This blog post is a review of Soci@l Chapter, Effective Blogging

This blog post is a review of Soci@l Chapter 

                               "Effective Blogging -Writing content that ranks and gets read "

While I fully intend to read this book completely, after 3 years of blogging I thought this chapter might be good for some personal checks and balances.

And while reading this chapter I became aware  that I was not doing all that I could so I also picked up a few reminders about titles and tags that will hopefully put me back on track.

I must compliment the writer, Ben Kinney for this chapter and the way it starts from point zero ( those not blogging and the myriad of excuses) all the way through key word choice and getting inbound links to the written blog and the published blog post.

The key for me and you to get the most out of this book and in particular the chapter on effective blogging is in fully understanding what a blog is, why we should be blogging with regularity and recognizing the bottom line benefits  you will receive from blogging if done correctly. Obviously first is writing a blog and posting it but before the benefits can be realized, we need to get the blog post ranked and read by the consumer.

This chapter on Effective Blogging is divided in several sectioned sub titles.

1. Why Blog ?

2. Position Yourself as the Expert

3. Advertise and market a listing

4. Drive Traffic and Create Links

5. Expand your Social Media conversations

6. Educate future Buyers and Sellers

7. How to write a Blog Post

     1. Title of your blog

     2. Body of your blog

     3. Tags for your blog

     4. Links for your blog

Writing a post and what to write about is probably the biggest obstacle of why so many do not blog or do not blog on a regular basis. The best way to overcome this is write about what you know and have a passion for. The goal of writing a blog or any number of blogs is to position yourself as the go-to expert on that particular part of the market or market niche. This would include listings, market date, posts wrtten to give buyers  information on the buying process used to purchase and to the seller, the guidelines to selling their property.

Now that you have a post written you need to include a glossary (more appropriately called tags) which will be the search terms for the search engines to categorize it. To better explain the tags, if you wrote a post about your specialty and it was historic homes, and you lived in San Diego, the tags need to identify historic homes and also San Diego the geographic area the post applies to. It is important that tags should give an accurate description of what is contained in the post as well the geographic area it applies to.

If your specialty is a geographic area, done correctly you can fast become the go-to expert for that area. Writing posts for a geographic area gives you the ability to relate everything about that market, geographic area or even right down to a particular neighborhood.

The blog also provides an excellent way to market individual or groups of listings. This chaper provides  the best understanding of how to title your blog post to get attention. Listings drive traffic to your site and that in turn increases your rank in the search engines.

Optimization is reached when your listings and blog posts are linked into the other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Educating Buyers and Sellers on your market, how you do business, the buying and selling guidelines for your area will  greatly enhance the consumer experience while establishing you as the expert. When you couple that information in your posts and add in the listings and market data, consumers will seek you out because you have demonstarted clearly that you know the area market.

In the last sub section of this chapter, Ben writes in detail the 4 essential parts of a blog. From selecting a title , writing the body of the post, the tags or glossary and finally how to get links ( inbound and outbound ) for your blog post.

This chapter is an ABC's of blogging and how to begin and the steps to take to optimize it and helps you be found easily by the consumer. Done correctly, blogging can and will over time give you standing in the search engines. The search engines will index your content and provide the consumer easy access to what you have to say. With good links inbound and outbound of your blog, you will soon become the go-to expert in your area of real estate expertise.

This blog post is a review of Soci@l: Attract Friends, Followers and Connections to Your Business. Soci@l is a free download written by Ben Kinney in conjunction with ActiveRain and Jay Papasan. In exchange for downloading the free copy of Soci@l and writing this review, I have a chance to win a free iPad and I'm getting 2000 ActiveRain points.