“The Goal, as captured by Ray Lussier in 1970

This is the 5th in a series of brief blog articles inspired by Good Earth Tea® quotes.

“A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.”
-James A Garfield 1831-1881

I played hockey as a boy and I believe the most important take away from the experience was that those who worked hardest had the best luck. Or rather, luck was nothing more than putting yourself in position for fortune more often than the others.

In front of the net you battled, and lived off the discards of the opposing goal keeper. To force a goal from there meant you needed the courage and determination (read: pluck) to stand your ground in order to be in position for the easy put-back.

It’s no stretch to claim that hard work & determination in blogging
will put you in the best position to generate the deserved lead.

The formula is simple, and for our regular readers a dead horse well flogged: 

The more you publish, the more you are spidered by the search engines for your content.
The more you are spidered, the more you appear in the search result pages.
The more you appear the more often you are chosen by those preforming the search.
The more visits to your content, the more you are read.
The more you are read, the more your audience comes to trust you as an expert.
The more you are trusted the more relationships you create.
The more relationships you have the more business you generate from your efforts.

The concept has been approached from many angles over the years
and can be browsed by the Lead Generation category.

This is the 4th in a series of brief blog articles inspired by Good Earth Tea® quotes.

“The palest ink is better than the best memory.”
-Wise saying from the Orient

We all appreciate that our clients recognize us as the go-to-resource for answers to their questions. Being seen as the expert is rewarding, and it is also the best reason for them to trust you.

What if you could have all your best answers at the ready for anyone getting to know you for the first time?

What if you could instantly showcase your experience and wisdom to the potential clients that are searching for someone like you?

What if you had a repository of fantastic ideas, observations, opinions, revelations, advice and whim so large that you look back on it unable to remember most of it, but nod in agreement with your former self?

This is blogging.

It is easy, and it can be an incredibly impressive trove when you make it a habit.

Photo by Ingrid Taylar.

This is the 3rd in a series of brief blog articles inspired by Good Earth Tea® quotes.

“From the rose proceeds a thorn, from the thorn a rose.”
-Wise saying from the Orient

Personal experiences generally pave the way for a more compelling, and natural narrative.

Having been there (and actually) done that permits one to share from memory rather than the hypothetical.

Relating your tales from the curb, where a bad situation actually turned out better than expected, and where a too good to be true really was, you can make a great connection to your audience.

We’d love to hear your accounts of these triumphs and to be made aware of potential tribulations.

Blogging doesn’t always have to be about the stats, the schools, the events, and the news. It can, and should also be tales from the heart that help you relate as a real person, making the best of what-may-come.

Take your yarns of lemons to lemonade, and closed doors opening windows of opportunity and bring us a little more intimately into your world as a Realtor®

This is the 2nd in a series of brief blog articles inspired by Good Earth Tea® quotes.

“The first duty of love is to listen.”
-Paul Tillich 1886-1965

One of the best, first lessons I learned in my growth as a salesperson was to sell with your ears.

Listening to your client is not only courteous and appreciated behavior, but it gives you a chance to really understand their needs. When you client is considering making a major financial decision, and you as the salesperson, you do all the talking, 2 things usually happen that spoil the relationship.

1. Your client feels like you are just forcing them into your pitch – that this experience is just another cookie cutter event for you, and them.

2. You fail to have the chance at understanding what the client’s objections are – objections that could have been overcome.

This lesson couldn’t be more helpful when it comes to a sound approach at blogging.

Beginning bloggers are always so concerned about what they are going write about. They want their efforts to have a big impact; turning their writing into business.

The best article ideas come right from the clients you already have.

When they ask a question, consider, is this a good blog article that others would appreciate?

When they pose an objection, consider, do others have this same challenge to overcome?

When they are struggling to understand something, see it as an opportunity to clear it up for an audience much larger than one.

Start listening to them with your blogger’s hat on, and you’ll never run dry on content worthy of publishing.

When I need a mid-day mental boost I prefer tea over coffee. Yerba maté is my favorite for its energy kick without the jitters. The focus improvement may just be placebo, but don’t tell my brain that.

Recently I have been drinking the yerba maté rich Good Earth® Energizing Tea. It’s much less of a process than the traditional manner of preparing maté.

Anyone who drinks Good Earth® will notice that printed on the tag of each bag is an inspirational quote.

I’ve collected a few dozen of them and wanted to see how easy it would be to apply each quote to some real estate blogging advice. The exercise is as much a vehicle to deliver counsel as it is an illustration of the usefulness of whimsical inspiration and succinct postings.

Today’s inspirational quote (as seen on the image at the top of the article) is:

“‘Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”
-Abraham Lincoln

As useful as I think this bit of advice from our stovepipe hatted president can be when it comes to chiming in on a topic with which you are not intimately familiar, I do see it as terrible advice for a blogger.

One of the main objections to publishing one’s thoughts online is the fear of being seen as a fool.  And although for many this is entirely possible, for those whom have firm ownership of their subject they should publish freely.

Tools alone on a website do not illustrate your expertise. You must showcase what you know about your audience’s needs. Answer their questions while and before they ask them. Cover topics so completely that you are clearly the resource they seek.

So while you may apply Abe’s advice at your next cocktail party as politics wafts its way into conversation, recognize that sound blogging will have you thought of as the expert in your own field.

I’ve written a lot of posts.
Some might say I have the hang of it now – but this wasn’t always the case.

I used to hate writing.

I did poorly in English classes in high school, poorly on the Reading/Writing portion of the SATs, and got a C- in the only writing class I had to take in college.

A future as a writer was not in the cards.

But I love discussions. I love to share experiences. I love to teach. I love solutions. I love being a consultant.

The Real Estate Tomato was born from the idea that my (online marketing) advice needed to have a more permanent location. The progressive ideas escaping my mouth and passing into the collective ear and out the other of my audience was unsatisfying and (I believed) under-appreciated.

I needed to reach an audience that was going to leverage the knowledge I had to share, and not just nod in agreement.

I started reading blogs about my own interests to see how others were sharing their insight online. I was sold immediately. I had to try and be a blogger myself. It seemed the perfect medium to be heard and appreciated.

The fact that I am no Ernest Hemingway couldn’t compete with my determination and enthusiasm.

Looking back on some of my first articles (you’ll be hard pressed to find them) I cringe at their state.  But after plugging along and reading 100s of articles from bloggers better than I, the format to developing an effective article became clear: Give the audience what they came to read as quickly and obviously as you can.

We’re all consultants, right? We spend our time with clients either answering questions/concerns or teaching and sharing wisdom.

It would seem that since we have no issue communicating effectively enough to have people continue to do business with us, we should be able to deliver this same message, just as effectively through the keyboard.

The trick is the following:

1. Don’t be afraid to jump right in.

Your audience when you first start blogging is you. No one is going to laugh at you, or point out how terrible a job you’ve done. There is no criticism to fear.

2. Blog about what you know & don’t over think it.

Pretend you are composing an email to a new client. You are direct, clear, confident and helpful.

Don’t try to sound like a writer. Compose on topic and make it easy on yourself and your reader.

Don’t try to write everything you know in one article – leave something on the bone.

Don’t try to be clever/funny if you’re not.

Get comfortable delivering sound information and you’ll find your voice.

3. Learn to write effective headlines.

This advice is the linchpin to your success – and I have written a ton about it and so has Copyblogger.

4. Use the Cookbook Recipe Format to compose quick and easy-to-appreciate articles.

Delicious Title.
Scrumptious Picture.
Warm Intro.
Tasty Bullet Points.
Satisfying Conclusion
Sweet Calls-To Action

Leave them wanting more.

5. Develop the habit.

Consistency is key to your success in the search engines and with your readers.

6. Bad artists copy. Great artists steal – Pablo Picasso

Learn from the bloggers that you most respect. Be inspired by their techniques and leverage them as your own. To be successful, you learn from the successful.

Taking time off from writing on your blog whether intentional or just an effect of your focus on other elements of your business does not need to be its demise.

Note: If you have taken a break, inadvertently or not, and you don’t see yourself getting back on the train soon, then you should consider a few actions:

1. Removing it from the first impression of your site
Place your blog behind a button as opposed to leaving it on the homepage for every new visitor to see that you have failed to update for months.

2. Removing visible dates from posts to make it difficult to discern when articles were posted.
Typically this is a simple code edit that any savvy service provider can tackle in seconds.

I have taken several breaks from blogging, and am just getting back in the swing from one now.

Even though I have written hundreds of informative articles, the most common emotions I feel because of the lapses are guilt and embarrassment.  We have trained 1000s of real estate agents how to leverage blogging for business and here I am not applying rule #1: Create content.

The only consolation is that I can certainly relate with those in our audience that have slipped similarly in trying to maintain a consistent blogging effort.  I understand how business can get in the way, how days of lapse turn into weeks which turn into months.  But, be assured, I am never far from this blog.  I have dozens of new ideas sketched out, headlines written, half posts never completed, and I, like all of you, am always pushing forward with sound advice albeit not in written form.

Recommitting to blogging is a great idea for all the same reasons that it was in the first place. Blogging helps you be found online because of the expertise that you took the time to share. Gaining exposure to your new content and the re-spidering of your older content is a huge boost when competing to be found for the topics you cover. There is arguably no better way to make a first impression to your visitor.

Once you get excited about blogging again, try not to lose that momentum.

Instead of writing that Epic Post, try just publishing a little bit at a time.
Frequency is the key – the habit is the muscle that needs to be redeveloped.

Imagine trying to get back in physical shape after a long break. You know what it takes, you’ve done it before, and you know it is going to be a shock to the system to dive in full force. You don’t just start running 5 miles a day, every day. This is a sure way to injure yourself or at a minimum put up a pace that you can’t maintain.

You ease into it, but with discipline.

Some might need to walk for several days before they can even jog, some start jogging short distances, slowly increasing their goal.
But the key is the discipline. Whether it is just a short jog, or a slow walk, it needs to be done regularly to reestablish the habit.

Similarly, after not blogging for a while, the goal of trying to fit in 5 hours a week of writing is usually unreasonable.

Begin with short, high-impact posts that can be published in less than 20 minutes.

Here are some ideas to get back to blogging with the least amount of impact on your keyboard.

1. A Teachable Moment from a Listing

I love the idea of taking the experience of visiting a listing on tour, snapping a couple of quick images with your phone and making a teachable moment out of the experience.  Perhaps it is a great example of curb appeal making it stand out in the neighborhood.  Or perhaps it was staged brilliantly and showcases to be worth more than comparable homes on the market.

These examples could be posted in just a few minutes and the impact is clear; use your everyday real estate experiences to showcase your experience on your blog with a picture and a paragraph.

2. A Multiple Part Series of Quick and Easy Points.

Got a great idea for a post, but immediately recognize that it is a doozie?  Don’t look at the mountain and get overwhelmed, just break it up into multiple articles.  Turn what could have taken you 2 hours to write into 2 weeks of content.

3. Photo Blogging

With today’s smart phones you can snap great photos and even dictate a description to your blog in minutes. Once you get the hang of using apps to snap, dictate and publish, you’ll be updating the blog every time you leave the house.

4. An Email Re-Published

You write a lot of emails, a LOT of emails.  We all do. Lots of times it is a very well thought-out answer to a client’s question. How many others could benefit from this answer? Clean it up, make it anonymous and put it on your blog for your whole audience to appreciate.

5. Rewrites of Oldie-But-Goody Posts from Your Archive.

You can never step in the same river twice. There is more than one way to pin a tail on the donkey.  Just because you said it once doesn’t mean that there isn’t another way to say it, and there’s a whole new audience that has yet to hear it from you.

6. Pearls of Wisdom

Post quick, 1 or 2 sentence nuggets of sound advice.  It is just enough to get you back in the swing of publishing, and back on the train.

What to avoid?

1. Long Winded, Analytic Posts.

I know I am guilty of these every time I sit down to blog.  But this is a case of do as I say and not as I do.  All my blogging is analytic, which is probably the cause of my own blogging lapses.  Knowing that you have to commit an hour or more for each post sure makes it difficult to reestablish the habit.

2. Copied Content

Avoid the short cuts to get back into blogging.  Copying a post, or linking off to someone else’s article is not blogging. This is garbage and won’t help you reap the benefits of the exercise.

3. Research Posts

This should not be work, especially when you are trying to get back into the swing of a regular blogging.  Similar to the analytic posts, a research post (market statistics, laws, etc) will leave a bad taste in your mouth when it comes to duplicating the effort.

4. Listings

Republishing MLS data is not blogging.  I’ve read the apologists that claim it’s a sound strategy and I fail to see their logic. I see your role as a real estate blogger as one providing wisdom, not regurgitating what is on the MLS – that’s what your Search for Homes button does.

5. Excuses

Don’t feel like you need to explain your absence.  Just get back on the train and blog what people want from you – wisdom, insight, expertise, opinion, news, knowledge, tips and entertainment.

The best strategy is to never stop developing content even if it is not ready to be published.

If you enjoy blogging and the success that comes with it, but yet still find yourself unable to maintain the commitment that you know it takes, I suggest not letting yourself get too far from the blog in the first place.

Write what you can, even if you aren’t close to ready to publish it.

Ways to stay connected to your blog without having to get back full steam:

1. Keep a list of great blog ideas.
2. Write blog headlines for future articles.
3. Sketch out bullet points of future articles.
4. Write the first paragraph for future articles
5. Try publishing something at least once a month.
6. Go thru your older posts and do a little housecleaning: Locate potential re-writes, do some proofreading, or even delete articles that you no longer want to be a representation of your focus/expertise

All of the above exercises take the minimum effort and will be a great repository of content for you to delve into once you are ready to reestablish your commitment.

In the real estate industry, one never knows where their next client will come from.

It could be a referral, a friend, an inquiry on an ad, a web lead, a new acquaintance, an up/floor call, a walk-in, a relative… you can’t know – but you are ready and willing to be of service to them in any and all cases.

First-time home buyer? Relocation? Empty-nester? Move-up buyer? Short seller? Investor? Flipper? Luxury seller? Vacation home buyer? – you can’t know – but you are ready and willing to be of service to them in any and all cases.

In town? 5 miles east? 10 miles west? 2 towns over? – you can’t know – but you are ready and willing to be of service to them in any and all cases.

As a real estate agent, typically, you will work with most anyone that is seriously looking for your services. There’s no discrimination, you’re happy to be of service.  You will provide them with the proper answers to all their questions, deftly handling all their concerns, establishing trust and you’ll see the deal through to the end.

You’ll do this because you are competent, smart, experienced,
eager, personable, capable and ready.

Unfortunately the task of creating this impression online is not as easy as being yourself.

One of the biggest hurdles we need to help some of our clients overcome when they are in the planning stages of developing their real estate website is that they want to make their site a clear reflection of their business model, and this is a nearly impossible task.

They know that they can help any potential client regardless of the person’s age, budget, experience, needs, location, scenario, etc.  And, they don’t want to have to compromise this competence in the impression presented by their website.

The challenge might be quickly summed up in the old adage:
If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.

But there’s more.

Blogging for business in real estate is about building trust that leads to relationships with the audience you reach.
In order to establish that trust, you need to be seen as competent, experienced, and savvy – the perceived expert.

Now consider the amount of content that will need to be created to establish this impression by your full spectrum of potential visitors. First you will need to write exhaustively about every neighborhood that you’re competent to cover.  Then you’ll need to tackle all the common questions, concerns and challenges of every potential buyer/seller you could work with.  I have to stop here because I’m getting anxious just thinking about how much work this would entail.

Once they recognize that they aren’t going to be able to please everyone, and that any attempt to do so will in fact have them impressing no one, we can then work on who we should attract and impress.

Instead of seeing their online presence as an a reflection of their business, it needs to be seen as an extension; a tool to effectively attract business.

So the question we ask is: “If we can help you generate 12 new sales over the next 365 days, and they all had to be from the same sort of client, how would you define them?”

With attracting buyers for example:

What community do they want to live in?
What price range?
What sort of RE experience do they have?
What is their income?
Career?
Family?
Married?
How old are they?
Where are they from?
Political lean?
Religion?
Past-times?

You get the idea.

We want to help our clients narrow the focus of their content and calls-to-action so that they avoid trying to attract and please just anyone. Once this is established, the vision for the website becomes much clearer for them and us.

We are not painting you into a corner, but rather laying out the red carpet for new business, business that you want and expect.

Almost all of our clients are real estate bloggers. However, they are not all showcasing their blog articles in the same fashion.

Some put the blog at the forefront of their website’s homepage, while others tuck it back onto a secondary page only accessible by a button on the navigation. Some use sidebar widgets to showcase recent articles, others leave truncated articles on the homepage, just below the fold.

How does one decide how to present blog content to their audience?

What are the pros and cons of showcasing or not showcasing your real estate blog content?

The Front and Center Blog

Placing your real estate blog content on the homepage as the prominent content under the header/navigation is the most aggressive way to showcase your blog.

The blog articles are positioned to be a main impression of your online presence. Whether you choose to blog about market statistics or announce the grand opening of a new ice cream parlor in town, your audience is going to notice. (So are the search engines – but I’ll get to that in a few paragraphs)

If you are a dedicated real estate blogger, and you are using this to your advantage in your marketing strategy then pushing your blog on visitors is a sound approach. But the key to success with this plan of attack is the dedication. If you are not blogging regularly (2-3 times or more a week) then I would consider a different approach.

By putting the blog front and center, you are making a commitment to your audience that you will provide them with relevant and fresh content. Content that is going to bring them closer to doing business with you – because they read and appreciate it. By putting the blog content front and center, you are begging for it to be noticed at the cost of your audience not immediately locating the ubiquitous Search for Homes call-to-action.

If you are unable to keep up a patterned posting pace, the first impression you end up making is a Stale Blog.

A great motivation to maintain a Front and Center blog on your real estate website is the SEO benefit.

The Weight of the Homepage:
Publishing new content onto the homepage not only gets it spidered most frequently and effectively, but it is also giving it more authority. Your homepage is considered the most relevant page on the site (so far as the focus of your site is concerned) and the content that hits this page is going to be given more weight than if it were buried in the secondary.

More Headlines = More SEO
By adding the blog to the homepage you are also showcasing more Heading Tags (H2) there. Headings are given more weight than the rest of the articles’ content.

Truncated vs Full Articles on the Homepage.

If a homepage blog is the answer for you, you’ll need to decide whether or not to showcase full articles or truncated versions, or even a combination of the two.

The full article’s greatest benefit is amount of content on the homepage that will be spidered, but it comes at a cost.

If your articles are lengthy, the display of just a few in a row can result in the ‘toilet paper roll effect’ where it just scrolls and scrolls.

Besides the unkemptness, large amounts of content (including images and multimedia) can stall load-times for your site.

The truncated approach allows for a much tidier appearance* as well as the instant presentation of several articles without the need to scroll too much.

It can be argued that the SEO value is not as strong as the full article showcase, but at some point you need to consider form over function, and I believe this is one of those cases.

After all, the idea is to connect with the visitor and by giving them a broader sense of the range of content you create, you improve your odds of doing so.

*In order to effectively use the truncated approach you need to have this as an option in your design/theme. If you don’t, then you will need to change themes or have one designed to automatically truncate with style.

Pro tip: Place a keyword rich, static, introductory paragraph (or 2) above (or below) the blog articles on the homepage. Include a heading, descriptive text, links to relevant pages and some calls-to-action. Because a regularly updated blog will constantly be changing the content that is on the homepage, this will secure an anchored description for the search engines.

The Blog Headlines Widget in the Sidebar or Footer

A widgetized website allows you to place a Recent Blog Articles list of headlines on your sidebar or footer (should your theme permit). You can choose how many headlines you want to show and exactly where you want this list to appear.

Some bloggers that have a Front & Center blog will also add a recent article widget to their site. This allows for easier navigation to the content as well presenting a permanent list of articles on all pages of their site.

The 2 main reasons to not showcase your blog articles Front & Center are:

1. The frequency of your posting is not something to showcase.
If you are not writing regularly (at least a couple of times a week, faithfully) then you’ll want to put less emphasis on this fact.

2. The organizational strategy of your site is strong calls-to-action, leaving no room for space hogging blog articles.

Putting the Blog Behind a Button

The most inconspicuous way to present your blog on the homepage is behind a header navigation link or call-to-action button.

This works best when the blog is a less relevant element of your site, but not something that you want to bury altogether. Linking to the blog from the homepage ensures that it will be indexed properly.

This can be a great option for those that have blogged a ton in the past, but are burned out and not keeping up with the pace that a Front & Center position demands. Visitors can still enjoy the bank of content without recognizing immediately that you fail to post regularly.

Pro tip: If you are in this position a good trick is to remove the display of the posting date from the articles making it difficult to discover when the posts we published.

Pro tip 2: Under the Blog button list your most popular blog categories in the drop down menu as shown in the example.

If however, you have never been able to keep up any consistent pace of regular blogging and you have just a few dusty old articles, it might be time to remove any exposure to that blog from the homepage.

The Blog Below the Fold

One final option is to place the blog below the fold (or scroll) – meaning it is not a top tier item nor part of the visitors’ first impression.  This strategy allows you to take advantage of having some dynamic content on the homepage without using up real estate reserved for branding and call-to-action.

Typically this approach uses truncated articles as illustrated in the example.

The live examples of the screenshots* presented can be seen here:

TheRealEstateCoconut.com
SantaMariaHomesOnline.com
Hibanism.com
ArbourRealty.com

*Please note that the live example format may no longer match the screenshots in the article.

If you would like to learn more about how to most effectively include a blog on your real estate website, contact us for a free consultation.

Have you been working hard on your real estate website (or social media profile) and not getting the results that you expected?

Well we have a special free webinar planned at tackling our fans biggest question of them all “What’s Wrong With My Website?”

When: Tuesday, October 4th at 11am PST / 2 pm EST

How Long: 90 minutes or more!

How Much: $0, Zip, Nada! No Strings Attached and No Sales Pitches

Where to Sign Up: What’s Wrong With My Website? Webinar

Why You Should Attend: You’re probably used to hearing, “You get what you pay for” and most free training that I have attended has been worth what I paid.  This class is different because veteran bloggers, Jim Cronin and Daniel Bates will be giving up raw, honest feedback on real examples of real estate blogs.

We might make you laugh, we might make you cry, but more than anything, we hope to make you think about how you have been doing things on your blog and how might try things differently.

Those that submit a question will get the most our of this webinar, but everyone that attends will walk away with ways to improve their efforts.

Why This One Will Be Different: In previous free classes by the Real Estate Tomato, we have tried to answer as many questions as possible as quickly as we could to make everyone happy.

This time we’ve decided to tackle bigger questions and will really be digging into the websites and researching the content before the class  to try to offer the best advice that we can to a few lucky attendees, while still putting things in a light that makes these examples applicable to all who attend.

One Last Thing: In addition to this class we have also packed the Tomato University calendar with some really great training for the month of October.