1. Get a visitor to click (to go to another page, on your site or someone else’s). 
2. Get a visitor to buy.
3. Get a visitor to give permission for you to follow up (by email, phone, etc.). This includes registration of course.
4. Get a visitor to tell a friend.
5. Get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback.

Today I’d like to focus on #3. Creating a landing page with the purpose of getting users to submit a contact form and/or register to receive updates on recently sold listings.

If you have a real estate blog, the goal of your blog of course is to engage in conversations about buying or selling real estate with your readers.

In our case, we’re looking to create a landing page for the purpose of attracting and engaging potential sellers in conversation about the value of their home while positioning yourself as the go to listing agent when they’re ready to sell.

We’re going to do this by creating a landing page where the dialogue is:

• If you’d like to know the value of your home, simply enter your information here (this is your Call To Action). 
• Here’s what has recently sold in your area and here’s the average days on market for listings like yours. (The suggestive dialogue here is, “this is the profit you can expect to make if we sold your home today).

So, let’s get to it.

Here are 3 simple steps to designing the ultimate landing page for generating new listing leads…

Step #1: Create your new landing page in WordPress.

You want to design a page that’s grabs your reader’s attention, emphasizes your Call To Action, and nothing more. To do this, I’d use a single-column layout with narrow margins to increase reading comprehension.

If you’re using the Genesis Framework and any one of our StudioPress themes, most of them come with a landing page template built right into the theme.  Alternatively, you can simply create a new page and select the “Full Width” template under your “Layout Settings” within your page editor.

I’d go with a single-column layout because it eliminates clutter and puts the focus and attention on your content and your desired Call To Action. All too often, it’s easy to get carried away and add additional elements to that page that just aren’t necessary at all.

Step 2: Let’s write some copy that converts.

You don’t need a clever design to get your new landing page to convert. What you need is good copy. You need to write something so clear and succinct that encourages your readers to take action. You do this by hitting on a couple of key points:

1. Write a compelling headline that engage’s your readers interest. Your headline should be both relevant and communicate what the reader can expect to derive from the page. 
2. Provide a clear call to action. Your call to action can be a link that takes a reader to another page on your site, a button, or a simple opt-in form. Whatever it is, it should be prominent and obvious so that when the reader lands on your landing page, it makes them think: “Oh, that’s what they want me to do.”
3. Write simple, clear, persuasive copy. Your copy should be short enough to communicate the benefit of what you have to offer and insite your reader to take your desired action. Short and simple and not a sentence longer than it has to be otherwise you’re going to lose your readers attention long before they can get to your form, fill it out and hit submit.
4. Make it easy to submit your registration or opt-in form. The fewer the fields the better. And make sure your form (your Call To Action) stands out from the rest of the items on your page. Your readers eyes should be drawn to the form as if to say: “Oh, THAT’S what they want me to do here.”

Hit on each of those key elements and you’ve got yourself a landing page that’s ready to convert.

Step 3: Create and embed your lead generation form.

So, you’ve created your landing page and you’ve drafting your copy. What you need now is your conversion form. In this example, I’m going to use Gravity Forms.

To create a new form:

1. Log into your WordPress dashboard. 
2. Hover over “Forms” > click on “New Form.”

Once there, you can start building your new form. Simply edit the form title and add your desired fields using the advanced field options on the right.

In this example, I titled the form: Get a Detailed Custom Home Valuation Report (Free). Then, I added the following fields:

• First/last name. 
• Email.
• Number.
• Address.
• Comments (this is simply a “paragraph text” field from the “Standard Fields” section).

Click on “Save Form” on the lower right-hand side of the page and you’re all set to embed your new form on your custom landing page.

When you’re in the page editor for your new landing page, you’ll see a button for “Add Form” right next to the “Add Media” button. Click on that and it’ll prompt a pop-up window to embed your new web form:

Select your desired web form and click on “Insert Form” and you’re all set to go! (What you get is a landing page that looks something like this).

Now let’s take a look at some live examples of effective landing pages in action…

Example #1: Talega Home Values Watchlist

The links at the top of the page take take you to another page on the site where you can subscribe to get email updates on recently sold listings in that area. Click on “Condominiums” for example, and you’re redirected to a page where you can opt-in to the Diverse Solutions IDX map search and get email updates on the latest sold listings in that area.

In order to drive traffic to the page in this example, Scott Schang created a Just Sold postcard listing all of the recent sales in the community. No REO’s and short sales. Just standard sales with the shortest D.O.M. (days on market).

The internal dialog we are trying to create for home owners with this formula is “wow, my neighbor sold their home (for a profit) in XX number of days….and my home is TWICE as nice as theirs!” – Scott Schang

What Scott is doing here is offering site visitors the ability to see what they’re home is currently worth and positioning his offer in such a way as to say, “here, sign up for free updates on the latest sold listings so that you can see what your home would sell for in today’s market.” 

If I’m a homeowner:

1. I’d definitely be curious to see what my home is currently worth. And, 
2. I’d be curious to see what homes in my area are selling for (are those sales driving property values up or down for me).

In other words, this page is a perfect conversion opportunity!

Example #2: smartCMA by M2 Realty

Here, Morrocco, Co-founder of M Squared Real Estate provides an excellent example of a landing page with an effective headline, simple, clear and persuasive copy that highlights the benefits to the reader, and provides a clear Call To Action (submit your information below to get all of these benefits and more).

The benefits to submitting the form are:

• A free market analysis of your home. 
• A list of the latest properties for sale similar to yours. And,
• A free report titled The Listing Book - a 21-page real estate marketing overview outlining M Squared Real Estate’s marketing strategies and tips for preparing your home for sale. That way, when you’re ready to sell your home, you know how M Squared Real Estate can help.

While I’m not a fan of sidebars on a landing page because they often take away from the action you want the site visitor to take, here, Dominic provides supporting images and copy that serves only to strengthen the benefits of submitting the form.

Another great example of a landing page primed for generating new listings leads!

What are you waiting for? Get started…

So, now you know how to build a landing page that converts from start to finish.

If you’d like to start generating new listings leads, the first step is to build out your new lead generating landing page. Then, slowly start driving traffic to that page.

You’ve got the tools. I’ve shown you what to do next. Get started.

When you’re done… Drop a link to your new page in the comments. I’d love to take a look. And if you need some help along the way, just let me know, I’m happy to help!

That got me thinking…

Who’s doing video right?

And what sort of content should you be creating with video?

Well, I like this community video produced by real estate broker Greg Fischer.

But what other sorts of creative ways can you use video to promote your local community?

And that’s when I came across these… A collection of beautifully produced time-lapse videos that do an excellent job of promoting their respective cities.

1. San Diego

WELCOME HOME TIMELAPSE from Michael Shainblum on Vimeo.

2. Chicago

Cityscape Chicago from Eric Hines on Vimeo.

3. San Francisco

4. Los Angeles

Timelapse from Alex Hallajian on Vimeo.

5. New York

Metropolis – A New York City Timelapse from Will Boisture on Vimeo.

What do you think… Would you create a time-lapse video to promote your area?

Or what other ways are you using video to market your listings and your communities?

But some days you just don’t feel like writing or you simply don’t know what to write about.

If today’s one of those days, don’t worry, I got you covered…

Here’s 10 ideas to help you feed the blog beast!

1. Answer frequently asked questions.

The easiest way to come up with fresh content ideas for your real estate blog is to answer those frequently asked questions that you get from customers and potential customers day-in an day out.

How’s the local market?

Write a market report for the month that covers what sold, the average D.O.M. (days on market), and highlight the latest listings for sale.

Post title: Laguna Niguel Real Estate Market Report – March 2013

Have any advice on how to successfully price my home for sale? 

Write a list post that covers your “7″ best tips on how to price your home for sale.

Post Title: 7 Pricing Mistakes and How To Avoid Them.

2. Keep a journal of things to write about.

The easiest way to ensure that you never run out of things to write about is by keeping a journal of post ideas for easy reference. I have a moleskine notebook that I try to write potential headlines in daily. But Evernote is a great place to capture blog post ideas too.

Every day, make it a goal to write at least 5 – 10 headlines in your notebook. This way, the next time your short on things to write about all you have to do is open up that notebook and look up a post title that looks like it’s worth writing about.

3. Review local businesses and restaurants.

As a real estate agent, you’re always out in the field. Previewing homes, driving around town and just all around spending time in the community. You probably frequent some of the same businesses and restaurants often, which means you can easily talk about them. You can talk about which ones are good, and which ones are not so good. So do just that… Write a local business or restaurant review.

Write about your favorite local business or restaurant. Why is it so good? What do you recommend? How long have they been in business?

People buying real estate in your area are interested in what homes are for sale, sure. But they also want to know what else is good about the community. Including the best businesses in town, and the best places to eat, etc.

4. Share what you know about the local real estate market.

Are we in a buyers market or sellers market? How many homes sold in the last month? What’s the average list price in “this” or “that” neighborhood? What’s the average days on market? How do predict the local real estate market to perform in the next 6 months?

When you run out of things to write about, look up the latest stats and write a piece that shares the latest market statistics. While boring to some, it’s definitely the type of content someone wants to read if they’re in the market to buy right now.

5. Use Google Alerts.

Setup Google Alerts so that you get daily email updates on what’s going on in your real estate market. Mine those email alerts to find things to talk about. If you’re community is too small, and you’re not getting very many alerts, try setting up a few alerts for national news. Then, inject your own opinion into it. Why is this important and how does it impact your local real estate market?

6. Revisit your post archives.

Every couple of months you should revisit your post archives to find good pieces of content that maybe need a little bit of updating. So when you’re sitting there, wondering what to write about, or you feel like you’ve already written on a topic before, you probably have. But maybe that post needs a little bit of updating.

Revisit some of your older posts. Look for posts that seemed to resonate with your readers and give it an update to make it better. Or expand on it. Who knows, with enough posts in your “For Buyer’s” category archive, you might have enough content to turn it into a downloadable ebook you can giveaway as a freebie for email subscribers (hint: this is a great way to build your email list).

7. Mine your analytics.

First and foremost, you should have Google Analytics installed on your real estate website. Once you do, you can mine your analytics data to see what’s popular with your readers. You want to look for:

1. Terms that people are searching to arrive at your website.
2. The most popular content pages on your website.

Knowing this information will tell you what you should focus on writing more of.

8. Share your hobbies.

I live in a city called Laguna Niguel. One of my hobbies is running (trail running). Laguna Niguel has 2 community parks, 23 neighborhood parks, and 2 county parks. That said, there’s plenty of places to hit a nice trail run.

For a short run, I’d go to the Laguna Niguel Regional Park. For a longer, morning long run, I recommend Wood Canyon Wilderness Park.

If I were a real estate agent, I’d write a blog post about the best places to go running. And I’d upload tons of pictures and talk about all of the wonderful trails.

See, authoring a real estate blog doesn’t have to be all about boring market statistics. You can write about things you like to do too. Who knows, your readers might share your same passion for running and choose to do business with you because of your shared hobbies.

9. Create a weekly feature.

The Weekend Sherpa is a free weekly email newsletter that gives subscribers the inside scoop on fun activities for that weekend. Emails go out every Thursday. And tell you what, I bet they get a pretty good open rate.

I lived in San Diego for a year and while I was there, being new to the area, I was always looking for fun things to do for the weekend. Real estate agent Carol Farrar’s website always came in handy: http://www.carol-farrar.com/category/365ncsd.

She always published a list of things to do in the area and I always read her stuff.

So if you’re looking for ways to create new content that’s of interest to your readers, create a weekly theme to your content by creating your own version of the “Weekend Sherpa.”

Publish a weekly series that talks about upcoming events and things to do for the weekend. Similar to how Erika Napoletano writes over at YourBoulder.com:

Read: What’s Shakin’ in #Boulder? Weekend Events, 3/28/13 Edition

10. Attend local community events.

There’s no better way to establish a relationship with the local community than by attending local community events. Take lots of photos, maybe some video then publish it all for the community to share.

Here’s a great example from local SEO pro and Chiropractor  Michael Dorausch who took photos from the 2013 ASICS LA Marathon. He published all of those photos on Flickr, added a Creative Commons license and a description below each photo requesting a link-back should anyone want to use his photo:

As someone who runs half-marathons, first off, I appreciate the fact that a photographer takes time to spend the day out there and take photos. Number two, I’m damn happy to use a photo of me in all my sweaty glory and provide a link-back to the photographer to give them credit.

Now that’s a lot of runners and a lot of links. But also, it’s building good relationships with the community and it’s an easy way to create fresh new multimedia content for your real estate website.

Over to you…

The success of your real estate blog is dependent upon your ability to write fresh new content consistently, over time. The more you write and the more helpful your content, the more leads you’ll generate.

Sure, blog topics don’t always come easy. But if you implement just a handful of these ideas you’ll never run out of things to write about!

Want more? Sign up to get free updates like this by email.

But choosing the right theme is a lot more than just picking something that looks nice. Choosing the right theme for your business blog is going to set the tone for your business online moving forward.

That said, here’s a few critical questions to ask yourself when choosing a WordPress theme…

Question #1: What are your primary goals and objectives?

Before you begin your search for the right WordPress theme, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions:

• What type of content will you be creating? (Video, written, photos).
• How do you want your content to be organized? And how can you best organize that content so it’s easy to access? Easy for site visitors to take action on what you want them to do?

Answering these questions up front will give you a better idea of what to look for when searching for the right WordPress theme. You can narrow down your search and weed out the themes that simply will not work for the type of site that you’re trying to create.

So let’s say you don’t like to write, but you love creating video content. You’re going to want a theme that makes it easy to upload and organize video content like the Production Child theme from Nick the Geek.

Or maybe you run a luxury staging company, so you want something elegant that really allows you to upload high quality photos from some of your recent stagings. The Decor Child Theme from StudioPress might be just what you need.

Question #2: Will you be updating your blog often or not very much?

The great thing about WordPress is that you can design it to look and function any way you’d like. So let’s say you want to create a blog that functions as a local newspaper for things to do in your community. You can design your blog so it looks like a local newspaper. Real estate blogger Martin Millner did just that-check out: buckscountypatoday.com.

On the other hand, if you’re not blogging often, you probably don’t want to have your blog displayed prominently on the homepage. The worst thing you can do is have an out-of-date real estate blog displayed front and center to new site visitors. So instead, you create a site with a static homepage that highlights your community landing pages showcasing your latest listings. Here’s a great example of a real estate site sporting a static homepage design from Ha Media Group.

Once you’ve decided whether you’ll be publishing often or not very much, you can select a theme that has either a “magazine feel” because you’ll be publishing content often, or you can pick a theme whose features have a bit more of static homepage design. There’s plenty of both.

Question #3: Is this theme mobile responsive?

Google says:

…a single URL for the content helps Google’s algorithms assign the indexing properties for the content.

When a site visitor clicks through to your website from search results then quickly quicks away because of a poorly optimized mobile website, it tells Google that your site doesn’t have the content they were looking for. So needless to say, mobile matters.

With a mobile-responsive design, there’s no need to use a plugin to make your site mobile and no need to create a whole separate web app to render your site on mobile. Now, you simply have one website that works across all mobile devices.

You’re ready to pick a theme!

Once you’ve answered these 3 critical questions, you’re ready to pick a WordPress theme!

To create such content and develop a website that’s SEO-friendly and gets properly indexed in search results you’ll need to:

• Understand how to perform proper keyword research.
• Understand on-page SEO factors so that you can properly optimize your content pages.
• Understand how to claim your Google authorship so that your authorship information displays in search results for the content that you create.

…and much more.

But don’t worry, this doesn’t have to be difficult. I’ve rallied some of the best content around the web to give you a solid introduction to understanding search engine optimization.

Some of these are guides that’ll give you a good introduction into the world of SEO and others are practical How To that’ll walk you through the process of implementing and building an SEO-friendly website that Google will love now and into the future.

Enjoy!

Learn SEO

The Beginner’s Guide to SEO by SEOmoz
If you’re looking for a good primer on how to get started with SEO then SEOmoz has you covered with a solid 10 Chapters covering everything you need to know.

How To Create Compelling Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines
Here’s another great in depth report written by Copyblogger founder Brian Clark that teaches you how search engines work, how to create readable and engaging content, how to create cornerstone content that Google loves and more.

Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide by Google
If you’re looking for a comprehensive introduction to SEO this is a nice complement to the previous two guides listed above. Between this one and the previous two you basically have a whole SEO 101 textbook to read through.

Meta Description Magic: Think Less About SEO and More About Click-Throughs
The meta description is the 160 character snippet used to summarize a web page’s content. Search engines use these snippets in search results to let site visitors know what a specific page is about. This post covers in details why meta descriptions are so important and how to properly optimize your content’s meta description to increase click-through rates.

A Simple Step by Step Guide To SEO
If you’re looking for a quick-start guide on some simple things you can do to optimize your website, this is it. This post covers some on-site and off-site SEO basics, how Google+ can help with your rankings, and how to track your results.

A Cheat Sheet for Building High Ranking Authority…Without Cheating
If you want to build an authoritative website, one that ranks well in search engines across multiple pages, then you need to create a strong relationship between your pages through deep linking. This post shows you how to link to a cluster of pages by topic, how to send more links to one particular page, how to avoid cannibalizing keywords and much more.

The SEO of Responsive Web Design
Statistics say that 61% of consumers who visit a mobile unfriendly website are more likely to go to a competitor’s site. This post covers everything you need to know about mobile responsive design and how it impacts SEO from usability to duplicate content to ranking for mobile searches.

10 Reasons Writers Should Claim Their Google Authorship Markup
Authorship markup is the method used to display your authorship information in search results for the content that you create. This post serves as a great primer on how to implement authorship on your website and how it can impact your search results.

On-Page Factors: Best Practices for Search Engine Optimization
There are several on-page SEO factors that affect search engine rankings. This post is a great primer on how to create a perfectly optimized page.

The True Power of Evergreen Content – A Case Study
Evergreen content is a great way to build your audience and increase the authority of your website. This post offers an excellent case study in how evergreen content (or cornerstone content) can serve as an excellent foundation for your overall content strategy.

How To

The Beginner’s Checklist for Learning SEO
Wondering how to build an SEO-friendly website that gets properly indexed in search results? This post gives you the perfect step-by-step checklist with tons of instruction along the way.

The 2012 Guide To Google Webmaster Tools — Analytics Integration, +1 Metrics and More
Yes this post is titled the “2012 Guide” and I realize we’re in 2013. Still, it’s a great resource for how to setup Google Webmaster Tools and generate an XML sitemap for your site. Once you have webmaster tools setup you’ll be able to see important data such as search queries, crawl erros, incoming links, top keywords and more.

How To Setup Your SEO Friendly WordPress Website in 15 Minutes
Alright, so you purchased a domain name, you just setup a new hosting account and installed WordPress and you’ve installed your new Genesis powered WordPress theme. What’s next? This post shows you what to do step by step so that you can have an SEO-friendly website that gets indexed by search engines.

A 3-Step Process for Painless Keyword Research
Proper keyword research is one of the most essential elements to your content marketing success and it’s often the most difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. In this post you’ll learn a simple, 3-step process for identifying the appropriate keywords for your content.

How To Add Google Author Tags To Your Real Estate Blog for Improved Search Results
The rel=”author” link element is a way of assigning authorship to the content you’ve published online. This way, when people perform a search, they’ll be able to see who published an entry straight from the search results page. In this post I show you how to add Google Author tags to your real estate blog for improved search results.

Claim Google Authorship for Your WordPress Website in 3 Easy Steps
If you’re using the Genesis framework for WordPress, claiming your Google authorship is as easy as 1, 2, 3. This post shows you how!

6 Indispensable Free and Freemium SEO Tools
As you begin working on optimizing your website you’re going to need some good SEO tools to help you move along. This post offers 6 of the best tools around to help you get the job done.

10 Premium SEO Tools That You Can Try for Free (or Cheap)
Looking for more than just the basics, here’s a solid list of premium SEO tools that you can use for free or cheap as you conduct your marketing research.

Over to you…

What are some of your favorite How To’s and guides for learning and mastering SEO?

What articles would you add to this list?

Here’s what you can expect:

• A copy of my ebook – Real Estate Blog Blazers – a 53 page ebook where 8 real estate bloggers share their secrets to building a successful real estate blog. 
• Weekly articles on online marketing strategies for real estate.
• How To articles on building lead generating landing pages, and more.

To sign up, just enter your email below:

Photo by: (from a second story)Mike Bailey-Gates

Your customers may be reacting the very same way when they come across your website.

Sometimes, in an effort to build a highly effective, lead generating website, we do too much. We add a page here, another page there. A widget here and a widget there.

You add more because you think it’s important and you don’t want to miss an opportunity to convert a visitor into a lead. Except, you’re not making it easier for people to connect with you, you’re really making it more difficult.

So how do you fix things? What do you do?

Step #1. Clean up your site’s navigation.

Only link to the pages in your navigation that are absolutely essential to your product/service offering. The fewer the pages in your site’s navigation, the better. It’s easier to navigate that way.

Check your data. The data doesn’t lie.

Log into your Google Analytics account. Then, go to “Content” and click on “In-Page Analytics.” There, you’ll get a live preview of your site along with statistics on the average click-rate for each of the pages in your navigation.

If you find that people aren’t clicking on something, is it worth taking up space on your navigation? (Probably not).

Step #2. Cut down on the amount of widgets on display.

You might think you’re adding useful Calls To Action by adding more widgets to your sidebar but it’s possible that you’re really only adding noise and clutter. Just as with your navigation, the fewer items you have in your sidebar, the better.

For example, take a look at Rafal Tomal’s blog page. Notice that he doesn’t even use a sidebar. This way, he’s putting the emphasis and focus on his blog content rather than anything else.

More isn’t always better.

Step#3. Clean up your Calls To Action.

Look at your landing pages (or your product/services page) and tidy up your Calls To Action. What specifically do you want site visitors to do? Are you making it clear?

If not, what can you do to improve that page and move prospects closer to taking action on what you want them to do?

Taking My Own Advice & Putting It Into Action!

Speaking of clutter and what you can do to tidy things up, this site’s sporting a new design that includes a single-page navigation for the homepage and single-column blog layout.

There’s still a few things that need tweaking (like the scroll on the navigation menu). But hopefully, it’s easy to access new and old content and the single-column layout makes it easier to read.

Have a look around and let me know what you think…your feedback is welcome!

Sure, you have your number and email available, and you even have a contact form available on your “contact us” page. But what if you strategically placed a contact form in other areas of your website?

Truth is, the easier you make it to contact you, the more likely site visitors are to do so. This means doing the following:

• Displaying contact forms prominently on your site. 
• Designing your contact form so that it stands out.
• Making it easy to submit (the fewer the fields, the better).

Here’s a list of high-converting places to add a custom contact form on your website…

Idea #1. Place a contact form on a landing page designed for sellers.

One of the most common types of landing pages that you can create for your real estate blog is a “What’s My Home Worth?” landing page. This type of landing page is designed to capture information from prospects interested in selling their homes.

The idea is, they fill out a form requesting information on what they’re property is worth. They give you their name, email, phone number, property address and a few other details and in exchange, you give them a detailed (free) CMA (Complimentary Market Analysis).

Here’s one of my favorite examples from msqrealty.com:

Idea #2. Place a contact form on the sidebar for your IDX listing pages.

It’s easy to say and think,

if a prospect is interested in a property, they’ll pick up the phone and call me. My number is listed on my website.

…but it doesn’t always work out that way.

In fact, prospects might be hesitant to pick up the phone and contact you for a few reasons:

• Fear of getting pitched on the phone. 
• Fear of getting pressured to make a decision and commitment while on the phone.
• They don’t know you all that well just yet or how qualified you are as a real estate agent.

So often times, email is a great way to engage in a conversation about buying or selling real estate. It provides both you and the prospect with an opportunity to connect in a private, low pressured environment.

So rather than assuming that they’ll pick up the phone and call, what if you made it easier for them to contact you by placing a contact form to “Request More Information” on your IDX listing pages? Don’t you think that would encourage them to take action on asking questions regarding a property? I certainly think so!

Here’s a great example from wesellsarasota.com:

Idea #3. Place a contact form on your individual blog posts.

A great real estate blog answers the average readers questions about buying and selling real estate. Things like how to use Gift Money as a form of down payment, or educates them on things like first time buyer programs.

But what happens when a reader has a quick question about their own personal situation that they’d like to have answered? Chances are, they’re not going to leave a public comment on your blog about it. And they might not be ready to hop on the phone and talk about it either.

Enter the contact form. A quick and easy way to submit a private question about any questions you might have about buying/selling real estate.

Here’s a great example of a contact form used on the sidebar of individual blog posts over at shelterrealty.com:

4. Use a lightbox contact form.

This one’s similar to idea #2 listed above-to provide readers an easy way to get in touch regarding one of your listings. Only, this one uses a pop-up form (customized by the folks over at Tribus Group) to capture information from site visitors upon landing on one of your listings.

Ex. blufftonrealestate.com.

5. Place a contact form on the footer of your website.

Website footers have evolved from a simple place where you can host your copyright information to a section where you can host an extended set of navigation items, links, contact information and more. Including a contact form!

So while yes, you might have your number and email listed on the header of your website, why not place a contact form at the footer of your website making it easier for site visitors to contact you should they have a question no matter what page of your site they’re on.

Here’s a great example of how this contact form is executed by the folks over at barefootrealestatenj.com:

Make It Easier for Site Visitors To Contact You…Period.

Often times, the simple reason that our real estate blog isn’t converting is because you’re making it difficult to readers to get in touch. You don’t have a phone number or email listed, and/or your contact form is broken or it requires too many fields.

But by simplifying things, and placing a contact forms strategically throughout your site, in areas where a reader might be in a position where they’re likely to want to ask a question, you’re likely to instantly improve your lead generation numbers!

Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

They start of posting daily. Then, it turns into once or twice a week. And then, before you know it, it’s been a whole month since you’ve written anything new.

Now, some people will tell you “you should only write when you have something to say.” But in real estate, that’s bad advice.

Do you know why?

Because real estate is an always changing market and your prospects want to stay on top of current events. Reading something that’s a month (or more) old is bad information. And you can bet that if your content is outdated, they’re going to turn elsewhere for information on the local marketplace.

So if you’re not keeping your content fresh, you’re losing customers. But we don’t want that to happen, so to help, here’s 5 ideas to keep your blog content fresh…

Idea #1. Develop a realistic posting schedule early on.

It’s important to develop a realistic posting schedule early on for two reasons:

1. To set proper expectations with your readers. If your readers know that you consistently post fresh new content on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s for example, they’ll keep coming back to your site week after week on those days. If however, you post once or twice a month whenever you feel like it, you’re prone to lose a reader or two (if not more) because you’re not posting often enough for them.
2. To hold yourself accountable and keep yourself from burning out. Committing to “writing daily” is a quick way to burn yourself out. Instead, set a realistic goal/expectation with yourself and lighten the workload. Commit to publishing something new say once or twice a week (on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s for example). This way, you won’t crash against the added pressure of having to publish something daily, but you’ll still have something new written often enough to keep your audience coming back for more. 

You don’t need to write daily to build your business. Instead, set a realistic weekly/monthly goal for yourself, and commit to sticking to it.

Idea #2. Keep an idea journal.

There’s going to be days when you don’t know what to write about next. That’s why it’s important to keep an idea journal–something that you can pick up and dig through for something to write about when you’re short on ideas.

You can write post ideas in your moleskine notebook or share articles and headlines ideas into Evernote.  The goal is to simply keep a running journal of post ideas for easy reference later when you’re running short on things to write about.

The next time a customer asks you a question, log it into your journal. Or the next time you think of a good post headline while you’re waiting in line at Starbucks, email a note to save it into Evernote and keep adding content to that idea journal for later reference. This way, you’ll never run out of post ideas when you need them.

Idea #3. Schedule blog posts in advance especially if you know it’s going to be a busy week.

The lead generation process in real estate always ebbs and flows. Sometimes it’s slow, other times, the leads just keep pouring in. Either way, you have to keep feeding the content beast especially when it’s an integral part of your marketing process.

And since real estate is always an ever-changing market, it’s important to stay up-to-date with current events. If readers are searching for updates on the local market, they can’t come across a blog post you wrote 3-4 months ago–you’ll lose readers and prospects that way.

So if you know you’re going to be busy, or you’re heading out of town the next week, try to publish your blog posts a week in advance. Use WordPress’ post scheduler to publish your article(s) in advance.

Idea #4. Lighten the workload by allowing guest posts.

A great way to lighten the workload is by allowing industry experts to contribute guest posts to your site. If you’re a real estate agent, there’s two types of professionals that come to mind here:

• Home Stagers. Let home stagers write about how staging a home for sale can lead to selling a home faster and for top dollar. 
• Mortgage Professionals. Let mortgage professionals write about the qualification process and the latest mortgage rates.

It’s a win-win.

You get fresh new content for your site, and they get access to a new, relevant audience for their business.

Idea #5. Create a weekly/monthly theme for your content.

A great way to get yourself to stay consistent with your post schedule is by creating a theme for your content. For example:

• On Tuesdays, you’ll share the week’s “Home of the Week.” Simply write a blog post profiling a unique home for sale. What makes it unique? Is it a fixer-upper? If so, how much do you estimate it would cost to remodel this home and is it a good investment in your opinion?
• On Wednesdays, you’ll write a mortgage update to share the latest in mortgage rates: [Your City] Mortgage Rates Report – [insert date]. 
• On Friday’s, you might publish a list of upcoming Open Houses and other things to do for the weekend.

It’s often easier to stay consistent with a posting schedule when you develop a consistent theme for your content.

Always Keep Your Content Fresh!

Sure, there will be days when you’re feeling stuck over what to write about next. But by implementing at least a few of these ideas, it’ll help you get un-stuck so that your content never goes stale again.

But why should you care about mobile responsive design? How does it impact your SEO efforts?

Join me as I interview Josh Byers from Copyblogger Media to discuss:

• What responsive design means.
• The difference between responsive design versus having a web app. 
• Why responsive design is good for SEO and usability–and why this matters to you.
• How Google ranks sites optimized for mobile higher in mobile searches.

…and more.

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

(Duration = 20:08 | 19.3 MB)

Other ways to listen:

• Click here to download the mp3 | 19.3 MB | 20:08 (Right click and hit “save as”)
• Subscribe via Email
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Show notes:

• Buy the book, Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte. 
• Follow Josh Byers on Twitter.
• Learn more about Josh Byers from his website.
• Further reading: The Beginner’s Guide to Mobile Responsive Design.