Effectively Posting Your Listings to Your Blog.

Posting your listings to your blog is something that any agent loves to do.  It provides exposure for the listing which makes the seller happy & also gives your blog an additional posting of content.  However over the past few months of being on staff I have encountered this question more times than I can count. "How do I post my listings on my blog?" Because of this I have written this post that will walk you through what you should & shouldn't be doing when posting your listings on your blog.

What Not to Do When Writing About Your Listing

Before I share how to effectively post your listings to your blog, I want to start with a few things not to do.  The biggest No No is to just copy & paste directly from your MLS.  Copying & pasting can cause coding issues to your blog where giant paragraphs of funny text shows up. Also, this a violation of our Community Guidelines.   The second way many post their listings is through using some sort of outside service where you input your listing information & are provided with a piece of html code that creates a pretty flyer like the one to the right.

While there are plenty of wonderful services available to place your listings on your blog, (postlets, vflyer, realbird, etc) they are not always the best way.  Before I go any further, let me make this statement:  There is nothing wrong with using those services!  They are a great for posting your listings to many social media platforms like craigslist, twitter, & facebook.  But in order to make your listings more attractive to consumers & also search engines, using those sites hold you back on your blog & here is why.

• Lack of content: Many times those services have a limit on the number of characters you can use in the description.  They also do not allow you include links in the flyer.  Since you can't link you are missing valuable opportunities for link juice.
  
• Lack of Creativity.  While they create really pretty looking flyers that can be visually appealing, they hinder you from using any type of creativity in the layout or added features to your listing because of the set template.  The ability to add extras to the flyers in out of the question.
• Layout Issues.  Have you ever placed one of these flyers on your blog & the entire layout of your blog goes haywire?  You know what I mean, your profile picture is at the bottom of the page, your post title runs over a picture, and text is going everywhere?  Well this is caused by the html coding you inserted having the incorrect dimensions.  Most everything you post on ActiveRain needs to remain under 550 pixels wide to keep from encountering this issue.  Unfortunately these flyers are normally set for wider dimensions that the maximum allowed on ActiveRain.
  

Tips to Writing an Effective Listing Post.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, the best way to write bout a listing is to write an original blog post about the home.  This way you are giving unique content about the property.  You are the creator & can make it look & feel however you want.  Here are 4 simple tips to increase the appeal of your listings for both consumers & also search engines:

1. Include Community Info.  Before you take the time to write about your listing, I would suggest taking time to write about some of the other local things in the community.  Write about local attractions, amenities in the neighborhood, restaurants, & anything else about the neighborhood.  By writing these hyper local posts before writing about your listing you will then be able to incorporate these things into your listing post.  This provides great ways to link posts together & build some major google juice.
2. Post plenty of Photographs.   Pictures help showcase your listing.  Adding these to the post bring things to life.  Remember the importance of labeling your photos when placing them into your post.
3. Don't be afraid of giving too much information! Many times agents fear that if they give you all the details of the listing that consumers will not contact them. Posts that include more content than the average listing posts will be the blogs that consumers come back to again & again.  Because of new technologies, consumers can find just about anything they want to know about a property online.  So if you do not give them the information they are needing, they will move onto someone else.
4. Try adding a slideshow or video for an extra wow factor.  Slideshows & videos give just an added dimension to the post.  It allows the consumer to take a break from reading & just watch.  Be careful though to not make the video too long or you can lost their interest.  I would suggest keeping both around 2-3 minutes max.
   
5. Title the post correctly.  One of the biggest problems I see when looking at a post that is for a listing is that the title is done all wrong.  It is so important to Address your listings properly for search engines.  If you just title the post "Reduced 3BR 2BA home to $389,000" you are definitely not helping the search engines to understand what your post is about. 
   

Add these 5 simple tips when writing your next post about a new listing & watch the difference in results.  Consumers will spend more time reading & learning as well as google will like it more.