Some things just kill your blog’s chances of success. They turn readers off, bore your audience and even stunt your online exposure. To ensure the success of your real estate blog, concentrate first on providing valuable, interesting content that is easy to read. Then, make sure your target audience finds it.
Start by avoiding these common blog killers:
1. Irrelevant Content:
Your target audience has no shortage of real estate blogs to consider. With so many other agents vying for attention, you can’t afford to give your visitors anything less than exactly what they want. To do this, you have to learn what your audience searches for online and then write about those topics. The topics your readers want may not always interest you, but that’s really not the point. You have to write content that is of real value to your audience to ensure that people will visit your blog, become readers and keep coming back for more.
2. Poor Formatting:
Many new bloggers make the mistake of just writing posts without giving a care to formatting. Often, they post long blocks of writing without using subheadings, bolding, lists or whitespace. Long blocks of text are the kiss of death online because Internet users won’t bother with them. As they read, they get bored, their eyes start to cross or they get a headache. Then, before you know it, they’re moving on to another agent’s real estate blog.
Improve your formatting by writing shorter paragraphs and using a significant amount of whitespace. This breaks your text into bite-sized chunks for your readers and pleases those who like to skim posts. Likewise, use subheadings and bulleted or numbered lists to your advantage. They not only help you break up your text, but they also help skimmers see what each paragraph will cover at a glance. Good subheadings and lists also help generate interest, as they capture a reader’s attention and encourage him to keep reading.
3. Irregular Posting:
Blogging success depends on regular posting. Your readers visit your blog looking for information, news and updates that are of value to them, and they expect these things on a predictable basis. To establish reader loyalty and encourage your readers to share your posts online, set a regular schedule of posting and stick to it. For example, you might decide to post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or every Tuesday and Thursday. Your readers will expect new content on these days and come to your blog looking for it. Posting sporadically disappoints your readers and sends them off in search of a new real estate blog to frequent.
4. Building Without Marketing
Your blog will only help you meet your goals if your target audience finds it. Search engine optimization can help you get traffic from the search engines, but alone, it’s just not enough. To draw more visitors in, use the following methods to market your blog:
- Add blog updates to all your social media accounts
- Use social bookmarking
- Submit your posts to relevant blog directories
- Ping your blog posts
- Write for other sites and link to your blog
- Add your blog feed link to your email signature
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