StepsMLS Blog:Blogging

Many times when an Agent gets a website it is way too vague. The Realtor may work the greater Sacramento area, but that doesn't mean they should target the greater Sacramento area with their online marketing. There is without a doubt thousands of other Agents targeting this same area. This might sound like bad news, but really it is great news. With so many Agents targeting such a large area it opens up huge gaps for you to target a few neighborhoods and really clean up in those areas.

If you can use Pay Per Click for a neighborhood that is great, but in smaller cities sometimes there is not enough traffic per month for Google to allow this. This isn't a problem because it is usually very easy to obtain a top ranking organically(free) with such a targeted area.

Here are a few tips to help you rise to the top ranking in Google for your target Neighborhood.

1. Use your Neighborhood as the domain name.

Now it might not always be possible to have FairOaksRealEstate.com or FairOaksHomesForSale.com. Sometimes they are available, but many times you will have to go a little deeper. For example, right now FairOaksCAHomesForSale.com is available and that specific keyword gets searched 4,400 times a month!

With such a specific keyword such as Fair Oaks CA Homes For Sale, and a matching domain, you are well on your way to making the first page of Google.

2. Start a blog on your new domain.

Blogs are one of the best ways to climb up the search engine rankings. Google loves them and they are also a great way to keep in contact with potential clients. Not only that, but if someone goes to your site and see you update it several times a week, they know you are serious about your business and working hard.

Be sure to use your keywords in your blog posts. Don't stuff them in there so it reads like a robot wrote it, but try to write your blog posts around them. For example, every week you could do a blog post titled "Fair Oaks CA Homes For Sale 10-2". You could then list some of the new listings for that week in your blog post. Not only does it give your potential clients useful information, it also helps you increase y our rankings.

3. Rinse and repeat.

Start with one Neighborhood and get some experience under your belt, but once you feel halfway comfortable with it go ahead and replicate the same process in one or two more neighborhoods. You can do this for as many areas as you feel comfortable with, although I do suggest starting out slowly. It can take a lot of time to build a dozen sites at once while maintaining your old ones.

Once you have your new sites up, it isn't too hard to come up with blog content. Write 3-5 posts a week per blog and you will start gaining traction in the search engines fairly quickly. Once you get to one of those top spots you can scale back the amount of blogs you write per week significantly. This will allow you to then start on a new Neighborhood specific website to gain even more clients.

When I say "Blogging" what comes to mind? Some idiot spouting off at the mouth about his personal opinions that no one cares about? Yeah, that's what I figured.

Unfortunately this is what comes to many peoples minds, but a Real Estate blog can actually bring you a lot of clients and make you a ton of money.

How?

By using Blogging to gain traction in Google, Yahoo and other search engines. If you want people to find your Real Estate website, blogging is your new best friend. Think of each blog post you make as a whole new website with its own target audience and it gives you another chance to reach potential clients.

Wouldn't it be great if you could have 150 different websites and each website could be in its own Real Estate niche? Foreclosures, first time buyers, investment properties, you can cover it all.

If you had this many sites, how many people would find you every month? Probably a whole lot more than are finding you right now.

Now of course you would still really only have one website, but each time you make a post it gets put out there on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. and after a while will dramatically increase your search engine ranking and the chances of clients finding you.

Here are a few tips to get you started blogging.

1. Get a blog.

Too obvious? I wouldn't suggest signing up for a free blogging account at Blogger or Wordpress. You want to have your Real Estate blog integrated into your website otherwise it won't do you much good increasing your page ranking. You also want the potential clients who find your blog posts to end up on your website, not on Bloggers website.

2. Pick your Keywords.

So for each post you make you want to have a specific niche you are targeting. For example, it could be "Miami FL Foreclosures". This would be the niche, or keyword, you are targeting for this post. You want to use the words "Miami FL Foreclosures" in both the title of the post as well as in the first paragraph. Be sure not to go overboard though, it still needs to read as if a human and not a computer wrote it.

Your main goal should be to obtain the top Google ranking for as many keywords as possible. This will be very difficult for a keyword such as "Sacramento Homes". But for a more specific keyword such as "Sacramento CA 2 Story Homes" it will take much less time. If you have top rankings for 50 keywords that maybe only get 20 searches a month, that is still 1000 potential clients each month that will be looking at your site.

There is a WHOLE lot more to picking keywords than this but that is a topic for a whole series of other articles.

3. Blog consistently.

This is very important. The more blog posts you make, the higher your chances of being found are. Try to blog 3 times a week for one year and before you know it you will be all over Google and Yahoo. You will eventually start to make first page rankings for some of your targeted keywords and the calls will start flowing in.

There is so much to blogging there are thousands of sites dedicated to just that one topic. It isn't a hard thing to do but there is always something new to learn when it comes to blogging and search engine optimization.

Be sure to keep checking back for more articles on Real Estate blogs.