#1 Power Tool of Real Estate – The Blog
It’s really not a question anymore, it’s a statement: You MUST have a real estate blog if you want to be successful in the online world of real estate. But for those of you who are still questioning the importance of blogging, I think it’s appropriate for us to be completely transparent and let you all in on a little secret.
In the infancy of Tech Savvy Agent, we were truly unfamiliar with the importance of a blog, but we knew that it was definitely something that we needed to break into. Unfortunately, we started our original Tech Savvy Agent blog as a WordPress.com blog! Yes, even TSA made that huge mistake! ”But, I thought WordPress was the most robust and greatest ROI blogging platform there was”, you say? Whereas that is true, it’s the host location of your blog that will be the driving force behind this most power tool of real estate, and WordPress is not the place for it to be hosted!
“Ok, so what’s the difference between a self-hosted and free (non-self-hosted) blog“? Well, right there is one difference - one is free and one is not. When you see that something is free, you have to question it’s validity (well, at least I do). A WordPress.org (self-hosted) blog run about $55 per year (plus you can normally get a 20% discount – do a google search for “godaddy promo codes”) not to mention the countless benefits of hosting it on your preferred platform (such as our preferred site, Godaddy.com).
Additional reasons to self-host your real estate blog are:
- Limitless plugins – Search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge factor when it comes to real estate blogs ROI. All-In-One SEO Pack is one that allows you to easily search engine optimize each page (or post) that you create.
- Another highly effective real estate plugin is IDXPress by Diverse Solutions which allows you to include your MLS search into your blog, and each search result is search engine optimized! This is not achievable on a real estate website as your IDX is iframed into the site and so is useless when it comes to SEO! If that doesn’t make you switch, I don’t know what will…
- Unlimited number of pages – WordPress.org allows for an unlimited number of blog pages whereas WordPress.com or Blogger is limited. For those of you that would like to have a page about each community within your market area, for instance, may have to stop mid-stream – how frustrating?!
- It’s not yours, it’s theirs – Blogger has been known to delete their users blogs for various reasons. A sense of security for this not to suddenly happen is definitely worth the minimal expense, wouldn’t you say?
So, we have explained the main factors as to why you need to host your blog yourself, but why should you blog to begin with? That is the question of the Century.
The majority of Realtors have their website in place, with the average 10-20 pages of basic information, including the home page, seller and buyer information, MLS search, about us, contact us, etc., Once the site is set up and looking “pretty”, that’s often the end of it. This is what is known as static content – it remains the same, often for years. You may hire a web designer and/or search engine optimize specialist who adds meta tags (which is now not so important anymore, to Google at least), keyword phrases to each static page, and gets those 10-20 pages indexed with the search engines. However, with a blog, your content is no longer static; it is consistent, relevant, highly keyword-rich, ever-growing content with endless pages, each having the ability to be indexed by the search engines! (REMEMBER, that includes your MLS Search pages too!)
The ultimate power behind a blog is your ability to be positioned on the search engines within many different keyword phrases within your market niche and is so much more attainable than through your static website. And the more presence you have on the search engines, the more traffic you will obtain and the more leads you will get. Simply put, your real estate blog feeds your online fire!
How often do you need to blog? Honestly, the more the merrier, but even if you can only commit to just once a week, you will have doubled your content from that of your static website within a very short period of time. The more pages you have with relevent, keyword-rich content, the more opportunities you have to be found by the search engines and the better your ranking! Add the social networking and social media aspects to this scenario and you’ll be well on your way to achieving an amazing web presence! More about how you can do this will be revealed in upcoming posts…
Have questions? Leave a comment below or visit our “Consulting Services” page and we’ll be glad to answer your questions.
There are 17 responses to this post! Join in...
Blogs are a great and necessary tool for a Realtor’s success as they do keep the content fresh as long as one or two posts appear on the home page.
One caveat, I don’t recommend GoDaddy as of the past two months their servers more than any other have had hijacking and hack attacks, crippling websites and still they aren’t doing much of anything about it. I have switched most of my clients’ sites to other hosting providers.
Great Post!
Http://www.markjacobsrealtor.com
Great Post! I am using a self hosted WordPress Blog
I too don’t recommend GoDaddy as I have noticed a slow load speed of my site, especially on Fridays. Also, I got emails from them about security threats. . .SCARY. Not to mention that many wordpress users are saying that Godaddy servers do not handle the wordpress CSS too well for some reason or another. Google Godaddy and wordpress for yourself and see what comes up. You’d be surprised.
My blog is my real estate life on-line, within reason of course. I live by it, but then again, I am confortable talking to myself. That’s what blogging was like to me in the beginning. Talking to myself until I learned how to leverage my blog entries. Hmmm, sounds like a excellent future blog topic. Hint, Hint!
Thanks for your comment, AP! If you don’t recommend GoDaddy, what hosting company do you recommend and use? Always up for suggestions for bigger and better things!
@Suzanne try Hostgator or Bluehost. Run far, far away from GoDaddy and let me tell you, I was with Godaddy for a very long time (years), but sometimes, enough is enough.
Slow sites will start to fall in the SERPs. All that work on a blog won’t mean a thing if your customer service is slow.
It’s like going to Quick Check and waiting 30 minutes for a sub. After a while, you just start to lose your tolerance and forget you’re hungry. People want access to information and they want it yesterday. Your site, albeit a blog, must be FAST!
Thank you for taking the time to share this information. A blog is a very important tool in real estate to day as is all internet marketing strategies.
Make sure sure to keep the blogs under 1000 word or it will be hard to get people to read through.
AP you want to write a guest post on what you mentioned? Lot of agents afraid to start because they don’t want to feel like no one will read it or comment etc
Chris, I would love to be a guest blogger. I have a post that I’ve been working on related to blogging for clients.
[...] your online marketing efforts. Your keywords used within your domain url, your blog titles, your article keywords, all work together to bring you the most return on investment (ROI) and will save you massive [...]
I sat down to ‘veg out’ over the NOON hour with a Coke, and decided to click on the Blog article for Savv Tech Agent on Facebook. CHANGED everything I knew/know about blogging! No more meta tags etc, JUST more and BETTER blog sites. I am so excited to upgrade my blog that I dumped over my Coke!!
REX
Great post, Suzanne. Do you know if the All-in-One SEO Pack is redundant if you’re using a WP premium theme framework like Thesis or Genesis?
[...] agent should be blogging, I won’t attempt to even begin here. Instead, please see this Tech Savvy Agent post on the importance of [...]
Great Post! Thanks for the info.
As always, GREAT content! I myself am new to this whole “blogging” concept, but I can tell you that its quickly becoming MORE popular than ever!!! We have to keep up with current trends to stay competitive!! Thanks!
Nicely said. If you build a viable business, build it right.
Read reviews of different users what they are saying. You can’t become successful in today’s world without
considering the advantages the Internet could create for your business venture.
It provides unlimited space and traffic and the domain name
is free.