to explore blogging.
Starting a blog is quite easy to do, given the robust and easy to use sites like Blogger.com and WordPress.com. These sites allow you to set up a free real estate blog. If you want to take it one step further, consider starting your own blog with a domain name and a hosting service.
Making an Online Impact
In order to make it in today’s real estate industry you must do what you can to make a great impact online. Let’s face it: everyone is on the Internet today, and if you want a competitive edge in the industry you must make an online presence; and one of the most effective ways of accomplishing this is through blogs.
The Process of Creating a Blog
Blogs are quite easy to create: simply create interesting, educational or entertaining information related to the real estate industry or you real estate business and add links that take readers back to your website. Your blogs should be current, relevant and uploaded on a frequent basis to your blog. If you have a current blog, it is quite easy to create a new post, and the entire process is accomplished in the time it takes to write new information.
One of the most important points about writing a blog is to make sure it is filled with interesting information that people want to read. This is not the time to sell yourself or your real estate business, and it should never be filled with any information that could be perceived as a sales pitch; otherwise you can be sure to lose your readers before they even finish reading the blog. You can certainly talk about topics that are relevant to your business; just don’t try to sell yourself.
Directing Traffic to your Blog
You will need to get traffic to your blog, and to do that you will need to promote your blog and let people know each time your blog is updated. You can also submit your blog articles on free article directories that will guide readers back to your blog through internal links. It may take some time to start generating traffic to your website through a blog, but it can be done!
For the agent looking for capture leads and convert them to sales, blogging is a piece of the puzzle that should be part of their bi-weekly routine. I recently listed a home because of my blog. I blog maybe bi-weekly just so it’s not cumbersome. I just try and have fun with it. Keywords come last to me.
I agree that a blog should not be a place to blatantly sell yourself, but is a way to show you have specific knowledge of a subject matter, neighborhood, anything or anyone you are trying to target. The blog on my real estate site I mostly use to give market update information and expect that most users of my website are really only there to look at homes for sale, but for those people looking to get more information on a subject I want to show that I have more information than a nameless corporate site.
Carolyn, I just checked out your site/blog, very nice btw.
If you don’t mind me asking, how did your IDX? Looks good.