Successful Real Estate Blogging Follow Up: St.Paul Real Estate Blog
Author: Joshua Dorkin • URL: http://www.biggerpockets.com/September 16th, 2006 •
Teresa Boardman, creator of the St. Paul Real Estate Blog, recently commented on our post Using Blogs to Build Your Real Estate Related Business, saying how she loves what her blog has done for her business. There is a reason that she is finding success blogging . . . she’s got a fantastic blog. Her blog does exactly what it should do, and then some.
As I mentioned in my post, if you can share relevent information about your area, and the local real estate market, people will be driven to your site. Teresa, like the typical real estate blogger, shares real estate and mortgage info, but takes things a step further by blogging about local businesses, tips & advice, local traffic changes, and much more. The key, I believe, to her success, is that by reading the Blog, anyone can get a feel for life in St. Paul. She paints a portrait of the city and helps to sell life in it without actually “selling it”. In addition, her posts are well written, timely, and consistent.
Like other blogs, she has the typical blog features: archives, categories, blogroll, and recent posts, but this is just the beginning.
Local Links
Teresa uses her left toolbar to share local and state links that can be of use to her readers, including government links, newspapers, and housing agencies. These links are great resources for her target market; although they send people away, her audience will not go far without coming back . . .
Photo Albums
Her blog has various photo albums highlighting her listings and the city of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Finance
Like the local links, the blog has a section devoted soley to real estate finance. Again, by providing her readers with useful links and resources, she will gain their confidence.
Listings
Teresa, like other realtors, uses the web to promote her listings, but she takes things one step further. First, she has a list of her listings on her blog. The part where she really trumps her competition is where she creates a website for each listing she has. These sites contain pictures, virtual tours, and best of all, their URL is the property address (great idea). Very nicely done!
As you can plainly see, this blog goes above and beyond most other realtor blogs. As a result, Teresa has had great success because of it. Let this be an example to the rest of you out there; if you build it (well), they will come!
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Joshua Dorkin
Charles Feldman
Ted Karsch.
Richard Warren
Wow! I am blushing, you are quite the blogger yourself. You have so much content on this thing it would take me a week to go through it all, which I will.
Real Estate blogs are becoming very popular. I maintain a couple of different ones.
I agree that Teresa, my friend and competitor, definitely has a well thought out blog. She also is a giving person willing to help a “baby” blogger grow up to be more competitve in the blogosphere with her! Your analysis of her blog is why it’s generating business. I just wish you hadn’t told ALL of her secrets to everyone else!
Hey Bonnie - Sorry to spill the beans . . . I’m glad you and Teresa have such a good relationship. Good luck to both of you!
[...] We also have a special guest today, who emailed me with their goals. Teresa Boardman is one of my favorite real estate bloggers. Her St. Paul Real Estate Blog is a shining example of what a successful blog can be. With that said, I thought you’d like to hear her goals. My business plan has been done since November. I do a formal plan each year, I figure out how much money I want to make, then based on my average gross commission I figure out how many homes I need to sell, subtracting my expenses to arrive at my net income. It is a simple process for me at this point because I know my numbers and my conversion rates so I can figure out how many appointments I need each week to get X amount of sales each month. The rest of the plan is really about the activities or tasks I must complete to get the appointments. Business planning and goals are an essential for all businesses big and small. [...]