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I remember putting together my first website nine years ago. I thought once I had a website, I would get clients immediately. Little did I know that the blog component of my site would need a detailed promotional plan in order to get the readership I was seeking.
For brokers who are operating a real estate blog, either on your own or with the help of contributing agents and staff, you should always be thinking about how you market it. If you don’t promote your blog, potential clients and your sphere of influence will never know it exists.
In one of my recent articles, 7 Ways to Kill It Online, I talked about how a vibrant blog is step one to finding clients online. Well, step two is promotion. Google doesn’t push my Scottsdale Real Estate Blog to the top of page one of its results just to be nice. I have to be strategic and work for it. Don’t let this crucial step in maintaining your company’s website fall by the wayside; here are five methods for getting the word out.
1. Social media: You don’t have to promote your blog on every social media site under the sun. Focus on where you’re already successful and have cultivated some engaging relationships online. Go to where your customers are. Personally, I use Facebook, Pinterest, and sometimes Twitter. The goal is to be consistent and to promote your blog’s content in ways that are meaningful to your audience.
2. Automation: Try If This Then That to create "recipes" that will automate a requested action. For instance, you can set up an action so that each time you publish a new blog entry, the link automatically posts to your LinkedIn profile or group. Here are some ideas to get you started with IFTTT.com.
3. Bookmarking sites: Take advantage of sites like Delicious, Diigo, Inoreaders, and others. Share the URL of each blog on these sites to gain more eyeballs and great organic SEO. You can also set up to post automatically on these channels with IFTTT.com.
4. Syndication. Create relationships with other reputable websites, such as local news sites looking for content, where you guest blog and reference, excerpt, and link to your site’s blog posts. But keep in mind, posting the exact same content on multiple sites can actually harm your SEO.
5. Links: Include a link to your blog in your email signature, e-newsletters, print advertising, and other marketing materials. In fact, much of your e-newsletter content should link back to your blog posts.
