These days, there’s more to closing a deal than just selling a house. Real estate agents must also focus on selling the location, the particular town or city that the property is in. People want to know exactly what they’re getting into when they buy a house, which means it would be a good idea to showcase the neighborhood, top schools, and other notable amenities in the area.

This is where a real estate marketing blog can really come in handy, as there’s no way you’d be able to talk about all of these things in a typical print campaign.

On a blog, you can do something as simple as providing links to relevant websites such as local libraries, school districts, chambers of commerce, government offices, and neighborhood associations, or you can go a step further and dedicate an entire post to the most noteworthy places.

Your posts could include a detailed description of the services these places offer, as well as important phone numbers, addresses, and other contact information. Photos would help make the effect complete, so don’t forget to use any you have (or be prepared to take some as necessary).

Selling your location is just one of the ways you can put a real estate marketing blog to work for you. In the coming weeks, we’ll be adding even more tips, articles, and advice that savvy real estate agents will want to take advantage of!

I’m thinking that I’ll be found for the title of my article pretty soon on all search engines. How? By making sure that my blog is optimized and making sure that my content syndicates to news sources and blog sources online. It’s no secret that a good well-thought out blog can lead to many sales leads for realtors. By simply learning the principles that Real Estate Blog Marketing teaches, you’ll be up and running in no time. The more you put in to your blog the more you’ll get out of it. We make it sound simple at times and sometimes it is. If you want to get started with a blog that will help you tap into more real estate leads….contact one of our representatives today.

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!

I’m sorry I ‘ve been away for a bit but I’ve been busy researching this startling discovery…Its kind of a double whammy after also just hearing that the sky is blue !
And as a footnote ….If you offer an easy, no money down mortgage to people with a bad credit history, about 20 to 25 percent of them will default once their variable rate mortgage increases and doubles their monthly payment.

Well it is in fact a round world and we should not have been surprised or caught off guard by the recent sub-prime lending storm. Cause and effect is not new. So the once hot market has cooled off…now what ?

I believe it was Einstein that said “The definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results. ” Change requires change. Isn’t it time to look into real estate blog marketing ?

To misquote Mark Twain , “There are liars, damn liars and real estate statisticians! ” I guess every person even related to real estate is awaiting the numbers due out today on January’s existing home sales from the National Association of Realtors. Analyst are predicting a slight increase over the rate of December’s numbers for previously owned homes sold. This would indicate the housing market is holding it’s own despite some concern in the sub-prime lending industry. However, even a strong showing doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is coming up roses.

Many economist say that last years numbers were increased due to a loosening of the wallet in the lending market. With investors nervous due to the risk of default in the sub-prime market, analyst are expecting the pendulum to swing the other way. So if you are using those numbers as a forecasting tool , you may want to subtract as much as 3% or more from that total! What’s a person to do ?

Put more tomatoes in the soup ! What ??? That’s right, you should be increasing the value you offer your customers !

But shouldn’t I be tightening the belt , cutting cost, preparing for the storm ??… Well I didn’t say spend more but it’s always time to spend more wisely. How are you using your current resources and time ? Still blanketing the supermarkets and community bulletin boards with your business cards and hoping someone will see you ? Nothing wrong with that but speaking of statistics , what percentage of people went to the supermarket hoping a real estate agent left a card ? ( I haven’t done the research but I’m guessing that number is pretty small.) Now by comparison, what do you think the people that went to the search engines and typed ” Homes in xyz ” were looking for ? It darn sure wasn’t bread and milk! With podcasting, video tours and other tools available from Real Estate Blog Marketing, it’s time to fish where the fish are ! Turnkey blog marketing programs are available which offer any level of hand holding . So , what are you waiting for , pass the tomatoes!

I just had a great conversation with some of the folks at Southwire, makers of the new patented FlatWire Ready wiring for home entertainment systems and flat speaker wire . I mentioned that this wire is available for speaker wire and electrical wire. I should mention that while this application is available for electrical wiring, it is currently only approved for low voltage wall sconces. Fortunately, you can find these beautiful and easy to install wall sconces at www.flatwiretv.com.

Stay tuned for more updates from the Builders Show and real estate blog marketing . I am hoping to run another series of articles on green building initiatives and new products for home owners.

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

Yes, I know that I have promised the rest of the interview with myself but at the request of all of my adoring readers, I have been asked to write something of value first. ( Is that better mom? )

We’ve all heard that Patience is a virtue but what about it’s much maligned and oft- neglected first cousin from the other side of the tracks, Persistence?

…..Oh, you remember Persistence ..you know, the one that requires knowing your market and clients/prospects so well that you add value each and every time you contact them . The one that insist you keep up with and master the latest opportunities like local search for Realtors, blog marketing and real estate blog marketing programs so you’ll have a reason to contact them. Persistence is the one that has you scouring the web for the freshest ideas and information while your friends get to watch “Deal or No Deal “.

Untamed and unbridled, Persistence becomes that pesky, embarrassing relative causing us sales agents, a.k.a. , business consultants, sales reps, account executives, to rank somewhere between eel slime and an IRS auditor, as to whom most people would like to have a conversation.

Coupled with Value however, Persistence becomes a formidable ally in winning the hearts and minds of your clients and prospects by achieving their goals…and ultimately yours…or you can just go back to watching TV and let your competitors worry about all of the “new stuff”…I’m sure Howie will be calling any minute!

Part two of the interview with myself will return tomorrow.

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.