Four Blogging Mistakes Real Estate Agents Should Avoid

Blogging is one way real estate brokers can cut marketing costs and find potential home buyers who are increasingly using the Internet to search for future home assets. If done sloppily, however, blogging could be disastrous for an agent’s reputation and overall career.

“While blogging is an essential part of any real estate agent’s inbound marketing strategy, it can do more harm than good when mistakes are made. Mistakes can actually hurt your credibility and reputation,” YLiving.com content producer Faith McGee writes in her article on RealEstate.com

RealBiz Media Group, Inc.’s RBIZis a company known for developing proprietary video marketing software and content platforms for agents to market their listings without the use for third-party websites. Below is a list of top blogging mistakes real estate agents should avoid.

Poor Content

Nobody wants to read mediocre content. But what constitutes good content, in the first place? Good content is information-rich, well-written, authoritative on a subject matter, and interesting, among many things, according to MSN.com SEO and Search Engine Land contributor Rick DeJarnette.

DeJarnette added that search engines favor content that are “easily read” not just by humans, but also computers! “One big piece of advice: If you really are a true fan of flashy, blinky, loud, colorful, and otherwise cool RIA (rich internet application) content, do a favor for your site and your end users who are not fans of the flashy, blinky by making your RIA content accessible by down-level users,” DeJarnette said.

“These users include those who choose not to install browser plug-ins, those who surf with old or incompatible browsers, and to the point, those who are simple search crawlers,” he said.

Additionally, avoid in-your-face, “salesy” blog poststhat are self-serving because do not do well in the content marketing space. The same is true for blog posts riddled with erroneous grammar.

Plagiarism

Even worse than writing fluff is plagiarism. Sometimes, however, plagiarism is not intentional. So just to be sure you are not committing it, it is best to attribute your sources at all times. According to Plariarism.org, rewriting passages or paraphrasing, without giving credit to the original source is plagiarism. Only public domain materials and select Creative Commons-licensed works can be used freely and without the need for attribution.

Visit Indiana University’s Writing Tutorial Services (WTS) webpage, or Purdue’s Online Writing Lab to learn more about plagiarism and how you can avoid it.

Self Indulgence

Using personal anecdotes is not necessarily bad, unless these anecdotes or personal stories are relevant to your readers. Remember that your audience arrived at your blog for a reason, that is, to learn more about a certain property, or to learn tips on buying a home. They did not visit your blog to learn about what you did the moment you woke up, or the last film you saw.

“The harsh truth is this: Your readers aren’t interested in you, your life, or your stories,” says copywriter and Copyblogger.com contributor Henneke Duistermaat. 

She reminds bloggers, in general: “When you want to write a story about your life, ask yourself this: What’s in it for my readers? How can my experience help them?”

Lack of Social Media Promotion

Last but not the least among top blogging mistakes real estate agents should avoid is failure to share posts on social media. “Posting well-written content with useful information is useless if no one sees it,” says professional blogger Charles Mburugu in his guest post on Creative Guerilla Marketing. “You should therefore find ways of promoting your content to increase visibility.”

Enhance your online visibility by cross-publishing your blog posts on social media properties such as Facebook, Linked In, Twitter and Pinterest. If your blog does not come with social integration functionalities, simply copy and paste the link of your blog post with a short introduction on what it is about on your social media accounts.

For more content marketing tips, visit RealBiz Media’s new consumer site Nestbuilder.com.

Nestbuilder.com is a rapidly growing social site for real estate agents and brokers, with over 1.6 million listings to date. The portal offers branded and customizable pages for real estate agents with social media integration features that allow agents to cross-post blog updates, events, and new listings on their social media networks.