BiggerPockets

Not to be flippant about it Josh...I quit blogging because the posts kept getting "moderated" and flushed so that nobody could see them.

Mostly time for me. I would like to start blogging in the near future but right now I'm too busy.

Jake - Trust me . . . people want to read about all the mundane minutae that you don't even think about. There are so many people hungry to learn, as you can see from the posts on the forums. The things you think of as plain vanilla may be looked at with reverence from a newer investor.

As for figuring out what to write about, check out the posts on our real estate blogs page, check out the kinds of things our contributors write about on the BiggerPockets Blog, and check out the kinds of articles that appear on the blogs that we placed on our Top 20 Real Estate Investing Blogs list last year.

Chris,

Read a book called Crush It by Gary Vayner Chuk. This book talks all about the use of social media and how it can transform your business, and a blog is the hub of his model.

It will not happen over night for you which is why I think many people start blogging and stop. However, I guarantee that if you are consistently putting out valuable content, you will be noticed and will generate a big following.

Josh is absolutely right that most folks are missing a huge opportunity by not blogging. Here's the way I look at it. As a real estate investor I'm sure you go to local REIA meetings, and I'm sure that on more than one occasion you've had a delightful conversation with someone that impacted how you thought about a particular situation. Well, blogging and social media give you the opportunity to have those delightful conversations on a daily basis with many many people. It's like networking on steroids. That's the hook. For those that don't get it, they never will...those that do will be very successful.

Chris -
Here are some articles that might be helpful in inspiration and instruction:

- Real Estate Blogging Case Study: SEO Benefits of BiggerPockets Blogs
- The First Rule of Real Estate Blogging
- Why Blogging for Real Estate is Worth the Time
- One More Way a Real Estate Blog Will Save You Time
- 8 Tips on Running Your Blog Quickly and Efficiently
- How The Long Tail and Hyper Local Content Will Punch a Hole Through the Competition
- What Realtors Should Put on Their Blog
-Why You Should Host Your Real Estate Blog on Your Own Domain

And DEFINITELY watch this interview:
- Interview with House Flipper & Real Estate Rehabber: Tom Tarrant

I have my websites that rank well over the years.

If you are just starting a website most are going to word press platforms with blogs in them.The SEO platform and the way search engines see data has been changing.

Blogging is like anything CONSISTENCY.

Anyone can hit a home run once but to do over and over again they make millions of dollars a year.

If you are a writer you will naturally enjoy writing a blog and get into it.If you are not a writer it will be a push for you to do it.

In those instances maybe recording videos is more your thing and it will automatically have the text and tags attached.You could hire a ghost writer or proof reader to clean up your blog before posting to make it look professional.

Some readers like though the raw and genuine nature of a blog untouched telling it like it is.

The more articles,videos,blogs etc. you put out there the more of an expert you look to be which attracts more of an audience.

Of course you need to back that up with referrals and recommendations from real world transactions.

I've tried...stuck my toe in the water...but just never stuck with it, a blog here and there every couple of months. This might be the push I needed...I'm going to review the links and videos you posted here and see if it will help me find my way. I know the power of it, just haven't been disciplined enough to harness it.

That's great, Jake. Feel free to post on the BP blog network as well....

I definitely recommend blogging on your own domain, but before you're ready to take that leap, a WordPress hosted or BP blog will certainly suffice.

If anyones interested, I used to take SEO (search engine optimization classes) which help to properly structure your blogs for the search engines. There are a lot of of different tactics you will need to implement in order to give it the best opportunity to get the results you are looking for plus a few tactics of my own I integrated that worked out pretty well. If you're looking to jumpstart a new blog (or an existing one) I don't mind sharing. Just send me a pm and I'll write the first one and copy/ paste it to anyone else.

To see how well it can work just google "republicans discrininate" or "democrats discriminate" and you'll see a thread I wrote specifically to work well in the search engines titled "Republicans and Democrats Who Discriminate 2011 Complete List" which is the first actual search result on the first page of Google when me and my poker buddies got pissed about the politicians closing our favorite online poker sites ;) The techniques work but you have to put in some effort.

I could do that. Would you prefer it as a blog post or an article?