74% of Business to Business blogs receive a minimum amount of commentary and track-backs.

65% – 95% are 1st time visitors.

-Forrester Research

In the blogging world of real estate it is hard to differentiate whether a blog is meant to create community or leads. I often teach that you want to create both, which is slightly confusing. As a Brokerage you want to produce a blog that is providing valuable information for your target audience, home searchers, buyers and sellers. On the flip side you are using your blog to help with SEO and ultimately generate traffic to your blog and website. In this sense your blog acts more like a B2B blog does than a social blog. Having a lead generating blog is not a bad thing, and in fact is easier to measure.

How many times have you logged on to your blog to see that no one has made a comment on any of your posts for the past three months? This can be very discouraging for a brokerage. However if you pulled an Analytics report on your blog and saw that you had 500 unique visitors last month, would you be happier? Come on 500 people viewing your blog, that is quiet a lot of initial contact with you and your company. The trick here is whether you were able to capture that visitor and how to determine if they are a qualified lead.

The quick way to see if its a lead: A lead would leave a comment, or move from your blog to your website. An advanced lead would then sign up for an account, a mailing list etc. So what is the easiest way to encourage lead activity- provide plenty of ways to get to your website and links to where to create an account, as well as create calls to action on your blog where they can sign up for mailing lists. 

3 things you can do right now to improve your blog!

1. Calls to Action- including calls to action on your blog is a great way to measure and generate qualified leads. This could include a button to sign up for your monthly newsletter or quarterly market report.

2. Keywords in the Content- Plan your next blog with keywords in mind. What would someone be “googling” to find your article? What terms did you use to “google” for research of your article? Use the terms you come up with in your content.

3. Keep it Relevant-Remember that you are writing or contributing to a real estate blog- no posts about your bagel and the synonym it formed for you about life. Instead, you could talk about the hip shop that you got the bagel at that is one of the up and coming neighborhoods in your market area.