Writing entries for your real estate blog or neighborhood news articles for your website can remind you of writing papers for school. The similarity is not far off, since the same keys that applied to writing a good paper apply to your entries and articles.

Outlines are a key tool to your blog writing for several reasons. Outlining your real estate blog:

• Keeps your entries from trying to cover too much ground (and sometimes losing the point),
• Creates a road map for several articles in a row, and
• Shows you when you’re initial subject is evolving into a second or third.

The trick of using outlines effectively is to trust that you can always write more on a real estate subject than you think you can. Take any real estate topic you can write about and write down three headings of areas to cover. Then take each of those headings and create three subheadings. Each of these subheadings can be turned into a real estate blog entry or article on your website.

Effective real estate blog entries convey one thought to your website readers. Have you ever noticed what happens when you ask someone more than one question in an email? Personal research has shown, that no matter how brilliant your email recipient is, 92.36% of the time, they will only answer the first question. Similarly, on a blog entry, keep in mind that once you present your great idea, concept or insight, your reader’s eyes may continue to travel down the text, but their mind stepped away to chew on your idea.

The blog writing guidelines of being informative, on topic, unique and keyword rich always apply, but the hardest task is staying focused and creating bite sized pieces of information. Since the nature of real estate blog writing is that you sit down, let loose with stream of consciousness writing, and capture your thoughts as they come. This is excellent for getting the creative juices going.

Once all your thoughts are out, tighten them up, check that the verb tenses all match and that you aren’t switching between first and second person. Then, even mentally, outline the entry. You may have two or three entries. Once you do your outline, you can see if there are areas to flesh out better, get background data on, or to add a story to illustrate a point.

A little school-like discipline in your blog writing should reward you with increased traffic to your real estate website due to higher search engine ranking.

Don’t let all your real estate research and wisdom get ignored because of ho-hum blog entry titles. As a real estate agent, when you are face to face with a client, you demand their attention. It is hard to ignore you. Unfortunately for your hard writing effort, it is not impolite to ignore your real estate blog entry.

People ignore a good percentage of periodicals they pay to receive. Your free real estate information must maximize use of best attention capturing tool - your blog title or headline. Spending time on your title is well worth the investment. By using the following rules, you can craft that great blog title faster.

Rule #1: Write your title to appeal to the self-interest of a specific [real estate] market. Don’t try to write a title that interests everyone. That title has yet to be found.

Rule #2: Never bait and switch with a title. This turns people away from your real estate website for extended periods of time (i.e. eternity). Always have the title relate to the article.

Rule #3: Appeal to peoples’ “news junkie” habit. Titles starting with:

• How to, or Advice To;
• Truth About, Important Development or Announcing; and
• Revolutionary, Remarkable, Miracle, or Sensational are used again and again because they work. People can’t help their innate curiosity.

Rule #4: Give an idea of the real estate information you are offering. People are drawn into reading informative headlines of 6 to 12 words. Put the benefit you are providing your reader in the title.

Rule #5: Arouse curiosity. Asking a question or stating a fact that causes people to pause are tried and true methods to induce readers to read the body of your blog entry. An entry on what services to expect from a real estate agent could read “Are you getting the best service available?” In order to answer, they must see what services are available.

Rule #6: Avoid using negatives in titles. Just like the subconscious mind, people scanning headlines most often are left with the impression of the blog title without the negative word in there.

Keep these rules to writing a riveting real estate blog title in mind. They all work together, especially Rules 3 and 4. A curiosity arouser without a benefit isn’t effective. And as with any marketing step, ask your clients which titles they really liked. Getting feedback is the best way to hone your real estate blog writing skills.

The real estate markets across America will see different scenarios in new housing starts. Location of property and past three years new housing start trends are two major determinants. The best marketing for real estate websites is to ignore the national figures and address the local trends.

The National Association of Home Builders, in tracking new home starts, found that the drop from the 1.8 billion housing units in 2006 to the 1.36 billion in 2007 was less than the drop between 2005 and 2006. Even though 2008 is still feeling the housing slowdown, with expectations of 1.2 billion starts, the curve looks like it is bottoming out. The recovery will start slow, but 2008 looks like the turnaround year. Bernard Markstein, NAHB director of forecasting and senior economist expects “housing starts to bottom in the second quarter and turn up in the third quarter”.

The fractured nature of the real estate market continues to be a reason for real estate websites to identify and focus on the active markets. In the Denver metro area alone, neighborhoods such as Cherry Creek continue to be a desired destination, whereas other neighborhoods are selling in the 85 - 95% of asking price range. With recent changes in the FHA lending practices, if appraisers can show that neighborhoods are in areas people want to move in to, the loan to value ratio changes from 90% to 95%.

The Colorado Springs real estate market has been a little slower to recover from the current real estate climate. But with the military slated to move thousands of troops into the area in the next few years, the buyers market will be turning into a sellers market as early as this year. Real estate websites and real estate blogs focusing on the military population are already positioned to receive this wave when it arrives.

The Salt Lake City real estate market has weathered the housing slowdown storm the best. In the second quarter of 2007, the average home price rose the most of anywhere in the country. States such as Wyoming, partially driven by the oil economy, have also seen gains in home values.

The Florida real estate market is still one of the tougher markets, but the devalued dollar has spurred European investment. European countries were 7% of the real estate sales, mostly in the condominium and apartment markets along the East Coast waterfront. Recent immigrants purchasing their first homes in the United States have had a strong effect in helping the California, New York, and New Jersey markets as well as the Florida market. Some real estate websites in these areas are positioned to sell to the immigration market with bilingual websites. Yes, the keywords “casa en venta” for major cities brings up real estate sites on Google.

In any market, real estate agents should use their real estate websites, and especially their real estate blogs, to respond to market demands. As soon as you can see where the trends starts to go or can be foreseen to go, that is the time to add content to your site. The sooner the better you address the emerging markets on your site, the better you will be positioned to attract those buyers and sellers.

Your real estate blog can benefit your search engine visibility, but there are several aspects of your blog to keep in mind.

Utilize your one of your real estate blogs key features: fast and easy to write and upload. You don’t need to be a master of HTML to use your blog. You can write in the template, proof-read your entry for grammar and use of keywords, maybe add a small graphic and upload. Choose topics of interest to your clients and add your expert

Be consistent with your real estate blog entries by creating them daily or several times a week. This consistency is what trains the search engines to crawl your site at more frequent intervals and more quickly affect your search engine ranking.

Make your keywords work for your site. The drawback of free blogs is that they are not integrated into your site. All your good writing and keyword usage is not building up your website with the search engines. Make all your real estate musings work to attract the search engines to your blog and your website. Your website designer can show you how to integrate a blog into your real estate website.

The three bywords of your real estate blog are: relevant, recent and rememberable. OK, so rememberable isn’t a word, but it is memorable and so makes the point.

As a real estate professional with some experience with your own real estate blog and a great deal of experience with home buyers, sellers, real estate loan officers, appraisers and title companies, you have a lot of qualified insight to offer. Expand your visibility by offering your insights on other real estate blogs. As the saying goes, “the tide raises all boats”, by commenting at another’s blog, your address is attached to your comment allowing blog visitors to jump to your site.

Conversely, if you quote another blog to add heft to one of your entries, provide a link to that blog. The creation of more inbound and outbound links to your real estate site serve as tremendous boosters for your ranking with search engines. An inbound link is read by the search engine algorithm as “someone in the world thinks this site has good information”. Think of a link as a testimonial in computer code.

Word to the wise: Make sure your comments are informative and helpful to any blogging conversation that you join or you may be seen as “comment spamming”, which hurts your image as an expert and a person worth talking with.

Blogging 101: Educate yourself.

You can also go to blogging about blogging sites to learn more about blogging and leave comments about your experiences. Your comments may bring warm sales leads, but this is a very wide market. Some of the most educational blogging sites are:

www.bloggingpro.com: A site for blogging software & applications news, plug-ins and themes.

Blogwild!: A Guide for Small Business Blogging author Andy Wibbels covers small business’ blogging points.

Blogging for Business: Author Ted Demopoulos goes over the whys and wherefores of blogging and podcasting for businesses.

Expand Your Real Estate Presence

More to your market, real estate blogs you can interact with are: The Inman Report is one of the biggest in the industry and regularly appears on Google’s first page results for the key phrase “real estate blogs”.

Active Rain is “free online community for real estate professionals designed to help them promote and grow their business”. Once you join, you can post a bio of you and your company. Read a few interchanges and see if it is something you want to join.

Also, commenting on real estate website blogs that are out of your market area, especially an area that consistently sends buyers such as snowbirds or retirees to your real estate market, is a way to build links, traffic and a growing stream of sales leads.

Start Getting Listed in Directories…Wisely

Also, once you have some entries - hopefully interesting, informative and possibly scintilatingly witty - get your real estate blog listed in web directories, especially the real estate blog directories. A real estate directory that shows up high in Google’s rating is Real Estate Blogs.

General directories that Google “respects” are DMOZ Open Directory Project, Yahoo Directory and Business.com. DMOZ is free and takes a while as they check your site. Business.com is a paid listing directory.

Warning: You don’t want to go and try and get listed in any and all listing directories on the web. This can backfire on two fronts: one Google lowers your ranking if the directories are not in your industry or viewed as fake directories. Fake directories can also lead to more spam hitting your inbox and some even list your site, but if you check the HTML code they have a “nofollow” tag or some other instructions blocking the link from connecting to your site.

Blogging is the growing communication tool of the 21st century. So, look over the fence, check out what the real estate blogs are doing in your internet neighborhood. Comment, exchange information, read, and get listed in directories. Wait, this sounds like things you already do in other areas!

Your real estate blog is one of your most cost-effective small business marketing tools to raise your real estate services’ visibility and add to your market. Your web designer can help you add a blog to your real estate website using one of the blog templates on the market. The help of a designer for the set-up phase makes your set-up trouble-free, faster and seamless. Also your designer can add a theme, plug-ins and graphics that will give your site both a professional look and tie it to the look and feel of your real estate website.

Internet Marketing Consultants, a real estate web design company, has found WordPress to be one of the easiest blog programs since it has well defined template and is intuitively easy to add articles and images. “The ease of use of WordPress is very important for real estate agents”, reports IMC’s John Naschinski. “WordPress Blog software makes it easy for non-technical people to quickly add articles and then go and view it immediately online is important. If creating a real estate blog entry turns into a federal case, agents feel their time is better spent with clients directly and only sporadically or never make entries.”

Earlier entries discussed the simple blogging rules of keeping your messages concise and the tone informal and casual. The following “best practices” will also make your blogging efforts easier and with more effective use of time.

Under your theme of real estate, work with your designer to set up the initial categories of your blog. It is better if your categories also are keywords connected with your website, such as: real estate markets and [your town] real estate.

Create a list of subjects relevant to your customers and for each subject list a few of your keywords or key phrases. Then set up a schedule for writing your entries. Match your writing schedule to the natural rhythm of your day. If you have a block of time on certain days, use that to create several entries that you can add to the blog over the next few days. Sometimes it works to use your “decompression time” when you get home to write a few paragraphs. Whatever works best for your schedule, set that up and stick to it. Your blog is better rated by the search engines when they track that you make entries during the week. Don’t forget to double check the spelling and grammar. A fast way to check is to use a program like MS Word, then save the file as a .txt file.

Google’s default time for checking a site is usually every three weeks. If it finds blog entries appearing on your real estate website made more often than that, it changes its program to crawl the site more often.

If you want the visibility a blog will add to your real estate website, but you do not have the time or writing skill, hiring a writer to fill in your checklist is also an option. This may increase your marketing budget, but as successful real estate agents have found out, getting the business that ranking high on the search engines causes is worth it.

Enjoy your blogging by keeping it fresh, fun and frequent.

How does your real estate website serve your customers? Sure, your website exists to bring in hot home buyer or seller leads. But your visitor is there to get information. The real estate website tools that your offer gratis are a key ingredient to keeping visitors on your site.

Why offer your tools and information for free? Simple. Buyers and sellers hate to feel uninformed (i.e. stupid). By offering tools and information, your visitor can anonymously educate themselves on the market, what parts of town they may like the most, and what the changes in their monthly budgets will be. As you educate the visitors, they begin to view you, through your website, as a knowledgeable expert who knows what real estate clients need. Review your website tools and real estate information with the thought “What question am I answering?” in mind.

How much house can I buy? Home buyers will check out your home listings, but first, with a calculator on your website, they can get an idea of what monthly payments will be on that great looking Craftsman home across town. A basic mortgage calculator allows your client to pre-screen your real estate listings and find their market niche without first divulging their annual income.

What is that neighborhood like? As more buyers rely on the internet to quickly screen real estate listings, the idea of visiting neighborhoods with a knowledgeable real estate agent may appear as a time consuming luxury. Don’t waste all your knowledge! Use a neighborhood news tool on your real estate website. Add articles on different neighborhoods showing their benefits, notes on the local schools, and items that make that neighborhood an attractive place to live. Continually add articles to keep the news fresh (and excite the search engines to visit your site more often).

Is this the right time to buy/sell in the current real estate market? The answer should always be “Yes”, but go in depth on your answer with your real estate blog. Have your website designer set your site up with a blog and make it your real estate diary. The beauty of a blog is that it is conversational writing, short entries, and covers one point on each entry. The above question can be revisited on a continual basis using different reasons and benefits every time you address it.

How can I improve the value of my house for minimum investment? Or how can I best evaluate a house for sale? Articles, buyers and sellers guides and moving checklists for buyers and sellers are a goldmine of great information for your visitors. Dedicate a web page to each real estate topic. These pages can also host links to people you trade links with, such as home cleaners, home maintenance companies, etc.

Use this list to review your real estate website and see where you can improve your offering to your website visitors. By helping your visitors, you also help your website, since new keyword-rich articles and pages help improve your search engine ranking.

Writing your real estate blog can be as easy as talking about your real estate business or the concerns of a first time home buyer. Unfortunately, translating your verbal skills into writing skills is often blocked by how schools have taught us to write. Accept the following rules on writing fro your real estate blog and you will find that writer’s block is not a problem and unleashing your creativity is a lot easier and more fun.

Rule #1: Be brutally honest. Forget what you were taught about writing impersonally in the third person - anything you write is unavoidably autobiographical. Use this to your advantage. You become more real, believable and authoritative to your reader by writing about what you know. Interestingly, by writing and answering questions your real estate clients ask, you get to know yourself better.

Rule #2. Find the common ground. By speaking to your reader using the second person present tense, you bring them into your one-way conversation. We are not as isolated as we think. You have worked with enough clients to know the stress everyone feels when they are buying or selling their house. We may all handle this stress differently, but we all feel it. A real estate blog entry addressing handling this stress may not address real estate directly, but it will help your clients deal with their real estate concerns better. Plus you position yourself as someone who really does understand real estate transactions.

Rule #3. Keep it brief. Writing tends to create run-on sentences. These are OK to get your thoughts out, but go back and shorten them. A good key is watching for the “and” in the sentence. It is probably a good place to separate two thoughts with a period.

Rule #4. Use subtitles on long blog entries. Let your reader skim the article and get the gist of it. This also creates an outline that helps you tie the end of the entry to the beginning.

Rule #5. Sell yourself wisely. Offer the juicy tidbit of information first, then write about your skills or knowledge in that area. Be subtle in blowing your own horn.

As a double check when you start writing - run your real estate blog posts by a teenager. They tend to have no problem unmasking unauthentic writing. And after offering you their juicy tidbit, they’ll sell you on the idea that their unmasking skills are worth a financial reward.

Your real estate blog provides you with a foundational part of your solid sales strategy - building relationships. Your real estate blog creates the direct connection necessary to building your sales relationships. This direct connection between buyer and seller disappeared in layers of marketers, designers, pollsters and managers that is a part of mass production markets. Though items are more available and cheaper, production costs replaced customer needs as a market driver. Blog entries addressing customer needs customizes your real estate website to the current market drivers.

The Harvard Business Review has dedicated several articles to “one to one marketing” and “mass customization”. All buzz words that say manufacturers are relearning “listen to your customer and sell them what they want”. Maybe the spirits of Silk Road merchants are rolling their eyes at this new understanding. Blogs make this interchange happen time and again for your benefit.

By giving your real estate website visitors both current information and the reasons behind your real estate insights, you build trust. Since the real estate market is based on customers looking for their desired home from among available homes created for other people’s likes, the real estate agent’s expertise is funneling the search to a particular target market. With the stature of an expert, your insights and knowledge of the market will be trusted more. The blog is another doorway to lead people to your website’s online listing search and your services.

Show your customers you care. By introducing a recent concern of a customer as a subject in your blog, you are quickly conveying to your readers how well you respond to customers. Your blog entries are 50% what you say and 50% how you say it. By connecting directly with customer concerns and writing in a conversational way, you improve the “how”. When readers email you feedback to your entries, use some of their responses to get your creative juices going on the next entry and reinforce your caring and responsive personal brand.

The content of your real estate blog entries (”what” you say) is aimed at both your readership and the search engines that index and point to your website. Make sure that your articles include the keywords or key phrases that are pertinent to both your blog entry and the markets targeted by your real estate website.

Expand your influence further by sending journalists who cover your real estate market a link to your blog. Journalists and reporters are always looking for an expert to quote and with your blog you become an easily quotable expert. Blog entries on current legislation or trends affecting the real estate or mortgage markets are great targets for this market.

Your real estate blog entries following these guidelines create a solid foundation for reaching potential sales leads, search engines and journalists.