I wanted to start blogging on my website. As a new agent I'm not really sure what I have to say. I was wondering where current real estate bloggers get their insperation and ideas to talk about.

I am new to it as well. I have done posts on my listings, one at a time. I have started posts on market trends. I am going to do some non real estate related blogs too, mostly light hearted stuff, nothing heavy. Perhaps post about local events, charity causes, etc. Browse other blogs for ideas, but I would be careful to use your own content.

I like to play around with the MLS to come up with ideas too. Make a poitn of jotting down your ideas as you are out and about so you do not forget them.

Some people are natural thinkers and writers and other are not.

I read the news quickly for the day in about 10 minutes online from various news feeds to my inbox.From that I can easily come up with at least 4 things daily to blog about although I don't do it that much.

One great thing for new agents is for you to blog and learn at the same time.You can buy a book or go to Barnes and Noble and read a book and write down ideas from that.

I bought one book on land development which is 400 pages long.I can pull ideas for years on things to blog about just in that book. Hope it helps.

Yeah, orginally I thought of just reading other blogs and coming up with ideas but I am afraid that I would be using theirs as my own and I don't want to take credit for anothers ideas.
I do like the books idea, though I'm far from an avid reader. I'll try focusing on this and ad a twist of my humor along with my point of view and see what I come up with.

Thanks for the insperation super and doin'

Blog about your LOCAL area. Events, new listings, things you have seen while out showing houses or driving around.

Blog about the questions your customers ask you.

Always tie everything in somehow to your local real estate market and to you.

Other good blogging topics include examples of what things to watch out for as new home buyers. For example, maybe take some snapshots of "problem areas" in houses that you visit like cracked foundations, trees growing out of foundations, what various molds look like, etc. Many homebuyers seem to be concerned about "big problem" areas like this even though most don't know why they are concered about it.

Perky is right! Also, if there is a news story about the national market, do a post on your local market and how it compares nationally.

Blogging can be fun, I have two blogs. One of which is general for both buyers and sellers, and then I have a psoterous blog which I use as a photo blog for my local market...it could appeal mostly to buyers or people from outside the area that may be looking to move to my area. You don't have to rack your brain coming up with profound content, it comes with time and consistency. Most important is originality and not just throwing out a statistic, but backing it up with the supporting data....good luck

yes MrsSea!!! No topic will be "good" if it doesn't attract folks interested in YOUR area. You don't want general interest blogs - you want specific interest. So take a general thing and put a local spin on it....

I think it depends on your niche. My niche is first time home buyers and you can see from my blog link below how I come up with subject matter. A few other ideas...

1. The NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is free to REALTORS®. Read over it and the juices will start flowing. It revealed that one of the biggest barriers to buyers buying is their pre-conceived idea that mortgages are hard to get. Why not write a post on the process there in PA?

2. Tell a story about a target community where there are lots of properties for sale. You could go and speak with some neighbors in the community about what they like about it.

3. What kinds of promotions are being run by Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, HUD or my favorite, down payment assistance programs? Why not write a post that shows your expertise in those areas?

Still working on some ideas to get sellers to call. Perhaps something along that expresses the value of a CMA. Here in GA, tax valuations will be mailed yearly now and sellers will need to have a resource to challenge an incorrect valuation. This could be an entry to establishing a relationship with an owner.

On FSBOs, why not write an article asking them to email or call you with the details of their property for sale. Again, it gets you on the phone with them and who knows, you may actually have a buyer for them one day. The idea is to stay top of mind when they've decided to hire someone.

And I think one of the big "don'ts" in blogging is to refrain from writing rants about agents, potential customers or anything else.

I see a lot of blog posts on Active Rain that consist of an agent (or home inspector or mortgage officer) writing about what someone else did on a transaction that was wrong (or they feel was wrong).

You want the audience to connect with you in a positive manner, so writing about home buying or home selling in a positive manner may convince them that you are the expert in the field that can get the job done.

Yes, for heaven's sake do NOT rant about CUSTOMERS and CLIENTS or their families - even if you "anonymize" it...

I can't believe people actually do that........ What morons

I wrote a Members Only Blog on AR about it a long time ago titled "Are you losing business because of your blog?" - was driving me INSANE! The blogger that inspired it was going on and on about her listing's neighbor (a house she was trying to list for sale!) and how the neighbor's son was a slob, a good for nothing, junk collector, lazy bum, etc. Unreal!!

Potential customers look at that and think "Oh my goodness, what would she write about OUR house?" and never call her...

Blogging for real estate is not for RANTING unless you are retired from the business and are writing an entertainment blog...

Hey, one more idea. Check out the free Google keyword selector tool. Type in some relevant keywords, maybe YourCity, PA Real Estate or something like that and see what terms people are searching on both globally and locally. It might spark some ideas about content.

Why not get an Active Rain account? You can reblog a lot of other peoples posts on it and just add in a paragraph of your own thoughts on the topic.

It would be kind of like blogging with training wheels on but you ended up with good content and you can figure out how get your own content as you go.

that's pretty expensive if you ask me.

I would join ActiveRain and use the free membership to read all the good members only blogs but anything you post under the free membership will not be on search engines or viewable to non active rain members.

Then write your blog on wordpress.

That option works as well.

I didn't think that active rain was that much more expense than any other blogging service.

Either way I find the rain to be of value, you should check it out when your just starting.

Wordpress is free!

Reblog other people's posts? Sounds like a violation of copyright to me!

Perky Wordpress is FREE but also has been having ongoing security issues that have made it an unstable platform.

Until they resolve the security issues and are stable and safe on a long term basis ti will limit their growth and useablity.

It is not a violation of copyright at all, not the way it's done on ActiveRain. The original blogger consents to having it done (there is an option that allows them to choose to have their post reblogged when they post their blog) and full credit and a link is automatically given back to the original blog post.

Bloggers who wish to not participate in reblogging simply do not check the box allowing reblogging. By checking the box you are giving permission for someone to reblog you.

Thanks Perky you said it way better than I could have. I probably should have explained the why it was done on active rain in my orginal post rather than just assume everybody here was familiar with how Active Rain worked.

I went through alot of this stuff about 2 weeks ago when I started my first blog. I went to wordpress at the suggestion of a friend on the forum who gave me some good advice. I am not sure I will permanently post my link onto my preferences of every post, but I would like t post it on this one if anyone is interested in seeing what I have done. I am always receptive to advice or criticism too. I am not asking for it by posting this, I felt it might be helpful to the thread, given tat my blog just started.

http://rrjank.wordpress.com/

It is not alot, but it is a start and I am noting the following: all of my traffic is coming from Facebook. I get 2 things from that...1) I need more FB friends. SO every day I spend a few minutes looking for more FB friends. 2) I am beginning to think about more ways to pick up search engine traffic or any other traffic. I am on Twitter, but I never use it and do not really want to start.

Doin' bpose,

Most of my traffic is direct and organic. I would suggest going to GoDaddy or someplace and buying a URL to replace the sub domain that is currently being used to something more applicable to your VA metro area RE Business. Go to the Google Keyword Selector Tool and find some good keywords that might work well as a URL. While you're at Google, go to Google Analytics and get the code to hide on your blog so that you can see your traffic sources. Be sure to use some highly relevant keywords as you write.

Oh, and this will go over great here (Not). Answer some questions on Trulia, link back to your blog in your signature and watch your traffic grow.

Gotta run off to a closing. See ya

Thanks Greene..for the tips.

Thanks for all the good knowledge, wrote most of it down and will be using over time. I have the free active rain account and will get the paid version as I start making money. The free one is very good though as a back link it really improved my sites ranking. Well from nothing to something anyways.

I'll be checking with googles keywords more often, your right Greene that a handy tool. And Perky I bolded your one comment in my idea book about relating it back to my local market and myself. I don't want to for get the reason for the blog.

I don't quite have a niche yet just starting out but hopefully blogging will help me find mine, as well as increase traffic.
Thanks much!

True journalism is almost non-existent in North America, those of you like Doo Bop that are powerful with a pen I'm sure could do very well with providing the public with valuable information and fill an important void. A few years ago American newspapers were laying of 1000 journalist a month in order to pay shareholders a 30% return instead of the traditional 6% return on their investment. You guys can step in and provide superb/honest local news.

Citizen Journalism Revolution

I attended TriplePlay this week (Tri-State Realtor Conference in Atlantic City NJ) and sat in on a seminar taught by Brian Copeland (here's his blog: http://nashvilleandbeyond.com/ )

One thing he suggested was to occasionally (but on a regular basis) post your own thoughts or an editorial about trending topics - things that are super popular - (not necessarily real estate related, just POPULAR...).

The idea behind this is to get clicks - even if they're not potential customers. The click rate will help boost your ranking on Google.

That is a great idea! I find that I keep my blog posts to real estate and find that despite having a lot of good useful information the blog can be a little dry and sometime I have difficultly with a target. However I do have lots to say on other topics which could generate a few more clicks.

I blog on local history items. My most popular post is on a historical home for sale. Even have gotten a couple of leads from that one.

Is there any value to running parallel blogs. Meaning I would post the same thing in 2 different spots? Or is it more worth it to toggle posts b/w 2 blogs?

I'm doing it ut I don't think there's any value. lol. I started a wordpress blog when I learned that my ActiveRain blog might not be the greatest platform - I keep doing AR cause it's already got good google juice but if I were to start over again, I wouldn't bother with AR and just go w/ Wordpress.

Google doesn't like this. If you do, then you need to make your second and less important blog start off with a different introductory paragraph at least. The first 100 or so words, the last I heard, will trick google into thinking it's generally a different blog. Google doesn't like cut and paste jobs. This was the last I heard about 4 months ago. I'm sure they spiders will get even more savvy.

They're usually slightly different from one another. I've also heard differing opinions on this...if you google "syndication duplicate content penalties" you'll find a variety of opinions.

I always include a rider stating that "This article first appeared on (link.)"

My blog syndicates out to several different forums and I know of no penalties having been encountered. I also read that blogs with duplicate content are penalized, but there doesn't seem to be any backlash from Google with mine so far.

Thanks Perky, Greene and Merkaba. I think I will toggle if anything. I took Greene's advice and activated my Trulia account and claimed my listings. I have taken in 2 leads and already referred out one of the buyers to a buyer's agent. I think that lead might have made it to me in any event though. I am not sure it is a direct result of me claiming my listings.

That is why I got the idea of putting some blog material on Trulia. I put blog link in my Trulia sig line though as Greene suggested. Perhaps that is enough.

I am curious to see the blog interface on Trulia as compared to Wordpress. I like the Wordpress one and find it has a lot of utility, but it is also pretty clunky.

My goal today is to learn how to insert a graph. I learned how to do a chart, but want to do a graph since it is a visual thing. So far the best I can do is a link to it.

Trulia blog is very basic compared to wordpress. Not bad, but super basic. I don't use it as often as I should, I suppose. Ive been a backsliding blogger lately, wayyyy too busy to do much!

[quote=Perky_REALTOR]They're usually slightly different from one another. I've also heard differing opinions on this...if you google "syndication duplicate content penalties" you'll find a variety of opinions.
/quote]

The best arguement I have heard against duplicate content penalties is that the Associated Press is still in business. Syndication after all is what the Associated Press did for years, and it's business does not seem to have been killed by google search penalties.

You? My last post was November 26, now that's bad.