Real Estate Blogging - It's All About Building Your Brand

If there's one thing I focus on most when talking with Realtors it's the idea that building your online brand and reputation is key to securing business through blogging and use of social media.

There is no magic solution, no out-of-the-box, turnkey tool that's going to increase online lead generation. What's required is really a blend of good on-page search engine optimization techniques and maximizing your brand through the use of social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Propeller and the more specialized sites like Trulia, Zillow, LinkedIn and ActiveRain.

Building and Maintaining the "Long Tail"

Once more, our focus should be on building our brand and reputation. Sure, the occasional spike in web traffic from one or two carefully worded blog post titles sent up through your networks is nice. But what we should pay more attention to is seeking out ways to establish ourselves within a given niche.

What it takes is time - time to fetter out the social media niches where you can find, get to know, and provide measurable value to folks who want and need your real estate expertise. The key is to prove yourself as both a consistently valuable resource and a thoughtful community contributor.

Seth Godin and others talk a good bit about the Long Tail in marketing. Basically, over time - you build a following that eventually grows into something palpable. Where you may not have the resources or capabilities to make an instant market share grab say - in your real estate niche area - you can, over time build up to this.

Developing your online brand really is an organic process - and it's very.. and I mean VERY easy to become disillusioned when you hit slow patches - where you're putting in the effort but not seeing immediate results. But believe me. If you stick with it, you WILL see results.

It seems like this concept holds true here on Hubpages as well. As you develop a group you follow, it seems that they will slowly begin to follow you as well. Over time, I'm hoping that my comments on other hubs will lead to folks checking mine out as well. If they like what they read, they'll begin to recommend my hubs to others. Think about it: Don't you feel good when you're able to provide a useful bit of information to a trusted and valued colleague or customer? Sharing is caring, after all!

As We Witnessed with Google’s Vince Update - Brand Building Matters

Not too long ago, Google issued what Matt Cutts called modification to its search and ranking algorithm called the "Vince update." A simple Google search for "Google Vince Update" will provide you with the particulars. What's important is that this update seems to have given a measurable bump to some of the major brand names out there - ones who have, by virtue of their “time of service” on the web, earned high levels of social trust, authority, and - as a result - significant PageRank.

Note: What fostered more than a little conversation about the Vince update is the fact that the major brands apparently received more of a push than some of the “lesser” brands.

Here's what Matt Cutts had to say about the Vince Update:

So, What's Your Experience with Building Your Brand?

Have you seen results? Are you getting frustrated?  Stop by and share.  The beauty of sites like Hubpages is that we can all contribute to each others' success.  I look forward to hearing from you!

I hope you found this post useful! As always, if you or anyone you know is in need of a Florida mortgage broker, then I’m your guy. Call me at 863-604-3019 or apply online. We’ll keep you posted and let you know when it’s time to pull the trigger!