Ask An Ambassador: What's The Expiration Date Of Your Blog Posts?
We all want more business from blogging, right? But one of the keys to making the phone ring is giving the consumers what they want, and as much as possible WITHOUT an expiration date on the material. I'm not going to say we're perfect in that regard as we've written a lot of subdivision posts that have "dated" material. E.g. "The last three sales of 2011 were from $259,633 to $451,750". We just made it pretty obvious that we haven't touched that post in a year or two to any consumer that finds our post about _____________ subdivision. So on our To Do list is to clean up those old posts so they stay more current no matter when they're found.
I believe it was Bob Stewart that used the phrase "make your posts evergreen". Just like the evergreen trees that stay green all year long, you want your consumer facing posts to work year after year for you. You include pictures, custom IDX searches, etc. and they'll keep going for you as long as you're in the business! Old posts routinely get found! And the more posts you have packed with evergreen content, the better the odds that you'll be getting that phone call or email you seek!
Does that mean we won't write posts that "expire"? Of course not! Some posts are meant to be as disposable as paper plates. We'll still cover our local events and make sure we clearly include the year in each of them. There's still value (in our opinion) in showing area buyers and sellers that you're part of the community and know what's going on. And frankly in our market, we're competing for relocating buyers to move to OUR section of the Cincinnati/Dayton market rather than elsewhere, so those festival, recreation, restaurant and business posts are a way of creating that fabric of attraction.
And obviously there's a place in our blogging schedule for other posts that aren't evergreen. Maybe it's a just for fun post or something meant to unleash the creative side that doesn't fit into those market reports and subdivision posts. After all, all work and no play makes for a burned out blogger!
Keep on blogging!
Liz and Bill aka BLiz
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