Half quit after 2 posts.

Another half after the next 2 posts
Another half after the next 2 posts
Another half after the next 2 posts
Another half after the next 2 posts
Another half after the next 2 posts
Another half after the next 2 posts

That leaves us with only 0.75% blogging after just 14 posts.

I made that stat up, but it might as well be true since of all the 1000s of agents I know, only a handful still blog regularly.

You’re asking the wrong question when you want to know, “How often?”

The answer is probably “not at all” if statistically no one will ever stick with it long enough to see the results they’re asking about. It’s just going to be a waste of time, and a stalled blog with a handful of posts looks worse than no blog at all.

But maybe I got you all wrong.

Maybe you’re one of those people that follow through with their New Year’s resolutions.
Or you’re someone so focused that you commonly achieve Moksha with Inbox Zero.

The right answer is “as often as you can maintain.”
Success in Google is a relationship with Google. (That sounds weird in my head, too.)

You have to continue to feed it content, centering around a target audience’s interest.
If you can do it once a week, every week, and it’s the good stuff… the stuff your customers want to click, then you will be rewarded with great organic traffic.

Want that reward doubled? Blog the good-good twice as often.
Just don’t burn out too quickly. The longer you seed, feed, and share the longer you will enjoy the spoils.

I’ve written 100s of articles for Real Estate Tomato. And I have taken years off at a time.
Guess which period I get my most Google traffic.

If you’re part of the 99.25% and you recognize the power of blogging but know that you aren’t going to be consistent at it then you need us.

• We research it
• We write it
• We polish it
• We optimize it for Google
• We publish it to your website

You get to sit back, look amazing, and take all the credit.

If this sounds interesting, let’s have a 10 min call to show you how we’re the reason you’re going to be found in Google.

Curious to learn more?

The post How Often Should I Blog If I Want To Succeed In Google? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

What Benefit Are Google Sitelinks?

1. It improves your “Click Thru Rate”
– Your most popular pages are typically the ones that are shown in the sitelinks. Offering these popular links right away ensures your audience is clicking through to the content you want them to experience.
2. Sitelinks establish credibility
– The amount of space that your site with sitelinks below takes up in the search results is impressive. It shows a sort of endorsement from Google. You won;t be overlooked.
3. Increased the awareness of your services and offerings.
– Having your best pages appear in the sitelinks instantly reveals what you have to offer to your audience. Your brand, your reputation, your content… all of it is suddenly more visible than other results on the page.
4. Effective Pages get more visibility
– Instead of hoping that your homepage successfully directs your audience to the most effective pages on your site, sitelinks presents them right in the search results.
5. Having Sitelinks is a clear indicator of a website with healthy SEO
– This does not mean however that if you don’t have sitelinks that your site is poorly SEO’d.

How Do I Get Google Sitelinks?

There are no guidelines from Google as to how to get sitelinks.
What we do know is that sitelinks are associated with sites that use what Google would consider “best practices.”
Here are a several things we recommend to give yourself the best chance at getting sitelinks:
(Note – many of you will need to work with your website support to address these)

• Submit your site to Google Search Console (AKA Google Webmasters)
• Sign up for Google Analytics and add their tracking code to your website (you might need your website support you help you here).
• Make sure you have a unique and descriptive Site Title. This is ours: Real Estate Tomato | Custom Real Estate Website Design | WordPress
• Make sure you have a unique and descriptive Meta Description.
• Your main navigation menu needs to be clearly organized. This means ONLY the most important pages are the main menu items and their related pages are in dropdowns below. It is also a good idea to use Parent Page >> Child Page structure where you have deep content.
  For example:
  If you have a Community page that showcases all your featured Communities is might have the URL like this: awesomerealestate.com/communities/.
  Now a “Child” of that page would have a URL that looked like this: awesomerealestate.com/communities/alexandria/
  That is a proper hierarchy organization of your pages.
• Add and submit a sitemap.xml to your Google Search Console. If you are using WordPress you just need the Google XML Sitemap Plugin.
• Cross link to and from your websites most important pages. Continuing with the community page example, you should make sure that each page has links to the other important community pages, as well as to search pages, contact pages, and other site defining pages.
• Similar to the homepage Title above, make sure your pages all have SEO friendly titles that relate to the content within. This is important because it’s what appears in the sitelink.
• Similar to the homepage Description above, make sure your pages all have SEO friendly descriptions. This is important because it’s what appears in the sitelink.

Reasons Google might NOT show sitelinks for your site:

• Your site is poorly optimized (For ex: Pages have the same or similar title and meta description. Or you have thin content on pages)
• Your site doesn’t allow for the algorithm to find pages “good enough” for site links
• Sitelinks wouldn’t be relevant to a particular search query (not all searches produce results of site with sitelinks)
• You are missing a sitemap
• You have not submitted your site to the Search Console

Can I Change My Google Sitelinks?

There are no settings to control your sitelinks. Google’s algorithm selects which links it determines “when we think they’ll be useful to the user.”

Can I Demote a Google Sitelink?

Sadly Google stopped allowing this option in Oct of 2016.
Some important notes:
Current maximum number of sitelinks is 6.
Current maximum number of characters in the sitelink title is 31
Current maximum number of characters in the sitelink descriptions is 65
If you found the above tips helpful, you should really subscribe to future updates.
Or if you are a little embarrassed by your current website, drop us a line and we will make you look amazing with a website makeover!

The post What The Heck Are Google Sitelinks And Why Do I Need Them? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Action Items | Let’s Get Right With Google

Google has a couple of different links you can use to update your publicly facing profile with them.
Make sure both are properly filled out and looking good.
Google AboutMe
Google Profiles

I know you will probably never use it, but if you haven’t already, you need to sign up for Google+
It is important to make sure Google knows to tie your name, your profile, your website, your testimonials, your logo, and your business details all together.
By taking the time to properly sign up and fill out the above, you will lock in your Google Identity.

The other best reasons to use Google Plus:

(Keeping this simple so you see the value)
Demographics – Where FB leans under 40 and female, Google+ leans over 40 and male. Interesting huh?
Instant Spidering – Want a blog post to get spidered by Google immediately? Share it on your Google+ page.
SEO Boost – If your content is shared, reposted, or liked (+1 its called on G+) Google will consider your content exceptional, and place it better.
If you found the above tips helpful, you should really subscribe to future updates.
Upcoming posts include how to get those shortcut links under your website in the search results like this– you wont want to miss it!
Now if only your website represented your business as professionally as you feel it should.
We can help!
Drop us a line and we will make you look amazing with a website makeover!

The post Simple Must Do Steps To Build Your Real Estate Profile With Google For Better Ranking appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

• Your brokerage can supersede your efforts at claiming the address of the office.
  There can be only one business at that location. So it might be best to use a home office location or a specific suite number if possible.

Once verified:

• Add photos, including your headshot, logo, and images that you use in your other branding.
• Get reviews! Make sure some favorite clients visit the page and leave some 5 star reviews. Google will also pick up reviews from Facebook and Yelp.
• Share some content (blog post, quick insight, or the like) post it – get something fresh up there.
• The background/cover image for your business profile is currently set to be 1086px by 611px.
  You might need a designer to help you with this, or head over to Canva.com and work out something slick.

Another quick tip! Place your business directly onto Google Maps.
Zoom into your physical location, and right click on the area where you want to be located. There is an option to “Add a Missing Place”
If your business profile is verified (see above), and the address matches the location you are pinning, you can just fill out the quick form and bam! your business appears on Google Maps.
That will be enough to get you on the google results maps, unless all your competition just read this post as well.
If you found the above tips helpful, you should really subscribe to future updates.
Upcoming posts include how to best improve and leverage your personal Google profile – you wont want to miss it!
Now if only your website that comes up when you google yourself represented your business as professionally as you feel it should.
We can help!
Drop us a line and we will make you look amazing with a website makeover!

 
 

The post Hey REALTORS®, Have You Given Yourself a Good Googling Lately? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Or whats the shortest post I can publish and still see good results?

The following is an argument for short real estate blog posts… even though I know that longer posts will perform better.

The 300 Word Myth?

The idea that a post needs to be at least 300 words in order to be seen as long enough for Google is one that I see and hear frequently. The idea is that is falls under what Google calls “Thin Content.” But the idea of Thin Content is content that doesn’t satisfactorily provide value to your website visitor. If your blog article is one that doesn’t require more than a couple of sentences to make a point, or answer a question, then how can it be seen as lacking value?

I think that to best understand what Google means with their goal of stamping out Thin Content is to look at the spirit of the rule. If your website is a consistent violator of publishing content that is copied from elsewhere, or syndicated from another account, or causes your audience to bounce (as opposed to stay and read), then I would say that you are violating the spirit of the rule, and you deserve what Google penalizes you with.
But if your content is unique, frequent, and engaging (people actually read it, share it, and/or subscribe to it) then the length of the post it takes to make that happen is irrelevant.
My take: If you get blogging, then counting your words is a distraction you shouldn’t be bothered with.

What Do The Experts Have To Say?

Turns out, when it comes to current Ranking Factors, the experts make no mention of article/page length.
However, an interesting note is that in a study of over 1,000,000 articles, those that were less than 1000 words were shared/liked less than those that were greater than 1000 words, with the longer posts being the most shared and most liked.
So yes, there is great value in lengthy posts. But at what cost to the blogger?

Get and Stay in Shape

I commonly relate blogging to getting into and staying in shape.
Let’s use running as an example.
Try running 1 or 2 miles a day, every day, and you can make that a habit that sticks, and yields results.
Try running 10 miles in a day. Now get up and do it again tomorrow, and the next day. For almost all of us, that’s not going to happen.
Now try doing it once a week (running 10 miles).
You might last a month before there’s a reason to take a week off. Then you miss another week… and soon the habit is dead, and so are the results.
Achieving blogging success requires establishing a habit.
The most important thing you can do to be a good blogger is to hit publish.
Struggling to reach word counts is a hindrance to production.
I want you to see results. I want you to get an audience to read you, and trust you, and do business with you.
This won’t happen if you don’t become a blogger, and that means establishing the habit of publishing at least a few times a week.
If that means that half your blog articles are falling in the 100-200 word (6-12 sentences) range… then so be it. The idea is that you are still doing this in a year’s time. The idea is that you are giving Google a reason to rank your site. The idea is that you have something to show your audience that you are the expert.
Don’t make this the gym membership that you pay for, guiltily, and fail to use.
Be unique.
Use your niche.
Your competition is thin when you target properly.
The threats of thin content penalties apply mostly to one trying to rank for very competitive terms.
Longer posts will come, and may perform better, but they shouldn’t be the bar that keeps you from being successful.

Yes, But Longer Is Better

Ok so there’s the argument for shorter. Now here’s why longer is better:

Research shows it will be shared more often. This is huge in SEO.
It will be seen as more authoritative, driving your rankings higher.
It will naturally have more keywords because there’s more content.
But can you keep up a pace of 10 miles every time you run?
As a Real Estate Agent, you wear a lot of hats, and I just want you to “stay in shape.”
And don’t worry… your competition can’t keep up that pace either.
If you want to keep reading about this, here are some interesting articles I found when reading about word count and SEO:
http://www.copypress.com/blog/4-statistics-every-blogger-should-know-about-content-word-count/
https://www.snapagency.com/blog/whatll-be-the-best-length-for-a-blog-article-in-2016-for-seo/
https://moz.com/blog/fat-pandas-and-thin-content
https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2392782/should-we-still-worry-about-thin-content 

If you can’t make the content happen because you don’t have the time, or interest, or language skills, then you need to seek someone who does. Having strong content on your website is crucial for connecting with your visitor and that is the first step in “generating leads.”

Don’t just hire whomever to help with your website’s content. Hire someone who cares and understands your business. Hire someone that you are willing and able to spend time with to train to write on your behalf. This relationship needs to be healthy and maintained in order for you to get the results you want.

Let us do it!

• We research it
• We write it
• We polish it
• We optimize it for Google
• We publish it to your website

You get to sit back, look amazing, and take all the credit.

If this sounds  interesting, let’s have a 10 min call to show you how we’re the reason you’re going to be found in Google.

Curious to learn more? Visit: TomatoCopy.com

The post How Long Should A Real Estate Blog Post Be? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Starting April 21st, Google will give higher rankings to mobile friendly websites.

If your competition has a mobile friendly site, and you don’t, they will most likely preform better in competitive search results.
Late last year, Google started to highlight mobile friendly websites, and now they are giving them preference in the search results.
From the article:

This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.

Test your site now, using Google Mobile Friendly Test:

https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly
If you need a mobile friendly design for your website, we can help.
Our designs are full responsive for all devices, and tailored specifically for your needs.
Start a conversation about it today.
We’re happy to answer any of your questions, no pressure.

The post If Your Real Estate Website Is Not Mobile Friendly, Google Could Lower Your Ranking appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Photo by Evan Swigart.

In order for something to be made perfect we need to determine what criteria we’re aiming to satisfy.
For me, when you publish an article, you should aim to accomplish at least the following:
1. Help you be found by the target audience, including search engines and your social media reach.
2. Communicate an effective message to your visitor as quickly as possible.
3. Bring your audience closer to doing business with you.
Sounds easy enough…
So what’s the least amount of content you can create in order to satisfy all the above?

Minimum Effort To Perfection:

1. Write A Great Headline.

If you fail at headline writing you will never be a successful blogger.
Why?
If your blog headlines aren’t compelling, no one is going to click to read them. Fail to connect with your audience and they will never visit in the first place.
The headline is the best and easiest place for SEO success. By using keywords and being descriptive in the headline you now have a competitive piece. Google wants to present the results that matter to people’s inquiries.
When your headlines satisfy both what attracts Google and your visitors’ clicks, you win.
Remind me to write: How To Write The Perfect Blog Article Headline.
I took a stab at it some years ago – but I think I can expound.

In order to make something perfect we need to determine what qualities we’re aiming to satisfy.

2. Always Always Always Include An Attractive Picture

So you got them to click because of your great headline… now you have to deliver that next punch that will set the tone for the blog article; eye candy.
In order to gain and maintain your audience’s interest you will need to make an instant connection and offer continuous stimulation (eye candy). Leveraging an image (or 2 or more) to enhance your message can mean the difference between a 5 second glance and a 3 minute read of your content.
The Essentials For Using Images In Your Real Estate Blog Articles

3. Write Pithy Content

The faster you can connect with and deliver the message to your audience, the more effective it will be.
Here’s the trick to writing high-impact, concise content:
– Pretend you are paying someone $3 a word for copy.
This will force you to get to the point and cut out the unnecessary fluff.
For example the above could be more economical like so: “This forces you to cut the unnecessary.”
7 words instead of 15. Or $24 cheaper =)
– Practice writing 5 articles in a week, all under 200 words each.
(For context, I average ~1000 words a post. )
– Pick a picture with the most impact.
If it can be worth a 1000 words think of all the typing you have just saved yourself.
–  Instead of using in-depth explanations, link (in a new window) to additional commentary, definitions, and/or related content.

 4. Properly Categorize and Tag Each Article

Every article you write should fall under (at least) one of your well planned categories.
This helps communicate the agenda of your consistent message to the visitor and to the search engines.
Similarly, tagging one’s article by it’s topic(s) is a crucial step in organizing your content. While your categories help you identify the general agenda, adding tags to an article help you identify the particular subject matter.

An article can’t be perfect unless you are enticing your audience to take an action that leads them closer to doing business with you.

5. Link To Related/Relevant Articles In Your Database

Similar to properly categorizing your content, by offering links to related content from each article, you are satisfying all 3 of the perfection criteria above.
The links encourage your audience to continue reading, in turn building trust and showcasing your expertise.
The search engines are able to spider deeper into your archives and make connections as to the relationship between your content and keywords.

6. Locate Clear Calls To Action

Whether they are designed into your article template (automatically included on each post) or you craftily weave calls-to-action into your copy, an article can’t be perfect unless you are enticing your audience to take an action that leads them closer to doing business with you.

Additional Elements Of The Perfect (Longer) Article

Simply look at a longer article as if it were just a series of pithy articles under one main title.

1. Headings – Another Chance at Headline Writing (see above).

The best way to keep your audience reading through longer copy is to break up the content with Headings. Establish a solid point and write a rich title right smack in the middle of the article.
For more info on how to properly use Headings in your articles, check out our WYSIWYG article.

2. Formatting – The Best Way To Ensure Your Long Article Is Read

Making an article a joy to read goes beyond the content itself. An attractive article, one that is easy to read and follow, increases the chance that it will be read and finished. Learn to master the use of Headlines, Pictures, Links, Short Paragraphs, Pull Quotes, Block Quotes, and Lists.

3. Add Additional Images

More images means more unwritten, yet clear message impact.

Examples Of Perfect Real Estate Blog Articles

Here are a couple that satisfy most of the Perfection Criteria:

Complete Guide To Coconut Grove’s Gated Communities
Great headline, great picture, very useful map, easy-to-read formatting, great integration of CTAs, great resource links, well categorized and a great text template CTA at the footer of the article.
Suggestions: Additional reading/related-posts – and maybe another image to break up the content (but not necessary).
What Does $1 Million Buy in Today’s Very Strong Santa Barbara Real Estate Market?
Great headline, great pictures, very easy-to-read formatting/font, great integration of CTAs, great resource links, great related posts, it is well categorized and a great use of quick-search links.
Suggestions:  None.
Hat tip to Steve Beam for requesting this topic to be covered here.

If you can’t make the content happen because you don’t have the time, or interest, or language skills, then you need to seek someone who does. Having strong content on your website is crucial for connecting with your visitor and that is the first step in “generating leads.”

Don’t just hire whomever to help with your website’s content. Hire someone who cares and understands your business. Hire someone that you are willing and able to spend time with to train to write on your behalf. This relationship needs to be healthy and maintained in order for you to get the results you want.

Let us do it!

• We research it
• We write it
• We polish it
• We optimize it for Google
• We publish it to your website

You get to sit back, look amazing, and take all the credit.

If this sounds  interesting, let’s have a 10 min call to show you how we’re the reason you’re going to be found in Google.

Curious to learn more? Visit: TomatoCopy.com

The post Is There Such A Thing As A Perfectly Written Real Estate Blog Article? appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Today’s article was written by blogging client: Geordie Romer of IcicleCreekRealEstate.com.

99 Problems but a niche ain’t one
If you’re having SEO problems I feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems but a niche ain’t one
(With apologies to Jay-Z)

So often when I hear real estate agents complain about their lack of leads or lack of web presence, I try to explain to them that it might be a lack of focus that is keeping them from success. It’s so much easier to be a big fish in a small pond than vice versa.

Are you a beginning real estate blogger trying to figure out how you will compete with the budgets of Zillow, Trulia or Realtor.com?

“Washington State real estate” brings 395 MILLION results on Google and “Seattle real estate”, 174 million. A bigger city like Chicago brings 450 million results for the term “Chicago real estate.”

These are horrible odds.

Unfortunately, I hear of agents who actually try and service an area that size.  If you serve five counties, four congressional districts and three area codes, I would argue that you aren’t a “local expert” in much of anything.

My main service area is a small resort town east of Seattle. Leavenworth is a Bavarian themed town and a destination for outdoor recreation ranging from rock climbing and skiing to mountain biking and river rafting. The population within the city limits is 1993 people and 6500 in the zip code.

And yet.. some of my best success stories come from finding EVEN smaller niches.

I noticed that there wasn’t much competition among agents in the local golf course neighborhood. The houses were upper end homes and there were condos for sale as well.  The agent who had worked for the original developer was transitioning out of real estate and into a golfing retirement in Palm Springs.

I bought a few relevant URLs and began to create content. I wasn’t an overnight success. I wrote a few posts on my blog and on Active Rain in 2007 and over the years the dividends continue to pay me back.
On Google, results 2 through 7 lead the consumer to me. The top result is the resort itself, but not any of my competitors.

Since 2007 (the last five years), my wife and I have sold 1/3 of the real estate in this neighborhood. Over the last two years, we have sold 2/3 of the properties.

In 2012, this translates to 7 sides and $43,000 in commissions.

Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow? I don’t think they know this neighborhood exists.

I may have 99 problems, but my niche ain’t one.

Geordie Romer is a managing broker in the resort town of Leavenworth WA. He has been blogging about real estate since 2004 and can be found online at www.IcicleCreekRealEstate.com or on Facebook.

The post 99 Problems But A Niche Ain’t One appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

This article is a rewrite of an article I wrote a few years ago.  It  is an exercise to show you that you can never step in the same river twice, and finding relevant blog content to publish is as easy as looking in the rear-view mirror.

One of the first advice articles I wrote on the power of blogging was called “If You Write It They Will Come!” – The Long Tail In Real Estate.
Starting with the title… it’s not bad, but it could have been better. For the rewrite I’m going with:

Exactly How The Long Tail In Real Estate Blogging Will Bring The Ready-To-Act Home Buyer.

Now that we have all made purchases online, from inexhaustible sources of selection, the concept of the long tail surely must be easy to grasp.
In a one sentence example: iTunes success comes not from the total sales of a #1 Billboard hit, but rather from the cumulative sales of millions of less popular tracks.
This same formula can be applied to gaining desired traffic to your blog, from the search engines.  Instead of relying on high traffic counts from high-demand search terms, such as “San Diego real estate”, real estate bloggers should recognize that their success can come from seemingly unpopular terms and phrases.

First of all, real estate is a broad topic, and those that approach it broadly are generally not ready-to-act.
Visitors to your site that come in from high-demand terms like “San Diego real estate” are in the discovery phase of their real estate search.  This is not to say that they won’t pan out to be a quality relationship one day, but this article is about how to attract the ready-to-act home buyer.

The expectations we have as we approach the internet for answers, is that there is going to be one.  So when we are concerned about something, we are generally specific about our search.  For example, when traveling to Costa Rica (for example) you don’t search for Costa Rica Hotels.  You take into account your actual destination, accommodation preference, and price range, then you search from there.
The city of San Diego (staying with the above example) is broken up into dozens of smaller communities, and those communities are easily broken into several neighborhoods.  Online real estate inquiries about these narrowed neighborhoods are generally made by buyers that are further along in their decision process.
Blogging about topics that serve inquiries on a micro level will not gain the massive traffic you might experience for high-demand search terms, individually.  However, the cumulative traffic gained from dozens of these sorts of micro-topic articles will easily outweigh the gains from high-demand search terms. And, more importantly, this traffic will target and attract more read-to-act buyers.  Hence the value of the Long Tail.
I found this refreshing point from the original article:

The value of attracting niche and unique traffic to your site with ever-growing content is greater than just the visit.  By being a relevant result for such uncommon searches makes your site that much more appreciated.  This is an immediate trust builder and will improve the quality of your leads.  Generating hundreds of these niche visits to your site is so much more effective than being one of thousands vying for exposure with the most popular search terms.

The point that one should really take away from this observation is that real estate is a business of content.  You gain clients through your ability to communicate with them, to them and for them.  Once you apply this to your approach to blogging, you will see your efforts gaining you clients similarly.   Generalities don’t gain trust (“I am a San Diego Realtor”) – handling specific situations do (“This is the answer to your question, challenge, concern, worry, etc”).
Your job as a real estate blogger is to determine what keeps your home sellers and home buyers up at night and blog about that.

The post Exactly How The Long Tail In Real Estate Blogging Will Bring The Ready-To-Act Home Buyer. appeared first on WordPress Real Estate Website Design | Real Estate Tomato.

Thanks to the recent frequency and quality of guest posts, I’ve had the pleasure of taking a little time off from shouldering the content on the Tomato.  Keeping in stride, we have another treat for you.  Todd Carpenter, ubiquitous RE.net participant, and owner and author of the globally appreciated mariah.com (a web 2.0 real estate network of websites), just emailed over this solid piece weighing the value of blogging for Search Engine exposure.

Writing Your Real Estate Blog Primarily to Google is a Squandered Opportunity.

By Todd Carpenter
What’s the difference between a blogging expert and a real estate expert?
Blogging experts may or may not understand how the real estate industry operates. Take, for example the theory forwarded that, for the sake of superior Google search results, bloggers should not write about their community. That instead, they should stick to posts that are only about real estate itself.
You’ll get no argument from me that a real estate blogger should blog about real estate. Blog about your listings. Blog about your open houses. Blog about market conditions. Blog about foreclosures. You’re a real estate agent, of course you should write about real estate.
Blogging this way and you’ll get search engine traffic. However, blogging only about real estate means leaving much of a blog’s marketing power at the table.
Some experts scoff at the idea of blogging about the community, or local businesses, or even writing a restaurant review. These topics may not drive in large numbers of web driven leads, but let’s face it, you can BUY Internet leads. You’re not in the Internet leads business. You’re in the real estate business.
Step away from blogging for a minute and think about how successful real estate agents market in the real world.
Referrals are key to driving a successful real estate business. I’ll take one referral from a real live human over a hundred from Google. Referrals from past clients are very powerful, but you can use you’re blog to create a referral stream from people you’ve never worked with before.

Referrals from other local businesses.

Writing a review of a restaurant has very limited SEO value. It’s a value to you’re readers, but that’s not the best reason for doing it. Any time you put someone’s name in lights, there gonna be impressed, and they’ll want to return the favor. Writing a restaurant review endears you to the owner of that business. You’ve just grown your sphere of influence, and all it took was a few kind words on your blog.
On lenderama, I let mortgage vendors write their own reviews. On Denver Modern, I feature the listings of local real estate agents, and feature local businesses. All of this is useful to my readers, but I also do it to connect with my peers in the industry. You can just as easily do this at the local level with restaurants, dry cleaners or even skateboard shops.

Proving that you’re a community expert.

For the longest time, most real estate web sites allowed agents to TELL consumers they are experts for a certain location. Blogs let them PROVE it. I could write a blog about Houston real estate (I live in Denver). I could get it to rank in the search engines. What I can’t do is prove that I’m an expert on Houston.
Blogging is as much about closing leads as it is about generating them. Proving that you ‘re the expert on this community is how you set yourself apart from the competition that merely states it.

Developing a regular readership.

While some experts will tell you that hardly anyone will regularly read a real estate blog, they’re basing this opinion on the feedback they get from real estate bloggers who only blog about real estate.
Why do you send out community newsletters? Why do you send out football schedules and refrigerator magnets?  Communicating to your client and prospect base is the cornerstone of real estate marketing. Blogging is the ideal tool to take this proven marketing technique to the web. But for the same reason you include football schedules in your marketing mailers, you have to include interesting topics in your blog. If you create an interesting place to visit, readers will follow suite.

Tying it all together.

When it comes time for an avid reader to list their home, where do you think they will look first? When it comes time for an out of town buyer to choose a relocation agent, will they choose the one who said they knew the community, or the one who proved it? When a local business owner has the opportunity to refer an agent to one of his own customers, don’t you think the agent who featured them on their real estate blog might be at the top of their list?
When it comes to structuring your blog, look to the way you market in the real world. The key to building a successful blog is mixing lead generation, business referrals and avid readers into one big marketing monster. There’s simply no reason to leave half the upside a blog can offer at the table while chasing search results that will probably come to you anyway.
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Thanks for your contribution to the Vine, Todd.
Todd Carpenter is a Realty Tech Consultant and creator of a network of Real Estate Sites at mariah.com.

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