Real Estate SEO

Posts Tagged ‘blog’

If you’re one of the hundreds of people who follow us on Twitter, know that you’re not alone. Based on statistics just published yesterday, Boston Logic is among the most followed on twitter. Fewer than 1% of twitter users have more than 500 followers. If you’re reading this on Twitter, you’re one of more than 1700 and counting!

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/05/twitter-data-analysis-an-investors-perspective/ This is a great article by Robert Moore.

Like most web application, a large percentage of Twitter’s users don’t do anything. Lots of them don’t follow anyone and don’t tweet at all. less than 25% of twitter’s users make up probably 99% of the activity on the site.

But that’s ok. Twitter has over 50,000,000 users. The laws of large numbers tell us that a small piece of a big pie is still a lot of pie! So, if you can get our there and grad some more followers some percentage of them will be active.

In fact, I’m going to assume that only10 or 20% of our followers will actually read this blog post when it’s syndicated as a tweet (This happens automatically via rss). That’s ok that means that over 300 people will read the tweet and a few of them will click to this post and read more. The tweet will only be 140 characters.  So, this very sentence will not find it’s way onto twitter. Only the first 2 or 3 sentences of this post will. Some of our growing follower base will then click through. That’s all we want.

If you found us through twitter, let us know!

Also, we’re hiring: http://www.bostonlogic.com/careers

Thanks!

Every year we notice a trend. Real Estate brokers and agents from back from their summer vacation with new knowledge. They’ve been reading, we say. They’ve been thinking, we say. The result is that we get score of you great folks asking us for the same things.

Almost without fail, it’s something that we’ve been telling you to invest in for at least a year or two. This year, what are people calling us about? You guessed it Real Estate SEO!

Now, this is not a great big ‘I told you so’ post. We’re not that kind of SEOs. I want to know why the real estate industry just woke up during the summer of 2009? Here are my theories.

Real Estate magazine published a cover story on Social Media. Yes, we got some calls about this, we’re even designing a class around it. But the ripple effect that this had was to send real estate professionals running to the web. There they noticed just how hard it was for consumers to find them. They reasoned that if they had better search engine placement, they’d sell more real estate. It’s not a tough conclusion to draw.

Here’s another theory: after a dismal sping, the real estate brokers realized that they needed to finally cut their print marketing budget and find a new horse to bet on. They’d heard of this thing called blogging and started to write. So, what do these realtors want to know? Why isn’t my blog ranking? Sometime we get, “My blog ranks, but my site doesn’t!?” Of course the answer to these folks is that their blog should be a part of their website. Blogging on blogger.com or wordpress.com is fine, but it’s going to bring the users to those sites and not to your website.

Here’s my final theory. Every fall, real estate brokers and agents realize that they didn’t take initiative in the spring. They were too busy selling homes. They woke up on the first of the year and said, “I’m going to invest in real estate seo this year.” But one thing led to another another and they didn’t get around to it. Now, it’s time to act.

That’s ok, 8 months isn’t so long…

But really, this means that the message got across a long time ago. You didn’t need us to remind you. You just needed to remember that you wanted more leads all along.

Last word: Stay tuned for the new BostonLogic.com launching soon! You heard it here first!

Overcoming blogger’s block.

I’ve been working at Boston Logic now for 2 months, 2 days, 16 hours, and 57 minutes.  As an online marketer, blogging is a part of my job. I know I need to do it.  I know I can do it…but what should I write? There are over 171,476 words in the English language (I Googled it), and it feels like there is  no original combination left.

I know I’m not alone out there. There are real estate professionals all over saying, “yeah yeah I know I should start a  blog”‘ or “yeah yeah I know I need to blog more”, but what’s stopping us? We’re busy, we’re unsure, and maybe we’re afraid. I’m not talking Robert DeNiro on your houseboat fear, but maybe just fear of commitment.  Fear of needing to write something every week.

We talk a lot about WHY blogging is important for real estate online marketing and what to do to optimize our existing real estate blog.

But what about HOW? How do we get over that fear. My suggestion—let go.

Write from your phone when you’re on the bus. Write from Starbucks. Write whenever you’re thinking about something. This morning on the bus with my coffee I thought—gees why haven’t I blogged yet? And look…a blog post.

Write after you show a listing and talk about the questions asked. Write after you read an industry article that gets you thinking.

Don’t spend 2 months, 2 days, 16 hours, and 57 minutes worrying about HOW. Just do. Your keywords and links will find there way in if you write about what you know—your neighborhood,  your business, your industry.

We’re in this together, so let go and let me know what you think.

Don’t just say that you have the knowledge, show it.

How many times have you seen a website that says something like, “We have the knowledge and the experience to…” or “Our experienced and knowledgeable team is here to serve you.” Or something similar. Sound familiar?

Yes, our clients provide the same empty language from time to time and yes we do populate this type of content onto the sites we built on a frequent basis. I’m sorry to say it.

Fact is that we’re in a time when it’s pretty easy to build a website. It’s free to put up a blog on someone else’s website (like wordpress or blogspot, for example).  And just about anyone can write a sentence that says they have the knowledge and the experience to do whatever. The consumer has grown impervious to such language. Today’s consumer wants more.

We want to feel like we’re getting great information from the fountain of knowledge. We want to feel like we’re making informed decisions. We know that with a few keywords in Google, we can access lots of information sources, but we want to quickly and efficiently access the best. We want an authority.

How do I become an authority? Well, an authority is an “Accepted source of information.” At least, that’s one of the ways that dictionary.com defines the word. Well, this is where your website really can be a powerful tool in a few ways.

1. If your website includes vast amounts of information and it answers the user’s first question, whatever that may be, then they’re likely to come back again for another answer. Basic questions asked of a real estate website might be:
   1. How much does a 1 bedroom home cost in Boston? or
   2. What does it mean to be pre-approved?
2. To show that you have more than information, you have knowledge, you’re going to want to have a blog. Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis and/or already have a blog, will agree. Your blog is where you flaunt your stuff. You show what you’ve got. If you feel like you’re giving away the store, don’t worry. Give away as much information as you’re willing to type. The more you post, the more you’ll look like the authority you are.

The reality of real estate is that there are just too many realtors out there. It’s not like Coke and Pepsi who have been trying to take market share from one another for decades. You’re trying to take a few more deals from a large pool. You’re trying to rise above the crowd. Do this by showing the visitors to your site just how much knowledge you have and what all those years of experience have taught you.

I’d like to conclude by mentioning someone who embodies authority. Paul Krugman is a NYTimes columnist and Nobel Lauriate in economics. Not only does he have the years of experience and the accolades to prove his prowess, but he also writes with authority. I recommend checking out his columns and examining his writing style. Also, he’s pretty smart and insightful, you’ll probably learn something about our economy while you’re at it.

Are you looking for ways to take your real estate blog to the next level? Over time we’ve written a lot about blogs and how to blog for your business. As a matter of fact, we consider it to be fundamental to a successful online marketing strategy. It’s a way to connect to and communicate with your readers and followers, generate leads, and improve your organic search results (and since you’re reading this, then I assume you are trying to achieve just that).

Without further ado, here are is our advice about blogging best practices:

1. SEO 101 - How to SEO my Real Estate Blog
2. SEO 101: Blogging Part 2
3. Answers to common Real Estate blogging questions
4. Starting a conversation
5. SEO Army - A Real Estate office working together
6. How long should my blog post be?
7. Redesigning your blog? Keep SEO in mind
8. Top 10 sites to submit your blog
9. 10 ways to optimize your blog for Real Estate SEO
10. Blogging instead of spending