3 Things Make a Real Estate Blog Successful
Over the past year, real estate and mortgage professionals have been overwhelmed by the noise about how blogging is a great way to generate more business.
While there are several industry professionals that have proven it is possible to produce income from an online marketing campaign, most people are still skeptical about the return on investment.
Blogging is about communicating with your clients, establishing yourself as a thought leader, being in the right place at the precise moment your target audience is looking for specific information….
I can go on and on about why you should have a real estate or mortgage blog.
Bottom line - When will my real estate blog start making me money?
Fair question, and probably one that most of our significant others are asking while we blog and post on forums until 2 in the morning.
There are three things that a real estate blog needs for success:
1. An awesome design that your target audience likes -
Every blogger has their own idea about what works and doesn’t. Google analytics will tell you the specific search phrases visitors find your blog from and what pages they leave on. Word Press has thousands of different design templates and widgets that will allow you to fully customize your blog.
If that doesn’t fit your needs, find some college kid to design one for you.
Regardless of the look and feel that you like, the most important thing is that your blog encourages your target audience to contact you.
Connections = Money
2. Content, and a lot of it -
Once you’ve figured out how to drive visitors to your new blog, you have to give them a valuable user experience.
Not that people are going to read every thing you have written, you just need to earn their confidence based on that first impression. They need to know that you have the ability to answer their questions and communicate with them on a level that they will understand.
It is all in the presentation.
“I am a professional that is here to serve your buying needs” on your About page isn’t enough! If you are a loan officer, and the only content on your site is a glossary of mortgage terms, you are really not going to build any trust.
3. Traffic and search engine exposure -
Being where your buyers are is a fundamental of Internet marketing. Since an established blog generally catches the attention of search engines every time you post a new article, you’ll have the opportunity to get in front of those buyers.
Think about the power of being able to connect with potential clients simply because they found one of your recent articles on a topic that influenced their buying decision.
Getting your blog articles found in the search engines takes a significant amount of time and commitment. Participating in real estate social networks, commenting on other high traffic blogs, and some basic knowledge of SEO is required to generate traffic to a blog.
This is the main barrier to entry and why most real estate professionals have been reluctant to jump in the game.
However, if a blog platform came with all three of these items from the beginning, I think most people would consider joining the online real estate and mortgage blogging community.