We all want big traffic to our real estate blog, right?  You know the kind of traffic I'm talking about.  The kind that makes that Alexa graph climb and climb and your heart go pitter pat.  If that's all you care about, you're in luck because the truth is any moron with a blog can build big traffic with just a little bit of effort and lot of targeted content.  The rub is that big traffic typically means a large geographically diverse audience.  Is that what you really want?  Heck, no.  What the savvy real estate blogger wants is big LOCAL blog traffic.  So, how do you go about driving very targeted local traffic and even more importantly, how do you go about measuring what percentage of your total real estate blog traffic is local?

1.  List yourself locally

Let the local web know you exist.  Make sure you list yourself in the following local directories.  This is probably one of the easiest, fastest and cheapest ways to build your local business.

Google Local

Yahoo Local

Superpages

Switchboard

Local.com

Read also: 5 Tips to blog for local traffic

2.  Comment on local blogs

Build your local credibility by commenting on at least 5 popular local blogs regularly.  What kinds of blogs should you look for?  Well, clearly you shouldn't go commenting on your competition's blogs, so my recommendation is to seek out popular non-real estate related local blogs.  If that doesn't make sense to you, think about it this way; most of your future clients are already living in your local area.  You want them to know your name and trust you even before they consider buying and selling a home.  The best way to do that is to get out there- both physically in your community and virtually in the blogosphere.  Commenting on other local blogs whether it be about a hot community issue or how you just learned to snowboard will help people get to know you. When you comment, you automatically leave behind your name and a link to your website, so there is no need to include it in your comment.

Read also: The rules of commenting for traffic

Look for local blogs on topics that you have an interest in or an opinion on.  The more you know about the subject, the more valuable your commentary wll be be and the more other readers will be interested in you.

If you live in a waterfront community, look for blogs about fishing, boating, sailing, SCUBA diving, waterskiing, etc.

If you are into golfing, look for local golfing blogs.

If you are an avid reader, see if a local library or book club has a blog.

Are you a couch potato?  Not to worry, plenty of blogs have sprung up around popular television shows like the Sopranos and Dexter, see if there is a local blogger posting about a show you watch.

There are plenty of blog search tools out there, however these are some of the most popular and easiest to use. Use simple search terms like your farm area or areas of interest to find blogs that match your criteria.

Blogger

Technorati

Blog Search Engine

IceRocket Blog Search

Yahoo Blog Search

Blog Search

Feedster.com

How do you select local blogs to comment on?

This is simple, you look for three things:

1.  Is the blog about something you can add valuable commentary to?  If you are a seasoned boater and you live in a boating community- a local yacht blog is perfect for you.

2.  Does the blog have a wide appeal and solid particiaption?  If there ain't nobody but you commenting on the blog, move on!  Find a blog with enough participation to make it worth your while.  Remember the idea is to drive local traffic back to your blog.

3.  Is the blog owner a credible resource you could recruit to post on your blog?  Let's say that you find a local insurance agent that is blogging, you defintiely want to start developing a relationship with that blogger.  Not only can you grow your local network, but you might even be able to trade blogs for a day to grow your respective audiences.

Read also: 5 tips to drive local blog traffic

3.  Pepper your text with local keywords

When you write the content on your real estate blog or website, make sure it is laser focused. Come up with three to five local keywords or phrases you want that page to be searchable by and repeat those words or phrases throughout the article. Don’t keyword spam, but rather use the terms naturally throughout the article. For example, notice how I repeat the term “real estate blog” throughout this article. I use it naturally, when it makes sense, because I want to be searchable by that term. Consider using terms like your farm areas and local attractions reguarly throughout each post.

Read also: Where does your site rank in the SERPs

Read more: Get the most out of your meta tags

4.  Checking your local traffic

Let's say that you have done everything you can to attract local traffic, how do you about measuring it?  Most web metrics programs simply measure total traffic, RSS Pieces actually has tools right in the back end that map traffic based on geography through geo ip tracking. Our mapping system allows you zoon in and actually see where your traffic is coming from.  It can help you to better understand your traffic and tweak your articles to attract more local hits.  Just check out the image of RSS Pieces traffic from the last hour below:

OK, so you don't have an RSS Pieces blog and you don't have this super cool technology, what do you do?  A tool like stats counter can help you to discover your local traffic.

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