Ask Yourself, Why Am I Blogging? The Most Difficult Part Is Having An Honest Answer.

Blogging is a big commitment.  By starting a real estate blog you are embarking on what could be a never ending writing adventure.  If you are going to go forward with it, shouldn’t you ask yourself “Why Do I Want To Blog?”
Blogging is a strategy.  Yet, in order for the strategy to be something that you can really get behind, you need to understand and define your goal.  You will defeat yourself, or rather blogging will defeat you, if there is no clear definition of what you want to achieve.
If you are unsure of your goal, how can you be sure of how much time to dedicate to blogging, or whether it is actually ‘working’ for you?
Do you want to be the most read blog in your city, community, niche?
Do you want to generate buyer leads? listing leads?
Do you want to help educate past, current and future clients?
Do you want to remain relevant in these fast changing times?
Do you want to be like someone that you respect that blogs?
Or is it something completely different?
I’m bringing it up because if you can’t clearly define your reason for the effort, you’ll end up spending a lot of time on something that you don’t even comprehend.
To succeed at something that requires the commitment that blogging does, you will need to know, without any doubt, exactly why you are making the effort in the first place.
This is not to say it is futile to flounder around a bit as you find your voice.
To be honest, I did exactly that.  At the onset of the Real Estate Tomato, I knew I wanted to blog, and was very excited about the whole thing.  The mistake I was making however was that I had no clear goal other than to post as often as I could about whatever I thought y’all wanted to read.
I remember thinking that I was blogging because I didn’t want to be left behind, that I wanted to be ‘heard’, that it would support my speaking engagements, and that it meshed well with my personality.  But those thoughts were not the real goal.
Soon it all became crystal clear and I have blogged with that clarity in mind ever since.  Education has always been at the center of my marketing strategy, and once I saw the impact that my Blogging Advice articles were having on my income, reputation, readership and participation in the comments there was no doubt as to what was my definition of Blogging Success.

The goal of the Real Estate Tomato Blog is to make an impact with every Blogging Advice article.

The impact is clear when the your comments are intelligent.
The impact is clear when we get mentioned and linked-to by other blogs.
It is this impact that satisfies all the resulting rewards.
Now when I sit down to pound out an article, I consider the impact it will have, and I write for that goal alone.
So before you write another article, or before you make the decision to finally start a real estate blog, take a few minutes and drag the honest answer out of yourself.  Write down all the reasons for which you think you are blogging, and uncover the real goal.  Now drive.