There is a formula to successful business blogging, but so often I see Realtors straying from it and basically, blogging to their own drummer with highly personal rants and cutesy posts. My first questions to these Realtors is “do you sit on top of the search engines for your prime keywords?” and “do you have quality consumer traffic and leads.” Typically, the answers to those simple questions are a big fat “NO.” So, if blogging is all about building business, if your real estate blog isn’t generating it, then you need to re-evaluate your blogging approach.

Improvisational blogging simply doesn’t work. 

I recently read an article by Brian Clark over at CopyBlogger comparing improvisational jazz to the improvisational blogger. I don’t know about you, but I am a huge fan of Jazz and LOVE Miles Davis. I consider Kind of Blue one of the greatest albums of all time. However, my man Miles went through an improv phase – you know that kind of scat music thing where he would use cacophony and basically confuse and slightly abuse the listener, even a devotee like myself. Not his best years. Well, the same goes for the improv real estate blogger.  If you forget to blog to your audience (buyers/sellers/investors/the commuity), then you will be abusing those that visit your real estate blog looking for focused real estate and community information. And the result will be that you will lose valued visitors and potential leads.

Read also: Jazz and the art of improvisational blogging

Write what people WANT to read on a real estate blog, not what you WANT to write.

Well, much like that kind of improvisational music, improvisational blogging simply doesn’t work and can often confuse the reader that has come to your real estate blog for focused, expected content on a given topic. You simply cannot expect the reader to catch up with your enlightened blogging style, you need to pander to the masses and give them what they want. They come to your real estate blog for specific information: real estate advice, home searches and community information. So, you need to be a responsible blogger and provide those essentials.

Make every post, personal, engaging and relevant to real estate or your community.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t share who you are in your posts. You should let your wit, wisdom and quirkiness spill out onto the computer screen. That is what attracts people to blogs- the ability to personally connect with the writer, but you should do that in each post, no matter what the topic. Make real estate and the educational side of your blogging just as interesting as you would a personal post. Or if you feel compelled to write a personal post about how your dog got ate a Christmas ornament and needed an emergency tinsel-ectomy - tie the post back to the community by including a list of 24 hr vets. You see how I mixed a personal story, the absurdly humorous and a bit of education, that is the ticket to creating emotionally engaging yet useful content that people and search engines will read and come back for.

Read also: How to humanize your real estate blog for intimacy

Use a proven strategy when writing posts.

Just like there is a proven method to cleaning a house- like vacuuming out of a room or cleaning the counters before you sweep the floor, there is a proven structure to writing a blog post. This proven structure will help you to gain traction in the search engines and write tight copy that helps people to scan the content quickly and find what they need easily.

1. Write a keyword rich title that expresses benefits
2. Open your real estate blog post with a keyword rich and benefit expressing sentence.
3. Use your prime keyword or key phrase at least 4 times in your post.
4. Link to at least 3 other websites that will offer readers more information on the given topic.
5. Link to at least 3 other posts on your own blog that will give more insight on the topic.
6. Format the post with heading tags, bolded text, numbered lists and/or bullet points
7. Close with a call to action asking readers to subscribe to your blog, contact you, fill out your lead generation tool or search for a home
8. Select 100% content relevant keywords for your meta data tag

Read also: Formula for a successful blog post

Select topics that will resonate with readers and will drive quality search traffic

With most markets steeped in foreclosures, posts about bank negotiations, short sales, market conditions and foreclosure options are HOT HOT HOT topics. But there are plenty of other topics that will engage readers and search engines, so check our list of 365 real estate blog ideas with explanations on how to best pen the post for readers and engine and then see links to Realtors that have used these ideas to drive traffic and interest in their own blogs.

Read also: Is writing quality content like pulling teeth?

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