Back in the early 90s, you could find me patching the walls of my dorm room with AIM toothpaste. Governor Dummer (seriously- that was the name of my highschool) didnt take kindly to students poking holes in the walls while hanging our Nirvana posters (hey, Im not ashamed- Kurt Cobain was cool, then) so we patched the walls with toothpaste. Now, this toothpaste patching technique was not unique to my class, rather it was a tradition passed down by those sage students that came before us.

Needless to say, as the years passed, those walls just got thinner and thinner and mintier and mintier.   So, what, pray tell, do toothpaste walls have to do with blogging? Most blogs out there lack the substance needed to support healthy lead generation. They are held together by nothing more than a little toothpaste, i.e. flimsy content, unrelated pictures and useless plug-ins.

Big shout out to one of my alma maters: The Governors Academy (nice of them to have finally changed the name to something more respectable)

Read Also: How to generate leads from your real estate blog: we have proof

3 characteristics of a structurally unsound real estate blog

1. Flimsy content
   • People looking to buy or sell a homes
   • Search engines

You are a Realtor.  You sell homes.  People search for you by using terms related to real estate and selling homes. So, dont post your grandmothers recipe for chocolate pecan cookies. Articles should be written with two audiences in mind:

Neither a person searching for a home nor a search engine wants to see an article about cookies on a real estate site. If you want to write off topic posts, focus them on your local community. That will help attract local traffic and assist search engines in indexing your content based on your location. It is better to miss a day of posting and think about what you have to say than to post an article that has no value to your site. You want to be seen as an authority on real estate not as Old Mother Hubbard rummaging through the cupboards for flour and pecans. 

SOLUTION: if you are running out of topics for posts, look to your local news. Covering a local story and offering your opinions and advice on the situation shows readers you are connected to your farm area. A Blog-block day is also a good opportunity to spark participation by announcing a contest or an event.

Read also: Guerilla blogging

Read also: Famous Agents 106 Content Ideas for Realtors

2. Unrelated pictures

I know this one is unpopular, but you are a real estate business so, unless its a picture of a listing, your team, market valuation charts, or your farm area, it doesnt belong on our blog. Dont use pictures to break up a long blog post. Use textual elements like bullet points, numbered lists, headings or bolded fonts. Organize your post so it is easy to read instead of scouring the internet for amusing images.

SOLUTION: Always use pictures that have something to do with you, your listings, the market or your farm area. Avoid cutesy images that just add color to a post. They can diminish your authority and credibility.

Read also: Killing me softly with your blog

3. Useless plug-ins

There is an ever growing body of cool blog plug-ins out there. However, the more choices there are the more discriminating you need to be. If you are using your blog for business, you need to make sure that the plug-ins you select have a business purpose.   Certain plug-ins are a must have like email to RSS subscription, site search, most recent posts and most popular posts. Then there are funky user enhancement plug-ins like pop-up link roll-overs and MyBlogLog visitors that are optional. That being said, many a blog take plug-ins too far and overpower the user with too many tools or slow load times.  This can be the kiss of death for lead generation. You need to get your user involved not overwhelm them with tools and options.

SOLUTION: Do not select plug-ins that slow load times, hinder user experience, overpower the content of your blog or direct users off site. While it is up to you to figure out what the right balance is for your site and how each plug-in will affect the overall esthetics of your blog, I recommend that you limit the number of visible (many plug-ins are not visible to the user) plug-ins to no more than 5.

Read Also: 10 features of successful blogs

Tools: Word Press Plug-in Database

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