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So you were reading online that to rank for your hometown and real estate is important on this internet thing. Someone even told you that there were buyers that did not pick up the glossy magazine and searched for homes online. So after some research looking over another Realtors shoulder at the Starbucks while you were having your latte you decided to start one of those blog things.

You heard how they were owning East Podunk by blogging on it. Your business is in West Podunk and by golly since the newspaper ad you have run since 1988 has not brought in a buyer in 2 years. And we will not mention that traffic generator, Podunk Real Estate Monthly has brought you 2 buyers and 1 potential listing in the last year. It must be better than what I am doing now.

So you called the 14 year old down the street and for the price of a dinner at the local steakhouse he set you up “The West Podunk Real Estate Blog”. It even looks pretty with a picture across the top of the historic row of smokestacks from the closed buggy whip factory. Check it out…

But now how will you get people to come see this thing called a blog?

My answer, 2 things. First you need some content. And you know what, you have loads of content. Since you have been a real estate agent for a few years you have written more content than you can shake a stick at.

Content for the blog can come in many forms. Pictures always work with well written titles that have the towns name in it. Is there anything happening in the town that people would be interested in, write about it.

How about all those emails that you wrote back and forth with Mary Smith about why West Podunk was a great place to put her fabric company? You poured your heart into convincing her that this was the town and you had her dream house just waiting for her (and she is still loving 4 years later). Could you repurpose some of those 83 emails into blog posts on why West Podunk is the place to live and work? Sure you can.

You have spent the last 23 years writing first on a typewriter, then on the computer telling folks why people should live here. It is time to go through all that great information and turn them into blog posts.

Also, read your local papers and see what is happening. Turn some of these into a blog post. Of course, do not copy what they wrote, that is stealing or what we call plagiarism, and besides being wrong something that will get you in trouble. But re-write it and show up to some of the events and take some pictures. People love pictures.

And then you will want to start reading others in the community of bloggers.

Community of Bloggers? What is that? Think of all the real estate agents and others writing in blogs across the country. Some of them focus on their town, some like myself on national issues, and some even on how to teach others the tricks on how to blog. We will go into it in much greater details in a later post, but lets just say it is another amazing resource that will help you every step of the way and also work towards getting these magical things called links. 

When you have some posts up and are reading some of the other bloggers, it will be time to concentrate on links.

What are links and why are they important to bloggers?

We will have a third post talking about links and how to get your West Podunk Real Estate Weblog high in the Google rankings. And when you end up high in the Google rankings is when buyers start to find you. How cool is that, for your time and effort, folks will be calling you to learn about real estate in West Podunk. Sure beats the 500 dollars the magazine was charging each month for that little ad! And what is cool is that links are the currency of the internet.

Getting high in the rankings is not hard, but it will take some work. But again, the resources are all on the web for you. There are some amazing people that concentrate on just that called Search Engine Optimizers who freely share this information. I may ask a couple of them to come over and give me a hand in a later post on this theme.

So you ask, this blogging thing is all fun and games? Nope…

Blogging is work, no doubt about it, but it is also fun and very rewarding. If done correctly blogging about your city or region can bring you a bunch of business in a slow market. You’ve been watching many of the people in your office around the water cooler complaining about how slow things are. Well, use some of the slow time to learn an important new skill that will make you the top producer in West Podunk.

If you commit to it you will not be disappointed.

Related posts:

1. The End of the Realtor Blogger Or the Start of the “REALTOR ONLY” Blog?
2. A New Real Estate Blog is Here - Welcome the RealEstater Blog
3. Inside the Beltway Roundup on RE Blog News
4. REALTORS.com Creates Blogging Tools “Featured Blog and Let’s Talk Real Estate!”
5. Real Estate Blog Taxonomy