Successful blogs all have one thing in common: they strike the perfect balance between a good user interface with intuitive functionality and great content.  You can have the best content on the web, but if your blog isnt designed to keep readers moving through it or doesnt allow visitors to easily search through posts to find what they are really looking for, your blog isnt doing all it can for you. So, lets take a peek under your real estate blog hood and see what needs to be there.

1. Post Search Tool

There are a bunch of blogs I visit daily that either dont have a search tool or have hidden their search tool below the fold (meaning I have to scroll down to find it). A post search tool is site search that allows visitors to easily search the site for the content they are after. If you carefully craft all your content to be engaging and educational, why would you hide it from visitors? Thats what you are doing if you dont have a post search tool or you dont clearly display it above the fold. 

TIP: The most intuitive place to display your search tool is in the top right hand corner of your blog.

Subscribers are the bread and butter of your blog, so make it easy for them to subscribe to your site. Prominently display your RSS subscription signup above the fold (meaning towards the top of the page so users dont have to scroll to find it). Just about everyone recognizes that bright orange RSS logo, so always use a standard RSS logo- it makes people feel comfortable.  Offer multiple subscription options. Allow more tech savvy users access to the raw feed while those less comfortable with technology can subscribe via email. 

Display a most recent post list on the home page of your blog so visitors can easily get to your most recent posts and spiders can easily find the new inner pages they would like to crawl. While your blog may already have excerpts or entire posts of your most recent articles, having a single area on one of your side bars with just the titles of your most recent posts can increase visitor retention and page views.

People visiting your blog for the first time need to be directed to your most valuable posts. Providing a single area on one of your side bars with just the titles of your most trafficked posts can not only increase visitor retention but also increase subscriptions since it shows the true value of your blog.

Chiclets are those tiny social network bookmark icons on blogs that allow you and your users to easily submit your post to social news and network sites like Digg, Reddit, Furl and NewsVine. By allowing users easy access to social news sites you can increase your posts submissions and drive more quality traffic back to your site through the social media sites. Chiclets are terrific marketing tools for acquiring new readers and engaging the participation of your existing readers.

Read also: Promoting your blog with social bookmarks

One of the biggest mistakes I see real estate blogs making is placing a text link in the blog sidebar to the front page of the Realtors website.  Studies show that people are 70% more likely to click on a graphical image (banner ad) than a text link. So, what your blog needs is a graphical button that clearly spells out the value (home search or home value) and links directly to the search page or CMA on the website. 

Read also: What Pamela Anderson can teach you about calling readers to action on your blog

How are you goign to get the lead, if you don't ask for it.  If you are expecting people to read your blog and contact you, you are kidding yourself.  Use a quality lead generation syste like 1ParkPlace that allows users to search the MLS or get their home value but also requires them to log their information so you can contact them later.

Read also: Driving qualified traffic to your site can improve lead generation

Ping services automatically notify social bookmarking websites like Technorati and blo.gs each time new content is posted. Blogs that use ping services, whether integrated into the platform like RSS Pieces and WordPress or external, are crawled by spiders 82% more than sites that do not use ping services.  Dont you want your blog crawled more often so you can get indexed better in the engines? If your blog doesnt have an integrated ping service, start using an external ping service like Pingoat and Ping-o-matic

Read also: Web marketing in slow times

Sitemaps help both people and search engines navigate your site. Most blogs are capable of auto generating a user site map and updating it continuously as you add content. To generate Google or Yahoo sitemaps, you may need to use a special tool like the free NUAH tool listed below.

Example: RSS Pieces auto updated sitemap

Tool: Generate Google or Yahoo sitemaps

Commenting is an essential part of your blog because it creates community by allowing reader participation. However, those of you that have a blog know just how annoying blog spam can be. While many blogs use

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