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Realtors.com has come out with a new blogging tools for their membership called Featured Blog and Let’s Talk Real Estate. The new blogging tool will be linked to at the top of their Realtor.com page that gets 6 million visitors a month. If I was a Realtor I probably would create a blog on the site because it would be another avenue to marketing my farm.

I also will be curious to see where the direction of the project will end up. Will it keep it’s focus on the consumer or will it morph into a professional discussion for Realtors like Active Rain has. Something I have watched as an outsider writing about real estate and reading the blogs out there is that real estate agents have a hard time focusing their writing on the consumer. Conversations and posts that start discussing splits, marketing, and other inside real estate sales topics will make this site a one and out for consumers. And this is not to disparage Active Rain, it has become the water cooler for the real estate industry.

Likewise, if the agents keep themselves from selling constantly on the site, there could be some success. But to be honest I have a hard time seeing this. Very few of those who start blogging continue and are successful, mainly because most fail to write what the readers want. Instead, I expect to see a plethora of hard selling, inside the industry discussions, and sabotogue in the comment sections if someone starts doing well. All things that will turn off the consumer. 

I wish much luck to the conversation that can be held on the new sites, but in all reality I expect this site to bring out the worst stereotypes of real estate agents and leave a blemish on the industry before it helps.

“Featured Blog and Let’s Talk Real Estate! give REALTORS another way to have direct dialogue with consumers that have questions about market trends, a neighborhood, or even local community events,” said REALTOR.com President, Errol Samuelson. “Through these no cost real estate blogs, REALTORS can share their knowledge, build relationships, and expand their overall referral network while talking about their favorite subject — real estate.”
REALTORS will find it easy to jump into the blogosphere on REALTOR.com. Click to http://www.featuredblogsignup.com, register for a Featured Blog and post an initial article, comment or message that can be visible as a stand-alone website page or within a personal web site. Elevating the dialogue to a national forum, the REALTOR.com editorial staff will select the freshest and most interesting Featured Blog posts and spotlight them in the “Let’s Talk Real Estate!” section on the site’s home page visited by approximately 6 million consumers each month.
“Another great benefit of Featured Blog is that we’ve engineered search engine optimization (SEO) features into the platform to increase the odds that a post will get picked up by major search engines and receive a higher placement,” says Samuelson. “This means REALTORS that keep their posts fresh, relevant and interesting have a better chance of attracting interest and driving traffic to their sites without the marketing costs associated with key word purchases or pay-per-click.” PR

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