There is not a better way for Bob Stewart to get me off my butt to write for Localism than to dangle a carrot of points in front of me. This girl works for points! After all, that is what got me hooked on Active Rain besides the awesome people and of course the green money from closings because of the sellers that find us on Active Rain!
Bob Stewart of Active Rain ran a challenge this last week and offered 1,000 points for each day, one post per day, for posts to Localism about the different neighborhoods in your market. By day 5; there were over 450 posts written by members. That is some pretty heavy duty spider bait! I was determined to write one post per day for 7 days in a row which was the maximum you could get for the challenge. So I had to put my regular blogging topics and schedule on hold to get this done.
So in case you were wondering why you see all these Wellington Subdivision posts on my blog- well- now you know! It took me about 3 hours to write each of these 7 posts. I still need some photos for post #7 and that has to be posted tomorrow. I decided that I would encompass the sound SEO strategies and I also created a type of template for each post to follow so that I would stay on track and make sure that I included in each post what I felt based on my experience in blogging and SEO would get the biggest bang for the time and effort I was putting forth.
You can click here to view one of the posts that I wrote which was on page one on Google within hours if not minutes. I wanted to make sure that I had interlinking going on, that I had lots of good photos optimized with alt 1 tags, that the titles were keywords and repeated enough throughout the posts. I also wanted to make sure that I added the power of Google Maps to each post, a Real Estate Show so that we can get consumers to stay longer on our blog and of course the Realbird Interactive Search tool so the buyers and sellers did not even have to click to go to our website to search. They could search right now, right there. Then I also added the element of homes on the market, actives and solds in a narrative type format so that the post would flow well.
Filling Localism up with your neighborhood posts is a very effective listing tool. Sellers think that everyone and their mother knows the name of their neighborhood and of course are just dying to move there. Sellers love to have their home and neighborhood egos stroked. I will tell you from experience that they love the real estate shows and they love to see their home up in the lights on the internet. So this is a good tool to help you get listings and that will equate to profits down the road. So keep on doing this even after the challenge is over.
Truth be told as far as buyers go. Longtail keyword blogging is very effective when it is consistant and you use many different keywords to add up to the volume you need to sustain a business. The fact remains that the closer a buyer or seller is to buying or selling; the more precise and longtail their search is going to be. For instance: a person searching for Florida Real Estate is not a great contact for us because he does not even know where he wants to live in Florida yet and he is at least 18 months out from making a buying decision. On the other hand someone using the search terms Buena Vida Wellington Florida homes for sale is a serious buyer or seller. This person is going to buy in one to four months from the time they perform this search. So that is why this is so important to build these longtail keyword neighborhood posts.
But one person buying a home from us in Buena Vida is NOT going to pay our bills for the year. The longer tail the search typically the smaller the group of people using this search term. So you should commit your time to proper longtail keyword blogging but you also have to add a little middle tail as I like to call it in with the mix. You need something that is searched more than generating one phone call a year.
I wrote this longtail keyword tutorial post to help you title your posts correctly.
Most agents just like their sellers think that everyone knows about their area and the names of the communities in your town. That is not going to be the case with relocating buyers and out of the area buyers unless you live in San Francisco or Seattle. If you live in Little Town USA, no one is searching for your town. You have to use keywords in your blogging that people are actually putting in the search box on google and other search engines. We have a town in our area that has a population of about 8,000 people. It is called Loxahatchee Florida. Every home is built on at least an acre of land and it is still rural. This would be a great town for those who want this lifestyle but they have no idea this town exists. In fact, there are only like 14 searches a month for this town and not all of those are going to equate to buyers. That is not enough searches to keep you in business. But should you blog with those keywords? Of course you should. But just know it is not going to pay all the bills. You need to go wider, cast the net out farther. So I can blog about Wellington which is searched each month with about 8,000 searches, now we are talking about getting somewhere as long as my competition is not too stiff for those words. This way, after someone contacts us about Wellington we can explain about Loxahatchee to them if they are looking for the rural lifestyle.
You can do your research on google keyword tool for competition and search volume. During my webinars I do a lot of consultations with participants and help them to discover golden nuggets of search terms that have very low competition but are generously searched. When you do this then you will be blogging to a larger group of searchers and this of course, will cause your phone to ring and that will pay your bills and more.
The next SEO TO THE TOP Webinar will begin on September 2. That is just around the corner. Sign up today for the webinar because spaces fill up fast. All the sessions are recorded in case you miss any of them. I have a long list of Active Rain members who are following the webinar lessons with great results. Feel free to ask any of them what they think of my webinar. You can visit my sales page and at the bottom of my page is a buy now button that will take you to paypal. Summer is almost over and fall is a great time to get in gear with SEO TO THE TOP Webinars.
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