Jan
31
If you’ve taken up blogging for your real estate agency, you’ll love these five tips on how to write better quality blog posts that engage your readers. Best of all, you’ll like the fact that they are easy to follow and promise you a huge improvement for little effort! So read on…
1) Headlines make or break your post
The headline is probably the most important part of your blog post. It must catch your reader’s eye instantly, or else your piece will go unnoticed and unread. As a general rule of thumb, use the headline to promise the reader a benefit that will be obtained by reading the post.
If you’re stuck for a good headline, here are a few tips:
- Using numbers is one good idea, just like I did in this blogpost. In your case it could be: “3 things you need to know before you invest in Bulgarian property”.
- Ask a question your readers will itch to find the answer to: “Cape Verde property - Why is this the best time to buy?”
- Or offer an explanation of how to solve a problem: “How you can renegotiate your mortgage and survive the recession”
Some people write the headline first and then the post content. Others prefer to make do with a working headline at first and then change to a better one that summarises the post in an attractive way. Choose whichever suits you best.
2) Be personal and involve your reader
Since one of the aims of your blog is to develop a relationship with your readers, you should try and address them directly as much as possible. Use the word ‘you’ often in your writing to draw in your readers and make them feel a part of what you are saying. Sometimes, a blog post may be very newsy and using the ‘you’ form may not be appropriate, but where possible, try and present the news in a way that sounds like a property advisor talking to a client, or one friend to another.
It also helps to qualify your readers, where possible, with phrases like, “If you are planning to buy a Villa in Cyprus…” That way you capture the interest of the right people and leave the rest free to move on to another post of yours that is of more value to them. After all, it’s quite unfeasible to expect your readers to read all posts in your blog, so help them find what they are looking for.
3) Break up your post with subheads and bullets
Just as you are busy, your clients are busy too, and the average blog reader is put off by a whole screen of never-ending text. Of course, your blog posts don’t need to be long, but when they are, subheads come in very handy to break your writing up into more manageable - and less daunting - sections. What’s more, many people read by skimming through the article, and by using subheads properly you can help them easily identify the relevant parts of your blog posts they want to know more about.
For example, say a client is reading about renegotiating her mortgage and already knows that it is possible to do so. She might be happy to be able to skip over the paragraph titled, “Don’t shy away from your bank manager”, and get down to the nitty gritty with, “Six documents the banks will want to see”, “How to choose the right bank” and, “Hot tips for negotiating the best mortgage deal”.
Similarly, bullet points can often help to break up the monotony of a page and speed up reading. If you are talking about a list of things, or a series of steps, or anything similar, you have a very good candidate for using bullet points to the benefit of your piece.
4) Keywords and SEO the stealthy way
The search engines are a huge source of visitors, and while you write primarily for your audience of prospective clients, try and keep in mind the main keywords related to your topic so that you can woo those mechanical brains too.
The article heading is a very important place to put your main keywords, as the search engines give it a lot of weight when determining what you are writing about. In the heading examples I gave earlier, I’ve used words like ‘property’, ‘buy’ and ‘invest’ pretty seamlessly and unobtrusively.
Also, slip some keywords into your writing when you can (a lot of this will come naturally), but always remember that the flow of the piece from the point of view of the human reader is of utmost importance. Fortunately, Google, Yahoo and MSN also count variations of keywords as being alike, so, for example, ‘buy property’ and ‘buying properties’ will both add to the keyword count if used in a blog post together. Another thing is that keywords don’t have to be always consecutive or in the same order, so you can be creative as you spread them around your post.
5) Embracing the blogging community
One very worthwhile blogging practice is to follow other property or investment blogs and article sources and refer in your own writing to specific posts that you think will interest your readers. You can comment on someone else’s post, expand on it, give your point of view, summarise it for your readers, list it as one of several ‘further reading’ articles, and so on, always linking back to the original source. This has several benefits:
- It gives your readers access to even more information increasing the chances they will bookmark your property blog as valuable resource.
- It often creates an automatic link (called a trackback) from the source blog to your post (if the source blog is set up to do this). This will bring in some readers from that blog to your property blog, and, what’s more, the link that may even be counted by the search engines for ranking purposes (though this is sometimes disabled by the source blog).
- It attracts the attention of other (hopefully influential) property and business bloggers, who might in turn read your property blog and maybe even write about your posts on their own blog.
Put these simple tips into practice and you’ll see the quality of your blog posts jump. And, of course, your readers will notice too!
Jan
29
Having recently launched their new look website, tenerifeinvest.com together with their blog tenerifeinvest.info, Tenerife Property are certainly one of the Estate Agents to look out for in bringing good quality affordable properties for sale Tenerife to clients looking for their place in the sun.
Jan
25
our office
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Here is a video clip of our office from our new you tube account.
Jan
22
How to use video in your property marketing blog and get a much needed edge on your competitors
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If a picture is ever worth a thousand words, it’s when you’re selling something like real estate, where each and every property is unique, no matter how similar. The importance of putting a good photo in a property listing hardly needs to be discussed. A well-taken photo catches the eye and generates interest in the property, just like a dark or blurry one puts the viewer off.
So, if a picture can be so decisive, think about what you could achieve if you used video to promote your top property listings on the Internet with a virtual tour! And now, it’s easier than ever, thanks to websites like YouTube and Google Video that make it a breeze post your property videos online in your blog or on your website.
On WordPress, the blogging platform we recommend, it takes all of a minute to post a Google vid!
You don’t have to be a camera expert to film great property video!
This is not Hollywood, so don’t expect to see Steven Spielberg stroll by as you film a property. If that’s a disappointment, the good news is that you don’t need to be a camera wizard to make a simple, but very effective property video. With couple hundred Euros’ worth of video camera and editing software, you’re all set to go. Oh… and we almost forgot! The professional cameraman’s secret. What’s it? A tripod. Don’t tell any one we told you!
A dead easy way to make a professional-looking real estate virtual tour
Take a look at this property video we found on the excellent real estate blogging blog The Real Estate Tomato.
Notice how there is no special camerawork – just simple slow panning from one side to another to show the property, alternated with some zooming out, just for the sake of variety. The video consists of nothing more than the estate agent’s details and a few short scenes, voiced over with a pleasant narration of the property’s features, and still it looks so professional. Couldn’t be simpler, and yet extremely effective!
A word of caution and common sense
Remember what we said about dark or blurry pictures? With video, you don’t really have to worry about that, as long as you have adequate lighting, since modern cameras focus and adjust their sensitivity automatically.
What you do have to make sure, however, is that the property you are filming is clean, tidy, and looking its best. It’s surprising to see some estate agent listings with pictures of messy-looking rooms, and the same applies in video, of course. So, all the usual property photo tips apply here:
- clear up
- get rid of the piles of children’s toys
- move bulky furniture out of the way
- open windows for light
- shoo away pets
- all other common sense details to make the place look good
- and maybe a bunch of flowers to give colour to a dull room
So dust off your cameras and get out there! With a little practice, you’ll be amazed at the results you can achieve. But more importantly, your videos will give you a much-needed edge in today’s tough real estate market and will help you generate even more enquiries on your property portfolio.
And don’t forget that tripod – it’s the secret that will mean the difference between a shaky amateur job and a stunning professional-looking video.
Jan
8
Back to reality
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I visited SA for the first time for two years last month and had a wonderful time visiting Family and Friends. The highlight of our trip was swimming with the dolphins in Ponta Do Ouro, situated on the South African/Mozambique border! This was an absolutely amazing experience, thanks to Angela and her team at Dolphin EnCountours!
Crime in South Africa is high, our B& B was burgled while we were there and this kind seems to be the norm when speaking to local residents :(. My only hope is that this is addressed as a serious issue by the government before they loose the world cup in 2010!
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