Who Is Your Blogging Audience?

Who Is Your Blogging Audience?

I get emails often from agents asking me if I could look at their blog and tell them why they are not getting any listings from their blog. Over 90% of the time, it is because they are not speaking to an audience. There is no conversation going on. When you just post listings and market reports, well, for most readers online that is quite boring.

The most important tip I can ever give a new or veteran blogger is to know who your audience is. Who do you want to be having a conversation with? Who do you want to be contacting you?

• Do you want sellers or buyers to be contacting you?

• What age group do you want these people to be?

• What income levels are these people in?

• What do you want these people to do? Call you, email you?

Next, it is vital that you do your keyword research. You will not be getting the calls and inquiries about your services if your are not attracting the people you intend if you do not know and do not use the very keywords that they are typing into the search engine search box.

This is not about guessing or assuming that the keywords you are using are going to be typed into the search box.  Go to the Google Keyword Tool and spend time there figuring out what keywords will be great for you to use because people are actually searching those terms. Many of the agents I coach are shocked to discover that the keywords they have been using which they thought were so popular are actually not even searched for.

Once you have discovered and decided on who your audience is going to be then the next action is to speak to that audience. Write on their level in their voice. Make your blog one of transparency and polarization.  When the calls start coming in, you know you have done your job!

Care to comment on that? (Part one)

Just like real estate agents, no two blogs are alike. For instance, commercial real estate is very different than residential; Some agents are better with buyers, some with sellers. Some agents specialize in a niche or neighborhood, some feel they can be all things to all people. Blog styles, formats and specialties can be very different, as well, and no one can or should tell us how to run our blog. I want to touch on a way to “get your feet wet” in the blogging game. You see, there is still a very small percentage of agents that are really doing any blogging. Why not start out by reading interesting blogs and commenting on those blogs? Do you realize that comments can engage people in conversation? Comments can also lead people back to your blog for people to see what you have to say about things. Who knows, they might even come to your blog and leave a comment on something you wrote.

The fact is, many blogs do not get a lot of comments, especially in the beginning. Don’t feel bad and don’t feel like no on noticed your latest masterpiece just because no one says anything. The majority of readers do NOT comment on blogs. Just keep writing, start commenting, and “find your voice.” It is way too early for a beginning blogger to think they will be a “Rain City Guide” where some amazing writers routinely get dozens (sometimes hundreds) of comments on a single post. 

Many bloggers have good luck reading, writing and commenting on the Active Rain network. Heck, you even get “points” for comments on Active Rain. How cool is that!? I have seen people make a ton of friends on their network with very limited blogging and a whole lot of commenting. Again, there is not a right or wrong answer. So, feel free to leave a comment one this post, even if you just say “hi.” I promise to come take a look at your blog and return the favor.

In the future, we’ll talk about: Can/does commenting help SEO? And Getting carried away in comments.  If we are lucky, I can get some of the other AZREBN writers to chime in on this stuff. Either way, we hope you will be back for more…