U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ben A. Gonzales

The usefulness of your website to your visitor needs to be established in the first impression.

Here’s how you make sure you are successful in that effort.

Step 1. Establish EXACTLY who your target audience is.
Step 2. Ask yourself these 2 questions:
- What is the most important feature/information you can provide to this audience?
- What are they expecting/looking-for when they click to visit your site?
Step 3. Choose your calls-to-action based on the answers to #2.

Below are a list of common CTAs we’ve included on our clients’ websites.

However, do not add CTAs to your because they seem useful. Only add the CTAs which powerfully connect with the intended audience. And, similar to an overstuffed navigation, the more CTAs you add the more it waters down the effectiveness of the lot.

IDX (Quick Search, Advanced, Map)
Listings (Featured, Alerts) 
Contact (Ask a Question)
Market Info (Reports, Statistics, Updates)
Home Valuation (Comparative Market Analysis)
Schools (Search by School, District Overview)
Testimonials
Subscribe (Newsletter, Blog Updates, RSS)
Seller Reports (Packet, Checklist, eBook)
Buyer Reports (Packet, Checklist, eBook)
Foreclosure Relief (REO, Short Sales)
Foreclosure Property (REO, Short Sales)
Mortgage Tools (Calculators, Current Rates)
Communities (Neighborhood Profiles, Building Quick Search)
Video (Testimonial, Introduction Message)

Don’t take the above as a definitive list of the CTAs you must include on your site. Seriously consider your target audience and only present the few CTAs that will make the best impact.

So where do you place the CTAs on the site?

The short answer is: Above the scroll (fold).
The idea is for them to be noticed immediately, so burying them in the footer, or low on the sidebar is not ideal. We cover suggestions on what to include in the sidebar(s) and footer in subsequent posts.

Stay tuned for Part Four where we will cover the Property Quick Search Module.

Don’t miss earlier installments of this series: 

Part 1: The Header
Part 2: Navigation

It’s contents just as curious. An Electron Robot and a note expressing that they would appreciate me blogging about it.

Apparently it has to do with a new marketing campaign that C.A.R. launched with the help of indie marketing firm Red Tettemer.

I was not sure I fully got the message. So I emailed Red Tettemer:

“So the bringing of two robots (new best friends) together is the end result of an effective CA REALTOR? And then we get robots in the mail to reinforce that message?”

“Exactly” was their response.

I’m still not sure how this curious campaign is supposed to help spread the intended message, but I’m doing my part since I know my son will love the little guy.

Thanks C.A.R.!

The curious box:

Part Two: The Navigation

Almost every article we write should could start off the same way: Consider the audience you are intending to attract to your website. Make every decision with them in mind.

The navigation of your site is no exception. Applying the above to the decision of how to lay-out your navigation couldn’t be more important. After all, you are presenting to the audience how to navigate a website built for them.

The rule of thumb for an effective navigation module is to make it visible, intuitive, and concise.

AVOID overstuffing the main navbar. Items presented should share a similar value. The more you add, the more you water down the value of the rest. Because your site has a specific audience in mind, present the options that they expect/need.

REMEMBER that this is the navigation that will typically be seen on every page. So it needs to make sense regardless of the context.

USE dropdowns to offer additional navigation.

Typical elements we expect to include in the main navigation (text can vary):

Home
About
Contact

Other elements commonly included in the main navigation (text can vary):

Communities/Neighborhoods
Blog
Buy a Home
Sell a Home
Listings/Foreclosures/Featured/Sold/Rentals…
Property Search
Testimonials
Market Reports
School Info
Home Value

Pro Tips

1. Set up an Ulterior Navigation (if your design allows) to satisfy the standard/expected items: Home, About, Contact. This frees up the main navigation for real estate specific items. Click for example of an Ulterior Nav.

2. Don’t confuse Navigation with Call-To-Action.
Because a navigation is typically uniform in appearance (all the tabs/links look the same) everything stands out to the same degree. Include items that effectively organize the site’s content.

Calls-To-Action are to be reserved  for items that are meant to grab your visitor’s attention most strongly. If you include your most important CTAs into the Navigation, you will diminish their impact.

3. If you have an active blog on the site, use a dropdown menu to include the best categories of content. This is a great way to get visitors curious about your content.

Stay tuned for Part Three where we will cover Calls To Action.

We have designed a ton of real estate websites; nearly 1,000 to date.

Every one of them began with a comprehensive Design Interview between client and the Real Estate Tomato creative staff.

Each interview has us covering, in detail, several integral elements of the custom real estate website.

This multi-part blog series is an exhaustive overview of each of those elements.

Part One: The Header

It is my opinion that the header (the upper most module) should be clean, direct, conspicuous, and expected.

Typical elements we expect to be included in the header:

1. Your brand/logo/slogan

2. Your most necessary contact info (name, phone)

Additional elements that are commonly included

Headshot
Company logo
Ulterior navigation (home, about, contact, login)
Social media icons
Imagery (collage, hero image, slideshow)
A must-see call-to-action
Site content search
Content subscribe CTA (email/rss)

Common Header Types for Real Estate Websites

The Goal of the header (or website for that matter) is to make an impression that connects with the target audience. If your website’s goal is to be super clean with more-than-obvious calls-to-action then a minimal header could server you best. However if instant brand recognition is important, then a big first impression header may better suit your needs. Or maybe you need to steer your audience down an obvious path; an engaging header.

The Minimal

These headers tend to take up very little vertical real estate and include only the most basic elements.
A band of color (or white space) anchors it to the top of the viewing area.

Ex:

Ex:

The Big Impression

The impression that you make is to be obvious:

Your location (landscape, landmark, skyline…)
Type of property/niche (luxury, first-timers, foreclosure/short-sale, architecture…)
Your personality/image (headshot, bodyshot, personal logo…)
Your brand (over-sized logo, obvious website theme…)

Ex:

Ex:

Ex:

The Engaging

When you need your audience to react to a specific call-to-action, placing it conspicuously in the header will get the job done.

Ex:

Ex:

And of course, you could always have a combination of any of the above.

Stay tuned for Part Two where we will cover the Navigation of the Real Estate Website

Photo by Evan Swigart.

In order for something to be made perfect we need to determine what criteria we’re aiming to satisfy.
For me, when you publish an article, you should aim to accomplish at least the following:

1. Help you be found by the target audience, including search engines and your social media reach.
2. Communicate an effective message to your visitor as quickly as possible.
3. Bring your audience closer to doing business with you.

Sounds easy enough…

So what’s the least amount of content you can create in order to satisfy all the above?

Minimum Effort To Perfection:

1. Write A Great Headline.

If you fail at headline writing you will never be a successful blogger.

Why?
If your blog headlines aren’t compelling, no one is going to click to read them. Fail to connect with your audience and they will never visit in the first place.

The headline is the best and easiest place for SEO success. By using keywords and being descriptive in the headline you now have a competitive piece. Google wants to present the results that matter to people’s inquiries.

When your headlines satisfy both what attracts Google and your visitors’ clicks, you win.

Remind me to write: How To Write The Perfect Blog Article Headline.
I took a stab at it some years ago – but I think I can expound.

2. Always Always Always Include An Attractive Picture

So you got them to click because of your great headline… now you have to deliver that next punch that will set the tone for the blog article; eye candy.

In order to gain and maintain your audience’s interest you will need to make an instant connection and offer continuous stimulation (eye candy). Leveraging an image (or 2 or more) to enhance your message can mean the difference between a 5 second glance and a 3 minute read of your content.

The Essentials For Using Images In Your Real Estate Blog Articles

3. Write Pithy Content

The faster you can connect with and deliver the message to your audience, the more effective it will be.

Here’s the trick to writing high-impact, concise content:

- Pretend you are paying someone $3 a word for copy.
This will force you to get to the point and cut out the unnecessary fluff.
For example the above could be more economical like so: “This forces you to cut the unnecessary.”
7 words instead of 15. Or $24 cheaper =)

- Practice writing 5 articles in a week, all under 200 words each.
(For context, I average ~1000 words a post. )

- Pick a picture with the most impact.
If it can be worth a 1000 words think of all the typing you have just saved yourself.

-  Instead of using in-depth explanations, link (in a new window) to additional commentary, definitions, and/or related content.

 4. Properly Categorize and Tag Each Article

Every article you write should fall under (at least) one of your well planned categories.
This helps communicate the agenda of your consistent message to the visitor and to the search engines.

Similarly, tagging one’s article by it’s topic(s) is a crucial step in organizing your content. While your categories help you identify the general agenda, adding tags to an article help you identify the particular subject matter.

5. Link To Related/Relevant Articles In Your Database

Similar to properly categorizing your content, by offering links to related content from each article, you are satisfying all 3 of the perfection criteria above.

The links encourage your audience to continue reading, in turn building trust and showcasing your expertise.

The search engines are able to spider deeper into your archives and make connections as to the relationship between your content and keywords.

6. Locate Clear Calls To Action

Whether they are designed into your article template (automatically included on each post) or you craftily weave calls-to-action into your copy, an article can’t be perfect unless you are enticing your audience to take an action that leads them closer to doing business with you.

Additional Elements Of The Perfect (Longer) Article

Simply look at a longer article as if it were just a series of pithy articles under one main title.

1. Headings – Another Chance at Headline Writing (see above).

The best way to keep your audience reading through longer copy is to break up the content with Headings. Establish a solid point and write a rich title right smack in the middle of the article.

For more info on how to properly use Headings in your articles, check out our WYSIWYG article.

2. Formatting – The Best Way To Ensure Your Long Article Is Read

Making an article a joy to read goes beyond the content itself. An attractive article, one that is easy to read and follow, increases the chance that it will be read and finished. Learn to master the use of Headlines, Pictures, Links, Short Paragraphs, Pull Quotes, Block Quotes, and Lists.

3. Add Additional Images

More images means more unwritten, yet clear message impact.

Examples Of Perfect Real Estate Blog Articles

Just browsing through the client base I uncovered a few that satisfy most of the Perfection Criteria:

Five Reasons To Buy A Virginia Beach or Hampton Roads Home Now

Great headline, easy-to-read formatting, nicely integrated calls-to-action, and resourceful links.
Suggestions: The stock photo looks a little cliché, could use some related posts, and the category “Real Estate” is a little less than descriptive.

Complete Guide To Coconut Grove’s Gated Communities

Great headline, great picture, very useful map, easy-to-read formatting, great integration of CTAs, great resource links, well categorized and a great text template CTA at the footer of the article.
Suggestions: Additional reading/related-posts – and maybe another image to break up the content (but not necessary).

What Does $1 Million Buy in Today’s Very Strong Santa Barbara Real Estate Market?

Great headline, great pictures, very easy-to-read formatting/font, great integration of CTAs, great resource links, great related posts, it is well categorized and a great use of quick-search links.
Suggestions:  None.

Hat tip to Steve Beam for requesting this topic to be covered here.

Biting off more than you can chew will be the death of your real estate blogging.

But I hear it all the time: “My blog needs to showcase that I specialize in these 10 communities.”

You have 2 hands/10 fingers and only so many hours a week to dedicate to content creation (blogging). How can you possibly create enough content to come off as the expert, equally, for all 10 communities? You can’t. Not alone, anyhow.

“But I want to make sure that people know how much ground I cover.”

The best way to do this is two-fold:

1. Write up profiles for as many communities as you reach. Showcase this group in either a carousel or a sidebar group/list linking off to each profile.

2. Leverage your IDX functionality to offer property searching in a wide range of locations. This can be done in a quick search dropdown and/or in a sidebar list, not unlike the profiles above.

But successfully covering this range of communities with blogging content is another story.

In order for blogging to work, and work swiftly, you need to illustrate to your audience that you are an expert on your topic(s).

This is done by comprehensively covering a niche from many angles (housing market, entertainment, landmarks, schools, parks, events, listings, etc). By spreading your efforts across many locations, you water down your impression to whimsical.

Look at it this way:

If water (success) is 100′ deep, you don’t dig five 20′ holes.

You get started digging to 100′. Once you have reached success for that niche, you can set out to dig subsequent holes. Your experience will be better because now you can apply what you have learned to be more effective, more efficient and more properly expectant of your effort.

The Bottom Line For Blogging On Multiple Communities:

I understand that you want to showcase the range of ground that you cover locally. So do this with property search options and community profiles. But leave the blogging effort (at least in the beginning) to at most a couple (that’s 2!) communities. The audience that you attract with your blogging will respond to your efforts. This will in turn encourage you to continue blogging, opening up the opportunity to cover a greater range in the future.

The following are tips that will instantly improve your website’s SEO, Aesthetics, and Visitor Experience.

The goal of this article is to quickly and significantly improve your site’s visibility and user experience. If you have been actively blogging for a while then I can guarantee that you will find great value in it.

SEO Improvement.

I’m not here to shove keyword density, PageRank, or backlink strategies down your throat.  Here are just a couple of simple (and easily overlooked) tips for improving your website’s SEO.

1. Run A Check For Broken Links

Broken links refer to any link on your site where the destination is an error page. This can happen when URLs that you link to have changed, been removed, or they were entered incorrectly in the first place.

Broken links on your site can not only be embarrassing to you and frustrating to your visitor, but they can also have a detrimental affect on your SEO. The good news is that it is easy to search for and repair your broken links.

Here are 3 options:

1. The WordPress Plugin: Broken Link Checker.
Support for this plugin.

2. Online Web App: BrokenLinkCheck.com

3. Desktop App: Xenu Link Sleuth (hint: use the Direct Download Link)
Funny name, but this is the original power search for broken links.

Broken Links are going to continue to happen. It is part of owning a website full of content. So another (bonus) suggestion here would be to have a custom 404 page (the page that loads when a broken link is clicked). A functional 404 page will offer clear calls to action, a content search box, and sometimes something clever – just for fun. A quick Google image search returns some examples of what I am referring to.

2. Link New Articles To Relevant Older Articles and Vice Versa

Linking one article to another is one of the easiest ways to improve the performance of your website.
Improvement is twofold.
First, your are now providing a link to additional content on the topic to your engaged audience. This keeps your visitor on the site longer, improving your chances of conversion.
And secondly, there’s great SEO value when linking in this manner. The more you link around your website, the more the search engines are able to index deeply into your pages. Linking to old posts allows them to be reindexed, in turn giving them new life.

Overall Housecleaning

3. Clean Up Your Sidebar(s)

If you’re not careful your website sidebars, because they are widgetized, could end up being as cluttered as your attic. Your general rule of discard should be, if you haven’t used it in a year get rid of it.

Categories
Revisit your choice of categories. If there is one you haven’t been using delete it, or hide it. If you have two that are similar, combine them. Consider renaming categories if they’re not descriptive or keyword rich. Click to read a more comprehensive blog category strategy.

Archives
If you haven’t already, change your Archive list to a drop-down menu using the standard WP widgets.

Clutter
The goal of your site it to make your site as simple as possible for your visitor, clutter causes confusion.
Toss outdated badges, awards, affiliations, chiclets, groups, ads, and other completely unnecessary items.

4. Clean Up Your Footer

Like the sidebar, it’s time to remove items that offer no value to your visitor. Common useless items I see in there are badges for (now defunct) blog directories, blog rankings, and webrings.

The very bottom of your site should have, at most, a selection from the following items:
Contact profile, including a business address
Your DRE #
Real estate affiliations
Equal housing and REALTOR® logos
Site credits
Login link
Copyright Info
A reprise of your branding/logo/company logos
Text navigation matching your header’s nav.

That’s it.

Simplify the Visitor Experience

Certainly the above items could fall under this heading, but the following are specifically geared to making sure that your visitor’s experience is as good as it can be.

5. Improve Your Fonts

First of all, you have a blog, right? And you want people to stay and read your articles? MAKE THE FONT BIGGER! Make it easy on our eyes to read your writing. But, do not do this in the text editor. All your font changes need to be done in the CSS Stylesheet.  For more on this, Learn To Use The WYSIWYG Properly.

Secondly, Google now allows us to choose from hundreds (and growing) of unique fonts for our web content. Break out of the Arial/Verdana/Tahoma funk and spice up your fonts! This touch of personality will make a difference in first impression and overall attractiveness for your content.

6. Reconsider Your Calls-To-Action (if you even have any)

What are the first action items that your visitors see on the site? Make sure that these are in consonance with your visitors’ expectations. But most importantly, make sure that your CTAs are driving your visitors one step closer to doing business with you.  This is all that matters: Are you giving them the experience that they are anticipating, and does that experience lead to working with you?

OK – so this might not be an “instant improvement” but it is something that you really need to take care of immediately. Otherwise your site is not going to perform to its potential. Contact us on this if you are not sure how to make the most of this consideration.

7. Re-evaluate Your Niche – Have You Strayed From Your Intended Audience?

A formula for successful real estate blogging is hammering a niche. But if you have been blogging for a while, there is a tendency to waver from that focus and just publish to publish without much consideration for who you are reaching.

Every year, every month, every week, every day there is a new audience visiting your site. They rarely dig deep into your archives. This means that they are not reading all the great, relevant, niche posts you published over the last few years. Start that niche again – dig in and publish on the same topics/neighborhoods/niches that you have built your site to satisfy.

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.

Some of these tips might require working with a designer to accomplish, and if you find that you need this level of support, contact us first – we’d love to help!

Today’s article was written by blogging client: Geordie Romer of IcicleCreekRealEstate.com.

99 Problems but a niche ain’t one
If you’re having SEO problems I feel bad for you son
I got 99 problems but a niche ain’t one
(With apologies to Jay-Z)

So often when I hear real estate agents complain about their lack of leads or lack of web presence, I try to explain to them that it might be a lack of focus that is keeping them from success. It’s so much easier to be a big fish in a small pond than vice versa.

Are you a beginning real estate blogger trying to figure out how you will compete with the budgets of Zillow, Trulia or Realtor.com?

“Washington State real estate” brings 395 MILLION results on Google and “Seattle real estate”, 174 million. A bigger city like Chicago brings 450 million results for the term “Chicago real estate.”

These are horrible odds.

Unfortunately, I hear of agents who actually try and service an area that size.  If you serve five counties, four congressional districts and three area codes, I would argue that you aren’t a “local expert” in much of anything.

My main service area is a small resort town east of Seattle. Leavenworth is a Bavarian themed town and a destination for outdoor recreation ranging from rock climbing and skiing to mountain biking and river rafting. The population within the city limits is 1993 people and 6500 in the zip code.

And yet.. some of my best success stories come from finding EVEN smaller niches.

I noticed that there wasn’t much competition among agents in the local golf course neighborhood. The houses were upper end homes and there were condos for sale as well.  The agent who had worked for the original developer was transitioning out of real estate and into a golfing retirement in Palm Springs.

I bought a few relevant URLs and began to create content. I wasn’t an overnight success. I wrote a few posts on my blog and on Active Rain in 2007 and over the years the dividends continue to pay me back.
On Google, results 2 through 7 lead the consumer to me. The top result is the resort itself, but not any of my competitors.

Since 2007 (the last five years), my wife and I have sold 1/3 of the real estate in this neighborhood. Over the last two years, we have sold 2/3 of the properties.

In 2012, this translates to 7 sides and $43,000 in commissions.

Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow? I don’t think they know this neighborhood exists.

I may have 99 problems, but my niche ain’t one.

Geordie Romer is a managing broker in the resort town of Leavenworth WA. He has been blogging about real estate since 2004 and can be found online at www.IcicleCreekRealEstate.com or on Facebook.

Most real estate business generated through the internet is capturing interested buyers.

The reason is simple: Buyers are generally very active online while searching for property.

With the internet, one can dig through 100s of listings before making a decision to go see one in person.  This process can take months as they get more and more serious about the decision.  Up until that moment, they are usually guiding themselves through their search online, using multiple sources to browse property.  At every turn during this stage, if you have the tools they need, there is an opportunity to engage the buyer.

Sellers on the other hand, although anxious to sell their property when the time is right (or the time is right now), are not nearly as active as the buyer.  Their need is to find the agent that can get them the best, serious offer for their property.  Their goal is to make the right decision with an agent so that they don’t have to guide any of the process.

As an agent, build the trust that you are that best resource and you win the business.

How To Improve A Webite’s Ability To Attract & Engage Sellers

Firstly, one needs to put themselves in the shoes of the seller.

♦ What are the most common concerns/questions that you have to address when you are looking to win the business of a potential seller client?

♦ What are the most common challenges that you have to overcome with sellers?

♦ What are the most common services that are expected of you by a seller?

♦ And finally, what are the most common reasons you fail to win the business of a potential seller client?

Address all of the above quickly and easily through your website and you’ll start to win seller business.

Here Are Some Expert Tips On How To Accomplish This Goal:

Represent and Showcase Your Listings in the Most Positive Light.

Dedicated Listing Pages
A well organized, and clean layout for each listing shows that you care and it gives a nice first impression for all your listings.

High Quality and Appropriate Photographs
You don’t want to end up on BadMLSPhotos.com  – If you are not (yet) a good photographer make the investment with a professional. The photos of your listings are so crucial to making a good impression. It seems like this is the most overlooked element of listings, and that is a major failure.

Comprehensive Descriptions
If you want to improve the SEO of your listings, write unique, comprehensive content/descriptions. Copy/pasting the descriptions off the MLS is a mistake. That content is strewn throughout the internet and your site’s listings will not be seen as unique to Google, and therefore ignored.

Homepage Showcase
If you want to attract sellers, you need to prove to them that their home will be seen by all traffic. Getting listings on the homepage can be done with an elegant slideshow, carousel, sidebar list/gallery, or at a minimum in a drop down from the main navbar under Listings.

Effective SEO 
You need to get your listings’ home addresses on the front page results of Google. If you are listing 123 Elm St, San Diego, CA and you are not on the front page for that search phrase, you are doing it wrong.

So how does one out perform Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, Redfin and the rest of the big dogs?

The simple answer: You need to prove to Google that you are the best authority on each dedicated home address.

Using the above: A dedicated listing page, comprehensive content/description, a direct link to the listing from the homepage, and finally, blog about it. All this unique content, with exposure on a highly indexed page (homepage), and multiple links using the listing home address virtually guarantees you a top 3 placement for any standard listing.

Video/Virtual Tours
We cover the importance of video in greater detail below, but this list would be incomplete if we failed to mention that a quality video tour of your listings will impress your potential seller as well as the house shopping buyer.

Single Property Sites
Another effective way to make your listings stand out is to dedicate a stand-alone website and URL (1234ElmStreet.com) for the property.

There are a number of competitive single property websites available, but I think that the best approach would be the following. Design a unique theme dedicated to your listings and publish them as pages on your site: (yoursite.com/1234-elm-street). Then forward the dedicated URL (1234ElmStreet.com) to the custom listing page on your site. This way you are not wasting the SEO value of your listings on single websites, but rather growing your own website’s SEO with unique listing content.

Dedicate Content To Engage Your Seller Traffic.

Blog to the Seller

Some ideas:

Questions From Your Sellers, Answered.
You are expected to have all the answers, show that you do. Strip the identity of your seller and answer it much like you’s see in a Dear Abby column.

Use Active Listings As “Teachable Moments”
Rather than just forcing listing data into your blog, use the listings you have to educate your seller audience on the importance of curb appeal, negotiating, staging, open houses, photography, new paint, elbow grease… And, as a bonus you have yet another link to the actual listing details on your site driving that SEO for the property (see above).

Seller’s Objections
Handle the challenges that you know your future sellers will present before they become a stumbling block. Think: Price reductions, Zillow, comparative values, days on market, commission, waiting on the market, you know the ones…

Success Stories
No one else is going to publish your awesome sauce. Pat yourself on the back by telling a story with a happy ending. Make sure to always link to your testimonials page.

Be Honest About The Market
People appreciate the straight talk. Discuss market conditions honestly presenting the pros and cons as often as possible

The Selling Process
Break it down step by step over many articles.
Listing appointment, contracts, MLS, advertising, the Internet, open house, offers, price changes, days on market, negotiations, contingencies, closing, post closing, moving…
You can always pin another tail on that donkey.

Home Value Improvement Tips
Every seller will want to know what they can do (or avoid) when it comes to getting more for their property.

Maintain A Gallery Of Sold Listings

Keep it simple – you are not trying to sell these listings, but rather your recent activity.
A picture, an address, a price, and the date sold.

Develop A Must Read Sellers Info Page That Includes:

Your Mission Statement
An Outline of Your Listing Marketing Strategy
An Outline of Your Strengths
Lots of Testimonials both Written and Video

Strong Calls To Action That Garner Sellers’ Attention – Hook Them!

Again, you must get into the shoes/head of your seller traffic.
When you know what your audience is looking for, it’s much easier to provide it.

What have they come to find? Answers to their questions? Services for their needs? Examples of your awesomeness?

Some ideas:

If you are going to go the Free CMA/Home Value route, make it super simple.
The more complex the experience the more you scare them away. Consider breaking the process into two simple steps.
Start with requesting the Home Address, and then (after selecting ‘continue’) ask them for contact info. And that’s it – forget all the other details, you can get those once you have made contact.

All-the-while, make sure they know that they can just pick up the phone to initiate the process.

Downloadable eBook
(idea: Collection of best seller advice/blog articles)
Offer something that they can’t just read on every other real estate site.
With a nice graphic, a killer title, and a required email box, you’ll get leads.

Set up an email subscription (feed) to your blog category for sellers (e.g. Home Selling Tips).
Making it clear to sellers that they can subscribe receive to Seller Specific content – free of all the other blog updates.

Video Video Video

A recent study claims that 73% of homeowners say they are more likely to list with a realtor doing video. I assume that they mean doing video of listings.

But, just as bad photography can only hurt the impression you make, a bad video is definitely worse than no video at all.
Either start practicing until you have skills, or hire a professional.

A great way to practice your video skills is video blogging (vlogging), video testimonials/interviews, neighborhood videos, and finally lots of listing walk-throughs. But please, do not publish without considering “is this going to hurt or help me?”

1. Blogging Works

The simple formula of blogging regularly to a well defined audience pays off.

Most agents never get to experience this success because they:

A: Can’t commit to blogging a few times a week
B: Quit before they start to see results

So how long does it take to generate leads from blogging?

The answer is “it depends.” But you can help speed up your success by blogging with a specific target in mind. Instead of thinking that you need to be on the front page (of Google) for “San Diego real estate” in order to put yourself in a position to generate leads from your blogging, aim to be found by your target audience based on their specific needs.

Chances are, once you have really defined EXACTLY who you are aiming for, you realize that the phrase that they are searching with is not “San Diego real estate.” It is more specific; a community, a niche, a situation, a type of property… When you are focused on a specific target, you can’t approach it broadly.

For some this success comes in a matter of weeks, for others is can take months. But if you understand the above, and commit to writing to it, IT WILL WORK.

2. Blogging Is Easy

By definition it is just writing and publishing an entry to your blog/website.

The hardest part is getting motivated and finding the time to make it happen.

The most important thing is to hit publish as often as possible. That means Publish Pithy Posts!

3. The Leads Are Great

“Jim, I have been reading your blog for a few months now, and I love it. You have answered so many questions – some I didn’t even know I had. Anyhow – my wife and I are ready to talk to someone about selling our home and we’d love to meet with you.”

This is a typical lead that our blogging clients receive from their blogging efforts. Your audience gets to know you, your expertise, and dedication to their education before they contact you. And, it is for all these reasons that they do contact you.

Gone are the days of a database of fake emails and phone numbers entered just to access your property search.

4. Blogging Makes Them a Better Real Estate Agent

A dedicated blogger can see improvement in the following areas:

Discipline
Focus
Organization
Networking
Exposure
Expertise
Knowledge
First Impressions.

All of which are hugely important to being a successful real estate agent.

Why Real Estate Blogging Makes You A Better Realtor, Part 1 of 3

5. They Dominate In The Search Engines

It’s no secret – the most common reason for our clients to start blogging is to take advantage of the awesome power a blog has for being found on Google.

Blogs can be very well optimized for search engine success. This coupled with a regular posting habit is the recipe for taking over the results pages for coveted search terms.

6. There Is Plenty Of Room To Compete

How many agents are in your association? 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 20,000? Out in the field, you are competing with a sizable percentage of them for new business.

You won’t find a market with 1% of members actively using content creation (blogging) as a marketing strategy. Heck I bet you can’t find one with 0.5% of the members blogging.

This means that there is plenty of room for you to carve out your own active audience for the most obvious of topics and locations.

7. The Sooner You Start The Sooner It Works

The first thing keeping you from being a successful real estate blogger is getting started.

Your audience is out there waiting for you to establish a reason for them to start working with you.

Waiting until you “have the time” or “when the market slows” or “when I get an assistant to help” is just prolonging how long it will take to start getting leads.

8. They No Longer Suffer With A Bad Website

Bloggers understand what makes their site successful. They know why their site is being found in the search engines and why their leads are contacting them. They are familiar with the workings of their website. They are in control and the positive results happen because they make them happen

The mystery of how to generate business from the web is no longer there.

Blogging has made them relevant, current, competitive and savvy.

9. It’s The Best Marketing Money They Spent In The Last 5 Years.

You need a website, and you expect to pay for its development and hosting.  But now that you are in full control of its success, the cost to achieve it is measured only in effort, not dollars. Once you have everything in place, the act of blogging is free.

Improving your presence in the search engines with post: free
Building an audience around your expertise: free
Gaining the trust of your readers: free
Generating leads: free