Ok, I admit, I just made up that term – Electronic Farming – sounds good doesn’t it? Think back to when you started in the business. Some trainer talked about farming, planting seeds today for business tomorrow. In my day it meant going to the tax roll and downloading addresses to send mailing pieces to. Today, let’s learn about how blogging can save you time and money and probably be much more effective than those postcards.
Blogging, simply put, is just a way to get content out into the web. Like direct mail, by blogging the same kind of stuff you would put on a post card, you can quickly establish yourself as the source for real estate in any market area.
If you did yesterday’s homework, you have already gathered your geographic area information. With a little information, you can start to farm. So let’s go step by step on how to get that first post going.
1. The Title. Keep it simple and include the market area you are working. Look at the titles of my 90 Day Challenge posts. They all begin with “90 Day Challenge”. I do this for several reasons. First, it is simple. Second, if these posts were published to the public site I would already be an expert in Google for the seacrh term 90 Day Challenge because repetition matters. To continue the consistency, I include the day, the category and then the title. Translate this to your neighborhood blogs – your title should read something like: Miami Real Estate – Metropolitan Miami – Market Update or Coral Gables Real Estate – South Gables – Things to do this Weekend. This kind of title tells google what the article is about. Read a little more about tagging.
2. How long should the post be? Well – SEO experts say that the optimum post size is about 250 words. Break it down to 3-4 paragraphs – it just makes it easier to read. Use the bold and italics to emphasize those keywords.. like Miami Real Estate.
3. Use those photos and videos. – Ever so important to put in at least 1 picture or video in each post. The “wall of words” can be a little overwhelming to a reader and the picture can break up or add emphasis to any post. Additionally, google will index the images and the videos so you can get twice the bang for the buck with each image you add.
4. No advance degree is required. You need not be a super writer to succeed with your blog. Write like you talk. Make sure each post has more information than just a newspaper ad. You all can talk a lot – just pretend you have a customer in front of you as you write. Write just what you would say if they were standing right in front of you.
5. Where to post? I get this question all the time. The EWM blog is an awesome place to start. Google already indexes the site on a daily basis so you will get your results faster if you begin here as opposed to striking out on your own. In a later challenge I will show you how to use the RSS Feed to get your posts over to your own website without having to copy and paste.( By the way this is a big NO NO – it even has a name – Duplicate Content.)
6. Use Links – we learned a bit about links in an earlier challenge and Karen has an upcoming post about links – but use them. Simply reiterated, links let Google know about what you are talking about and how your post relates to the information already on the web. Once you have begun blogging, you should always link back to your previous posts about the same subject.
Homework: Put that research to good use. Write that first post. Make it a general one about your market area. Use pictures or videos to tell the story. Imagine that you have a buyer in your car and they just arrived from Minnesota – what would you tell them about your neighborhood or building and why they should consider living there. Amenities? Value Priced? Schools? Shopping? Architecture? Price range of properties? That should be enough to get you started.
Start using Word since we are all a little more familiar with it. Leave the pictures out until you copy it over to the blog. Tomorrow we will learn to put it on the site.