When it comes to blogging you have to be current and keep your pulse on your target market and what they need and want.  Let’s take a quick tour of the real estate blogosphere and see who is doing it right and who is miserably failing. Remember I mentioned controversy in my last blog post?  This post is likely to generate some serious haters!  But so be it.  This article will give you some expamples of how other real estate agents are making a name for themselves blogging and how others are just missing the boat.

Best Real Estate Blogs

RainCity
Numero uno in my book are those wild and wacky RainCity guys and gals up in Seattle.  Talk about a team of real estate bloggers that write quality content daily!  If you are a Realtor, Broker, Buyer, Seller or your everyday grunge bum on the Seattle streets looking to make it big in a musical movement that past you by in the mid 90’s (just kidding- I know bums don’t have computers) you should be reading this blog.  Truth is, I live thousands of miles away from Washington and I read their blog daily!  I also like the layout of this blog which is rare in the blogosphere.

San Francisco Real Estate Blog
I’m a fan of this site because he is a techie that really connects with visitors through a conversational tone and quality content.  He answers hard hitting local market questions while weighing in on how good Realtors and Brokers get bad websites.  I love his honesty and of course, his blessed little geeky heart. 

Houseblogger
This is another techie guru that connects with the Realtor market very well.  He is great at stirring up controversy and giving useful advice.  This is a must read blog for Realtors both because it is an example of how to do it right and because you will learn a lot of useful information there.   I recommend this blog to every one of our clients once their site is up. 

NYHouses4sale
I like that this Realtor is making her blog sensational by covering the Billy Joel home sale.  She knows how to draw in traffic and keep it coming back.  This is a great example of how to pull in buyers, sellers and general local traffic through quality “sticky” and even gossip-y content.  There is education content there as well.  I would definitely say this an example of a Realtor doing it right.

Now on to the bad...

Worst Real Estate Blogs

Claudia Ault
Wow, not much to say about this blog other than wow.  What a mess.  From a content standpoint this blog is a bi-polar wreck.  The tone of the whole blog is very corporate and stodgy.  And some of the content is plain old ridiculous.  I saw an article on there about “How to keep cool in Sedona.”  I kid you not, it actually listed staying inside an air conditioned house as an option. There’s no better way to sell yourself as an expert than to make people think you are stupid.  Absolutely horrible.

Vail Property Search
First, technically it’s a disaster- there are more than 51 HTML warnings and errors on the homepage of that blog.  Secondly, this is an example of a site that is building its content almost primarily through RSS feeds. I like using RSS feeds to build content, but there is a limit. The problem with so many RSS feeds is that you don’t have unique copy that search engines will appreciate and frankly, the content is pretty boring and feels like it came right out of the local newspaper.  Where there is custom content, it feels very contrived and corporate.  Blogging is about having a conversation with an audience of one.  You need to make it feel like you are talking directly to your visitors, not like you are giving a state of the union address.  This is just a very boring blog.

Southwest Florida Real Estate
Can you say UGLY?  I’m not sure which is worse- the website or the blog.  This Realtor also doesn’t know that the key to a blog is FREQUENCY!  The blog articles are almost a year apart.  You have a blog because it makes it easy for you to add and edit content so can blog daily or at a minimum weekly, not annually.  I have nothing else to say about this one.

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