Know your Readers

You need to really know who your audience is if you are going to get the maximum effect from your blog. This applies to blogging in general and to real estate blogging as well. Your readers will consist of people on a number of different levels with regard to real estate: homeowners considering selling, investors considering buying houses or property, people casually interested in the field, real estate agents, handymen looking for fixer uppers, and so on. It can be helpful to get specifics on your readership so that you can tailor blog posts to appeal to their interests. This can be done using sophisticated tools and metrics as well as by looking at comments people leave and getting a general sense of the type of reader that commonly visits your blog.

Feature Fun, Novel, and Useful Blog Posts

Your blog posts should be fun and intriguing while providing useful information. You should always keep in mind the entertainment value of the real estate information you’re providing. If your information becomes dull and repetitive, it won’t matter how useful the information is. You might consider interspersing novelty sorts of posts – things like strange houses, markets in exotic countries, real estate scandals and such – with more straightforward advice type posts.

Appeal to Different Budgets

Another important thing to keep in mind is that real estate blog posts should appeal to people with a number of different budgets. Not everyone interested in real estate has a large budget for a fancy house or property or even a budget for house purchase at all. Some people may be interested simply in getting more information for some future time when they will have money, some may be looking for rentals, and some may be looking for properties at wholesale prices. It’s important to appeal to all of these categories of readers not only to increase blog traffic but to allow them to interact with each other and refer others from various different backgrounds.

Focus on Specific Markets

Focusing on specific real estate markets will give your blog relevance and specificity. This can also be a great source of referrals for a local real estate agency or other real estate business with which the blog is associated. Post about a specific city and its outlying areas, mentioning average house sale price, new construction in the area, general market pressures, mortgage interest rates, and so on. You might want to focus on specific areas close to where you have your actual real estate business situated and also feature distant areas so as to give balanced real estate market information from across the country.

Get Links from Other sites

Backlinks from other real estate sites will have the effect both of making your blog rise in search engine rankings and channeling traffic from these sites to your blog. So make friends with other sites and offer to feature links to them on your site if they will do the same for yours.

A real estate blog can be an excellent way to generate interest in a real estate business as well as clarify and expand your own knowledge base as a real estate writer or professional. Follow these tips and any others that seem to enrich your blog and make it something everyone interested in buying houses or property will want to read. A great real estate blog pays off many times over.

Plug-ins. It is possible to install a plug in into your blog that will prevent comments from posting until you have had the change to view them and either approve or reject them. You may even adjust the plug in settings to automatically delete comments that you have not approved over a certain period of time, which can be a real time and effort saver. One example of such a plug in is Akismet, which is compatible with WordPress blogs.

Blacklisting. In most blogging platforms, it is possible to blacklist certain words from your admin dashboard. That means you can set parameters that automatically reject user content that contains words you deem unacceptable and likely to be spam. Just beware that blacklisting a word like, “ass” will also result in a blacklisting of all words that proceed from that truncation, such as assimilate, assumption, and assume . . . which could resulting in you spamming some insightful and useful reader feedback.

Pay attention. A common practice these days is for spammers to hire real people to post comments and guest posts on blogs an discreetly insert linkbacks to spam sites. Pay close attention to your reader contributions. If they are poorly and/or superficially written and they list URLs that seem suspicious, then chances are they are spam, and you don’t want them on your site. Be especially cautious of comments on extremely old blog posts, as these are more likely to be spam-related.

It is important to catch spamming on your blog because spamming makes your blog look cheap. It also steals from your blog’s credibility and, what’s more, it tells search engines that your blog is not high-quality content. Therefore, spamming can be more than a nuisance; it can be a danger to your blog’s well-being. Take these measures to protect your blog from spam.

The Domain Name Should Be Pronounceable

As great as tongue twister names and difficult foreign or long words might be, they won’t impress anyone. They’ll also make it harder to think about and less likely to gain traction, simply because describing such a blog and saying its name will be too much of an effort. People don’t read blogs for a major intellectual challenge, but rather to help them solve a major issue they have. An extra benefit of an easy name is that it’s typically easier to type.

Let Your Domain Name Clarify What You Have to Offer

If you clicked on a blog with that said online payday loan or money it, you would expect to find a financial blog, right? At the very least, it should have something to do with the concept of money, its use or its relationship to the people reading the blog. If it doesn’t have these things, you have a serious problem on your hands. While you aren’ t likely to be sued for false advertising, you are extremely likely to turn off your readers in a big way if what they expect and what they get are too different from one another.

Try Not to Recycle Old Ideas

So many things online these days are little more than more of the same. If all you do for your post research is read an article and then essentially rewrite it in a cruder form, you’re not contributing anything useful to the world. In the same vein, don’t name your blog the kind of name that’s been done a million times by other bloggers. Take a chance on a wildly different kind of name, and your readers will respect your creativity. This might be the only socially acceptable time to use a pun.

Naming your blog is a big deal. But with the advice given above, your blog’s name should be authentic, interesting and attention-grabbing enough to score you plenty of readers.

Free hosting. There are many free blogging platforms out there (which we will get to later) that provide everything from hosting to blog templates. This format makes it very easy to develop a blog that can easily compete with many of the blogs out there. However, in order to use one of these free blogging platforms, you must use a blog URL with the host name in it. For example, if you opt to use WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms available, your blog site will be a subdirectory of WordPress, as such: www.wordpress.com/myblog.

Self-hosting. If you really want your blog to appear as a unique entity, then you will need to pay for hosting. Fortunately, hosting is relatively inexpensive, and an online search will return a wide array of hosting companies that offer their customers a variety of services. When you pay for hosting, you can choose your own URL. If you are lucky, your name will be available But you will still be responsible for finding a blogging platform .

Free blogging platforms. As previously mentioned, WordPress is probably the most widely used blogging platform there is, and you can use WordPress (and other such platforms) whether you use the free hosting or choose to pay for hosting. WordPress is extremely user friendly, and offers literally hundreds of customizable themes that you can install and use for your blog. What’s more, there are also literally hundreds of WordPress-compatible plug-ins that allow you to customize the blog experience to your desires, including SEO building, analytics, and user-oriented applications. Examples of other free blogging platforms include Tumblr, Blogger, and TypePad. Each has its own unique features, and its own set of pros and cons. Explore the website of each platform to decide which experience is best for you.

Developing and maintaining a blog can be a very fulfilling experience. However, it can also be a lot of work. Take the guesswork out of your blog design by choosing a blogging platform that is best suited for you. Explore your options with these tips in mind, and you will be well on your way to creating a blog that is uniquely yours.

Solomon Bonaguidi is a web developer who loves helping new bloggers get started with their platform of choice. When he’s also a finance writer who specializes in credit repair, loans, Great Plains Lending, and insurance.

Monetizing your blog. If you plan on making money via your blog, then you need to know how to best optimize your blog for monetization. Choosing a niche is central to your ability to turn your blog into a cash cow. That is because monetizing your blog requires that you strategically use marketing methods to convert your blog subscribers to customers. If you don’t have a niche (and in effect, don’t have a target audience), then who are you marketing to? If you can’t answer that question, then your marketing can’t find an audience, and it won’t be effective.

Search engine optimization (SEO). This term refers to your blog’s importance as seen by the major search engines. If search engines don’t think your blog is important (or relevant), then they won’t feature it in the top results of search return pages and your blog will be left out in the cold. What makes your blog appear to be important to the search engines? Among other things, content that is relevant to your target audience (the people using search terms to locate your blog) is ranked higher than content that has nothing to do with what your readers are searching for. If you don’t have a niche, then your blog will be filled with anything and everything, and won’t be targeting anyone in particular. That means it won’t be relevant to search engines.

As you can see, there are some very important things to consider when your blog is still in the development stages. Ensure your blog’s best chances of success by choosing a niche and sticking with it.

Yes, you can earn money with your blog, but don’t turn in your resignation letter just yet. There are some people who make it quite big in the blogosphere, but sad to say, there are even more who do not really earn much. Let’s try to be positive here and look at the ways that you can make money through your blog, shall we?

Get paid to blog. This is one of the most common ways by which you can make money through your blog. It is also called “pay per post” blogging, and is quite popular with personal bloggers. Basically, you sign up with a company that assigns you certain posts on topics and they pay you an agreed amount for each post. You’d have to include a link and/or talk about a product or service. This kind of scheme has created a lot of controversy, mainly because of transparency issues. Still, it provides a small but steady stream of income for bloggers.

Advertising and affiliate programs. The idea is to create a niche blog that focus on a “popular” topic. When I say popular, I mean a topic that is searched a LOT online. Think loans, weight loss, and the like. You will have to focus on these topics and write posts about them. Also, your blog has to achieve a decent PageRank (Google’s way of ranking web sites) in order to attract advertisers.

Alternatively, you can join Google’s Adsense program. The income is lower over a period of time UNLESS you optimize your blog for it; THEN, you can earn a considerable amount. Of course, you have to realize that you need a large amount of traffic in order to make hefty earnings.

As for affiliate programs, think of these as a sales job online. You get a certain percentage of the sales made if someone clicks on an ad from your blog and buys a product or service from your affiliate partner.

I have to clarify something here – your blog does not have to be a niche blog in order to sell ad space. Indeed, a lot of personal blogs have ads.

Contract blogging. For the lack of a better word, I used contract blogging. Basically, what you can do is hone your writing and blogging skills and then join an existing blog network. What’s going to happen is you sell your services as a blogger and you get paid under some sort of scheme. The advantage of this is that you get a relatively stable income and you get to enjoy what you’re doing more!

So, if you want to blog for the money, check out these methods and see which suits you best!

If your goal is to make your mark online and get as many readers as you can possibly get, then promoting your blog is important. While you may have that much confidence in your ideas and writing style, it may not be enough to catch the attention of potential followers. After all, there are millions of blogs out there, what are the chances of a person stumbling upon your blog?

How can you promote your blog? Is there a right way to do it?

To be honest with you, I don’t think there is ONE way to do it. However, you can put into practice some activities that will help you market your blog. Let us look at some of the most practical ones that actually get results.

Facebook
If you had written this more than a year ago, the first item on my list probably wouldn’t have been Facebook. However, we all know just how big this social networking site has become, and it is a very effective way of getting the word out that you have a blog that you want everyone to read. You can publish links to your posts on your Facebook status. You can create a page on Facebook for your blog and invite people to become fans. You can even pay for ads if you are willing to.

Comment. Comment. Comment.
Two things: make sure you comment in relevant blogs and that your comments are NOT solely to promote your blog. Commenting in other blogs is a great way to meet new people who might be interested in what you have to say. However, simply leaving a useless comment and putting your blog URL is not acceptable. That’s spamming, period. I have made quite a number of friends over the years through my personal blog; and how did that start? We discovered each other through blog comments.

Blog Communities
Practically every blogger I know wants others to discover his/her blog. I suppose that this desire has brought about the need for blog communities such as MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog where bloggers can come together and promote their blogs. The good thing about these communities is that you can also discover likeminded people with similar blogs. It’s easier to do this as part of a community – with tools already set in place – rather than manually looking for blogs through a search engine.

Forums
Much like leaving comments in other blogs, you can participate in forums focusing on topics related to your blog. While blatant self-promotion is usually not allowed, you can always make mention of your blog when relevant.

Mobile blogging is also called moblogging, and most mobile bloggers use their mobile phones equipped with cameras. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out just how attractive this can be. Say you’re on the road and you see a gorgeous sunset; with mobile blogging, you simply have to snap a picture of the scenery and upload it directly to your blog. Instant gratification at it’s best!

How does mobile blogging work?

Basically, you have to have a blog already – you can learn more about the basics of this in our other pages. Once you have that up and running, you need to have software that will allow you to directly post on your blog from your mobile phone. This may vary depending on the blogging platform that you choose to use.

As we are using WordPress, let’s take a look at how you can go about mobile blogging using this platform. The simplest thing that you can do is to use your mobile phone’s web browser and go to the URL http://m.wordpress.com. Upon logging in, you will be directed to a dashboard, much like what you see when you log on using the regular site. The main difference is that it’s so much faster. Once you see that dashboard – and you should already be somewhat familiar with it at this point – you can do practically everything that you do on your computer, in terms of blogging.

Of course, there are also other ways by which you can go about mobile blogging – basically by using plugins that will make the WordPress dashboard easier for the activity. Some of the more popular mobile plugins for WordPress are Wphone, Mobile Plugin, and Mippin. You might want to take a more thorough look around if you are that particular about mobile blogging. As a start though, I would say that the default mobile site will serve its purpose.

One other thing to think about when it comes to mobile blogging…why not make sure that your blog is mobile friendly? You do not really have to worry about this right now, but it might save you time in the future. Viewing sites on a mobile phone is definitely different from viewing them on a laptop or computer. As such, when designing your blog, it would be a good idea to look into the future and design it so that it will be compatible with mobile devices. Alternatively, consider having a mobile version of your blog.

I suppose that both sides have a point. I have to say that I believe that to a certain degree, you HAVE TO be able to write decently in order to be an effective blogger. Let us examine a few points.

One, you need to be able to send your message across clearly. Whether you are writing an article for a magazine or you are writing a blog post, you need to get your message across. In order to do so, you have to be able to write coherently.

Two, you need to know the basics of proper spelling, punctuation, and the like. While you may be good with words, glaring mistakes with regard to spelling, punctuation, and grammar will turn people off. It is true that not everyone is a grammar Nazi, but being correct in this regard adds credibility to your blog.

Three, you need to be able to play with words in order to maintain a captive audience. You might have the most interesting ideas to share, but if you do not think of your audience and try to keep them interested, then you might very well fail.

As you can see, those aspects of “formal” writing apply very much to blogging. No matter how you look at it, writing and blogging have many things in common.

On the other hand, we also have to realize that one need not be a Pulitzer awardee to become a good blogger. As bloggers, we do not need to be so strict and formal with regard to styles and writing rules. Perhaps more important than these rules are the things that you can do to promote your blog and increase your readership. What are these things?

One, you have to pay attention to your wording. Key words have long been an important part of writing for the web. People search for information using these key words, and if you focus on a specific topic, then you ought to find out the key words that are most relevant to this topic.

Two, you have to interact with the rest of the blogosphere. More than offering your own content, do not hesitate to link out to other blogs and sites which may have relevant information for your readers as well.

Three, place high importance on comments. Word your posts so as to incite comments from your readers – good or bad it doesn’t matter. The idea is to start a discussion. More so, remember to reply to comments in your blog AND comment in other blogs as well.

Writing IS part of blogging, but do not make the mistake of thinking that all you need to do to maintain a successful blog is to churn out words.

Widgets may sound cool, but do you have a clear idea of what they are and what they can do? Again, let’s go the most basic route: widgets are basically groups of code that can be used in various web sites (including your blog). They do not require any additional programming work on the par of the end user (you and I). All that you need to do is copy the code to your blog, and you’re good to go.

That’s the (slightly) technical part. Now let’s focus on the more practical aspects of widgets. Basically, you can find widgets of any kind that can add visual appeal to your blog. More than aesthetic value, widgets also offer a lot in terms of usability. Think clock widgets, calendar widgets, countdown widgets, map widgets, comment widgets, popular post widgets, and so on. In fact, there are countless widgets available online today, that it is probably impossible to count them!

As you start your blogging journey, you may be tempted to grab each and every widget that catches your fancy. Trust me, this is NOT a good idea. There is such a thing as having too many widgets in your blog, and if this is the case, you will probably end up with confused or irritated readers – both having negative implications for you.

So what are you to do then? Let’s begin with the most essential widgets that you are going to need. After a few weeks or months of blogging, you will have enough experience to pick out more widgets that will be beneficial to your blog.

Popular Posts Widgets
I think that this widget is one of the most important tools out there. Once you amass a lot of posts in your blog, it could be hard for readers to find older posts, even if they are your best posts. The solution is to use a popular post widget which will highlight these posts. Making it easy for your readers to find these excellent posts works in two ways: one, you give quality content to your readers, making them happy; two, you increase your chances of having readers subscribe to your blog.

Labels or Tags Widgets
Blog platforms usually have these widgets as a default, but you should always make sure that your widget is up and running properly. The reason is quite similar to the rationale behind the first widget I mentioned – you want readers to navigate your blog more easily and to find the posts most relevant to them. Just remember, though, that you have to label or tag your posts properly in order for these widgets to work the way they ought to.

Related Posts Widgets
Do you want to get more page views and promote posts that may not be as popular as the others? Then get a widget that provides links to posts with related content. Again, this will give your readers additional information and give you benefits as well.

These are only some of the most important widgets that you can use for your blog. As you go along, I am certain that you will find more.