Per Fran Thorsen of  Real Estate Social Media Policies,

“Now, a real estate agent displays a listing syndication map illustrating dozens of destinations where the seller’s property is displayed and a social business card containing all her listings and links to her profiles on the social Web.”

For More, See: Finally! Paint Your Social Media Portrait with a Business Card

A client recently mentioned her attorney said blogs will only bring cold leads. We’d certainly disagree. For starters, leads are simply a more qualified opportunity to sell something. What comes of a lead depends on so many variables, but mostly it depends on the business person.

Clearly anything that brings lead opportunities is a good thing, but what happens next mostly makes a lead warm or cold.

Rather than our [partly] biased opinion, here’s what clients say:

• “I can’t necessarily say it about websites, but my Blog makes me money.” – Bryan Bomba Hinsdale IL Real Estate
• “We would argue that the return on investment is higher than any other advertising we do.” – Brett Ellis Ft Myers FL Real Estate
• “Blogging has caused quite a stir for us and continues to be our main thrust for generating leads and securing contacts.” – Connor T. MacIVOR Los Angeles CA Real Estate Relocation Specialist 
• “In my first 30 days I had two new clients and should close at least 8 sales my first year. If only all my marketing gave me this $150 to $1 return!” – John Toner Howard County MD Real Estate

Folks, blogs offer the opportunity to differentiate & distinguish: blog driven leads usually depend 1st on a display of knowledge and 2nd on an offer that’s enticing enough to justify personal contact information. When every competitor has some form of static web presence, it’s the enthusiasm for sharing good information that qualifies you as trustworthy. Good marketers usually take it a step further with some form of universal discounted or free offer. For real estate, maybe it’s a free home evaluation, a local market report or some other added value.  

With blogs ask yourself, “does my business blog come off…”:

1. Active – does it demonstrate commitment?
2. Focused – is it regionally specific and / or useful to the target market?
3. Knowledgeable? – does it demonstrate subject expertise?
4. Appealing? – would you call yourself if you were a consumer searching and found your blog?

If so, expect hot leads from your advertorial business blog!

So, what is all the hype about Real Estate Blogging? If you’re not already blogging, you’re probably at least wondering: Is it difficult? Does it require great writing skills? Will it eat up all my time?

For starters, lets get beyond common fears and think about why there is *hype.* If you’re reading this post, you’re certainly reading what we’ve published on the ‘Real Estate Blogsites Advertorial Blog.’ And folks, this blog wasn’t developed for laughs and giggles- it helps us to market the ‘Real Estate Blogsites’ brand of knowledge, educational value and overall business enhancement. It was developed to reach folks like you… *and obviously it has!*

There’s no hype surrounding the facts NAR recently revealed, including that 87% of all home buyers used the Internet to do their research. There’s certainly no hype when NAR states that 87% of the home buyers who used the Internet to search homes, ultimately, purchased via a real estate agent. In fact, look at the ‘Where Buyers Found the Home They Purchased’ chart shown here:

It shows that between 2001 and 2008 Real Estate Agents have steadily declined as the initiating source for homes actually purchased versus the Internet, which has steadily risen. And herein lies the immediate challenge. Your *current & future success depends on your web presence.* Sure, folks are looking for sites where they can search the MLS and browse homes, but every Realtor has them. Forgive us, but what differentiates you from all that dry data? When they start looking for a human, what makes you appealing?

No, Blogging is not difficult. You don’t have to be an intellectual to demonstrate that you know local real estate. As for time, you’ve heard that old saying about “getting out of something what you put into it.” Is it hype or is it reality – look at the chart folks? If buyers and sellers are looking for you online then you had better be there showing that you are the one to work with. In fact, if you are NOT blogging you are missing the most cost effective & qualified advertising opportunity that has ever presented itself to your real estate business.

10 Things To Understand About How Real Estate Blogging is Enhancing Business

1. Real Estate Search: Home Buyers search and they research. Google [Yahoo, MSN, etc.] will reward the real estate businesses that are willing to publish consistent, timely and on-topic coverage of their marketplaces with findability in the natural area of their index [ the organic search index results.] Organic search results are determined by the search engine and are NOT influenced by advertising dollars.

2. Organic Real Estate Search Results: 87-92% of all search leads to an organic search result click through and NOT Pay Per Click.  The cost for the remaining 8-13% to those who choose Pay Per Click advertising has risen dramatically. Often it’s over $1 per click. Again, the lion’s share of search is going to the organic search results index.

3. Unlimited Realtor Findability: Your Real Estate Business can be high in the organic search result pages for an unlimited number of search topic key words and phrases that emanate from your blogging effort! Home Buyer search is unpredictable, so more blogging will generate more indexing and more reward for those Realtors with the broadest possible topic indexing.

4. Real Estate Advertising Sustainability: With Real Estate blogs you are never limited in time or space like you are with traditional advertising, where you pay for limited space and circulation time. With search, the distribution of your advertorial real estate content remains available online 24/7 and to any & all comers. Think: the barriers between your real estate business knowledge and the buyers who need it have been broken!

5. Qualified Home Buyer Leads: The search engines are a lead filtration system. Home Buyers and Sellers can [re]search the keywords and key phrases emanating from your local real estate content via the search engine indexes at will. Your content will only attract the most qualified leads because they are already looking for you!

6. Simple Real Estate Publishing: Good Real Estate Business Blogs make it very simple to compete for the attention of qualified Home Buyers and Sellers. The publishing interface makes real estate blogging as simple as writing email. A basic discipline for real estate business blogging demonstrates the enthusiasm you have for your local farm area.

7. Builds Local Trust: Real Estate Business Blogs offer the chance to present your business in a human way. It enhances where traditional advertising or static websites fail. Real Estate blogs help to build brand and to garner trust – they attract the attention of your current and future clientele.

8. Direct Subscription: Possibly the greatest enhancement to a real estate business is the unlimited potential for direct and voluntary subscription. Good real estate blogs offer both RSS and email subscription. Once subscribed they receive your message direct each time you publish. You remain on radar screens for when buyers are ready to buy. Or, to buy again.  

9. Affordable Site Technology: Versus websites, which can require high upfront and ongoing programmer costs for the development of new content or changes to old, blog solutions & services don’t require coding so they can be much less expensive tools.

10. Less Overall Real Estate Marketing & Advertising Cost: Versus other forms of advertising, a good Real Estate Blog will reduce overall marketing & advertising costs because it has an unlimited ability to increase findability, visibility and lead generation!

Breaking news: The LA Times is axing it’s Real Estate section

Albeit its the LA Times, these events should not come as too big a surprise. In an environment where traditional news media revenue has been in a downward spiral, it has everything to do with what we’ve been touting as the enormous opportunity to become a local source of real estate trade media coverage. Decimated by free or discounted classified advertising, both large and small newspapers alike are finding it difficult to cover subjects locally.

Said Inman News, "Such major cuts at that paper and others have triggered questions about how the industry can properly inform readers about community news in the face of staff cuts, the article notes."

The barriers that once stood between your local real estate knowledge and those who want or need it have been broken! Business Blogs have reduced the cost of content creation and distribution to negligible lows, empowering the real estate business to step up and become the source of local real estate & community coverage!

As a real estate marketer, do not miss this advertorial blogging opportunity!

Opportunity

If you hadn’t noticed, the landscape for reaching our marketplace[s] has changed so dramatically. In effect, the change offers both business and consumer an incredible opportunity. Because of the Internet, Search and RSS consumers have the luxury of unlimited information: what they want, how much they want and exactly when they want it. And while search allows for us to be there when they do, its’ only a part of what we [the business] can leverage on the Internet. 

"I’ve found that blogging is an excellent way to develop relationships with potential clients, real estate agents, developers, journalists, and people in the community. It’s a way to demonstrate my knowledge and expertise and to develop trust" Sharon Simms St Petersburg FL
 
Challenge

Unlike traditional, where time and space for an advertising message was limited, there are no longer limits to how much we marketers can share of ourselves. The message is always there, seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Advertising sound bites are fading as noise because a Home Buyers’ ability to do online research is only limited by how much we [the marketer] have actually put out there. Sure we should continue the hunt for our next client, but doesn’t making ourselves available to them when they’re hunting [for what we have to offer] sound nice too? And by the way sharing more means more content indexed. Longer, more specific search phrases indexed [i.e. Santa Barbara CA Oceanfront Home For Sale] demonstrates the intent to serve a specific objective and that can position oneself to convert better-qualified home buyers. Search doesn’t intrude, so it doesn’t look or feel like advertising. Trust can’t be outsourced to ads. We business bloggers must demonstrate genuine knowledge of our trade and, in Real Estate, of our communities. Home buyers don’t want to be told what to buy, how to think and they won’t tolerate having their point of view disregarded. The most effective amongst us will demonstrate consideration, sincerity, honesty and enthusiasm in order to engage.

"The visibility in search engines is only part of the equation. People want flesh and blood." Santa Clarita Real Estate Agent Connor MacIVOR
 
Challenge vs. Opportunity

But how do we meet this challenge? Is it difficult? Is it expensive? Actually Business Blogging in is not only simple, but cheap! Rather than the old environment where we were limited to interrupting people while they consumed media, we actually have the means to become an available and timely source of coverage – no longer an interruption, but a valued resource. We can demonstrate our genuine sense of service by sharing all the useful and timely information we have. Real Estate Blog what you see, hear, know and have to offer… simple!  Google doesn’t say it wants to organize the most technical, the most intellectual or the most eloquent presentation… only that they want to "organize and make the worlds’ information universally accessible and useful." And why is that?  It’s so they can successfully connect ALL searching consumers with the fresh, relevant and unbiased answers they want.
 
And why shouldn’t we see ourselves as a form of local advertorial trade media? Traditional media outlets might not agree, but does a journalist possess the immediate and real life knowledge we not only have but can easily publish? If we know our target is researching, why wouldn’t we publish our knowledge of our trade to the web?  In theory, search engines are an instant answer system, providing home buyers and sellers with the right answers. So, in this environment, where one’s knowledge can easily flow to where it is needed, what have you done to volunteer yours to the indexes? 

"More than 95% of our new business comes from the Internet, and it’s coming from blogs rather than websites. The bottom line of value is not comments or hits – it’s closed business that came because you blogged. Blogging has also raised my visibility and credibility in the community." Sharon Simms St Petersburg FL

Seize the Opportunity!

Blogs have reduced the cost for content creation and distribution to negligible lows. There are no longer limits to how much of ourselves we can share. In fact, very much like our consumer to us, we’re empowered with the giant opportunity of being prepared for them every day. The barriers between our daily knowledge and those who want it have been removed… so folks, as marketers, we must all Real Estate Blog

Leading- edge Web analytics technology provider and Real Estate Blogsite related products & services partner, Visistat, releases promising data demonstrating an increasing use by consumers of online Real Estate Resources.

Director of Sales and Marketing for VisiStat Tina Bean said,

“We provide data for thousands of brokerages and agents across the country, and because of this, I have been working closely with brokers and agents for some time. It’s no surprise that the figures in this report coincide exactly with what I have been hearing from them, and that is, home buyers are using the Internet to educate themselves and find properties, often long before they engage an agent.”

Let’s go a little further into the idea of local Real Estate branding AND your Blog’s direct marketing value proposition, which I recently posted on here.

On the web, distribution of your advertorial content is no longer controlled by traditional media [a recent phenomena known as disintermediation.] It means that, rather than depend on Newspapers, TV Programming, Magazines & Web- based Media to distribute an advertorial message, you can get it to your target audience direct! In fact, because of syndicating content formats like RSS, which are standard with your Blog, there’s nothing stopping YOU from distributing knowledge & information to your marketplace. In fact, with an RSS convert to Email solution, you’re empowered to offer your Real Estate clients & prospects the choice of RSS or email

You see, a content management system like your Blog makes publishing content to the web BOTH cheap & simple. In addition to your Blog’s rapid publish to the web capability, it seamlessly formats content for web syndication [RSS syndication = movement around the web.] Nowadays, with syndication, content is free to go wherever it’s needed so any amongst your clients & prospects have the choice to subscribe to your Blog directly. That’s right, just like a feed from the New York Times Travel section, they can subscribe to you. Direct! By taking advantage of this important opportunity you don’t necessarily have to depend on or pay for Media Intermediaries. That’s right, you may actually save on repetitive advertising costs when you can make useful ‘real estate market coverage’ available to your clients & prospects direct.

But you ask, "how do my clients & prospects gather content direct from a Blog?" They do it with an ‘RSS News or Feed Reader.’ The individual consumer of information [your clients and prospects] need only make the RSS feed connection, which is readily available via your Blog. Don’t know what an ‘RSS News or Feed Reader’ is? Take one minute to watch this painless video and all confusion will be gone.

Again, with a RSS convert to Email solution, you’re empowered to offer your Real Estate clients & prospects the choice of direct via RSS or email

We’re not saying advertising in good media is dead by any stretch. Sure, affiliating yourself with the New York Times or your local newspapers’ audience, for instance, costs money but access to their audience(s) has a true value. What I am trying to convey is that with a little effort you can also reach your clients & prospects directly; you can repeatedly touch them with great new information direct! With a leveled playing field for the distribution of information, the complete customized flow of incoming information is now possible for all people. They’re no longer limited to stumbling onto your ad or to searching in order to know of and to be informed by you. It means that if you can offer useful local Real Estate information via your blog, you can build voluntary, informed & ever- loyal customer relationships.

So folks, help your marketplace understand the convenience of feeds & RSS. Blog your useful & timely Real Estate knowledge- base and let your clients & prospects know they can can be informed regularly by subscribing to your Blog’s RSS [or your RSS convert to email] feed in order to be informed

A Real Estate Blogs’ PR value, where knowledge is shared transparently and where interactive participation in the way of conversations can ensue, has been well documented. We’ve written quite a bit on a Real Estate Blogs’ value as a cost- effective Search Engine Marketing tool, where Search Engine visibility & discover-ability is possible, but have you considered the direct marketing value proposition of your Real Estate blog?

In each case consistent localized content is key, but if you’re sharing good Real Estate information why wouldn’t you encourage clients & prospects to subscribe to it? In an age of readily available information, those who share their local knowledge- base will gain mind share. And who amongst them wouldn’t benefit from your accumulated & timely local Real Estate knowledge? In the best case scenario, you will distribute it to them direct and with no additional effort!

[An incredible feature of all Blogs is RSS. The acronym RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and it means that your content is prepared for movement around the web. RSS can serve you as a consumer of content and as a Real Estate Marketer! As a consumer of content, rather than having to visit all your favorite sites all the time in order to know ‘what’s new’, RSS makes it possible for ‘what’s new’ to visit you direct. Rather than email, which is often out of your control, you can easily control the inbound gather of information direct and to one convenient place. By setting up an RSS Feed or News Reader account, which are typically free web- based services, you’re ready to begin making direct inbound connections. Look for the little orange icon or 'Add to MyYahoo' at your favorite sites, click and you should have what's needed to create a continuous feed connection to your RSS Reader. As a Real Estate Marketer, RSS makes your content available direct to your existing & prospective clients. It's a valuable feature because there is no better form of advertising than direct communication. If they subscribe to your RSS feed, you know your content is reaching the most qualified individuals because they're doing it voluntarily! With our Kinetic Blog service RSS convert to email is also standard.]

Until recently, the web was mostly HTML Web sites. The primary means for distribution of Real Estate content was a search engine or a directory, but now there are Blogs & RSS. As more and more people get involved [more content sources, more blogs, more news service feeds, etc., etc.] it becomes ever more important to do what it takes to maintain & grow online exposure. You see, RSS is becoming an important distribution channel and the ability to maintain local Real Estate- oriented visibility will shift some from the big search engines [including some from the need for content SEO] to RSS feed directories and RSS search engines.

Not to worry folks, if you don’t believe your audience has adopted a ‘RSS Newsreader’ like MyYahoo, MyMSN, GoogleReader or Bloglines for direct subscription it’s still important you get on board because mass adoption is gradually occurring. What’s more, it’s possible to add an ‘RSS convert to email’ subscription box so that when you blog your content can reach people based on their choice of direct subscription via RSS or Email. Again as a Realtor, who amongst your clients & prospects wouldn’t benefit from your accumulated & timely local knowledge?

Folks, we can’t pound the drums hard enough on this: do what it takes to touch your clients & prospects with your useful information. Share your unique & timely Real Estate knowledge- base and, in the best case scenario, do it with with voluntarily participation direct!

It’s well known that 80- 90% of home buyers & sellers will search when they want Real Estate information and long before they contact a Realtor. Realtors, what have you decided to do to help them find you?

You could pursue Pay Per Click; however, regional Pay Per Click advertising rates have been bid up so high [often well over $1 per click] that it has become more and more difficult to sustain any search engine visibility within the constraints of a budget.

You could pursue organic search indexing [Blogs make it easy] and why wouldn’t you when, according to ComScore, Google’s Pay Per Click percentage [when folks are searching] is 13%, Yahoo’s 11% and MSN’s 8%. At 87 to 92 organic clicks versus 8 to 13 PPC per 100 searches, one can easily see where opportunity lies.

It’s important to recognize that as local organic search awareness elevates, the competition for relevant organic search engine index placement will inevitably heat up. In order to establish rank for towns, developments, communities, subdivisions, high rise condominiums, land, golf property, listings and other real estate oriented subjects it’s important to develop a strategy NOW… and a locally focused Blog is the cost- effective answer!

It’s relatively simple to blog consistently and to cover what’s going on in local Real Estate. With Blogs there is an unlimited ability to transfer ones’ knowledge- base, to establish relevant [both primary & long tail] keyword & key phrase search engine indexing and to generate discoverability. What’s more, blogging on current events in a region can generate long tail search engine indexing very naturally. For those who don’t know, ‘long tail’ are terms related to your primary targeted search terms that may individually cause less search discovery, but collectively match or surpass your primary search terms impact. In fact and because search engines are known to favor consistent on- topic content, a blog can offer visible longevity for primary and long tail terms where PPC may not and, by openly sharing good information regularly, a Realtor can create local trust where PPC and other forms of marketing or advertising never will.

In all and if web- based costs are a concern, get yourself a good blog!

As many of you know by now, blogs are ‘real-time’ technology tools.  We create posts, or short articles of information, we hit save and the content is immediately available for online viewing.  It’s a dynamic environment which typically leads to some pretty good visibility in the search engines if you use it correctly.  But wait, has anyone really stopped blogging long enough to think about how to turn that visibility into an online lead?  This is the end game, so let’s talk about it a bit.

Link Funneling ABCs
What does this techno-speak mean anyway?  When i talk about ‘link funneling’ – what i am really referring to is ‘how many people are you sending from those blog posts to the lead capturing tools on your websites?’  Lots of folks think only in terms of unique visitors – how many visits am i getting to my blog in a day or a month.  What we should really be thinking about instead is – how many potential visitors did i funnel to my MLS Search pages, my Home Valuator and my e-mail listing alerts.  You may be surprised to know that some of you who are experiencing less visitor traffic, yet are doing a great job at link funneling may be getting more out of your investment than those with lots of traffic and very few link funnels.

Blogging is About Visibility, Lead Capture is Up To YOU
If you want it to also be about lead capture, you need to put some thought into it.  What happens when someone lands on that blog post you wrote about the new condominiums going up two neighborhoods over?  There are a few things you should consider every time you write a business-based real estate blog post:

1. Have you put yourself in the reader’s shoes?  Meaning… is your post easy to read, well laid out, does it offer value, are you answering the questions that led your reader here?
2. Are you the resource or have you given the spotlight to someone else?  Every time you offer a link out to an external resource such as a newspaper article or perhaps the developer of a new project, you send a message to your reader.  That message is, I am not the expert – they are.  This is OK, but you need to do a cost/benefit analysis of doing so.  Is it worth potentially losing someone to the outside source or could you spend a few extra minutes giving out more information from your own expert opinion?
3. Is your content relevant to your target audience?  Again, step into your potential clients shoes – what are they interested in, what kinds of questions might they turn to Google for answers on.  These are the things you should be focusing much of your blog posting energy on. 
4. Does your post make it easy for the reader to find your complimentary online tools?  This is A#1 – if you don’t make it easy for them to click on "Free MLS Search" or "What is my city, state Home Worth" or "Sign up for Automated Real Estate Listing Updates Via Email" – how are you going to get the opportunity to turn them into a lead? 

Make it Easy, Easy, Easy
When you add those links to your complimentary online tools – make sure you link directly to the relevant page within your website.  Don’t create a link that says, "Free MLS Search" and then send someone to your home page!  Make it simple, send them directly to the search page or to the registration page necessary to get into the search page!  The last thing someone wants to do is land on a home page and figure out what to do next. 

Blog Navigation is a Key Factor
How’s your navigation?  And  by navigation i mean the links you offer from the top, left and right sides of your blog.  Is it easy to understand/use?  Could it be simplified?  How about turning text into graphic buttons?  Would any of this make your user interface and your reader’s experience better?  These are important questions to ask yourself as typically your environment can be modified to meet your needs.

As I mentioned above it is truly possible to have low visitors yet good link referral traffic.  At the end of the day, where does your concern lie?  The end game is in leads – look at your blog in a new light, where do you measure up?  The good news?  If you’re not happy about what you find, it’s an easy fix!  Put a little more thought into providing visibility to your online lead capture tools from wherever it makes sense!  And, don’t be afraid to edit some of those historical posts to add these links back in!