Like me, you probably have been reading all over the news about blogs and how they are all the rage. Now you are probably asking yourself, “What is this whole blogging business and how would it be a benefit to me?” Blogs and social networking sites, are the new way in this new Web 2.0 atmosphere to communicate and interact with the world about whatever you want.   Believe it or not, blogs are the latest marketing weapons a real estate professional must add to their arsenal.

For years now, it has been said that having a website is essential to survive in today’s real estate business. With the growing popularity of Web 2.0, having just a website may not cut it anymore. A new generation of buyers are doing a larger percentage of their home searches on the internet, and looking for the most inovative and and informative sites out there to help them make their decisions. Seller clients are looking for agents that used additional and creative marketing methods, beyond the traditional real estate services. Starting a real estate blog can be such a tremendous benefit to your business by adding new ways to build traffic and acquire leads, that having just website alone can’t measure up.

So why should you blog?

1. Blogging is a way to connect and interact with potential buyers and sellers anywhere in the world. You can use in in conjunction with your website to help direct traffic, generate leads, and improve search engine optimization. You can post information about your latest listings, inform your readers about important real estate issues, or simply talk about what is on your mind.

2. Blogging gives you a place to market your expertise. You should use your blog to give you an opportunity to talk about important real estate issues and show your knowledge base and expertise in this area. The more you showcase what you know your readers will get the impression that you are the expert and can give you the upper hand over non-blogging real estate professionals.

3. Blogging is your chance to connect with your local community. By broadcasting local issues that face your community, talking over local interests, and posting things that appeal to them, you can build credibility with your local audience. This is how you can make your blog a great lead generator.

4.  Blogs can help improve your presence in the search engines. Blogs are more frequently indexed  in major search engines than websites. Search engines are always on the look out for frequently updated, new and fresh content. When you are posting new content on your blog each week that is exactly what your blog provides. And with better visibility in the main search engines, you get more traffic, and with more traffic to your site, you are likely to get more leads and more listings.

These are the basic reasons to consider when you are mulling over the decision to blog, or not to blog. So where should you get started?  Here are a few places to get you going.

Blogger- Blogger (or blosgspot) is a site where you can creat your own blogs on just about anything. It’s a good place for beginner bloggers to get your start. It is really easy to sign up and create an account it is free. You can host it with them and there’s templates to choose from, and if you know a little HTML (though not necessary) you can customize a little.  They also have an option if yo choose to host it on your own servers.

ActiveRain- A great social networking site geared solely to real estate professionals accross the United States. It is a good place that if you are new to blogging, to get a taste of how it works and to read and comment on other participant’s blogs.  It takes 5 minutes to sign up and you can enjoy all the networking benefits too.  The one drawback is that ActiveRain is not necessarily geared to the general public, so consumers would tend to look elsewhere when they are seeking agents and brokers to work with. (Update: I’ve been meaning to update for quite some time, but ActiveRain does have a great public blogging platform for agents to reach consumers through Localism. Through localism, you can blog to your local community providing great real estate information and local info for consumers. ActiveRain has become one of the most popular social networking/blogging sites for agents because of this.)

WordPress - Has to be my favorite blogging platform and one that I personally use for this blog. They have a web hosted version that is better for beginners.  It is recommended to download and use your own hosting associated with your website if you can to help with SEO. Once you get it installed, it is a pretty easy interface to use. There are several themes, and plugins you can find all over the net to enhance your WordPress blog as well.

Happy Blogging!

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