My first blog was set up in 2006 when I was embarking on my short real estate career (the markets made sure I wasn’t there very long!). I focused mostly on the challenges and issues that I was facing at the time, while throwing in a few funny anecdotes that come with the real estate gig in Baltimore City (e.g. bums and crackheads taking residence in unoccupied homes).
If I had known better at the time, I would’ve focused a lot less on ME and a lot more on my CUSTOMERS. I would’ve written about what they wanted to know about local neighborhoods, housing trends, good deals, how to get loans (ok so that wasn’t very hard at the time–back then a pulse was the only real requirement for a real estate loan), neighborhood information, etc.
I also spent a lot of time worrying about how much traffic my blog was receiving and not much time thinking about the quality of the traffic and how to reach the people who might actually convert into leads for me.
Well there I go again, talking about me, and not about you. I’m telling you about my experience so that you can avoid it. If you want your blog to generate leads for you, then you have to blog about what your customers want.
Real estate people caught onto marketing way before most local niches (probably because real estate agents spend 80% of their time on marketing), but most local niches are full of small business owners that are just catching on to local marketing. That means that you can start a blog on your domain now, start blogging about your expertise, and start generating leads. The sooner you start, the harder it will be for your competition to catch up.
Just make sure that you start your blog on your own domain, and not Blogspot!
The bottom line:
- Put yourself in the shoes of your customers
- Establish your expertise
- Blog at least once a week
And don’t expect instanteous results–a blog is about cultivating relationships with your readers (and with search engines).
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