With the popularity of discount real estate brokerage firms on the rise and the nation’s economy on the decline, your commissions have likely dropped way off in the past several months.

It seems that everyone is suffering from a cash crunch right now, and both buyers and sellers are looking to save money on their transactions any way they can, whether that means going through a discount joint for a flat fee or trying to handle the entire process themselves. They figure the extra hassle is worth it if they can save 6% on the commission.

So how can you use real estate blog marketing to overcome this mindset? By justifying your commission to prospective clients.

You do this by telling them exactly what kind of service they can expect from you when you’re on the job. Talk about the steps you’ll take to list, market, and show a home for the seller, or the lengths you’ll go to in order to secure the perfect property for the buyer. Talk about all the paperwork, inspections, and price negotiations that you’ll handle. Talk about how you’ll use your years of experience in the local real estate market to get your clients the best possible deal. Then, use your past sales figures and customer testimonials to back up what you say.

When you’re upfront about your services like this, it puts people at ease and helps forge a trusting relationship right from the beginning, as you remove any doubts that the clients might have about whether or not using a Realtor® is worth the extra money, so give it a try!

When we started our company back in March of 2006, most of our time was devoted to helping and teaching real estate agents how to blog. The time factor was always an issue because most realtors work all the time. If you have a half hour per week to devote to “attracting” potential buyers or home seekers there truly is no other way to market yourself. I had one realtor that wanted to be ranked on the search engines for a particular subdivision. This was a pre-construction subdivision with homes starting at 700K on up. We taught her how to blog about it…”hey, I can’t reveal our secrets in this article” and she secured 2 lots that totaled over 2 million dollars. She wrote two articles on the subdivision and a couple of buyers did a search after driving buy and found her blog articles. So if you’re a real estate agent and claim you don’t have time, I suggest that you try harder. Your commission depends on it.

I often field calls from realtors asking me if there’s more ways to gain additional traffic to their blog. Over a year ago when we started our company we wanted to make sure that all of our clients knew everything there is to know about blogging. Last year corporate blogging wasn’t big to realtors but now it’s becoming a necessity to have one. Let me offer you a few tips followed by a short story about a blog that I’ve been watching.

1. If you haven’t subscribed to my blog log or blog catalog do so now. It’s a great blogging community and a great way to gain additional exposure to your blog.
2. Learn more about your market and what your area has to offer. You’re posts will be found on all blog engines and it’s a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your area by showing people that you know what your talking about!
3. Read other blogs, check out news headlines and state your opinion. The wonderful thing about having a blog is stating you views on various topics.
4. Link to other blogs and comment on them. One clear way to gain visibility is to let other bloggers know you have one. Read what others have to say about a topic that interests you and begin a dialog.

Now for my story:
I’m an avid baseball fan/Red Sox fan and have been reading Red Sox Pitcher Curt Schilling’s blog 38pitches for three months now. In three months he has a 4pr and an alexa traffic rank of 59,000. That’s pretty impressive for a blog to move up that quickly in such a short period of time. He’s famous and gets a lot of traffic so thats why his blog has become so popular. I can’t tell you how many times ESPN has mentioned it in the past few months. This leads me to my final tip:

5. Find blogs of famous people. A ton of politicians have them and they’re open for conversation not to mention actors/actresses, rockstars, CEO’s etc…..Link back to them and comment on their blogs about posts they’ve done. You’ll be amazed by what can happen. Hey, I hope Curt visits our blog and comments on this post!

As promised, this is the next installment of a series of shamlessly self-promoting interviews with myself.

Me: So , let’s get back to what makes an optimized blog from Real Estate Blog Marketing , optimized, different or better than a free blog.

Myself: Well it really depends on why you want a blog and what you want it to do. If you’re writing for Uncle Ned and Aunt Mable and not potential home buyers, I would imagine a free blog is just fine …but really , just how many homes can Aunt Mable buy from you? Coming from one of the world’s largest search engine marketing companies, we look at things differently. We have made over 80 plus changes or tweaks to our optimized blog so far and that’s only a small part of our service.

Me: How so ?

Myself: We’ve all heard the adage ” Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, Teach a man to fish and feed him for a life time.” Well if you consider a blog a fishing pole, we convert it into more of a net….and teach our clients where, how and when to throw it. By combining existing technology with creativity, our clients have a huge advantage over the competition. We teach them how to become a media and marketing company in their own right.

Me: By providing an optimized blog and also instructing clients with best practices, aren’t you as a media company ultimately putting yourselves out of business?

Myself: We don’t see it that way. When everyone else was attempting to understand Search Engine Optimization, Real Estate Blog Marketing already understood that it’s all about relevant content and determined that an Optimized Blog is currently the best vehicle to attract, manage and apply that content. We are already researching and testing new applications for Realtors in channels not even being discussed on technology message boards.

Me: Can you share some of the areas in which you are looking?

Myself(smiling):Not without killing you afterwards..We’re looking into a lot of things. Phillip Rosedale’s Second Life is an interesting channel and is being adopted by some pretty significant corporations like IBM, etc. They are generating a lot of new subscribers and have something along the lines of 600,000 sets of eyes a month currently. I know there were discussions about Second Life at the recent International Builders Show in Orlando but they( Second Life) still have a fairly high existing subscriber fall off rate. From a branding and market reach perspective , we want to see the same eyeballs visiting that channel over an extended period of time before recommending that to our clients. There is still too much low hanging fruit with existing channels to recommend something new to our clients just because it’s new.

Me: Like Real Estate blog marketing ?

Myself: I couldn’t have said it better myself.

More on this later

When we visit Real Estate offices, I’m often amazed at the lack of resources realtors use for their online presence.  Just by navigating the web, realtors would be better in tune with what’s going on.  Most of your marketing focus should be online and there are a few trends going on for 2007 that you must look into.
1. Real Estate Blog:  Just the purest form of Viral Marketing and another web property that you can put your listings on.  I won’t give away everything but you really have no idea how important a blog can be to a realtor….hint….$$$

2. Real Estate Video Advertising:  Why did google buy youtube for 1.6 billion….because video is important and 54% of online users watch video

3. Local Search: If 81% of a Real Estate search is started online, where are you?  What’s your local presence?

I wouldn’t try and tell any realtor what to do.  What I do try is to educate realtors on what’s the best form of marketing for their geographical location.  I wouldn’t expect everyone to get a blog, shoot video’s and concentrate on local search, but I can only hope that  a lot of realtors will investigate this more thoroughly.

With housing across the country slowing down it’s essential that agents in hot markets keep up on their marketing.  Where are the most affordable suburbs in the Untited States?  It’s extremely important that you raise your family in an area that will allow you to prosper.  The following list will help you with your search.  “Affordable Suburbs”  If you need any information on Real Estate in your area, do a google blog search and you’ll find what you’re looking for.  One of our clients is a featured realtor on that page.  Note the “Related Blogs” on the top of the page.  The only way for you to grow your business online as an agent is to reach people in everyway possible.  Where do you show up when millions of people across the country do a search on a blog search engine?  It may be time to take Blog Marketing a bit more serious before it’s too late.

One of the advantages that real estate professionals have over other blog owners is that they have an endless supply of things to write about. Everything that happens in a particular town or area is going to be relevant. A new grocery store opening up in a specific neighborhood may not seem like big news, but you should look at it this way; If I was planning on moving to a neighborhood, would I be interested in hearing about a closer place to buy my groceries? Is this neighborhood a good source of sales? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then go ahead and write about the new Harris Teeter in Stonehenge. As a realtor, you will get ranked on search engines quicker for keywords relating to specific neighborhoods. As a reader you will certainly be impressed by a realtor who has detailed geographically specific information on an area in which you have an interest. It will always help to put more keywords and more specific keywords in your real estate marketing mix.

One of the advantages that real estate professionals have over other blog owners is that they have an endless supply of things to write about. Everything that happens in a particular town or area is going to be relevant. A new grocery store opening up in a specific neighborhood may not seem like big news, but you should look at it this way; If I was planning on moving to a neighborhood, would I be interested in hearing about a closer place to buy my groceries? Is this neighborhood a good source of sales? If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then go ahead and write about the new Harris Teeter in Stonehenge. As a realtor, you will get ranked on search engines quicker for keywords relating to specific neighborhoods. As a reader you will certainly be impressed by a realtor who has detailed geographically specific information on an area in which you have an interest. It will always help to put more keywords and more specific keywords in your real estate marketing mix.

When one thinks of a professional usally a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a professor or similiar career that involves years of study or advanced education comes to mind. Not a real estate agent. Real estate agents are mostly viewed as salespeople trying to earn a commission. The majority of a real estate agent’s training and education involves closing deals. Convincing your prospect/client to buy from you and not your competition.

Real estate agents that want to separate themselves from the standard agent stereotype has to market themselves differently. They have to be willing to prove that their knowledge of the local market is superior to any of their direct competitors. This will enable them to earn the business of buyers and sellers that search and research the internet for local real estate information.

When consumers search the internet, they are looking for information. They aren’t looking for awards won, credentials earned, classes taken etc. Most consumers know that real estate agents are highly competitive and will do most anything to close a deal. Marketing strategies and campaigns are a direct reflection of how an agent views themselves. Those that market themselves with ads and pictures of themselves in magazines, newspapers, real estate publications etc. are using their image to earn business. Those that provide INFORMATION as proof of their knowledge - earn business by proving that they truly are an educated PROFESSIONAL. Prove that you are superior to your competitors by educating your prospects. Start using a professional Real Estate Blog today!

Many real estate blogs have talked about Zillow however most of the real estate agents we speak with really don’t seem to think much of Zillow despite the press it gets.
So when I saw this article about the FTC complaint against Zillow I wasn’t really surprised. Real Estate Marketing can be as simple or complex as you make it, but it all starts with good a content delivery system. The Best Content Delivery system right now is a Real Estate Blog.

Zillow started last February and quickly skyrocketed to popularity with its instant valuaions of homes and easy of use.