Ready to start your blog? Think that this will be the platform you will use to rant and rave about local politics, post a recipe and provide community event calendars?

Think again. Your local newspaper website probably already does that much better than you could dream of.

Your real estate blog is about, get this, REAL ESTATE. You are not a journalist! You are a Realtor. So, you need to write highly focused real estate content if you want to be found through the search engines for terms related to real estate.

Fact is, nobody but your mother, brother and dog care what you have to say enough to read your blog daily, so use your content to get search traffic to your site.

Write to attract Google! Why?

Because most new traffic coming to your blog will be through the search engines and people that find your blog by typing in real estate search terms want one thing… the ability to search for homes or find their home’s value.

The content you write is the bait, your search tools and lead generators are the hook!

Why target real estate terms in your posts?

Because you qualify visitors through search

Do you care that you have 500 people visiting your blog everyday searching for nude beaches in your town? Probably not. Wouldn’t it be much better to have 500 visitors a day that have searched for condos for sale in Long Beach?

You can easily qualify your visitors and make your site more relevant to search engines by laser targeting your posts by writing about real estate instead of being the community guide for everything from nude beaches to restaurants.

How to write a successful real estate blog that qualifies visitors through search:

1. Target a single keyword with each post.

Your most valuable keyword will always be “your farm area + real estate.” Wanna test that theory? Use KeywordDiscovery and you can see search volume per day for any given keyword or term.

2. Write posts at no greater than a high school reading level.

Google actually has readability filters.

The preferred readability level is high school. So, don’t bust out every polysyllabic word you know trying to impress people. Neither readers nor search engines want to be talked down to, so make sure you write in plain English. Otherwise you come off like a pompous know it all that nobody wants to work with.

To check your readability level use: WebsiteGrader

3. Use a trusted formula for writing posts.

For those of you new to copywriting techniques, there are trusted formulas for writing an article that is engaging, easy to scan and well suited for human and search engine visitors. The formula entails: a keyword rich title, keyword use in the post and the use of scanable formatting.

To see the actual formula, read: Formula for a Successful Blog Post

How to tell if you are planning to fail, instead of failing to plan:

If you start prolifically blogging on every topic from local events to ranting on the upcoming elections, plan to fail.

If you decide to blog to other Realtors instead of consumers, plan to fail.

If you spend hours a day touring the blogosphere commenting on every Tom, Dick and Harry’s ActiveRain blog, plan to fail.