8 Real Estate Marketing Ideas for September
The seasons, they are a-changin' -- and your marketing plans likely are, too, now that the summer selling market has died down. If you need new outreach ideas for these slower days, pull up a chair and dive into these eight real estate marketing ideas for September: 1. Post idea: Where to Find Fall Colors in [Your Area] Whether a social media post, a video, or a blog post, the idea for this is the same. Make a post that highlights where to see fall colors in your area. This autumn foliage map can help you estimate peak times. You can also recommend nearby getaways — or even great "Sunday drive" routes — where the changing leaves can best be seen. 2. Create a 'How's the market?' video Now that the peak sales time for the real estate market has passed, take a moment to create a recap and talk about how the market is in your area. Need some inspiration? Take a cue from the winners of RPR's recent market video contest. 3. Feature 'move-in ready' listings Autumn buyers have different motivations than summer buyers. Where summer buyers may want to move by the start of a new school year, buyers in fall look to move before year's end — and they're starting their home search now. To capture these buyers, highlight properties that are move-in ready. As always, you can make this a social media post or blog, but for this idea, we're particularly partial to using it in an online ad campaign. Create a landing page that showcases move-in ready listings and run Google or Facebook ads that link back to that page. 4. Lead magnet idea: Fall home maintenance tips guide Everyone's heard of spring cleaning, but how many people think to give their house a deep cleaning in the fall? Create a guide to help your audience prepare their houses for winter while the weather is still temperate. Include to-do items for both inside and outside the home. Your "inside" list can include typical "spring cleaning" activities, but you should recommend winter-specific tasks like checking the furnace. Your "outside" checklist should include checking caulk around windows and doors, cleaning and storing patio furniture, draining and storing garden hoses, etc. (We won't tell if you use ChatGPT to help you write this guide, but make sure to give it an edit to add your own voice and to check for accuracy.) 5. Create a 'Fall Home Decor' Pinterest board Pinterest is the unsung hero of driving internet traffic to your website. If you're active on Pinterest, curate a Pinterest board filled with fall home decor ideas and inspirations. Include pins for both buyers and sellers to help them envision seasonal changes in a property. For more Pinterest inspiration, check out: How to Crush It on Pinterest for Real Estate Pinterest Ads for Real Estate Agents: How to Get Started? 6. Host a home energy efficiency webinar As the weather cools, homeowners become more concerned about energy efficiency. Host a webinar about making homes more energy-efficient, which can be a selling point for listings. Team up with relevant local professionals, like installers of energy efficient windows, HVAC pros, etc. Not only can they provide great information, they can cross-promote the event to their sphere. Have a tech geek streak? You can also talk about the smart home gadgets that help homeowners measure and control their energy usage. Learn more about smart home features vs. green home features here. 7. Launch a client testimonial campaign We hope you had a successful selling season, and that summer left you with many satisfied clients. If so, now's the time to ask those clients for a testimonial while the experience is still fresh in their minds. Share success stories and testimonials from past clients on your website and social media. Bonus points if you can create a few video testimonials! For more ideas on soliciting and using testimonials, see: Success with Testimonials: 3 Steps to Getting Them with Ease Online Reviews and Testimonials: A Real Estate Agent's Best Marketing Tool How to Use Real Estate Testimonials Online the Right Way 8. Evergreen post idea: How to Prepare for Your Final Walk Through An "evergreen" post is a piece of content that's timeless; years can pass, and the post is not outdated. For agents, posts like these focus on something that's unchangeable in the home sales process — for example, a blog, social media, or newsletter post that explains how buyers can prepare for their final walk through. New homebuyers will find this post particularly helpful. This should be an educational post or video that explains what a final walk through is, why it's important, and what buyers should expect. We recommend including a checklist of things like turning on and off all light switches, flushing toilets, testing faucets for leaks, opening and closing windows, and more. Buyers should also check that all agreed upon repairs were completed satisfactorily. Don't forget, this article benefits you, too — a smooth walk through experience helps facilitate a smooth closing!

Agents, Here Are 25 Simple Questions You Can Turn into a Blog Post
Home buyers and sellers need you. But are they able to easily find you? Home buyers and sellers will typically search for a real estate expert online. According to the NAR's 2022 Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report, 95% of home buyers searched the internet for homes. That's a lot of eyes that you can potentially get in front of and steer toward your business. As a real estate agent, your online presence is everything. Having a website is key: it can offer the perfect sneak peek into your know-how for prospective home buyers and sellers starting their search. A website is also the perfect place to display and showcase your expertise, which can help build trust and generate interest with home buyers and sellers early on. In addition to being a place to highlight your business online, you can also easily display your knowledge on your website through blog posts. Don't fancy yourself a writer? No need to worry: blog posts can be short, sweet, and simple. The average reader spends 52 seconds on a web page, so getting directly to the point is the best approach to capture your reader, hold their attention, and ensure they are educated. For blogs, SEO is critical for ensuring your website is found in search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. SEO, or search engine optimization, in its simplest terms means making sure your website is visible when people search for it through a search engine. SEO aims to improve your site's ranking so that the search engine makes it easier for people to find it. The better your blog posts — or other forms of content — on your website, the more you can improve and drive your SEO. Using keywords related to your area of real estate expertise, your local market, and other key industry terms can all help boost traffic to your website without spending a single dollar. To help inspire you to dust off your keyboard and show off your prowess, we've compiled a list of 25 simple questions you can easily turn into a blog post. Check them out below: What is the difference between a pre-approval and a pre-qualification in the mortgage process? What is title insurance and why do I need it for my home? What does a professional appraiser actually do and how do they affect the home buying and selling process? How can I make my offer to buy a home the most attractive against other buyers' offers? What should I do to prepare to sell my home? What are the top negotiations that buyers make at closing? How do I know what my home is actually worth? Why is buying a home considered to be such a significant investment? How much money should I actually have saved for a down payment on a home? How are the closing costs for a home determined? What should I do if I don't get along with my real estate agent? How should I realistically determine my budget for buying a home? How long will it take to sell my house and what does the preparation entail? Pro Tip: At a loss for other questions to answer for a blog post? Tap into your network! As you connect with prospective home buyers and sellers, ask yourself: What questions are they asking me that other people in the buying or selling process would want to know? What are the most common mistakes that home buyers make? What are the most common mistakes that home sellers make? How can I find the right real estate agent to sell my home? What is the purpose of a home inspection and why is it necessary? How long does the home buying process actually take and why? What is the best way to search for homes? What can I do to help increase the value of my home? Can I get a different interest rate, or do all mortgage companies offer the same one? What are the different types of home loans, and which one should I consider? What does the process of buying a foreclosed home look like? What does it mean to rent to own? Who pays for closing fees? Did this list get your gears turning? These 25 questions only scratch the surface — and we know you have way more wisdom to share. Take a handful of these questions and start writing the answers and finer details to educate. Keep writing, post your blogs on a regular basis, and watch as the online traffic rolls in. To view the original article, visit the BoomTown blog.

Creative Real Estate Blogging Ideas to Engage Your Audience and Drive Leads
Blogging is a cost-effective way for a real estate agent to reach potential customers online and build relationships with them. Blogging can help you gain credibility, create authority, and establish yourself as an expert in the field. Plus, it's easy to set up and maintain. With blogging, you can share valuable insights about the real estate industry that will help your readers make informed decisions when searching for a home or property. You can also use blogging as an opportunity to showcase your properties and services to attract more customers. In short, blogging is one of the best ways to promote your real estate business and get more leads! However, if you're starting fresh with real estate content marketing, it might seem daunting to choose real estate blog ideas for yourself. After all, you want to provide helpful, valuable information while also boosting your website's SEO. While the details will be slightly different for every real estate blog, blogging for real estate professionals can be as simple as sticking to a handful of basic subjects. Share local trends and the latest market updates Keeping up with the local real estate industry happenings and market trends is an essential part of staying competitive in the business world. Knowing what's happening in your area of influence can give you a leg up on your competition, and help you identify potential opportunities for growth. With the right resources, you can get a better understanding of the local market and stay ahead of the curve. Sharing a distilled, simplified version of local market insights or real estate market trends can help your website visitors make more informed decisions — and establish yourself as an authority on the subject. If you need a blog post idea, think beyond the basic market report and write about the housing market from your own perspective. Highlight success stories and client reviews Real estate is a competitive business, and it's important to stand out from the crowd. One way to do so is with real estate blog topics showcasing success stories and client reviews. These stories can highlight how you've helped clients achieve their goals, as well as demonstrate your expertise in the field. By sharing these stories, you can help potential clients get a better sense of what you can do for them. Client reviews also provide an opportunity to show off your services, as well as provide insight into how satisfied customers are with your work. By sharing these success stories and client reviews, you can help establish yourself as a reliable real estate professional and build trust with potential customers. Offer home buying and selling tips Buyer and seller guides are a staple of real estate websites, but with a real estate blog, you can take them a step further. Some of the best topics are those offering advice for the homebuying or selling process, and can definitely help you create a connection with your audience as a trusted resource. You might write a blog post with home selling tips about virtual staging software or setting the best asking price. Provide valuable information to homebuyers about choosing the right mortgage lender, understanding property taxes or ways to save money by finding affordable properties. Cater to a specific niche by offering guides for luxury properties or rental properties. Other helpful content ideas in this category could include highlights of local parks, local businesses, local events, local attractions or benefits of a particular neighborhood. Showing off your local expertise in real estate blog content will not only help you reach your target audience, but also helps boost your search engine rankings and generate leads. Real estate blogs are a surefire way to set yourself apart from other real estate agents and make your real estate website the go-to source of relevant and helpful information in your community. But if you feel like you're lacking a great idea, just think about the most relevant and helpful real estate topics. When you start with these basic real estate blog ideas, you'll quickly find new and exciting things to write about, whether they be housing trends, real estate investing or real life examples of successful sales. Need help with blogging? Looking to automate your marketing strategies? Look no further! Elm Street Technology offers content creation and blogging solutions to help streamline your marketing efforts. [LEARN MORE]

Blog About Your New Listing: Timing Is Everything
In real estate, timing is everything. Blogging about your new listing is essential when it comes to capturing organic search traffic and attracting new readers. On average, 65% of people begin their online search for a home by Googling the street address of a property they like. Because the MLS listing is syndicated with the major players in the real estate market, those pages will appear before your site about 95% of the time. However, if your MLS does not have stipulations around publishing property details, you can publish a blog post with featured photos, full property description, and the street address in both the title and body of the post. Stipulations usually include posting in a 24-hour period before the listing is active and/or allows creation of "coming soon" pages. Depending on the timing of how Google indexes your site content, chances are high that your site's blog post will appear as a Top 10 search result listing for that property address and compete with bigger competition. Another way to beat the bots, so to speak, is by optimizing your real estate videos for YouTube. In this tutorial, IDX Broker Developer Partner CJ Hays and Marketing Director at Agent Reputation explains how to create, load, describe, tag, and optimize your listing on YouTube. Because Google owns YouTube, when videos are added to the platform, they are indexed on Google within two to five minutes after they are published. For more information on optimizing your real estate website using community pages, saved searches, duplicate content, micro blogging, and other essential digital marketing practices, watch Elm Street Technology's "Content is King" recorded webinar through the on-demand educational academy. To view the original article, visit the IDX Broker blog.

12 Ways to Get More Comments on Your Real Estate Blog and Build a Community
Blogs are a vital feature of your real estate website. They help improve traffic and SEO. They help establish authority in your marketing niche. But real estate blogs also serve another purpose—they foster community. In this post, we will explain 12 strategies to get more comments on your real estate blog, so you can build a community and generate leads. Why Are Blog Comments Important? Comments are important on a real estate blog because they provide an avenue for your readers and leads to interact with you. They can take in your content, provide feedback on it, and tell you what they need to be more informed buyers and sellers. Comments also allow readers to interact with one another. This can help create a community around your real estate blog. Community is important because it brings more permanent readers. Readers that feel they are part of something are more likely to keep coming back, and this can have a positive effect on your lead generation. How Can You Get More Comments on Your Real Estate Blog? 1. Write for Comments The first strategy to get more comments is to produce content for comments. Above all, your content should provide value. No one is going to take the time to leave a comment if your blog post is not even worth reading. This means providing information to help people understand the market and the real estate process. You should also sprinkle some open-ended questions into your blog. This invites participation from your readers and encourages two-way communication. How many questions did you include in your last blog? It is also useful to have an opinion. Positively or negatively, people react to opinions. This makes them more likely to respond. Here's an example: Dear agents, stop reposting listings in your blog. It's completely useless. Your leads don't come to your blog for listings. They go to Zillow. Finally, be personal. Community comes from personal connection. You can help foster this environment by being open about what is going on in your business or life. 2. Ask for Comments You've probably learned about the CTA, or call-to-action, in your marketing trainings. A CTA is where you tell your leads what you want them to do along the path to a sale. Without a CTA, your leads may not be motivated to take the next step. Or worse, they may not even know what the next step is. The same principles apply to blogging. To get comments, you should ask for comments. 3. Minimize Barriers Many commenters are leads, so learning about them and gathering some basic contact information can be helpful. However, any registration requirements should be evaluated against the potential for user loss. Will it take too long to sign up? Will these questions cause users to hesitate? To maximize returns from your blog, you will need to find the right balance. If you are not receiving any comments, consider minimizing barriers or removing them all together. 4. Reply Obviously, if someone comments on your blog, you should reply. Even a simple thank you acknowledges their contribution and creates a welcoming environment. 5. Allow Comment Likes and Shares Some users may want to support a comment without replying. Others may want to quote a comment and use it on another platform. Both of these forms of engagement are valid and useful. You can encourage them by allowing comment likes and shares. If you do not currently have this function, check with your website builder. It may be a feature in your blog software or perhaps an add-on that you can purchase separately. 6. Notify Users Depending on your website builder, you also may have the option to notify users when someone likes, shares or replies to their comment. Notifications keep readers aware of what is happening even when they are not on your blog. This can increase engagement on your blog and help grow your community. 7. Recent/Trending Comments Widget Readers like active blogs. They like the idea that their comment will draw a reply and spark a conversation. It is a smart idea to promote this idea on some of the major landing pages on your site. You can do it with a recent or trending comments widget. These tools display new comments or those generating likes on the side of your page. They can help draw people to your blog from other parts of your website and encourage them to participate. 8. Comment on Other Blogs It is a good practice to follow some other blogs out there. This will help you stay connected with the general real estate conversation and help you develop ideas for your own blog. While you are visiting, leave some comments. Real estate blogging is not zero-sum. By commenting on other posts, you are helping to grow the real estate community. The larger the community is, the more people will find and follow your blog. 9. Mention People Directly One way to get people to comment is to mention them directly in your blog. If you draw inspiration from another blogger or a real estate influencer, give a shout out. If you know how one popular commenter might respond, acknowledge them in your post. Once you mention someone, send them the blog, let them know about it, and ask them to comment what they think. 10. Send to Your Email List No online strategy in real estate is complete without an email list. Email gives you the ability to provide information to your clients and leads in a direct and convenient way. While most agents use an email list to promote listings and other services, you can also use it to suggest blog posts. The click rates for links provided via email are much higher than those found through Google search. 11. Hold a Contest A little incentive never hurt anyone. If your blog is lacking and comments are sluggish, consider holding a contest with a small prize. Local trivia and photo contests provide simple, fun ways to drive readers to comment on your blog. 12. Develop Content from Comments Finally, you can boost participation on your real estate blog by developing content from existing comments. Ask for suggestions to get a feel for the type of information your readers want. Then, do the research to produce new blog posts based on these suggestions. A reader who suggests an idea that ultimately becomes a blog post is likely to comment on it. And once people see that you will take their ideas, they will keep commenting suggestions. Now you know how to get more comments on your real estate blog and build a community. To view the original article, visit the Realtyna blog.

24 Hyperlocal Blog Topics to Attract Seller Leads to Your Website
Any marketer will tell you organic traffic is the best traffic. However, only some real estate agents are aware of this. Real estate agents with a strong online presence will continuously generate leads through organic traffic. Blogging is an easy way to generate organic traffic to your real estate website and ultimately capture more real estate leads. Luckily, driving local traffic to your real estate website is relatively easy. Hyperlocal marketing focuses on specialized topics that interest people in a limited area. We've created a list of 24 blog topics for agents to help you start your next blog and capture seller leads in your market. 24 Real Estate Blog Topics that Capture Seller Leads The Best Time to Sell a Home in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Is 2022 a Good Time to Sell a Home in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.)? __ Reasons Now is the Time to Sell in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) What Recent Divorcees Should Know About Selling a Home in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) How to Sell a Home Quickly in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Even with Negative Equity How Quickly Homes Sell in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Average Sale Price of homes in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) How to Sell Your Home While Living Outside of (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Why (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Home Owners Need a Listing Agent How to Evaluate Purchase Offers when Selling a Home in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) What (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Homes Should Include in a Listing Description __ Ways to Prepare Your Home Sale in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) The Truth Behind FSBO Sales in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) What First Time Home Sellers Should Know About the (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Market What (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Home Buyers Look for in a Home Best Day of the Week to Hold a Open House in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) How Many Homes Are For Sale in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.)? _ Reasons a Home Might Not Sell in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Is it a Good Idea to Sell Your Home During the Winter in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) __ Things that Make the (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Real Estate Market Different __ Best Real Estate Agents in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) __ Best Real Estate Brokerage in (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Average Commission Fee of a (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.) Real Estate Agent Preparing Your Home for (insert city/neighborhood/ZIP code/state/etc.)'s Spring Market To view the original article, visit the Zurple blog.

Realtor Blogs Are the New Billboard Advertisement
Every Realtor has a story to tell and you are no different. You could write books about amazing homes, first time buyer jitters, nightmare listings, and dream contracts. But as a real estate professional, how do you translate all your experiences into attracting clients? Finding the perfect way to obtain leads is a challenge. You want prospective clients to come to you for advice on floor plans, financing, and the fundamentals of real estate transactions. Building trust by providing quality information and sharing your experiences are the best ways to attract new business. How do you advertise your knowledge and skills? Old school real estate marketing used to get your foot in the door. However, opening doors today requires a continual online presence. Prospective real estate investors want to know they can rely on you to provide them with solid information based on a winning track record. They want a lot of information and they want it now. Get your messages across by building a regular blog. Your Home Buyer Clients Will Thank You Realtor blogs build your connection with buyers. Remember the time you sold a home to that nervous first-time buyer? A half dozen visits to the property were required before writing the offer. Every visit had a new question, a new fear, and a longing to know what happens next. Now the same kind of buyer can enjoy those repeated visits through 3D tours and get their questions answered through your blog. Writing about your experiences lets you share the information your buyer is seeking. You build trust by providing buyers with the answers to their questions before they commit to your Realtor services. It's all about providing useful knowledge demonstrating much-needed transparency in the process. Explain initial deposits and financing, the importance of proper measurements and floor plans, and help your potential client grasp the undertaking of buying a home. Plus a blog provides a way for you to showcase your personality and resourcefulness by writing what you know. What About the Sellers? Blogging about nightmare listings you have seen helps your seller to understand the importance of presenting a property well. Be truthful about the feedback you received from those scary listings you've happened upon. It is never a good thing to open a door, be met with the wafting smell of dog feces, and be greeted by the perpetrators. True story! Clutter, junk, and debris do not positively manifest into presentable listings. Online Is Always On Knock, knock. Who's there? It's just you, the local Realtor, canvassing for listings in the neighborhood. Introducing yourself door to door is a daunting task with minimal results. Engaging with potential clients requires more than just a 10-second introduction at their doorway. Let your clients come to you… ONLINE. Your webpage is your virtual business card and a Realtor blog is your billboard. Adding to it regularly keeps both buyers and sellers coming back for information and unlocks a world of sales opportunities. Sharing engaging unique stories about your experiences educates the reader. It gives them time to get to know you and trust your expertise. Online is all the time and your clients will be searching for information about you at all hours and any day of the week. A Blog Also Supports Your Website Over 90% of buyers start their search for property online. What are they looking for? Information. Google and other search engines rank your web pages based on content. Interesting, informative, good content helps you get to the top of the list. Why is this important? Engagement transforms into potential leads. All your good advice and entertaining stories tell Google to recommend you in a Realtor search. Ranking on the first results page means leads are just a click away from your website. Once the leads get there, and the longer they spend perusing your blogs, the faster your website ranking grows. It's like watering a flower; if you want it to grow, you have to provide food. If you want a garden, you have to fertilize. Feeding your leads with high quality blogs help them blossom into future clients. If you're dreaming about the ideal client, an amazing listing opportunity, and ultimately a sold sign with your name on it, start blogging. The three billboards on the local highway aren't working like they used to.

How to Blog: What to Write About
Creating and maintaining a blog is a lot of work, but there are still a lot of busy real estate agents who take the time to hash out new content each week. Have you ever wondered why? It's because of leads. Blog content is an ideal way to work relevant local keywords, backlinks, and other content search engines can pick up on into your website so that you can show up in search results. Blog content is also a helpful way to provide buyers and sellers in your area with information demonstrating you are the local expert. So, yes, blogging is important. But what should you write about? Real Estate Content As a real estate agent, real estate content is obviously going to be very important on your blog. Just remember to balance it out with other types of content rather than relying on it as your main content type. When choosing real estate relevant topics, think about the kind of information that will help buyers and sellers get ready transact. Buyers may enjoy information about improving their credit, different types of loans, and tools to help them figure out how much they can afford to pay for a home. Popular seller topics may include information about getting their home ready to sell, staging, and what to expect from the home selling process. Neighborhood value trends and information highlighting recent sales and pricing trends in your area are also great information to share with buyers and sellers. Local Content Adding fresh, unique local content to your website is one of the best moves you can make if you want to improve your rankings in search results and attract more leads. Information about local news and events, upcoming roadwork, area attractions, school information, restaurant recommendations, and things to do are all popular subjects that can position you as the local expert and attract potential buyers and sellers to your blog. Try to make local content a fairly large part of your content calendar to attract more top of funnel real estate leads. As they get used to accessing your content for their day-to-day information needs, your blog will become the obvious source of information when they start thinking about buying or selling a home. General Content To get the best results from your blog, you'll want to keep past clients in mind when you prepare content. DIY projects, home-improvement ideas, and maintenance schedules are a great way to keep your past clients coming back to your blog so you can capitalize on any referrals and repeat business they have to offer. You can also include ideas about activities, projects, and hobbies in with your content to provide more interesting content topics. Holiday/Occasion Content Holidays and special occasions generate a lot of web searches around the time of the occasion. You can capitalize on those searches to pull more traffic to your blog and social channels. Some occasions like graduations, weddings, or the birth of a child may signal possible interest in making a move or buying a home while holidays like Christmas, Mother's Day, and New Years can generate massive traffic opportunities if you create the right hook. Whatever the holiday or occasion, be sure to promote your content on social media to help it attract attention at the right time. Free Resources Consistently posting fresh, original content on your blog is a great way to attract new readers, but whether they visit from a link on your social channels, search results, or because you told someone about the blog and they decided to check it out, you're dependent on them choosing to come to your blog. However, you can take charge and take initiative to reach out to your audience if you get their email addresses. That's where free resources come in. People like free things. Offer special guides, checklists, and other downloads to people who sign up to receive your newsletter or emails. You can find a large variety of personalizable consumer guides you can add your information to in the Homes.com Consumer Resources library, or you can create and share your own guides. While you're checking out the free consumer guide, you may also want to grab your free copy of 300 Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels. It has specific holiday, real estate, and general topic ideas for your blog and social networks. To view the original article, visit the Homes.com blog.

Commit to a Blogging Strategy in 2021
You should never underestimate the marketing power of your website. A well-developed website acts as a virtual listing board, resource center for potential clients, point of contact for your brokerage, and a 24/7 automated help desk if you integrate AI (artificial intelligence) assistants. However, some agents and brokerages will overlook a vital element of their website: a real estate blog. Far more than a collection of articles, a real estate blog can dynamically impact your business by helping you generate leads, enhance your brand, and become a resource for potential sellers and buyers both in and away from your market area. Why Create a Real Estate Blog Blogging on a consistent basis can be a chore; after all, it can be full-time job in itself. However, there are dozens of benefits that a real estate blog can provide depending on how consistently and properly it's managed. Some of the most notable impacts that a real estate blog provides include: Connecting with your community: Your real estate blog lets you connect with your community in non-real estate matters. Posts about local events, businesses, and news act as a resource for your audience, residents and visitors included. Building trust with your audience: A real estate blog allows you to demonstrate your expertise and knowledge in a passive way. The blog becomes a free resource for buyer, sellers, and others in your community to access on their own terms without feeling pressure to "talk business" with your agency. When the time comes for them to buy or sell, you'll have already gained their trust and opened an organic line of communication with them. Allowing your content be easily shared and consumed: Although anything you post on your website can be readily shared across the internet, blog posts are more readily consumable by a broader audience. This not only informs your audience, but also gives them an opportunity to engage with your content via comments and likes. Enhancing your website's SEO: Your real estate blog is a natural way to increase the SEO on your website and increase its chances of landing on the first page. Google even encourages website owners to continue adding unique content to their websites to maximize their ranking opportunities; consistent blogging is one way to accomplish this. Keep your website traffic, and potential leads, steady: As your content diversifies and is shared across multiple platforms like social media sites, more users will be directed back to your website. Actively maintaining your blog will keep this traffic steady because you're continually giving your audience relevant reasons to stay engaged with your website. How to Determine Which Type of Content to Use on a Real Estate Blog Before you begin creating a real estate blog, you need to have an idea of the types of topics that you should focus on. Reading other real estate brokerage and agent blogs and signing up for industry publications will show examples of how other companies are managing their content. What should you write on your real estate blog? That depends on your market and audience. Along with highlighting local events, businesses, and news, you can also write about real estate trends, advice for buyers and sellers, and remodeling tips. Tips for a Running a Successful Real Estate Blog There are plenty of pieces of advice to keep in mind when running a real estate blog, but we believe that these are three of the most important: Stay Consistent: The biggest mistake you can make with a blog is to post infrequently. Though you may want to post every day, this may prove to be too difficult overtime. If you abandon your consistency, you chance losing your audience. Stay Relevant: No matter how frequently you post, you need to ensure that your content remains relevant to your audience. This means understanding which topics your audience wants more information about and catering your blog posts to these themes. Just as you're consistently posting, your posts' content should remain consistently on-topic and aligned with what your audience desires. Stay Informed: As you keep your blogging consistent, you must also stay up-to-date on the latest blogging trends in the industry as they pertain to search engine algorithms. For example, search engines like Google change their page-ranking algorithms according to factors like inbound and outbound links, word count, and SEO. Knowing how to construct a blog post that most closely matches these evolving algorithms is a necessity. Committing to a real estate blog should be a top priority for your business in 2021. Is your team too busy to stay dedicated to consistently producing blog content? Let Delta Media Group help. Our marketing team will develop your blog and consistently create market-relevant content so you won't have to worry about a word. Contact Delta Media Group to learn more about our real estate blog development along with our other real estate marketing services. Want more marketing help? RE Technology readers can try DeltaNET 6 FREE for 30 days. To view the original article, visit the Delta Media Group blog.

How to Write for ActiveRain and Get More Points
Blogging has taken off in the real estate industry. As more and more agents shift online, it pays to produce and share valuable web content that can help you attract leads. One of the best forums to do this is ActiveRain. In this article, we will show you how to write for ActiveRain and get more points.

Blog Writing Tips for Realtors
Many Realtors have their own blogs or have at least contemplated starting one up. It gives you the perfect platform to sound off on local issues, promote community events, and promote... yourself! A real estate blog can be a really smart way to market yourself by focusing on your experience and expert guidance. You can address topics that potential prospects are interested in, and provide local market insight. Basically, you can lay some tracks about your knowledge of real estate, and when the time comes around, you'll be top of mind for when buyers and sellers need an agent's help. This type of digital marketing can also certainly help you stand out from a crowded field.

How to Promote Yourself and Stay Connected with Clients
The weather outside is cold, but that doesn't mean the market is! With more Americans planning to buy or sell their homes, it is critical to not only catch the client's attention, but to stay connected once you have it. Here are some helpful tricks and tips you can use to build long-lasting relationships and a positive reputation.

Real Estate Marketing 2020: Special Dates and Themes
2020 is coming, which means it's time to start planning your marketing strategies now. Because there's so much content out there, today's consumers--and future homebuyers--expect a little something extra to inspire and inform them. No matter whether you're focusing on email, social media, or even a real estate blog, here's a list of special and themed days you can use to inspire and inform with your content!

111 Blog Ideas for Real Estate Professionals
Running a real estate blog can be a really great way to increase traffic to your site--and position yourself as an industry expert at the same time. But it isn't always easy to come up with blog topics, especially when you're always on the go! So to help you kickstart the creativity, here's a handy list of 111 ideas for when you just can't think of something your clients and potential clients will want to read.

December Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels
Don't waste hours trying to come up with new topics for your social channels and blog! We've compiled a list of ideas you can expand upon for every month of the year. Find December's topics below to get started or click on any month for additional ideas! January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November Tip: Don't fall into the same old content patterns. Use a mix of text, links, images, videos, gifs, and downloads to keep your pages fresh.

November Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels
Creating fresh, unique content is an important part of growing your social media audience. However, coming up with new content ideas can be hard! Instead of spending hours trying to come up with new ideas for your social sites and blog, check back with us each month for a list of ideas you can expand upon. Find November's topics below to get started!

October Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels
Creating fresh, unique content is an easy way to make an impact and grow your social media audience. However, coming up with content ideas to write about can be hard! Instead of spending hours trying to come up with new topics for your social channels and blog, check back with us each month for a list of ideas you can expand upon. Find October's topics below to get started! Tip: Set measurable, attainable goals with clear start and end dates to help you stay focused and grow your online presence.

How to Use Your Real Estate Blog for Lead Nurturing
Lead nurturing--consistent and targeted communications that move your leads further down the customer journey--is a necessary part of any successful marketing campaign. A study by Forrester has shown that marketers see an average 20 percent increase in sales opportunities from nurtured vs non-nurtured leads, meaning if you aren't doing lead nurturing now, you should be. One of the best resources a real estate agent has to nurture their leads is their blog—it's the perfect place to publish your real estate knowledge that targets every phase of the customer journey. We'll walk you through developing targeted blog content, distributing it to your leads, and how to start marketing automation for a strong lead nurturing campaign.

Combine Your Blog with an Email Newsletter for More Leads and Traffic
How can real estate blogging generate leads with a newsletter? And, how can you create a newsletter without spending time or money creating content for it? To get to the answer to these two questions, let's first look at what you can be discussing and offering on your real estate blog.

How to Leverage Content Marketing for Lead Generation
No real estate agent is going to turn down an opportunity to generate new leads. An agent's business lives or dies by acquiring new business leads and converting those leads into customers. In today's real estate market, one method of lead generation reigns supreme: content marketing.

July Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels
Nothing can make an impact and help grow your business like fresh, unique, local content. However, it can be hard to come up with new content ideas each month. Instead of spending hours trying to come up with new topics for your social channels and blog, check back each month for a list of ideas you can expand upon. Find July's topics below to get started! Tip: Don't spread yourself too thin. It's better to use two or three social sites really well than nine or ten poorly. Download a printable version of these topics here! Holidays and Occasions

What Do I Blog About, Anyway?
Adding a blog to your website is a great way to stay in contact with a wide audience looking to buy or sell real estate. Your blog can help you increase your online profile, gain valuable contacts, and build your business. But getting started can be a challenge. How to Find Relevant Blog Topics Whether your blog is brand new or well-established, at some point you'll run into a problem every blogger struggles with at some point: "What do I blog about, anyway?" We've got some great ideas below, not just for topics, but also for where you can find inspiration for future content that will put your blog ahead of the pack:

May Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels
Grow your social media audience and attract more blog followers by creating fresh, unique content for your audience. If you need some help coming up with content ideas, we've got you covered! Check back each month for a list of content ideas you can write about. Find May's topics below to get started. Tip: Engaging with your followers' posts on social media is a good way to stay top of mind. Download a printable version of these topics here!

March Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels
If you want to increase your online presence, creating fresh, unique content is a great way to make an impact. However, coming up with content ideas can be hard! We can help; instead of spending hours trying to come up with blog and social topics, check back with us each month for a list of ideas you can expand upon. Find March's topics below to get started! Tip: Pictures of recognizable, local landmarks will be more appealing and meaningful to people in your community than generic images. Download a printable version of these topics here!

January Content Ideas for Your Blog and Social Channels
The start of the year inspires the best of intentions in us all. It's when we decide to make all the personal and business changes we said we'd do last year but never got around to. But that doesn't have to happen this year! If one of your goals is to improve your content strategy on your blog or social media, we can help. Instead of spending hours trying to come up with content ideas, be on the lookout for a list of topics from us each month that you can explore in your blog or social networks. Find January's topics below to get started! *Tip: Don't limit yourself to real estate specific topics. Be a community expert and source of interesting area information to appeal to a larger audience.

10 Technologies and Tools for Real Estate Agents
Armed with high tech tools and technologies, real estate agents have ventured out in the virtual world to simplify their lives and attract more customers. Read on for our picks of the top 10 tools and technologies that can boost your performance in real estate. Ten Tools for Real Estate Agents 10. Boomerang: Boomerang is a tool for Gmail users who want to keep track of the important mails and manage their cluttered inbox. It helps you compose a mail and schedule the time when it should be sent. It even offers reminders in case you get a lead. Setting up the Boomerang email scheduling tool allows you to mark mail to be sent at a later date. The Boomerang button next to a message brings the mail back to the inbox with the reply from the recipient. 9. DocuSign: Real estate work involves a lot of documents and paperwork that can be really cumbersome to manage. This is where DocuSign comes into the picture. It manages and integrates with the major CRM systems allowing you to save the documents on cloud storage. This simplifies data storing and retrieval considerably. An effective, reliable and responsive tool, DocuSign helps in exchanging documents and get past records with just the click of a button. 8. Evernote: Evernote helps users keep track of their expenses and other important pieces of information. A great platform to store all your tax files, documents and client information, Evernote offers cloud storage facilities at a very minimal charge (about $5 a month). From old receipts to important deals, you can manage it all here.

20 Time-Saving Real Estate Blog Ideas for Agents
Even the most talented writers will tell you coming up with fresh new content can be tiresome, but they'll also note there's a trick to get around this stagnancy in developing original ideas. By choosing one or a few series of blog post types that easily fit into topics you know well, you can create a plethora of articles on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis. Take a look below at 20 distinct kinds of series of articles you can put into play for your real estate agent blog so you can consistently (and easily) provide content you know your audience enjoys consuming and gets tremendous value from. 1. Frequently asked questions answered Arguably one of the easiest real estate blog topics you can cover in detail is offering answers to frequently asked questions from your leads and clients. You assuredly receive a number of questions on a daily basis from home buyers and sellers you work and meet with. So, why not answer these distinct queries with exhaustive responses on your blog? New York-based Realtors Keith and Kyle Hiscock provide in-depth answers to commonly asked questions from both buyers and sellers looking to purchase homes in the Rochester area on their well-run real estate blog. Aside from giving lengthy, helpful responses to help guide their niche audience, the Hiscocks also clearly take advantage of popular keywords related to their local market, helping them drive the right kind of traffic — those looking to purchase and offload properties in their area — to their website.

40+ Winning Real Estate Blog Ideas for Agents
Last month, I shared a handful of tips, tools, and strategies for getting more ROI from content marketing as a real estate agent. It's a great article for anyone who has been regularly blogging and experimenting with content marketing, but it's not an ideal resource if you're just getting started. If you're new to content marketing and blogging, your biggest challenge will likely be coming up with new blog ideas every week. When it comes to content marketing, consistency is key. It's really the only way you'll ever be able to build an audience, boost your reputation, and get any sort of ROI from your efforts. To be consistent, you have to publish content on a regular basis—daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever cadence is most realistic for you. When you choose to invest in content marketing, you have to go all in. You can't be inconsistent and you can't put blogging on the back burner when things get busy. The easiest way to ensure that you're consistently blogging day after day, week after week, and month after month is to spend time regularly coming up with and storing more blog post ideas than you need. For a lot of people, this is easier said than done. When you're new to content marketing, the idea of coming up with an endless amount of ideas for blog posts can be intimidating! The fact is, there's a lot of noise on the internet these days. You're not the only real estate agent who is creating and publishing content on a blog. There are thousands of people just like you developing content for the same type of audience you're going to be developing content for. So where do you start? Here are 40+ winning real estate blog ideas that can help you kick things off.

Blog-O-Rama! Everything you need to start blogging (7/13)
Wednesday, July 13, 2016 at 10:00 AM PDT Create your first blog post and learn best practices for winning real estate blogs. You'll learn how to write eye-catching titles and choose informative content that will keep your readers engaged all the way through. These tips will help build your online presence and generate additional traffic to your website. You'll learn how to: Create your first blog page How to make your blog work with your community pages not against them with great titles Find the right content to keep people coming back Register now!

Top 5 Questions Realtors Have About Blogging
Are you a real estate blogger? Online marketing has taken off in the past few years, and many real estate agents are considering the benefits of blogging. The idea is appealing, but some agents are intimidated by the idea of starting a blog of their own. I hear a lot of questions from real estate agents about the value of a blog, and how to successfully maintain one in a reasonable amount of time. Here are the answers to your top 5 questions about real estate blogging: "Will a real estate blog actually benefit my business or is it just another task for me to maintain?" There are a few different ways that blogging will benefit your real estate business. First of all, blogging is an important part of content marketing, which is the act of creating content that your prospects want to see. The goal of content marketing is to meet a need and ultimately become a trusted source of real estate information. You establish your image or brand online, and eventually people come to you for your real estate services. Secondly, regularly posting content online is a good way to increase your ranking in search engines. Blog updates show Google that you're active online. The better you rank in search engines, the more real estate prospects will find you when they search online. Plus your blog is a good way to show prospects that you're knowledgeable and tuned in to the real estate industry.  Each of these positive points can drive more leads for your business.

Your Blog and Creating Content That Will Serve You in the Future
As a real estate agent, the idea of starting a blog and finding the time to keep it up-to-date may be very overwhelming. On one hand, a blog can be an integral part of your marketing plan and can help you to build your own brand as an agent. On the other hand, blogging can also often become a time consuming activity. As a busy agent, you may question the amount of time that you spend keeping your blog current if you're not seeing results. I recently attended a blogging and social media conference, and one of the key points that I took away from it was as follows: everything you do on your blog should be something that will serve you now and in the future. Whether it's next week, or whether it's five years from now, your content should always be beneficial to you in some way. When crafting a blog post, going viral should never be the end goal. Instead, think about how you can create good content that will serve you on a continuing basis. Some questions you may want to ask yourself are: Will creating this resource now save me time in the future? Will this topic help establish me as the expert in my niche? Will these keywords help me with search engine rankings? Asking yourself these questions should help you determine which topics and resources would get the most good from your time. Ideally, you would want to create resources that you're going to benefit from on an ongoing basis. What are some ways that you can do that?

4 Back-to-School Marketing Ideas for Agents
Ahhh, do you smell that? The scent of freshly sharpened pencils and crisp notebooks can only mean one thing... it's back-to-school time! Any change in season is a good time to take a closer look at your real estate marketing efforts. Are you still seeing results? Are there campaigns you can freshen up? Opportunities you can take to reach new prospects? This time of year is especially great for reinvigorating your referral network and connecting with people who are new to the area. Here are four back-to-school marketing ideas that you can put to work for your real estate business in the coming weeks: 1. Host a Back-to-School Party It's back-to-school season and parents are in a celebratory mood. Why not throw a back-to-school party as a client appreciation event? You can organize a family-friendly picnic on a weekend that takes advantage of the last of the warm weather. Or you can host an adult-only cocktail event where everyone lets their hair down and has fun. (One tip: don't force the conversation to real estate too often, but be ready and willing to answer any questions that come up!) You can also make it a school supply drive to benefit the community. You cover the cost of the event, and ask guests to bring a donation as their admission ticket. This pairs extra well with idea #4.

Real Estate Blogging Tips for Beginners
While some want you to believe that blogging is an art, it really isn't. Anyone with thoughts in their head and a keyboard can construct a blog post. Being a successful real estate blogger, however, requires being mindful of the topics you choose and the construction of your blog posts. Blogging is time intensive. But then, so is mailing out 1,000 postcards, cold calling or door knocking. If you're considering ramping up your blogging efforts to reel in new clients, read on for some helpful tips. Why Should Agents Blog? The biggest advantage to blogging is that – aside from what your time is worth – it's free. If you waste that time by publishing garbage, or not posting on a consistent basis, then maintaining a real estate blog is actually quite expensive. This is why it's so important that when you commit to the process, you follow through. Once you're up and running and consistently posting content about your local market, whether strictly real estate-related or not, local consumers will begin to visit your blog. You'll also be able to show them your personality, so that they get to know, like and trust you. If you've been in the real estate industry for over a week, you should know that there is no such thing as an overnight success. The key to blogging, as in most real estate lead generation techniques, is consistency. New leads probably won't appear after your first post, but keep plugging away at it. It will take time for blog posts to generate web traffic – and leads. Be persistent and your efforts will pay off.

7 Must-Know Ways to Kill It Online
With more than 90 percent of home buyers searching online for their new home, how are you capturing these online buyers? Here are my seven absolute must-know tips for becoming a killer online real estate agent. 1. A Vibrant Blog: Having a vibrant blog means you post consistently, which is once a month at minimum, but I suggest between two and four posts per month with posts that address your real estate specialty or niche neighborhoods. The key is to make sure you are consistent. 2. Answer FAQs: You know your niche, so you know they ask similar questions all the time. Answer these questions on your blog/website. You already tell your clients these things individually, so why not share it on the Internet and let your expertise work for you? 3. Share Your Content: If you want your blog and articles addressing your niche to be found, you must share them. Choose your social media platforms and be consistent. Share every blog post, you can even share an older blog post with a new graphic or put into a new context. 4. Nichify: Make sure you are always talking to one niche market or audience at a time. Don't try to write an article including every neighborhood you specialize. Write a separate article for each neighborhood. Make your niche feel understood; be the expert of your neighborhoods! Here's an example of a new article I wrote about moving to Chandler, Arizona. This area is a new niche for me, so my first article is broad but the next articles will touch on topics that are more and more narrow.

Develop a Killer Online Strategy
Having a blog can be a killer online strategy for your real estate business. A vibrant blog can be the very top of your online funnel. But your potential clients must feel understood when they first arrive at your site. Last month, I talked about creating a niche to strengthen your online presence. By all means, you can address several niches on your blog. However, you have to start somewhere, so start with one niche. I believe all real estate blogs should be as community oriented as possible. Your blog should show that you're a resource for the community. For instance, you could publish articles on your market's parks, schools, or restaurants. Write articles about community activities or local places. Think about anything your potential clients would want to know before they moved to the community. Here are four tips for creating a vibrant blog: Address your niche; always address your niche. Think about what people in your niche market would want to know. Write consistently. I generally say posting one article a week is ideal, however, if you know you can't commit to once a week, commit to every other week. Answer questions. You are the expert, so answer questions your clients ask regularly. Create lists. Create lists of information your potential clients would want to know if they are moving to the area. For example: 7 Things You Should Know before you Move to Phoenix 5 Things You Should Know about Moving to Scottsdale 5 Best Restaurants in Old Town Scottsdale What to Expect in an Old Town Scottsdale home

Blogging for Real Estate, Profit, and Fun
The Evolution of the Blog Blog. A word that has only recent come about due to the introduction of the web. A word Frankensteined into being by sewing the words web and log together, an unholy creation was born, the blog. At first primarily used for private use, such as journaling, it has metamorphosed into something far more powerful and sinister. Now it is commonly used by major businesses to generate interest and traffic for their products, and generate an online image for the company. It has also turned into a gerund, a word which is both a noun and a verb, meaning both the online log and the act of maintaining the log, which is how you really know that something is here for good. Since it is here for good, it would behoove the savvy agent to use a blog for their own benefit, to set them apart from their competitors. I am here today to teach you how you could twist the dark powers of the blog into use for your own benefit. Blogs. What are they Good for? ABSOLUTELY SOMETHING. Before you up and start blogging, you should know why you want to blog. Although blogging nowadays can be accomplished easily, it will still need a decent amount of effort to make your blog effective. Here are some possible reasons of why you would want to keep a blog.

November Blogging Plan: 5 Topic Ideas
Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? The idea is for participants to turn off the excuses for just 30 days and commit to putting pen to paper. While we're not asking you to write a 50,000 word book this month, how about committing to writing just 5 posts and shaking the dust from your blog? We promise you'll feel accomplished by the time Nov. 30 rolls around. Here's a productivity hack to get you moving that NaNoWriMo participants use. It's called a "word sprint" where you set a goal to write a certain number of words within a set time limit (usually 10-30 minutes). The idea is to just let the words pour out without second-guessing them or yourself. You can save that critical eye for later, when it's time to edit! You can follow this Twitter account to easily participate in sprints. Below is this month's list of topics. Sprint on, real estate bloggers! 1. Post-election Round-upThe votes are in and (mostly) counted. The best thing about the election being over, besides not having to watch those terrible campaign ads anymore, is the topic fodder for your blog! In most places, something significant will have changed, be it a new property tax, new elected official, or new law. Summarize these in a blog post for the areas you serve. Who's your new representative? How much of a tax change will the owner of an average-priced home in your area expect--and when? You don't need to offer your opinion on election outcomes, but do recognize it as an opportunity to show off your community knowledge. 2. First-time Homebuyer ProgramsFirst-time homebuyers are at a 30-year low, according NAR's newly released 2014 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. Nearly a quarter of first-time buyers in that survey said that saving for a down payment is difficult. As we've talked about before, while down payment assistance programs are out there, few buyers know that they exist or how to take advantage of them. Use this post to highlight programs in your city or state as a way to move qualified first-time buyers off the sidelines. Don't forget to add a call-to-action that asks readers to contact you with questions or to learn more!

October Blogging Plan: 6 Topic Ideas
We got off to a bit of a late start with this month's blogging plan, so let's dive right in! Here are six topic ideas to scare away writer's block and keep your blog updated with fresh content. Choose some or choose them all--there are enough ideas here for two blog posts a week through the end of October. 1. Staging Your Home During Halloween - Halloween can be an incredibly fun time of year, but there is such a thing as too much holiday spirit. Potential buyers don't want to tour a home full of fake cobwebs or actual skeletons in the closet. Guide your sellers toward a "less is more" mentality. Pumpkins on the porch add a nice autumn feel, but tombstones in the yard are something to be avoided. If you have sellers who are diehard Halloween enthusiasts, advise them to up their decoration ante for one night only--but on November 1, their home should immediately return to saleable condition. 2. Q3 Market Highlights - The third fiscal quarter just ended a week ago. Take this opportunity to toot your own horn a bit! Success begets success, so don't shy about talking about the sales successes you achieved over the summer. Bonus points if you have customer testimonials or stories to share.

September Blogging Plan: 8 Topic Ideas
The seasons are changing, but that doesn't mean your blogging habits should! If you've been keeping up with our series of monthly blogging plans, your real estate site has grown into a valuable local resource. Every month, we offer topic ideas for each coming week. This month, we're offering two topics per week. Choose one or choose both--the point is to keep posting regularly to provide your site with fresh content that draws more potential clients. Ready to get started? Here are this month's post ideas: Week 1: What does $250,000 buy in [Your Town]? This is an easy way to showcase listings while simultaneously introducing newcomers to your local market. Include three to five properties in this price range with basic information like square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, acreage, and year built. This topic is easy to repurpose in the future--just switch to higher or lower price points! Additional or Alternative Topic: Why buyers should use local lenders As a real estate agent, you probably have relationships with local lenders. This blog post can help build on those relationships by including a list of reasons that local lenders are better than faceless lenders from outside the area. Here are a few ideas to get you started: Local lenders are able to meet face-to-face They have a thorough knowledge of your market They have relationships with local appraisers

July Blogging Plan
It has been a busy time here at RE Technology - lots of new and exciting things going on! So we're keeping this month's blogging plan a little short, offering just one alternative/additional topic to our weekly posts. You'll see that this month's themes are neighbors and local expertise. Now get out there and blog, my friends! 1) Good Fences Make Good Neighbors Whether your readers are thinking of selling property or not, there's plenty of value in a sturdy, attractive fence. This post can be short and sweet, but quite helpful. The basic idea: "If your fence is in poor condition, don't feel like you have to take on the full burden yourself – if it's bordering someone else's property, that is. It's a great time to chat with your neighbors and see if they'll chip in. Most of the time, they'll offer to pay some (if not half) of the cost." 2) Buyers, Get Nocturnal While we're on the subject of neighbors, how about this topic? How many of us have moved into a new home only to discover that one or more of our neighbors are noisy night owls? It happens all too often. If your buyers are looking for peace and quiet, you may want to suggest in this post that they do a nighttime drive-by of a property they're considering. They might even want to bring a snack and sit for a while near the house, listening to what's going on around them. Helping them avoid these problems before they buy will earn their loyalty.

May Blogging Plan
You know the drill, so we'll get right to it. Here are this month's blog topics. As usual, we've provided additional topics that you can use to replace a topic you don't like or to write an additional blog post for the month. Topic 1: So, Your Neighbor's House is Trashy Unfortunately, almost all of us have encountered this. We take care of our home and make sure it has nice curb appeal – only to have that curb appeal ruined by a neighbor with a messy yard and run-down house. If you've had this problem, many of your clients have, too! In this blog post, you can provide your suggestions for dealing with this issue. Provide special emphasis on tactics for readers who are considering selling their home. Alternative/Additional Topic 1: Home Improvements with Your Tax Return If your readers are lucky, they'll be getting some bucks back from Uncle Sam. In this blog post, you can provide suggestions for home improvements they could make with that money. Focus on improvements that will make the home more appealing should they wish to sell it in the near future. Topic 2: It's an Open House – Go Inside! As a REALTOR®, you know that many open house visitors are simply looky-loos, people from the neighborhood that are just curious to get a peek inside the house. In this blog post, you can acknowledge this and – more importantly – tell them that it's okay! It's reasonable for them to be curious. You can also provide a suggested list of questions they might ask the listing agent. For example: Why have you chosen this listing price? What trends have you noticed in this neighborhood? How is the overall market doing? In addition to learning about the property and the real estate market, they may meet their future real estate agent. Suggest that, if they really like the listing agent, they ask the agent to come over when the open house is finished and give their thoughts on their own home's value.

March 2014 Blogging Plan
We're back on track with our monthly blogging plans! You can check out last month's ideas in our February Blogging Plan. Now, let's get on with this month's topics. As usual, I've included two topics for each week in case you'd like to post twice a week or aren't crazy about one of the topics. Topic 1: Tax Benefits for Homeowners Here's a great opportunity to collaborate with a local CPA, or to do a little research on your own. This blog post would cover the tax deductions that homeowners are entitled to. For example: Mortgage interest deduction Exclusion on sales gains Home office deduction (I take advantage of this one) Energy savings deductions Alternative/Additional Topic: Tour Our Parks - As the mom of a toddler, I know how important parks can be. Spend an hour driving around to the parks in your city. Take photos. And, as a bonus, mention any interesting properties listed near those parks. Topic 2: Furry Friends Showing a home when you have pets can be a challenge. Provide tips for managing the logistics of selling a home when you also have pets, especially dogs. You should include: Tips for getting the "wet dog" smell out of carpets and furniture Managing a barking, aggressive dog during a showing or open house Keeping the backyard dog poop free for showings

Resolutions to Improve Your Business in 2014: Beef Up Your Website
This post comes to us from the Market Leader blog: No matter where you are at this point in your real estate practice, chances are good that you'd like something more next year. More website hits, more referrals, and everything else that brings in more clients. The end of a year is a good time to think about what you can add to your business plan to help you move up a notch or even to an entirely new level. To help you out, your friends at Market Leader will be offering up new resolutions in the coming weeks, any one of which will help to improve your real estate business in the year ahead. This week, we'll look at ways to make your website a lead magnet in 2014. The Truth About Agent Websites While 70 percent of Realtors® have a website, their sites generate only 4 percent of their business, according to the National Association of Realtors® 2013 Member Profile. Sure, some agents generate over half their business from their websites, but those kinds of numbers take effort and money. If you're looking for a better way to drum up business, consider taking the time and spending the money necessary to make 2014 the "Year of the Website." Most agents in the NAR survey spend an average of $220 a year to maintain their websites. Agents who "invested more heavily in their website reported a greater number of inquiries and business," according to the study. How much more heavily? Agents who spend $1,000 or more a year on maintaining their websites are an astonishing six times more likely to generate half of their business from the site than those who spend between $100 and $499.

Best of 2013: 6 Web Properties You Need to Own Now
We're continuing an annual tradition of counting down the most popular articles of the year. This article was posted back in January and is #7 in our countdown. See #8 here. You know all about real estate, but what do you know about digital property? When it comes to building an effective internet presence, there are a handful of online "places" that you must leverage. Your "web properties" are online points of contact, like websites, blogs, and social media profiles. In our overview below, we list the different types of property you need, according to their importance. CRITICAL The following web properties are absolutely crucial to your online success. If you don't have them, you could seriously be hurting your business. Website - Don't have an agent website? Stop. Red light. Without one, you're making yourself invisible to the 90% of homebuyers who use the internet during their home buying search. At minimum, your site should have IDX property search capabilities, neighborhood information, contact info, your listings, and links to your other digital properties. Explore real estate website providers here. Facebook - Surprised to see Facebook on the "Critical" list? Don't be. With over 500 million active Facebook users, if you're not on this social network, you're invisible to potential clients. Agents with a weak (or no) website can use a strong Facebook presence to fill the gap by adding listing information, photos, open house announcements, and posting updates on local events.

6 Tips for Realtors® to Build Brand Across Social Media Platforms
This post comes to us from the Market Leader blog: Building your brand across various social media platforms has many advantages to your business. As a real estate agent, it's important to get your listings out to as many people as possible. Also, it's important that people know where they can find you so they can look up information about your company, consider the services you offer, and find a way to contact you. With that said, here are six tips every real estate agent should take to heart in order to build a prominent brand across a variety of social media platforms. Connect to Your Potential Clients Through Facebook Facebook is a great tool for real estate agents. Whether you reach out to family and friends to get referrals or connect to potential clients, Facebook is perfect for expanding your network. When using Facebook, it's important not to come across as too much of a salesperson. Instead of forcing yourself on potential clients by bombarding them with messages about your business, take part in natural conversations and let those conversations lead into the services you offer. Never post status messages like, "I'm taking new clients, so call me now." Instead, take the "top of mind/awareness" approach by posting, "I'm grateful to have so many great clients." You could also post pictures of your home listings with comments like, "Super excited about this new house – could you live here?" Whatever the case, remain strategic and consider how your audience perceives you.

There's Blogging, and There's Blogging for Leads
This post comes to us from the Diverse Solutions blog: REALTORS® blog for various reasons. Typically, blogging in real estate consists of blogging for blogging's sake, or blogging for leads and commissions. Or, maybe you think you're blogging for leads, but you're just not getting any. Why waste time and effort if you're not ending up with qualified leads that result in transactions and commissions? You can balance your other lead generation activities, like networking and traditional advertising, with your blogging. It can be a valuable resource for more deals every year. We decided to consult with some real estate agents who make more than half their commission income from leads they generate on their blogs. Here are some tips they shared with us that you can use. Blogging Tips From Real Estate Professionals 1. Blog for Your Site Visitors: Buyers and Sellers You will be using SEO-friendly strategies, keywords and phrases, and stuff like that, but your blog posts should be written to meet the needs of your visitors. They need to be easy reading and informative.

3 Tactics to Position Yourself as the Neighborhood Expert
A lot of agents attempt to position themselves as a neighborhood expert just by claiming to be one. To fill this real estate niche effectively, however, requires more than a statement on your business card or a line of text on your website. Let's take a look at some of what goes into becoming a true neighborhood expert. Online Presence Your online presence is made up of a combination of all of the places you promote your real estate business: blog, website and social media platforms. It is through this combination that, hopefully, potential clients find you and get to know you. Strategy number one is to focus your online presence to brand yourself as the neighborhood expert. Start with your website. If you don't have a blog, it's time to start one – a hyper-local blog that is full of interesting, useful neighborhood information. Beef up the blog with the following types of content: Videos – Interview local experts, do community tours and preview hot new listings. Photos – Even a snapshot of a neighborhood restaurant is considered hyper-local content, especially if you include a written review. Don't neglect including photos of interesting local architecture with a story about a building's history, photos of historic homes, local sports teams and merchants.

What NOT to Blog About
Here at Point2, we spend a lot of time thinking about real estate blogging. And blogging about blogging. After all, real estate blogs are a great way to build your personal brand, establish yourself as a local expert, give your SEO a boost, connect with your audience and much, much more. In the past we've written a lot of helpful posts on the topic, including sharing 5 blogging tips and creativity strategies, but it occurs to us that we've never broached the topic of what NOT to write about. Getting consumers excited about your real estate blog can be a challenge from the get-go; you certainly don't want to turn them off before you've even had a chance to show them what a wonderful agent and person you are. With that in mind, here are blog topics that are more likely to alienate readers than to inspire potential customers: Client Details It seems silly to say this, but we've seen it happen, so please, please read your blog posts before publishing to make sure you didn't accidentally share any confidential client information. This includes mortgage details, incomes, offer and counter offer amounts and more. Give your clients and transactions some privacy by leaving names and addresses out of posts. If you want to write about a particular sale, be considerate and ask the parties involved before you post!

RSS for Real Estate
RSS: You've heard of it and seen the icon (that little orange broadcasting symbol to the right), but are you using it for your real estate business? RSS is a form of website syndication that shares content from a blog or webpage with other websites as a way of marketing the site. When a visitor clicks on that icon, they subscribe to the website's feed – meaning they will receive all new updates from the site, whether they visit it or not. RSS is syndication for written content. Similar to what Point2 listing syndication does for your listing data, RSS does for your written content... pushes it out into the world to boost your exposure and increase your online marketing. What is RSS? RSS is essentially a data feed that collects and shares frequently published web content – like blogs, news headlines and wikis – with online users, not altogether unlike the data feed used to share your listings with syndication partner sites. In fact, RSS is commonly referred to as Really Simple Syndication. Why do you NEED it? RSS lets you and the rest of the internet-browsing public keep up with your favorite websites easily, in the format of your choosing. Stay updated on new posts from your favorite online places using an RSS feed reader to subscribe to the feeds of your choice. The reader will check your subscribed feeds for new work, download it and present you with all of that content in an easy, one-stop interface. Instead of visiting every site independently, you get to see everything you're interested in, all in one place! More importantly from an agent's perspective, you can use an RSS feed in combination with your website to collect and display relevant real estate and neighborhood news – it basically 'feeds' your website with fresh content from your choice of sites constantly and automatically.

Blogging On-the-Go With WordPress Apps
The life of a real estate agent is far from easy. In fact, when you are doing any level of business at all, it can be quite hectic. Between showing homes, taking photos, gathering documents, listing properties, and coordinating transactions, we belong to a busy group. What's more is that all of these activities comprise your everyday duties as an agent. There is more to be done if you are tacking on additional tasks such as promotion by way of marketing. Much of our work is done on-the-go and, as a result, sitting at a desktop computer attempting to post to our WordPress site often has to get in line behind other activities. What's a real estate agent or broker to do? We could always carry around a notebook computer, fire it up and post. But then we're subject to the limitations that brings, such as dwindling battery power and the reality that despite their name, notebooks really aren't all that portable anyway. Making the WordPress App the Solution Since just about every real estate professional on the planet is carrying either a smart phone or a tablet computer, it certainly would make life easier if we could post from those devices. That's where the WordPress apps come in. These apps are a perfect, on-the-go solution for creating fresh and diverse content for your site. Here are links to the apps and a short WordPress video for each: WordPress App for iPhone and iPad Video: WordPress for iOS WordPress App for Android Video: WordPress for Android