{"id":10246,"date":"2008-11-11T23:33:50","date_gmt":"2008-11-12T03:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ewm.com\/internalblog\/?p=10246"},"modified":"2008-11-11T23:33:50","modified_gmt":"2008-11-12T03:33:50","slug":"90-day-challenge-day-29-tools-you-can-use-electronic-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/?p=10246","title":{"rendered":"90 Day Challenge -Day 29 – Tools You Can Use – Electronic Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ok, I admit, I just made up that term – Electronic Farming<\/strong> – sounds good doesn’t it?\u00a0 Think back to when you started in the business.\u00a0 Some trainer talked about farming, planting seeds today for business tomorrow.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Blogging, simply put, is just a way to get content out into the web.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

If you did yesterday’s homework, you have already gathered your geographic area information.\u00a0 With a little information, you can start to farm. So let’s go step by step on how to get that first post going.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 The Title.<\/strong> Keep it simple and include the market area you are working.\u00a0 Look at the titles of my 90 Day Challenge posts.\u00a0 They all begin with “90 Day Challenge”.\u00a0 I do this for several reasons.\u00a0 First, it is simple.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 To continue the consistency, I include the day, the category and then the title.\u00a0 Translate this to your neighborhood blogs – your title should read something like:\u00a0 Miami Real Estate – Metropolitan Miami – Market Update or Coral Gables Real Estate – South Gables – Things to do this Weekend.<\/strong> This kind of title tells google what the article is about. Read a little more about tagging.<\/a><\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 How long should the post be? <\/strong> Well – SEO experts say that the optimum post size is about 250 words.\u00a0 Break it down to 3-4 paragraphs – it just makes it easier to read.\u00a0 Use the bold and italics to emphasize those keywords.. like Miami Real Estate.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Use those photos and videos.<\/strong> – Ever so important to put in at least\u00a0 1 picture or video in each post.\u00a0 The “wall of words” can be a little overwhelming to a reader and the picture can break up or add emphasis to any post.\u00a0 Additionally, google will index the images and the videos so you can get twice the bang for the buck with each image you add.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 No advance degree is required<\/strong>.\u00a0 You need not be a super writer to succeed with your blog.\u00a0 Write like you talk. Make sure each post has more information than just a newspaper ad.\u00a0 You all can talk a lot – just pretend you have a customer in front of you as you write.\u00a0 Write just what you would say if they were standing right in front of you.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Where to post? <\/strong> I get this question all the time.\u00a0 The EWM blog is an awesome place to start.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Use Links<\/strong> – we learned a bit about links in an earlier challenge<\/a> and Karen has an upcoming post about links – but use them.\u00a0 Simply reiterated, links let Google know about\u00a0 what you are talking about and how your post relates to the information already on the web.\u00a0 Once you have begun blogging, you should always link back to your previous posts about the same subject.<\/p>\n

Homework:<\/strong> Put that research to good use.\u00a0 Write that first post.\u00a0 Make it a general one about your market area.\u00a0 Use pictures or videos to tell the story.\u00a0 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\u00a0 why they should consider living there.\u00a0 Amenities?\u00a0 Value Priced?\u00a0 Schools?\u00a0 Shopping? Architecture? Price range of properties?\u00a0 That should be enough to get you started.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Tomorrow we will learn to put it on the site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, I admit, I just made up that term – Electronic Farming – sounds good doesn’t it?\u00a0 Think back to when you started in the business.\u00a0 Some trainer talked about farming, planting seeds today for business tomorrow.\u00a0 In my day it meant going to the tax roll and downloading addresses to send mailing pieces to. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1439,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1439"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}