4 Points For Starting a Blog Before and After You Have Passed

Blogging can benefit your real estate business on multiple levels as long as you are posting on a regular basis with good, relevant content.

You need to establish yourself as the real estate expert in your community, with information that gives real estate tips and explains local trends in the market. It helps establish yourself in the community above and beyond your competition. It will also build online exposure by consistently adding fresh content to your site with keywords relevant to your community.

The problem is that this takes time out of your day. As somebody trying to study for the real estate exam or trying to build your business, finding time to blog can be difficult.

Here are 4 key points to keep in mind as you build your blog.

1. It does not matter if nobody sees it. Just writing posts is not enough to gain accomplish your goals; you need to get it in front of people as well. List the ways you are going to be promoting your real estate blog and on which outlets, such as Facebook, Twitter, or your email list. Also think about which people you will be targeting and with what tone.

2. Pick your platform. The top blogging platforms I suggest are WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger. You may already have a platform for blogging-a quality real estate company will usually have something already set up or at least be able to point you in the correct direction.

3. Create a blog strategy. Before putting the time into launching a blog, outline the type of content you'll write (with quality headlines!), how often you'll publish, and what your goals are for your blog. You also want to think about your voice. Do you want to take a humorous tone so you come off as having a personality? Do you want to take a professional tone? Perhaps a little bit of both? Examples of goals may be to increase credibility in the industry, add value to your customers' lives through tips and advice, increase web traffic, have better rankings in search results, etc. You'll need to commit some time to blogging, so make sure you have the time, or delegate these efforts. Creating a strategy will help you determine how many posts you need to write, how often, who will write them, what they'll say, and who the audience is that you're trying to target.

4. Plan ahead so you can be consistent. The key to successfully blogging is to make great content that relates to your area on a consistent basis. To save time and stay organized, plan out blog posts for the next couple of months and then put them on a blog, editorial, or marketing calendar. Then work backward: based on when a post is being published, plan when you'll write it, edit it, design images, and upload it. There are many tools where you can schedule posts, such as Hootsuite. Also, Wordpress has a function where you can schedule the date that a post is sent out. This can help you be consistent with your posting.

If you already have a blog, send me a link! I would love to see it and share it.