How Do I Use Blogging?
One of my favorite “uses” for a blog is to educate my readers … my clients and my potential clients (and maybe even the occasional agent). However, sometimes drumming up new and educational content on a regular basis can be a bit challenging. Yet, I am CERTAIN that you are still replying to phone and email inquiries on a regular basis, right? How many times do get an email asking a question, go to your sent box and scan for the last email you sent answering that question, copy a bulk of that answer and send it as the answer to the new inquiry.You THINK you are clever and saving time by recycling a previous email answer … but you can do better.
Here is post #2 in the “Top 10 Ways to Use Blogging in Real Estate” series:
Answer Real Estate FAQ’s Just Once
- Write a list of all the FAQ’s that you answer on a regular basis. Some great FAQ’s could be:
- How do you get paid as a Buyer/Listing agent?
- What is up with [x] neighborhood? – I know you ALL have that “one” neighborhood that no one seems to “get”.
- What happens once the contract is accepted (buyer/seller)
- What are property taxes in that area?
- Why do I need to talk to a lender BEFORE I look at homes?
- How long does it take to buy/sell a house
- Tackle each question, one at a time, and answer it as a blog post. Not only does this help you answer that FAQ once, but this can be an excellent source of “blog fodder” for your blog.
- Link to other related FAQ’s at the end of each FAQ post. Once you have answered several FAQ’s, you can start interlinking them.
Wouldn’t it be nice to answer your frequently asked questions just once? Wouldn’t it be nice to say,
“That is an excellent question. In fact, I just wrote and published an answer to that very question.”
… and then direct them to the post that you wrote for their answers?
Survey says … YES! That would be very nice.
Using Your Blog to Answer FAQ’s Has Multiple Benefits
- You have just freed up more of your time to play on Twitter. No, I mean, you have just freed up your time to do MORE money making activities.
- You have impressed your client or potential client by directing them to something that YOU wrote and PUBLISHED.
- You have proven yourself as a competent and “on top of it” real estate expert – answering their questions before they even asked them.
- You have now pointed them to your blog. Chances are they will hang around there reading other things you wrote (like the posts that you linked to at the bottom of the post…). If they are not your clients yet, they may even jump on your IDX and look for homes … or request a CMA.
- You will now look at all the questions that people ask you as an excellent resource for blog ideas.
- You can now use your FAQ posts as a great “drip campaign” for your SOI (sphere of influence) and/or potential clients.
Even if all you do is answer FAQ’s on your blog (and maybe throw in a market report or two…) your blog will become a great and informative resource for your clients.
What are some of YOUR FAQ’s that would be a great blog post?
Other Posts in This Series:
Top 10 Ways to Use Blogging in Real Estate: Introduction
Top 10 Ways to Use Blogging in Real Estate: #1 Use Blogging as a Farming/Niche Tool
Note: Next week’s Top 10 Ways to Use Blogging in Real Estate post will be written by the one-and-only Jay Thompson. I am looking forward to his contributions!
Jim Gatos
June 21, 2008 at 4:06 pm
The ideas I am getting from you guys are mind boggling! Thanks!
Sue
June 21, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Your posts are very good. I am currently a one man show, however busting out!! I have a drip campaign, informative blogs and emails with links to school info, etc…I take the pre-setup emails and usually add something more personal before sending it out. I have had calls from potential buyers who called based on info they read on my blog. One woman who called said that someone she worked with told “her” about me based on a blog I wrote, so that is good. I can see where it would be beneficial for a client to have info on taxes, neighborhoods etc. … drill it down blogging. 🙂
Ken Smith
June 21, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I really like this idea. Talk about making you life much easier down the road.
Matthew Rathbun
June 21, 2008 at 9:43 pm
awesome, awesome, awesome!
Jennifer in Louisville
June 22, 2008 at 7:48 am
Great points. Education of the readers does several things for you: it establishes you as an authority on the subject and it gets people in the habit that if they have questions regarding the topic, they come to you for the answers.
Jennifer in Louisville
June 22, 2008 at 7:50 am
Great points. Education of the readers does a couple things for you: It establishes you as an authority on the subject, and it gets persons in the habit that if they have questions regarding the particular topic, that they come to you for the answers (and you in turn help create a relationship with the person).
Mariana Wagner
June 22, 2008 at 8:16 am
Jim – Thanks! … and to think we only touched on 2 ways so far.
Sue – Yep! A blog can do all kinds of great things for your business.
Ken – No kidding! I am ALL about making life easier.
Matthew – Thanks!
Jennifer – I believe our goal SHOULD be the go-to person for all thngs real estate.
Holly White
June 22, 2008 at 10:57 am
Great Ideas!!! I’ve already used your first post and registered and set up my first neighborhood blog that is doubling as a single property website right now until I get more content, but it’s a start and it looks great. Thanks for the wonderful insight on this one. We could all probably lose our voices talking about these things over and over again. Putting them in a blog and directing customers to your site to review them and educate themselves is a stellar way of getting more activity on your site and at the same time establish yourself as an authority on the subject. Way to go!
Mariana Wagner
June 22, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Holly – Congrats on your new blog!
Barry Cunningham
June 22, 2008 at 1:36 pm
we use this approach to generate traffic from consumers in our area on Trulia voices as well
Mariana Wagner
June 22, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Barry- Trulia Voices would be a great platform for FAQ’s. I imagine there will ALWAYS be new and “interesting” questions to answer.
Perri K. Feldman
June 22, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Thanks. I had been hitting a wall and these are great suggestions. Thanks for stopping by, glad to have found your blog.
Eric- New Orleans Condos and Lofts
June 22, 2008 at 4:54 pm
You always have some great ideas. A lot of my blogs are a result of questions that people always ask me. Its just putting them in words for everyone to see. The ones that do not ask still want to know.
Lisa Heindel
June 22, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Would you recommend individual posts versus perhaps creating a FAQ page for a blog?
Mariana Wagner
June 22, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Perri- Make sure you come back for future installments of this series…
Eric – Thanks! You are right … Many people will have questions that they never ask.
Lisa – I would definitely tackle each FAQ as a separate post, but then you COULD have a FAQ page with links to all of your posts on that page. You could then add to it as you wrote more.
Pensacola Real Estate Broker Robin Sherman
June 22, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Mariana – Thanks for this post! I do answer certain questions over and over . . . and I am trying to set up neighborhood specific areas on my web site so I could certainly pull some of that information that I am already collecting for my blog. Keep ’em coming! (Just wish I has 20 more hours a day!)
Mariana Wagner
June 22, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Robin – I figure the more we can use our blogs in our businesses, then, ultimately we will HAVE more time.
Glenn fm Naples
June 23, 2008 at 10:47 am
Prior to posting an answer to a FAQ from your e-mail, should you get the permission of the person asking the question?
Mariana Wagner
June 23, 2008 at 11:10 am
Glenn – I have 2 answers:
1. FAQ is Frequently asked questions, meaning that I get the same questions over and over. I can pull those questions out of my head, for the most part.
2. If I get a particlarly interesting question I will NOT ask persmission from the asker. A question is a question. No, I will not say “so-and-so from this place asked this question…” If I make any reference to someone asking a question, it would be like, “I was recently asked a great question…”
Jay Thompson
June 23, 2008 at 4:14 pm
From a purely logistical standpoint, if you are running a WordPress blog (self-hosted, not wp.com) you can install the FAQ-tastic plugin. This lets you create a page, and “answer” FAQ type questions in the back end of WordPress. The plugin then generates a separate page for each question and compiles the links on your FAQ page.
It’s a great way to collect all your FAQ type posts in one place. There are also some potential SEO benefits to having the page structure it uses. You can see an example on my blog here.
Ken Smith
June 23, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Jay can you control the URL’s of the pages when using the multiple page function or is it automatically the question? Would be nice to shorten those up a little bit.
Jay Thompson
June 23, 2008 at 5:35 pm
@Ken – great question. I just took a look. While the url defaults to the question, there is a field to enter whatever URL you want.
Looks like I missed that when I originally did that first batch of questions… shorter would indeed be better.
Mariana Wagner
June 23, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Jay – That is an awesome tool! Thank you for sharing it.
Ken Smith
June 23, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Jay thanks for sharing the resource. Think there might be more then a few ways to use it.
Paula Henry
June 23, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Mariana –
What an excellent series! I have done this several times with posts – definately love the FAQ plug-in idea. Looking forward to the next installment:)
Jay Thompson
June 23, 2008 at 9:17 pm
“Think there might be more then a few ways to use it.”
I think so too….
Chris Shouse
June 25, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Excellent Post Mariana, look forward to the rest”)
Ana in San Antonio
July 1, 2008 at 11:05 am
Thanks for the tips, I’ve had a blog for about 2 months and I was already out of ideas.
Sue
July 11, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I must start writing FAQs on my blog. I think this will be key in bringing in more activity. I have to believe buyers and sellers are searching on various issues on a daily basis. I never quite understand the resistance buyers have to getting pre-approved.
Brad N
March 7, 2009 at 11:28 am
Wow Great Advice
Here is the issue, I am intimidated to start, Should I be? I have a blog attached to my website that is incorporated. I have this feature turned off atm. The sole reason is that I when I turn it on and look at it live, the Content is sparse.
So it better to create a bunch of articles, save them in word and post them all at one time, or should I post them one at a time over several days/weeks. The advice here means that I now have several new articles to create