10 Reasons Nobody Is Reading Your Real Estate Blog

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Yesterday I spent some time reading real estate blogs. Some I saw were very good – and others made me cringe.

It takes a lot of time to build a successful blog when you are first starting out – you read in one article to do this or that, then another article that says something entirely different – and what you end up with is a lot of confusion!

If you’re looking at the traffic coming to your blog or are starting to feel discouraged because you’ve set one up and it isn’t bringing the results you want, this list below will help you pinpoint exactly why nobody is coming to read your real estate blog.

1. Your articles are putting me to sleep: Several blogs I visited had nothing more than detailed boring market reports. Yes, market reports are a good thing – but a simple graph or chart would be a lot more interesting than 8 paragraphs of text. Moderation is important too – if your last 10 blog posts have 6 market reports, people are going to quickly get bored and leave.

2. You write in too much real estate jargon: The average consumer does not understand real estate terms. Write as if your audience knows nothing about real estate – because chances are they don’t. Something worth doing is setting up glossary posts – for example a post that completely explains conventional mortgages or home inspections. Then, anytime you use the word “home inspection” link to that post.

3. You have too much sidebar clutter: I’m a fan of the simple 2 column sidebar for articles. When I see three or four columns it’s easy to become distracted. Throw in blinking banners or too many other things in the sidebar, and there’s a good chance I’ve missed something important or something you want your readers to be noticing.

4. You aren’t getting any search traffic: Search traffic in my opinion is some of the best traffic – it brings a new potential client in front of you with every search someone does and is directed to your site. Take some time and think about what people are searching for in your area and start writing about those topics too. If nothing else, it will make them remember your name, especially if they find search phrases for local things bringing you back to your site again and again.

5.You aren’t tracking traffic: While its probably not healthy to check your stats more than once a day, some agents never track their stats or might look at them and not know what to do with them. Both Google Analytics and GoStats.com offer reliable free tracking that will help you pinpoint referring pages and search terms bringing visitors to your site.

6. You haven’t networked with local bloggers: Chances are there’s local bloggers all around you – from stay at home moms to college students to other business professionals. Networking with these local bloggers can pay off immensely – leave thoughtful comments on their blog, join whatever social networking groups they belong to, send them a message and ask them if you can include a link to their blog in a post about other local bloggers and blogs. Stay in touch at least once a week, at worse once a month. Subscribing to other blogs will help you stay on task with this.

7. :You haven’t updated in a long time: Blogs should be updated at the very least once or twice a week. If your last post is from 6 months ago and is about “sorry I haven’t written” its a good chance that visitors are going to think you gave up on it or may not feel like it has fresh and useful information.

8. :There aren’t any links to your blog: Building back links is key if you want pagerank that helps you stay on the top of search engines – and if you build links by writing relevant articles, they may also bring traffic to your site. There are many article directories and sites such as Associated Content and Squidoo can help bring more visitors to your site.

9. You Don’t Welcome Comments: While yes, spam comments take time to filter sometimes, welcoming comments allows other people feel like they can participate in a discussion with you. It also makes it very difficult for others to network with you. It’s also frustrating when only logged in visitors can comment, since it takes too much time for the average person to create an account just to leave a comment.

10. Your blog is focused on You You You: We as bloggers can be a bit egotistical at times and might tend just to write about ourselves and our thoughts. Write for your audience, instead of to your audience. Concentrate on showing concern for them and their real estate needs and the many ways you can make their life easier or solve their real estate problems.

This isn’t an all inclusive list naturally, there could be other reasons why you’re not getting the traffic or feedback that you want from your blog. The good news is I do FREE blog reviews for real estate agents, so if you’d be interested in one, send me a message and make sure you include your name, website name, and “Free Real Estate Blog Review” in the subject line.

Have any other tips for someone struggling with getting traffic to their real estate blog? Share them in the comments below!