If you’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and start blogging, consider why it is you’re doing it. Is it because it’s the latest trend? Everyone else is doing it? Or is it for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Perhaps you just want a venue to speak your mind. Whatever your reasons for blogging, you should start with a purpose. Decide from the beginning what it is your blog is intended to do.

There are probably as many reasons for blogging as there are bloggers. People blog to establish credibility in their industry, build brand awareness, discuss hot topics and much more. It’s not so much a matter of why you decided to blog but what you plan to get out of it. This will help to inspire ideas for subsequent posts after those initial ones that came rapid-fire fast and easy. I know this from experience; my first few posts practically wrote themselves but it got harder and harder to write and manage everything else in my life too.

I decided to set aside a certain time each week solely for blogging. This will help me establish a routine and get into the swing of blogging regularly. If you’re having a hard time coming up with ideas on what to blog about, just do what I did: think about the things that are important to your world and your business. I’m sure that each day you come across a topic that you have an opinion about. Blog about it.

If yours is a business blog, tell your readers (who are probably potential clients for your products or services) about you, what you do, what you offer, what sets you apart from your competition, etc. If you really think about it, there’s an infinite number of topics on which to blog. This is your forum; get your message out. And don’t forget about the search engines.

Writing that includes keywords used by your potential clients to search for your services is important because search engines will use these words or phrases to rank your page. Obviously the higher the rank, the better your search engine placement. Getting in the first page of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN is almost like winning the lottery. Well, I did say almost. After the first page, people tend to stop searching thinking they’ve found the most relevant material for their search terms. And, by the way, those rankings are fleeting; they change daily. An organic placement in the number one spot one day could end up on page 10 the next. Oh what a fickle friend.

The mere fact that you’re reading this blog now means that you realize the importance and popularity of blogging. It’s a revolution in online marketing. Why do I place so much importance on blogging? Because it’s easy, free and anyone can do it. Where else can you have complete control of a forum in which to market your services to a global audience?

And, yes, everyone’s doing it. Do you have teenagers? If so, more than likely they have a MySpace page. It’s their way of networking — and a very popular way of networking I might add. That generation will most certainly continue to blog as they establish their careers and blogging will become second nature to them (if it hasn’t already). That, in and of itself, is reason enough to start blogging — keeping up with the next generation.

So you’ve started blogging and typing as fast as your mind can funnel your thoughts to your fingers. Be careful; remember, your potential clients could be reading your posts. Be sure to maintain an air of professionalism so make sure your blog posts are as error-free as possible. Reread your posts prior to publishing them. If you’re not the world’s best speller, copy and paste your content into a Word document and run spell check. That won’t catch everything but it sure helps. Also try to not offend your readers. Sure this is a forum for you to say whatever it is you want to say but remember that your potential clients could be reading it. I’m not saying you can’t bring up current issues and your stand on them, just be careful how it is worded so as not to highly offend potential clients. Write with as much of an open mind as you can muster. You can’t please everyone all the time, but you don’t have to offend them either.

One last point I’d like to make, add keywords wherever possible to maximize your SEO. I don’t mean throw them around here and there in order to have keyword-laden content; just try to fit in as many as possible without your blog sounding like you’re writing for the search engines.

I hope this information will help those of you that are starting to blog and running into problems regarding content. If you have any questions, just email me at Evy@BrochuresByDesign.com and I can try to help you come up with the right answers.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 7:16 am and is filed under Real Estate Agent Office, Real Estate Books, Real Estate Coaching, Real Estate Listing Coordination, Real Estate MLS, Real Estate Wise Agent, Virtual Assistant Excel Tips -n - Tricks, Virtual Assistant Marketing, Virtual Assistant Mentoring, Virtual Assistant Technology, Virtual Assistant Websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.