Special offer

5 Blogging Mistakes – And How to Fix Them

Reblogger
Real Estate Agent with Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area BR534744000 & BR540649000

Rich Gaasenbeek "When you’re building out the framework for an article, put yourself in your readers’ shoes. What information do you want them to walk away with? Have a consistent theme running through the entire article with every point supporting your main argument. It starts with having your end goal in mind and reverse engineering it from there."

Right on target - and - re-blog!

Original content by Rich Gaasenbeek

Blogging has been a pillar to a powerful marketing plan for some time now, and has the staying power of a long-term, sustainable strategy. It helps drive traffic to your site, effectively nurtures leads and can be an incredible brand enhancer by helping to position you as a thought leader. However, you can’t just blog for the sake of blogging, nor can you think to cheat Google’s algorithms with keyword stuffing just to get ahead in the search engine race for its coveted number one position.

Think of a blog as your own personal take on the field of real estate. You are the subject matter expert and have a wealth of knowledge dripping at your fingertips. While it might seem easy enough to open up a blank page and start typing, there are a few blogging faux pas that are slowing you down. 

1. It’s Too Self-Promotional

Have you ever spent time with someone where all they do is talk about themselves? Just a constant stream of consciousness going on and on about what they’re doing and what’s going on in their lives like everyone is supposed to be enthralled by it? It’s brutal – nobody can stand to listen to it. In fact, the best conversationalists are the ones that get excited about their audience, ask questions and position it around them. The same goes for your blogging. What type of value are you adding to their life? What type of conversation do you want to lead?

Fix:

Instead of talking about yourself and what’s going on with your company, give your audience something valuable to read. Differentiate yourself from the clutter out there by providing educational content on the real estate industry, trends you’ve seen in the market, tips for staging your home or ideas for first-time homeowners. Think of it this way, when you’re starting to write an article, ask yourself, “why should they care about this?” 

2. There Isn’t a Flow to the Blog

It can be easy to fall for the “brain dump” trap and just pour your endless thought patterns out on the page; the only problem is that it comes across as sporadic and nonsensical to the reader.

Fix:

Write like you talk. Keep your narrative very conversational like you would be speaking with someone. It helps keep your copy organic and natural.

Another trick to combat the lack of flow in blogging is to design a structure to your blog on the key points you initially want to highlight and then work backwards from there. Once you have the framework in place, it’s easy to fill in the blanks, to create a compelling introduction and a call-to-action that reiterates everything you wrote about and where you would like your reader to go next.

3. Tough Time with Topics

One of the fastest ways to help contribute to the bounce rate on your website is to have lack of compelling topics on your blog. They’re either too broad, repetitive or they’re just downright boring. Real estate agents live a very vivid and active professional life, so there should be no shortage of ideas and imagination.  

Fix: 

How many times have you wanted to voice your opinion on the market or share your advice with someone? Well, this is your platform to do so. Blogging is a unique way to take all of the thoughts you have in your head and translate them into written form. Jot notes throughout your day when inspiration hits, look back through past emails and dig through your CRM for blog topics – you’d be surprised at the amount of gold that’s hidden in there.

4. There’s an Inconsistency With Your Frequency 

Blogging regularly makes Google really, really happy – and when you consistently write high-quality content you’re more likely to show up on the first page of Google and in turn, will see an uptick on your website traffic. However, if you cannot prove to this search engine behemoth that you are committed to regularly producing high-quality content, your rankings will suffer.

Fix:

Plan an editorial calendar and look ahead at what you have coming up. Do you have a client appreciation event coming up that you’d like to promote? Was there a report published recently by a real estate board discussing market trends that you would like to put your own spin on? Create a plan for the month – and actually, hold yourself accountable by setting deadlines. 

5. There Isn’t a Point to the Article 

The problem with writing a blog that lacks in direction is that the reader doesn’t know what to take away from this. It’s not passing the “why should I care” test.

So when they get to the “now what” stage, they don’t know what direction to head in because there wasn’t a consistent message to takeaway.

Fix: 

When you’re building out the framework for an article, put yourself in your readers’ shoes. What information do you want them to walk away with? Have a consistent theme running through the entire article with every point supporting your main argument. It starts with having your end goal in mind and reverse engineering it from there. 

While it can seem daunting to stay up to date with the demands of frequent blogging – there are ways to get help. Today’s high-class real estate CRM’s have fresh and never recycled content to help you stand out from the crowd.  

Start your FREE 5 week free trial of IXACT Contact now.

 

 

IXACT Contact - Real Estate CRM and Marketing Made Easy

Call us at 1-866-665-0018 or email us at info@ixactcontact.com.

 

Follow us on Facebook     

Posted by

About the Authors - Updated 2018

If you are considering a Traditional or Short Sale of your home in Phoenix, Scottsdale or any location in Maricopa County Arizona, you owe it to yourself to talk with Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty to determine whether Tony and Suzanne Marriott are the best real estate Brokers in the Phoenix and Scottsdale metropolitan area to help you with the Successful Sale of your home.

Tony and Suzanne have personally Listed, Sold and Closed more than a hundred Short Sales with the highest list to close rate in the Phoenix Metro Area!

Tony Marriott - Chief Executive Officer - Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

Suzanne Marriott - Chief Learning Officer - Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

Associate Brokers, REALTORS
Haven Express
Keller Williams Arizona Realty

Comments (14)

Anthony Acosta - ALLATLANTAcondos.com
Harry Norman, REALTORS® - Atlanta, GA
Associate Broker

Good morning Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers 

Thank you for sharing your information with us. Great information....

Oct 18, 2017 05:17 AM
Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers
Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area - Scottsdale, AZ
Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

Thanks Anthony Acosta - ALLATLANTACONDOS.COM and - thanks for stopping by with a comment!

 

Oct 18, 2017 05:21 AM
Sham Reddy CRS
Howard Hanna RE Services, Dayton, OH - Dayton, OH
CRS

Thanks for sharing.

While it can seem daunting to stay up to date with the demands of frequent blogging – there are ways to get help. 

Oct 18, 2017 05:21 AM
Anthony Acosta - ALLATLANTAcondos.com
Harry Norman, REALTORS® - Atlanta, GA
Associate Broker

Have a great day

Oct 18, 2017 05:25 AM
Dave Halpern
Dave Halpern Real Estate Agent, Inc., Louisville, KY (502) 664-7827 - Louisville, KY
Louisville Short Sale Expert

Wow! What a great post! I especially like the #4 point: 

4. There’s an Inconsistency With Your Frequency 

The biggest blogging mistake is not blogging!

Oct 18, 2017 05:27 AM
Sheri Sperry - MCNE®
Coldwell Banker Realty - Sedona, AZ
(928) 274-7355 ~ YOUR Solutions REALTOR®

Hi Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers - I am an IXACT Contact subcriber and I enjoy Rich Gaasenbeek 's posts. Thank you for sharing his POV.

Oct 18, 2017 05:37 AM
Debb Janes
Nature As Neighbors - Camas, WA
Put My Love of Nature At Work for You

Great, great advice. I missed this one. Thanks so much for the reblog. We are working on the consistent part. It's too easy to get busy and let the blogging lag. Not a smart thing to do. D 

Oct 18, 2017 07:41 AM
Gita Bantwal
RE/MAX Centre Realtors - Warwick, PA
REALTOR,ABR,CRS,SRES,GRI - Bucks County & Philadel

Thank you for reblogging the post. I missed reading the original one 

Oct 18, 2017 12:35 PM
Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers
Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area - Scottsdale, AZ
Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

You're welcome Sham Reddy and - thanks for stopping by with a comment!

 

Oct 19, 2017 04:30 AM
Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers
Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area - Scottsdale, AZ
Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

You too Anthony Acosta - ALLATLANTACONDOS.COM and - thanks for stopping by with a comment!

 

Oct 19, 2017 04:31 AM
Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers
Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area - Scottsdale, AZ
Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

Great point Dave Halpern and - thanks for stopping by with a comment!

 

Oct 19, 2017 04:31 AM
Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers
Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area - Scottsdale, AZ
Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

You're most welcome Sheri Sperry - MCNE® and - thanks for stopping by with a comment!

 

Oct 19, 2017 04:32 AM
Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers
Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area - Scottsdale, AZ
Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

You're welcome Debb Janes EcoBroker and Bernie Stea JD and - thanks for stopping by with a comment!

 

Oct 19, 2017 04:33 AM
Tony and Suzanne Marriott, Associate Brokers
Serving the Greater Phoenix and Scottsdale Metropolitan Area - Scottsdale, AZ
Haven Express @ Keller Williams Arizona Realty

You're welcome Gita Bantwal and - thanks for stopping by with a comment!

 

Oct 19, 2017 04:33 AM