Creating new posts for your real estate blog may seem overwhelming at first as many
of us are not born journalists. To keep your blog fresh and relevant to the
search engines, you should add content to your site a minimum of three times
per week. Overcome your writer’s block by writing about what you know-real
estate! Having a real estate blog that doesn’t display real estate related
content is not going to do as well as one that does. Here are some simple
strategies to help you create quality content for your visitors and the search
engines.

Tips
to create quality posts for your real estate blog:

• Use your site’s keywords in
  the titles for your content.

• Get creative and try to
  create catchy, memorable post titles to create interest and keep visitors
  on your site as long as possible.

• Use your site’s keywords 3 to
  5 times within each post

• Link to other sites on the
  web in your posts-cite the sources of your content and/or refer to
  articles on a similar subject that can be found on the web

• Link to your own posts within
  new posts-if you have posts on similar subjects, link them to each other

• Format your posts so that
  they read well. Use spacing between paragraphs to create digestible chunks
  of information

If
you just don’t know where to start or are running out of new ideas for posts,
here are 30 days worth of blog post ideas to get you going:

1. About
   Me-Introduce yourself to the world by creating a biography for your blog.
   Include your experience level, education, accomplishments, affiliations,
   and interests. Tell visitors why they should choose you to buy or sell
   their home. This will sell you to potential clients so keep it
   professional!
2. How
   to Sell Your Home in a Buyer’s Market-HOT
   topic!
3. How to
   Convince a Seller to Accept Your Offer
4. Why
   You Should Hire a Real Estate Professional to Sell Your Home
5. What
   to Look for When Purchasing a Foreclosure or Short Sale-HOT topic!
6. Staging
   Your Home for a Speedy Sale
7. Why
   You Should Buy A Home Now in (enter your farm area here)
8. How to
   Price Your Home for a Quick Sale-HOT
   topic!
9. What
   is a Conventional Mortgage?
10. What
    To Avoid When Remodeling Your Home
11. What
    is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage?
12. Why
    You Need A Real Estate Professional To Buy A Home
13. How
    To Use A CMA: For Sellers
14. How
    To Use A CMA: For Buyers
15. The
    Closing Process: For Sellers
16. The
    Closing Process: For Buyers
17. What
    is a FHA-insured mortgage?
18. What
    You Should Know About (enter your farm area here)-go to www.bestplaces.net for statistics
    and information on your farm area
19. Why
    You Should Be Buying Instead of Renting
20. New
    Homes vs. Existing Homes-Which One Is Right For You?
21. 5
    Things You Can Do Now To Increase Your Home’s Resale Value
22. Why
    Now Is The Best Time To Buy Real Estate in (enter your farm area here)
23. How
    Rising Foreclosure Rates Affect Your Home’s Value-HOT topic!
24. How
    To Choose The Right Home For You
25. Negotiating
    with a Seller in a Buyer’s Market-HOT
    topic!
26. Do
    You Qualify For A VA Mortgage?
27. How
    To Properly Prepare To Purchase A Home
28. How
    To Know How Much Home You Can Afford
29. How
    To Use Technology To Find Your New Home Now
30. How
    To Invest in (enter your farm area here) Real Estate

Remember, you have a real estate blog so you all of your
content should be real estate related. Some other sources for additional post
ideas are www.realtytimes.com,
www.msnbc.com,
and www.cnn.com. Now stop reading and start writing your way to the top of the search engines!

The key to a successful real estate blog is generating and
maintaining your blog’s position as an authority on real estate in your farm
area. A great way to do this is to connect with other real estate professionals
and potential clients through various social networks on the web. So what is a
social network? For those that don’t know, a social network is an online
community centered around a common interest. A very well-known example of a
social network is MySpace, www.myspace.com. While social networks may not
sound very business-like, they are valuable tools you should use to generate
traffic to your site. There are many professional social networks these days,
many not worth joining. Here
is a list of the five social networks all real estate professionals should
join:

• ActiveRain
  (www.activerain.com)-This is a community of real estate
  professionals that share real estate and mortgage information via their
  ActiveRain blogs. Membership is free to this site and the maintenance of a
  blog on ActiveRain can generate new business contacts and partnerships as
  well as increased traffic to your blog site.

• Squidoo (www.squidoo.com)-This
  site is a network of member sites called “lenses”. Each member creates a
  “lens” on a particular subject. As a real estate professional, you would
  create a lens based on real estate in your farm area. Membership is free
  to this site. A well-maintained lens can obtain its own traffic and
  generate ad revenue for you as well as drive additional traffic to your
  blog site.

• HubPages (www.hubpages.com)-This
  site is very similar to Squidoo. It is a network of member sites called
  “hubs”. You will create a “hub” for real estate in your farm area. Membership
  is free to this site. A well-maintained hub will generate traffic and ad
  revenue for you and your blog site.

• Facebook (www.facebook.com)-This
  is a well-known social network that was originally centered on connecting
  college students across the country. Now it has been expanded for use to
  people of all ages and businesses use it for promotion of their brand.
  Create a free profile for your real estate business and include a link to
  your blog site.

• Twitter (www.twitter.com)-This
  is a micro-blogging service that is based around one question:”What Are
  You Doing?” By answering this question and updating your Twitter account
  each time you make a new post to your blog site, you will attract
  “followers” that can later turn into leads.

Maintaining these sites and profiles may seem like a lot
of extra work but there are ways to simplify that process. Here
are a couple of tips to make updating your social network profiles and pages
easy:

• Sign up for Ping.fm (www.ping.fm). You
  can update your Twitter and Facebook accounts right in one place. You can
  post new status messages here-include links to recent blog posts and any
  videos you may have on the web for additional exposure.

• Recycle blog posts for use on
  your ActiveRain blog, Squidoo lens, and HubPages Hub. Do
  this by rewriting an old blog post, making sure that it is different from
  the original by at least 30%. Post your rewritten posts to the other
  sites. This process makes sure that all of your sites are being updated
  regularly with fresh content.

To further maximize the buzz on your blog, consider the
use of FriendFeed (www.friendfeed.com).
FriendFeed gathers all of your updates to your various social network accounts
and creates an automatically updating feed that you can use on your blog site.
By creating a FriendFeed and implementing it on the home page of your blog
site, you can significantly increase your sites importance in the search
engines and get enhanced results.

For more information and additional tips on using social networking to promote your real estate blog, check out these great articles:

Problogger – How to Promote Your Blog through Networking

Kikolani – 9 Ways to Use Social Networking for Blog Promotion

Chris Brogan – Nine Ways to Promote Your Blog Posts