blogging - Real Social Results

Real Estate Virtual Assistant says Blogging Is A Waste Of Time!

However, there is an “UNLESS” missing here…

And the “Unless” is the key to transforming your wasted time to massive changes in your traffic, leads, and sales.

As a Real Estate Virtual Assistant who specializes in working on Realtor’s websites and blogs on a daily basis, I know the many secrets that makes a blog work for your benefit and what makes them a complete waste of time, space and effort. One of the secrets that is so obvious it almost hurts, is where your blog is hosted. Do YOU know where your blog is hosted? This is a basic question that I would say many (dare I say most) Realtor’s would be completely unable to answer, but is VITALLY IMPORTANT!

“But“, you ask, “how can I tell whether or not my blog is hosted on my website?”

Right now, go to your website where your blog is being posted and see if it says either:

http://www.yourwebsite.com/blog (or something similiar), or
http://www.yourwebsite.com/blogger.com (or another blogging platform such as wordpress, blogspot etc.,)

If it is the former, then GREAT! You have your blog hosted on your own website. If it is the latter, then you’re in dire need of some changes, and quick!

Hosting your blog on your own website is so important because without your blog being hosted within your own website, the search engines are not going to be driving traffic to your website, and therefore you won’t be getting increased traffic, leads or sales. The attachment is not there between your unhosted blog page and your website, so search engines such as Google do not correlate the two as having anything to do with one another.

Hosting your blog page on your website costs just pennies (about $50/year through GoDaddy) and is an absolute must. So if you aren’t sure, go to your blog right now and see what your url says.

For more information on blogging and how you can make yours work for you, check out my previous post on “Top Tips for Making Blogging Worthwhile“.

Top tips for making blogging worthwhile

There are many aspects and tricks of the trade when it comes to being a successful Real Estate Virtual Assistant. One of them is using tools that are available online at zero cost to you and your clients! A favorite tool that fits this description is an online program/tool called Photobucket. This is a great tool that I use almost daily when creating eye-catching blogs for my real estate clients.

Blogging is an ongoing project that I have been completing for many of my real estate clients for the past few years, and is becoming more and more popular as the months and years go by. Real estate virtual assistants are able to complete hundreds of blogs on behalf of their real estate clients by blogging about dozens of different topics just as easily (if not faster and better!) as the real estate client themselves including:

Local Events
Neighborhood Information
Community Spotlights
Area Attractions

One aspect of blogging is the content and making sure to have backlinks to other web pages within the real estate blog and website, while making sure that the blogs are easy to read – first written for the reader and second for the search engines!

Don’t forget to add bookmarks to websites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, etc., which will provide you with amazing incoming links from high ranking sites into your website – the difference this simple addition to each blog that you write is staggering! It’s a must-do in my books!

Another aspect of blogging that is important is being pleasing to the eye and including some “interactiveness” to the content. To do this I have utilized several online programs, one of which is Photobucket.com which allows me to create slideshows of pictures. An example of how I would do this is when I am highlighting a subdivision within one of my real estate client’s market area and I include a slideshow of photos of several of the homes within the subdivision currently for sale, some photos of the amenities (if applicable) and also of the surrounding area and attractions.

Here is a sample of a Tulsa Real Estate blog slideshow which I created in about 2 minutes using their online program – simple, effective and eye-catching.