Teresa Boardman Article - Carnival of Blogging Success

I guess I would call my self a blogging enthusiast. It is an easy inexpensive way to have a web presence. I started a blog at the end of last year and have actually sold homes to people who found my blog.  I call them the people who live inside my computer.  I have also networked with  and learned from bloggers who live all over the country.  A couple of weeks ago I promoted one of my listings on a radio talk show.  I got that wonderful opportunity because I built a relationship with a fellow blogger who happened to be the shows host. Blogging really is about relationship building.

I got interested in blogs because even though there are zillions of REALTOR and real estate company web sites there is very little content for consumers.  People use the internet to search for information, not to look at REALTOR faces and logos.  Real estate agents provide local services that are personal.  Using a blog as a vehicle to market real estate services is a different kind of marketing.  The content focuses on the consumer instead of on the REALTOR.   The challenge is in finding out what it is readers want to know instead of how I can sell my services.

My blog tells the world that I know more than a little bit about St. Paul real estate and have such a passion for it that I can write about it almost daily.  My web site is now updated every time I post an entry on my blog.  The RSS feed is translated into HTML and appears as a headline with a link to the blog post.  This has increased the traffic to my web site and to my blog.  There is a link from my blog to my web site and I can see that people come to my blog and then go to my site.

There is a learning curve and I am still experimenting with different topics, ideas and key words.  I watch to see what my readers are clicking on and give them more. To date I suspect that many of my readers are other REALTORS and bloggers, but as blogging and RSS feeds become more mainstream so will my readership and subscribers. As email becomes more polluted with spam I think people will take advantage of news feeds making email news letters and drip email marketing obsolete.   It is not too late to ride the first wave and start blogging. 

The three most important things I have learned about blogging that I did not know when I started are:

1.  It is really important to read other blogs every day.

2. Blogging is addictive so I have to keep myself focused on what my goals are and who I am writing for.

3. Find your own voice, avoid the temptation to imitate others.

Teresa Boardman 

Comments

[jf]

Teresa you are so right. Blogging is about building relationships. Yes it is time consuming but the rewards are many, including meeting and helping new clients. And I would venture a guess that a client who finds you through your blog is more likley to be a repeat client AND a referring client than one who finds you through a newspaper ad.