After much cajoling, threatening and upon pain of withholding all deep fried food , I managed to get myself to sit down for the previously announced and much awaited interview.

I arranged to meet myself at Cup O’ Joe in Hillsborough, NC- a local hangout which has become a bastion for well known writers, poets and the father of two screaming kids who is trying to convince his wife that he’s a “writer” and not going there for the danish.

For the sake of clarity …and because I saw an Oprah interview in a magazine and they did it this way , I’ll put questions from me in italics and the response from myself in bold.

Me: Bruce is there anything off limits…topics we can’t discuss?

Myself(smiling): My pet iguana’s spending habits. Not willing to talk about that…and besides, he’s had his own blog for years.

Me: What makes Real Estate Blog Marketing experts in Real Estate?

Myself: If you’ll notice, our name is Real Estate Blog Marketing, not Real Estate Experts or Facts and Figures for Realtors—not that we don’t provide valuable information specific to the Real Estate and Home Building industry…just more from a marketing and emerging media perspective.
Me: So you don’t have a real estate background ?

Myself: Look , let me ask you something. Do you think Hendricks Motorsports hired Jimmy Johnson to drive the Lowes car because he is a home improvement expert? No …they hired him to drive because he could get to the finish line first. With the break-neck pace at which new technologies for real estate marketing are emerging, we saw a need for a firm which has a track record of success in new media in general and blog marketing specifically that realtors can count on. Many times we’ve seen real estate marketing companies heavy on real estate knowledge and traditional media channels like radio ,TV and print but are still trying to figure out things like local search , paid search and how to effectively use the web. Prior to starting Real EstateBlog Marketing, we were pioneers in the whole search marketing and interactive media industry.
Me: What exactly is a blog, how does it differ from a website and can’t people get one for free ?
Myself: Well, not to make you feel like an idiot but you’re writing in a blog. They can be very much like a website but are more immediate in nature and provide a vehicle which allows our clients to become publishers….not to mention instant feedback and market research.Procter and Gamble just launched two blogs for market research…The really cool thing is, if you can hunt and peck, you can blog! And while many of our clients had been writing volumes in their free unoptimized blogs before coming to Real Estate Blog Marketing, none of their blogs were impacting the search engines, developing leads or increasing brand awareness.Quite frankly their blogs were just not making money for them the way our optimized blogs have.A free blog is fine…as long as none of your competitors are utilizing an optimized blog .

Me: What makes your blogs optimized or different ?

Tune in tomorrow ( maybe ) for the exciting conclusion.

Recently I sat down with Keith Boutwell VP of Sales at Real Estate Blog Marketing and asked him a few questions about the value of a real estate blog, blog marketing and the effects on both local search and branding in the blogosphere.

Have a Listen.

I was going to do another article about what realtors can write about in their real estate blogs, instead I ran across a nice blog from a real estate agent in Wake Forest North Carolina. This Wake Forest NC Realtor has a blog that has a nice variety of articles covering many topics of interest to someone looking for homes or property in Wake Forest.

How important is Local Search to a real estate agent? Local search is the only search a realtor should be concerned with when they ONLY want people to find their websites that are performing local searches. ie..search ” chapel hill realtor ” on yahoo, and you are looking for a realtor local to chapel hill. The results lead you to the Chapel Hill board of Realtors site and then a local Chapel Hill Realtor.

Local Search is growing more in importance. According to a study done by comScore 63% or all internet users performed a local search in July (approximately 109 million people) a 43% increase from July 2005. The Breakdown of sources:

Local search is this prominent. Can anyone find your real estate web site without you telling them the address? Do you have a real estate blog? The answers to these questions are key factors in your future success in real estate. More and more real estate consumers ignore print and newspaper advertising in favor of the internet.
If you have an optimized blog with a strategy, you’ll be found when users are searching for what you do.

I am one of the first people to express my opinion that the true value of a real estate blog lies not in search engine potential (which is still extremely postive) but that the blogosphere and millions of readers present in the blogosphere will offer the true value to any real estate agent. However….

Lets take a look at Local Search. Local Search is something that it is crucial for real estate agents, in fact it is all that any real estate agent really should care about. What is local search? It is the act of searching for anything based on location. For example if someone searches for real estate then they are probably going to search for a geographical area, a neighborhood, a geographic region, and maybe even a local nickname for those areas… Those people searching in that way are qualified leads doing research online, exactly who a realtor needs to reach first. A Professional real estate blog marketing campaign is a local search magnet.

As a real estate agent posts and writes about his areas of coverage he or she is becoming more relevant with each post in the eyes of the engine to all local searches in the area and showcasing to potential clients their knowledge of real estate in their area. Realtors blogging in the right way, with the right system, and information are beginning to dominate true local search terms, this trend is growing and is even more prominent as people are adding the word “blog” to their search to get even more relevant search results.

Do you want local search results? Real Estate Blog Marketing will design a blog marketing campaign to help you dominate local search for your area. Contact us for more information.