Top 10 Reasons You Must have a Real Estate Blog

Lately, my favorite saying has been, “Websites are SO last year!“  And it’s SO true!   With the inception of social networking over the past few years, a real estate blog is essential to ensure you to get your expertise out there to the millions and millions of eyeballs and will help you become an authority that people know they can trust.   A blog is one way of getting information out in a conversational way without all the hype of advertising.

So why do you need a real estate blog? Here are our Top 10 Reasons:

1.  A real estate blog is your HUB of all your online presence.  It’s NOT your website!!  By linking your blog to all your online profiles and pages (such as Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, and LinkedIN) your audience has now gone from minimal to phenomenal! I could talk about this reason for weeks – maybe that will be a future post…

2.  A real estate blog containing relevant and hyper-local information which is updated regularly, will get great rankings in the search engines. When people search for a real estate agent in your area under the keyword phrases that you are using, this will get them to quickly to find you.

3.  Blogs are probably one of the easiest things for your readers (and potential clients) to subscribe to, making it automated for your readers to receive your new blog posts directly emailed to them as they are written. Get the plug-in for an RSS feed if it is not already built-in.

4.  As stated, a blog needs to have fresh content when readers go to check it out. With a self-posting blog (or scheduled blog), you can write something or post a message and have it post when you want it to in the future. This is especially handy for the holidays or while you are away at a seminar.   It will show readers that you are on top of things, consistency in your blog posts will continue and no gaps will be present in your readers updates.

5.  A real estate blog is one of the easiest things to set up and maintain.  No html or fbml coding experience is required and there are hundreds of great resource websites out there (such as our other company over at Tech Savvy Agent) to help you along the way.

6.  Do you have something that you sell that is related to your chosen profession? An e-book with tips on buying or selling a home or any number of real estate related products can be explained on your blog.  Then put it on a widget to direct them to the place where it can be purchased.

7.   Consistent posting is a necessity. When you have a real estate blog, you will get followers who will go there everyday to read what you have written. The more you post, the more people will go to see what you are talking about on any given day.

8.  You can backlink to your main website from your blog (if, of course, your blog is not your main site already), therefore, driving additional traffic to your other online lead generator too.

9.  Selling the real estate services you provide is imperative if you are going to make it in this profession.  When you construct a real estate blog, people can learn more about you, your exemplary services, why you are different from the rest, etc.,  Passion is key!

10. Your blog will basically put across the impression that you are available and can state information the consumer will find helpful in not only buying or selling a home, but information about your local community in general – such as upcoming events and attractions.  This is your opportunity to shine!

Having a real estate blog will cut the competition – as Krisstina Wise from The GoodLife Team recently (and in our opinion, accurately) stated in an interview with Chris Smith at Tech Savvy Agent, “your ROI will be evident in whether or not you will be in business in 5 years from now“.  Social networking, which most certainly includes your blog, is the new online lead capture tool.

Need more reasons?  Leave us a message and we’ll be happy to give you more!

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Tech Savvy Agent – Winner of 2010 Inman Most Innovative Blog Award

Tech Savvy Agent, a leader in hardware and software reviews, business related videos, tech advice, tips, and complete integration with social media platforms is thrilled to announce their most recent accomplishment of being awarded the “Most Innovative Blog” title, which was declared at the 2010 Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco on July 17, 2010.

For 15 years, Inman News has been recognizing the Nation’s best of the best real estate-based companies with, what has proven to be the industry’s top honor awards to those who have proven to be both technologically and innovatively sound in their applications and business dealings. This comes in the infancy of Tech Savvy Agent’s life, since they have yet to crest their one year anniversary of being founded. Past award winners have included Google Maps, Curbed.com, ActiveRain and Altos Research.

Tech Savvy Agent has certainly proven that the philosophies and strategies are not only highly effective, but now award-worthy too. Co-Founder, Chris Smith, explained his insight as to how they reached this milestone so swiftly, by saying it was “ultimately due to the entire team’s passion, drive and dedication to what they love to do.”

The team at Tech Savvy Agent comprises of Co-Founders, Chris Smith and Stephen Pacinelli, and Lead Contributor, Suzanne Roy. Smith and Pacinelli both have been speaking in front of thousands of Realtors across the nation over the past decade regarding tools, social media, online marketing and techniques that Realtors can take and use on a daily basis within their respective businesses. Roy has owned and operated her own real estate virtual assistant business,V.A. Work, over the last 8 years, providing up-to-the-minute online marketing, blog design and social networking services to Brokers and Realtors alike throughout North America.

Smith, Pacinelli and Roy created Tech Savvy Agent after it became apparent there was no true resource available for Realtors to go to, to gain relevant and reliable tech news, tools and tips of the trade. By utilizing these free tools, Realtors are now able to take their businesses to a whole new level and become a “Tech Savvy Agent”.

Tech Savvy Agent has been bringing the most cutting edge and sought after information to Realtors throughout North America both consistently and creatively.  Over the past few months alone, they have conducted exclusive interviews with individuals such as motivational speaker and author, Tom Ferry, Oodle’s CEO, Craig Donato, and Coldwell Banker’s VP of Marketing, Mike Fisher.  Most recently, Tech Savvy Agent hit the news with the interview conducted with Jonathan Rivera, owner of “The Official Real Estate Referral Group” Fan Page on Facebook, when this referral business to Realtors page was shut down – however, with almost 450 retweets and over 350 facebook “shares”, his Fan Page was reinstated (with a new NAR-compliant fan page name) the very next day.

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Thanks for participating in our weekly giveaway!

We will be posting the answer each Friday, so stay tuned!  Winners will be contacted via email the following Monday.

Small Print:  No substitutes will be awarded in place of the weekly giveaway.  Prize cash value is 0/20 cents. 

Attention Real Estate Agents!

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Effective time management for realtors has been an ongoing issue for many.   If you are running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, then you probably need to sit down for 5 minutes and take some notes!   The most successful business people, whether it is within the real estate industry or not, are those that manage their time effectively.

There are some very effective ways to manage your days and just like anything, once you have these systems in place they become second nature.  Take a look at the following five tips on how to effectively manage your time each day and see which ones you already use and those that you may want to consider adding:

1.  Make A List Each Night

Making a list of your following day’s activities not only prepares you in advance but also allows you to get started straight away the next morning.  I used to create my list of activies in the morning, however, I found that it took away time in my most productive part of the day (being the mornings).  With that being said, you may be more productive at night, but the most important thing is to create a list that is reasonable and attainable to complete each day.

2.   Keep It Quiet

Keep distractions down to an absolute minimum.  If you are anything like me, you’ll have multiple things going on at any given time and having additional distractions will significantly reduce your management of time.  By shutting down your email and turning off your phone ringer during your most productive hours of the day, you can improve your completed work load exponentially!  It may feel strange or even scary to keep everything quiet for a few hours, but it will definitely be worth it!

3.   Don’t Procrastinate – Prioritize!

Whether you want to believe it or not, getting your dry cleaning done does not take precedence over creating an action plan for your past clients!   Prioritization goes hand in hand with procrastination – it’s so easy to push items that you don’t really like doing to the end of the day (or even tomorrow), even though the priority is certinaly there.   Best thing to do is make a habit of getting those dreaded tasks done first and make them the priority and then move on from there.  At the end of the day you’ll be glad you did and probably feel like you’ve accomplished a lot more than if “it” is still on your list.

4.  Learn, learn and learn some more

By consistently picking up (and using) more tools of the trade, you will natually become more efficient in your work.  Tech Savvy Agent (our other learning resource site) is a great place to go to gain some amazing tips and information on the latest and greatest tools within the real estate industry.    TIP:  Instead of having to remember a bunch of resourceful websites to go back and read, sign up for their new information to be automatically emailed to you when they are posted through their RSS feed.

5.  Invest in technology tools

It seems like every day new techy tools are being introduced to the industry – from iphone apps to ipads – it’s a little overwhelming, right?   Think about what technology tools you currently have in place that you don’t use (or don’t help you manage your time), and which ones you believe you should get more information about?   Ask around and see what your co-workers or broker says, or post a question on your Facebook Fan Page and see what responses you get.

Making conscious decisions each day in and around these five tips will definitely assist you in becoming more effective in your time management and ultimately your success as a realtor.  Give them a try and let me know how you are doing!

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Here’s a quick (real quick!) tutorial on how to add a new custom tab to your real estate fan page using the FBML app. This would be necessary if you wanted to create a new tab on your Fan Page for showing custom information not provided by the default Fan Pages (such as the Info Tab, Photos Tab, etc.,).

Remember, your Real Estate Facebook Fan Page is one of the MAJOR avenues for gaining new leads! Customize it so that it is something you are proud to display, just like your website and/or blog! Please let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment in the form below the video tutorial.

Check back again for another Real Estate Virtual Assistant Quick Tutorial!

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