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blogging advice: The 2 Most Important Things To Consider About Your Real Estate Blogsite-Website - 04/20/10 06:49 PM
On nearly every call with a real estate blogger looking for advice, I end up having them consider both of the following. Everything else is at best tertiary to these concerns and can probably be satisfied by simply keeping these primary items in mind.
1. Why Are Your Visitors On Your Website? What brought them there, and what are they expecting? Did they do a search on Google and find an article that you wrote? Did they click from a link in your email signature?Was it a Tweet? a Facebook status update? a YouTube video?Did you tell them to go there? Did someone or something … (13 comments)
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blogging advice: How To Approach Real Estate Blogging And Ensure Your Success, Guaranteed - 03/12/10 12:19 PM
I sat here making an effort to finish writing an article covering the 2 most crucial things to consider about your website when I was derailed by the topic below.
The following is based on a phone rant that I have let loose so many times that I’m starting to feel myself on auto-pilot, almost thinking about something else, as I explain the basic formula to guaranteed blogging success. It struck me that I need to write this down before I mistakenly consider it to be no longer relevant. The fact is that it couldn’t be more relevant for new and struggling real estate bloggers.
I am adding … (10 comments)
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blogging advice: 50 Sound Real Estate Blogging Tips - 07/11/09 04:49 PM
50 Sound Real Estate Blogging Tips Most of my blogging efforts revolve around delivering sound real estate blogging advice. The articles generally take me at least a couple of hours to develop, format, publish and broadcast. I have dozens and dozens of ideas that are just waiting to be developed and published, but as we all know, the mostchallenging thing about blogging is carving out the time.
Then it strikes me. Micro Blogging on Twitter would be a fantastic solution to my dilemma: a ton of ideas, and no time to get them into blog-shape. So, on April 25th, 2009, I started posting Real Estate Blogging Tips to … (21 comments)
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blogging advice: The 11 Most Common Pitfalls For New Real Estate Bloggers - 07/01/09 01:41 PM
The 11 Most Common Pitfalls For New Real Estate Bloggers We’ve trained hundreds of real estate agents to make the blog an effective marketing tool. We run them through a dozen hours of personal training classes, aiming to keep them on track to success.
The following represent the most common issues that we help them recognize in or to keep them focused.
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1. Worrying About Design Before the Writing ___
This is akin to planning a wedding before you have even met your husband/wife to be. Before you even ‘deserve’ a great looking home for your blogging, you need to have shown … (11 comments)
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blogging advice: Real Estate and Twitter - Use Hashtags to Dominate a Niche. - 05/12/09 01:26 PM
Success in Real Estate is largely due to who you know.
The more Whos, the more opportunity you create for yourself.
Creating a database of regular contacts has always been a sound strategy for real estate marketing.Mailing Lists Rolodex Walking Farm Past ClientsFriends/FamilyBusiness Contacts Email Database Blog Feed Subscribers Facebook Friends Twitter Followers... and now the Hashtag: #
Why follow Hashtags instead of just keywords on Twitter? Hashtag 101: When Twittering, by adding the # in front of a term (like this: #conan) it automatically groups your post with any other post that included the same #term. This term ‘group’ can be found by using http://search.twitter.com and searching for the #term.
The use of a … (1 comments)
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blogging advice: Lost In The Crowd: Realtors Fail To Effectively Leverage Social Media. - 03/31/09 07:08 PM
Don't Get Caught On Your Knees Sifting For Gold When You Could Be On Stage, Making A Lasting Impression.
I am so proud of the real estate industry. You've come so far!
In the latter half of the 90's decade, as the Internet promised to be a modern gold rush, curiously, Realtors showed little interest. It wasn't until just recently that the Realtor's personal website was accepted as an obligatory expense. The irony is that now it has little chance of being effective.
But today, I actually have faith in the real estate agent's embrace of the Internet as … (15 comments)
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blogging advice: 8 Things That You Are Not Doing On Your Real Estate Blog, But Should Be. - 01/06/09 09:38 AM
1. Microblogging Twitter is all the rage… and yet most blogging agents aren’t using it becausethey don’t grasp the value.
Here’s another way to approach the Micro-Blog: Instead of catering to the audience in a Twitter Community, consider those that are actually coming to read your blog. Short updates from you about the market, your efforts as an agent, new listings, and news flashes are just the sort of thing that your readers will appreciate. Now pop them on your blog, and syndicate that back up to Twitter instead of the other way around. (More on this in coming weeks)
Hot tip: When it … (15 comments)
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blogging advice: Why Should I Blog? - It's About the Value of Being Seen as the Expert in Your Niche - 10/23/08 01:23 PM
As I was standing at the podium at the Christie’s Global Conference talking about the marriage that is Real Estate and Content, an idea struck me that at the time I only had an opportunity to touch on... knowing it deserved more.
The audience I was speaking to deals mostly in incredibly high end luxury homes. We're talking mansions, castles, villas and the like. What struck me was the idea that if you were to break down the value of their time when applied to working with one of these listings, you're easily looking at several hundred dollars an hour... and … (16 comments)
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blogging advice: Twitter Explained for the Real Estate Blogger - 07/31/08 02:28 PM
I knew that Todd Carpenter's guest post was going to open a can of worms for me. I spent a good part of yesterday fielding questions about "this Twitter". I know I'm not the first to bring an explanation to the interweb, but it's going to save me from having to do it again.
Do you remember when you first grasped the idea of texting on your cell phone?
I remember thinking, "Who on Earth would waste their time doing such a thing?"Now, texting has become such a part of my daily communications that I send and receive several hundreds of texts … (19 comments)
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blogging advice: Photo Editing For Real Estate Blogs Couldn't Be Simpler - PicNik - 07/31/08 02:22 PM
From time to time we recommend tools and services that are universally handy for your real estate blog. Teresa Boardman, HRH, has a quick one to share with you, that has become a staple in her blogging routine.
Photo Editing For Real Estate Blogs Couldn't Be Simpler By Teresa Boardman
Nothing dresses up a blog post like a photo, especially on real estate blogs. Our readers really like to see some real estate when they stop by.
Most photos need some editing before they can be published on the internet. They need to be lightened up a bit and made smaller, … (6 comments)
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blogging advice: A Clever and Effective Way To Gain More Real Estate Blog Subscribers - 06/10/08 11:41 AM
About a month ago I received, in the mail (yes, the kind with real letters, bills and magazines) an envelope with 3 items in it.
The first was a a New Blog Announcement, something like a Baby Announcement: It’s a BLOG!
The second a business card showcasing the Blog Address and contact information for Michael Bergin and Virginia Amos (on the reverse), proud new owners (and authors) of GWSleptHere.com.
For those not “in the know” – GWSleptHere is embracing the common local claim to various local destinations in greater Alexandria, VA, that the Father of our nation, President George Washington, slept … (16 comments)
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blogging advice: The Real Estate Broker Blog 2.0 - Plug In To The Solution - 05/28/08 03:15 PM
**Disclaimer**
This post is a blantant pitch for our exciting new product, the Real Estate Broker Blog. Feel free to ignore it completely if you can resist its delicious chocolate chip cookie smell.
**End of Disclaimer**
Last year we launched the first of it's kind Real Estate Broker Blog.
Because of its innovation and wild success, Beth Butler, the Broker responsible for the project, has been asked to speak at Inman Connect in San Francisco this summer.
Her topic: "How One Broker Is Making Group Blogging Work"
Here's a quick overview of the EWM Project's current stats:
-14 Offices with … (7 comments)
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blogging advice: Can My Real Estate Blog Help Me Talk Like a Woman? - 03/27/08 01:25 PM
John Coley, still my favorite Lake Martin, Alabama blogger, sent over this gem, and I couldn’t wait to post it for your enjoyment. Can My Real Estate Blog Help Me Talk Like a Woman?By John Coley I recently got rejected on a listing presentation, and it hurt. Unless you're a realtor that signs up 100% of your listing presentations, you know what I mean.
This one was particularly painful because it was to list a couple's lake home and help them buy another. The combination of the two homes would have been about $2 million in gross sales, which buys a … (6 comments)
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blogging advice: All You Ever Needed To Know About Blogging SEO, But Were Afraid To Say So. - 03/26/08 01:56 PM
I know what you are thinking…”not another SEO article, please…”
SEO focused companies have secrets.They want you to think that you need them to get you to the top of the search engines.They want you to think that you need to learn the complex details or you will fail.They want you to think that there is so much that goes into it, that you'd be a fool to not put your faith in them.They want you to think that your success depends on their knowledge and tools.They want you to think that their advice will make "all the difference".
Well folks, the … (14 comments)
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blogging advice: Real Estate Blogging Business Plan For 2008 - Boots On the Ground Will Help You Find and Service Buyers - 03/07/08 12:26 PM
The growth of Real Estate Blogging, although steady and noticeable, still has not lived up to the hype, and it never will. That’s not to say that it is being rejected as a competent means to the end: as an effective lead generation tool. In fact, we’re finding that blogging is not only keeping people in business, saving them marketing spend, and changing their outlook on real estate, but it is actually improving the industry. Anytime that you force an industry to establish, present, and defend opinion and insight, you’re heading in the right direction.
The reason I feel that a … (12 comments)
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blogging advice: Starting A Real Estate Blog? Grab That Email Database, Let's Get You Read - 03/04/08 06:40 PM
When I started the Real Estate Tomato, in June of 2006, I had one reader, me.
Before the first month was over, I was averaging 30 unique visitors a day.Within 2 months it was 135 unique visitors a day.
How did we get out of the gates so quickly?
We did it in part, with an old friend: The Email Database.
To make a business blog a successful marketing strategy, you need to have an audience of potential clients.
Having been a consultant for online real estate marketing for 6 years before starting the Tomato, I had a mighty database of real estate … (23 comments)
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blogging advice: The Real Estate Business Is Content, Not Home Selling - 02/28/08 10:22 PM
The above might seem like an odd statement, but it couldn’t be more true.
Let me use some examples of other industries to illustrate the point.
The Music Industry The business is content creation; melodies, lyrics, videos, live presentations, etc.The product comes in the form of CD’s, DVD’s, downloads, posters, T-shirts, tickets etc.
The Baseball Industry The business is content in the form of the actual game, the play-by-play, the TV broadcast, the reporting, etc.The product is tickets, jerseys and caps, hot dogs and beer, etc.
The Restaurant Industry The business is content in atmosphere, presentation, description, expertise, service, etc.The product is … (5 comments)
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blogging advice: 7 Reasons Why Your Local Real Estate Blogging Peers Are Not Your Competition - 02/24/08 05:48 PM
Because the clients we work with have such a positive experience with their blogging, they commonly express the concern that they would prefer us to not educate others in their geographic areas of focus. Sometimes they ask in jest, other times they are actually dead serious and willing to pay for exclusivity.
As unwise as this is from a business growth standpoint for us, this is not the reason I discourage this manner of thinking. Below are 7 arguments in favor of the growth of the real estate blogging community, in your town. And, selling more custom blogs and training is not one of them.
… (16 comments)
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blogging advice: Is Your Website Working Against Your Real Estate Career? - 02/20/08 05:10 PM
No one is denying that there has been a shake-up in the real estate industry.Empty cubicles, where there once was a waiting list, tell the story better than I could. A thinning of the herd is always a positive thing for those staying put, but the bottom line is that there will always be more agents in the field than ready-to-act buyers and sellers.
So we ask, what are you doing to ensure that you are a 'stayer' in 2008? There is common saying that I can't see being much more appropriate than now: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
… (15 comments)
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blogging advice: Why Worrying About SEO Is Detrimental to Your Real Estate Blog - 02/08/08 12:53 PM
Last year I wrote a post called 96% of All Real Estate Blogs Will Fail.
It has become more and more clear that I failed to mention another clear reason why real estate bloggers are bound to abandon their blogging efforts.
S.E.O.Search Engine Optimization
Realtors help buyers buy property.Realtors help sellers sell property.
If this is going to their business model for success, it needs to be a full-time job.
Business Blogging is a marketing effort. However, it is a marketing effort that, as we've pointed out countless times, needs to be a discipline in order for it to work. In … (9 comments)
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Real Estate Tomato
Paradise,
CA
More about me…
Real Estate Tomato
Office Phone: (530) 872-0892
Email Me
The Real Estate Tomato is a destination for real estate blogging advice, insight, services and products.
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