Blogger #househunting #blog #Realestate #luxary

My goal is to attract readers who are looking for someone just like me to help them buy or sell real estate in a specific geographic area — and yes, there are consumers looking for someone exactly like me. My target audience is finite and smallish.

The whole point of having the blog is to demonstrate to prospective clients that I am knowledgeable, and to build trust — which isn’t easy over the Internet. When I meet with prospective clients, they sometimes quote my blog posts. I know they are paying attention.

My blog brings a steady stream of serious buyers and sellers, not a tsunami of leads with email addresses like tomandjerry@catmouse.com.

When the market is active, I get a lot of traffic — not because my blog is better, but because there are more people searching on real estate-related topics.

When the market is slow, I get less traffic. I won’t brag about the huge amount of traffic I get in the spring real estate season, or about the fact that I get more traffic now than I did in the fall of 2012.

Most real estate blogs fail because the owners don’t put fresh, relevant content on the sites on a regular basis. Then they give up too quickly when they don’t get instant results. It is much like old-school farming, which only works with prolonged effort and consistency.

Real estate agents read about that one blogger who got a lot of business right away and who became rich and famous. That can happen, but it’s fairly rare. Maybe it’s never happened, or only happened once.

A steady income derived from a steady stream of contacts because of a steady stream of posts is more realistic.

There is no shortcut or magic system for getting results from a blog. It’s hard work and there are no guarantees. In fact, don’t even consider blogging if you don’t think you will love it enough to keep at it.

It’s not hard to create a blog that really stands out and that gives visitors a sense of place. That’s because third-party websites and brokerage websites make everything look the same.

The section about New York City looks just like the section about Anchorage, Alaska. The websites themselves look kind of similar, generic and impersonal.

I offer highly personalized services to my clients and I want my websites to reflect that. There are a zillion sites with “homes for sale” listings and generic real estate advice, but not very many local sites with local real estate information.

So far this year I have closed, or will soon close, seven transactions from business that came directly from blog readers. There are transactions in the pipeline, current listings and appointments on the calendar because of the blog.

I am on track to have at least 12 transactions this year just from people who read my blog. If I sold $1 million homes, that would translate into $12 million in sales just from blogging.

Now that the housing market is recovering, real estate agents are asking about blogging. Blogging works if you generate relevant, useful content. Frequent and original content is best. The demand for content is high, as people need something to “like,” “g+,” “pin” and “tweet.”

There is no one-size-fits-all easy system for a successful real estate blog. What a real estate blogger writes about will depend upon business goals, target market, blogger interests and personality.

Ferdana Knows Real Estate, (fkre)