Some of you have heard the terms Hyper Local and Long Tail before.  There’s actually a book (The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine) written about niche marketing back in 2006.  I decided to focus on this topic because I don’t think it’s something that is readily understood by many people and even less so in the real estate industry.  Also, I just read a great article by Peter Kolat about relevant blogging and it got me thinking.  Real estate is one of the most highly competitive industries in terms of content, search terms, and web presence.  The Long Tail in real estate is about fighting dirty.  It’s about kicking and scratching your way to the top.  It’s about making you the undeniable expert in your niche.  It’s about doing something the big boys can’t… getting local.  Wanna get started?

Blogs, Blogs Everywhere…

I don’t know why anyone would still be counting but suffice it to say… there are millions of blogs and billions of people reading them… daily.  Now, I’m kind of snooty and think that if you don’t ‘own’ your own blog (self-hosted) then you’re not quite as serious as the rest of us.  Even so, 28,000 people download the wordpress platform daily.  I doubt that includes fantastico automated installs either.

The point of my mumbling is that there is a load of content indexed by search engines daily.  Would you rather be a big fish in a little pond or a tuna in a school the size of Mt. Everest?  Hyper Local and Long Tail Blogging makes you the fat daddy in the little pond that is your real estate niche.  Let Realtor.com and the others fight over the mountain.  Even our own Bigger Pockets uses the Long Tail to attract visitors.  Hey Josh.  How many unique keywords has your site been found for since inception?  Readers are dying to know.  My guess in in the high hundreds of thousands, maybe more.

Getting on with it…

How do I blog for ‘The Long Tail?”  I thought you’d never ask…

* include image of the long tail graph*

See, Realtor.com and the other big boys rank for general keywords… real estate, homes for sale, and dozens of others.  We don’t want to play with them.  So let’s add a few words like this… hamptons new york luxury real estate or short sales in south beach under $200,000.

These longer keywords are great because they…

• are much easier to rank for (less competition)
• they are targeted to specific interests (buyers who contact you are much more serious)
• they help brand you and your site as the go-to place for information on this subject

Okay, pick an niche; be it luxury homes in the Hamptons or short sales in South Beach.  This is just about all you’re going to talk about on your blog/site.  If you’re going to be serious about this do the following…

1. Do some keyword research on your niche (what do people search for to find your niche)
2. Write down 100 things to talk about.  If you can’t thing of a hundred you just went ‘ultra-local’ and have specialized too much.  Zoom out a bit and try again.
3. These hundred things are a starting point for each of your posts.  Pick the 10 most important and write ‘pillar’ or ‘evergreen’ content about these things.  This is what you want the site to be ‘known’ for.
4. Create variation.  Google will only show one post for a given keyword phrase(s).  If you write 10 articles that would show up in Google for the same keywords you just wasted time writing 9 of them.  It’s called keyword cannibalization and smart people don’t write about the exact same thing they’ve already written about.  A good example of this is market data.  Vary your market data posts so that they show for different combinations of keywords.
5. Keep it coming.  The more posts you write, the more keywords you show up for.  My personal site has 130 posts on it and I have been found for about 14,000 different combinations of keywords so far.  That’s why I asked Josh (with over 1500 articles) how many the Bigger Pockets blog shows up for.

This article was just a cursory, somewhat rambling look at The Long Tail and how to use it.  If you’d like a deeper look at The Long Tail and Hyper Local Blogging just let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure and dive into the subject again soon.  Thanks for reading.

Photo: therealestatetomato.com

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

How The Long Tail and Hyper Local Content Will Punch a Hole Through the Competition

Maybe it isn’t the first rule, but it is definitely important to remember:

Always Have a Contact Page or Some Other Method for Readers to Reach You!

Don’t get me wrong here . . . this sounds REALLY obvious, but it is clearly not too obvious. A few weeks ago I conducted an experiment that I originally did back in May 2007, where I was trying to reach out to some real estate bloggers. What I discovered was actually quite sad. While last year’s experiment where I checked 750real estate blogs yielded 2/3 of the blogs with no contact info, in my recent check there were still dozens of these sites that didn’t have any means of contacting the blogger.

Why Are You Blogging About Real Estate if Not to Get Business?
The results of these “experiments” are particularly sad because the reason you’d think most of these people are blogging is to get new business for themselves. I had a great discussion the other day with Joseph Ferrara at Sellsius, where we talked about real estate bloggers and their motivations. We both agreed that it seems like some folks just seem to lose their way and get caught up in the social aspects of blogging instead of focusing on their core — their real estate business. Part of that business is letting people know how to get in touch with you, isn’t it?

How do they expect potential clients to reach them if they don’t have a contact page? You never know who is going to want to work with you, and it just a good business idea to make yourself available . . .

Maybe it is not the first rule of blogging, but it an important one . . . if you haven’t done so already, get your contact page/info on your blog ASAP.

End Note / Rant: A phone number is okay, and an email address is imperative, but if you don’t have your name on your blog, I’m not going to take you seriously – no one should. I probably could have done an entire post on the bozos who don’t use their name on their blog, but I’ll let this little commentary carry it.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The First Rule of Real Estate Blogging

Last week, we announced that we’d start focusing on how people can use technology to help their real estate businesses. I think one of the most important ways for both real estate investors and professionals (Realtors, lenders, etc) to begin to market their businesses is by creating a blog.

What Exactly is a Blog?

There are many ways to define what a blog is? Darren Rowse over at Problogger has a great post introducing some of the various “definitions,” and then takes a deep look at the main features of a blog. This is a great read from one of the most famous bloggers on earth. Frankly, I think Daniel Scocco at DailyBlogTips has the most clear and concise look at what a blog is:

A blog is basically a type of website, like a forum or a social bookmarking site. As such it is defined by the technical aspects and features around it, and not by the content published inside it.

The features that make blogs different from other websites are:

* content is published in a chronological fashion
* content is updated regularly
* readers have the possibility to leave comments
* other blog authors can interact via trackbacks and pingbacks
* content is syndicated via RSS feeds

Keep in mind that it is the bundle of those features that should define a blog. An online forum could also offer an RSS feed for example, but that would not make it a blog.

Now that we’ve got a clear idea of what these entities are, its time to get going with the main goal of this post — to start looking at the mistakes new (and many experienced) blogger make in terms of their domain and hosting.

Why Blog About Real Estate?

I’m only going to glance-by this topic, but the short answer is that blogs are, IMO, the easiest type of website to build and spread the word about your business, thanks to the genius of RSS feeds and trackbacks. Blogs have features (described above) that allow your content to easily be spread across the web, which simply put, makes it easier for others (including the search engines) to find you.

If people are reading your blog and see that you’re an expert — be it in your neighborhood (Realtors, service people & Investors), your field (lenders & others), etc. — they are more likely to remember and trust you. With that trust & recognition comes new business!

There is obviously more to it, but like I said before, I just want to briefly talk about this here and now.

Top Mistakes Made By Real Estate Bloggers in their Domain and Hosting

Last year on my personal website, I wrote about the top 77 mistakes that new bloggers make, and I’d like to use that list as a base to start helping all of you with your own blogging.

Real Estate Blogging Mistake #1 – Not Hosting Your Own Blog

One of the most important things about growing your real estate business is to build your own identity or brand. This is why Realtors use their headshots in their cards (personal branding) or why Coke spends countless billions of dollars on marketing their logo across the world (business branding).

The simple fact is that it is difficult to build a brand on a hosted blog (a blog hosted at another domain, such as WordPress, or even a BiggerPockets Blog). That’s not to say that you shouldn’t explore hosted blogs, but it is difficult to build a brand using one.

The key to this branding is in registering a great domain name. There are many theories about picking a memorable domain name, but you want to be sure that your domain name is not only memorable, but also good for your brand (we’ll get into this in a later post).

Think about it . . . do you think people will find you more easily at denverlandlord.wordpress.com or DenverLandlord.com? There’s simply no question that the latter is easier to remember and to get to.

Additionally, when you’re running a hosted blog, you often times have many more restrictions on personalization of your blog. Simply put, you’ve got more options available to you when you establish your own domain and host your blog there.

Hosted Blogs are Great for Beginners!

I think it is a great idea to establish a hosted blog if you’re just getting started in real estate blogging. Frankly, most real estate blogs are awful; they lack in focus and purpose. Simply put, it is NOT easy to blog. Not everyone is built to write.

What a hosted blog does is give you the opportunity to try blogging out. It lets you see if you like blogging, or if you’re any good at it, without incurring yet another business expense for hosting and domain registration.

Conclusion
I hope we’ve given you some reasons why you need to start looking into blogging on your own domain. If you’ve got any questions about hosting, blogging, domains, or anything else pertaining to websites for your real estate business, please don’t hesitate to post your comments below.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Why You Should Host Your Real Estate Blog on Your Own Domain