Design Your Own Real Estate Blog

If you’ve been contemplating joining the masses and becoming a blogger, you know good and well just how difficult it is to break free from the “personal diary” mindset and break into the “business blogging” mindset. It’s easy to talk about daily life. It’s easy to discuss client woes with trusted colleagues or share client triumphs with prospects, friends, and family members. But when it comes to balancing professionalism with friendliness, it’s an entirely different ball game, isn’t it?

So what should go into designing your real estate blog, and what type of content should you post? That’s where things get easy.

First, design a real estate blog that fits your personality and that of your office.

If you are going to rely heavily on your office’s brand, stick to using colors that match the main company’s website. If, however, you want to develop your own brand—because you know one day you’re going to become a broker yourself—think about colors you want others to associate with you.

To learn more about how colors work and what they mean in different cultures, check out Fact Monster at http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0769383.html or Color Wheel Pro at http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html.

Second, design a blog that reaches your target audience.

Who do you really want to sell houses to? Do you want to sell multi-million dollar homes, homes for first-time home buyers, homes for growing families, or housing for senior citizens? Knowing who your target audience is will help you define your content. After all, there’s no reason to talk about budgeting and low income loans if you’re selling to millionaires. Think demographics, community, and client needs.

Third, only focus on real estate related topics.

It’s easy to want to talk about family and friends, the new pet you got your daughter for Christmas, or the vacation you just got back from. Heck, you’ll probably even want to post photos of those events, but don’t. Save those posts for a “personal blog” which you can easily link to from your “about me” web page.

Use your real estate blog to discuss issues that relate to home buyers and home sellers. Discuss the real estate market, talk about the latest trends in home buying, how to increase the sell price of a home with a few simple changes, what to look for when buying a new home, city information, and so on.

Fourth, use affiliate links and recommendations sparingly.

Thanks to the advanced technology of blogging software, like Wordpress.com, search engines are finding it easy to keep up-to-date with the latest information on the Internet. That’s great news for bloggers everywhere, but there is one drawback—viewers who aren’t your target audience.

All those viewers raise your blog’s status in the search engines, but they also increase bandwidth—which costs money—and leave you without prospects or leads. To combat this, simply add a few affiliate advertising links (i.e. Google Adsense), a few book recommendations (i.e. Amazon.com), and a few barter ads (i.e. local insurance company or lender).

When using advertisers on your real estate blog be selective and do so sparingly. The idea is to use advertisers to compliment your visitor’s experience, not cause them to think you aren’t making it as a real estate agent and therefore need to supplement your income.

Fifth, choose a blog schedule that works for you.

Blogs only succeed because they have fresh, new content on a regular basis. If you post sporadically, viewers will lose interest in you and your blog. If, however, you post regularly, viewers will return to learn more about what you have to say.

If you can’t commit to a post a day, consider posting two or three times a week and stick to regular days so your viewers know when to check back for updates. For instance, post on Mondays and Thursdays or Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

In the end, your real estate blog will only be as successful as the time you put into it.