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I was recently notified that a client of ours received a sales lead through a blog that we write for them. I wasn’t surprised. In fact, I’m never surprised when I hear this because that’s precisely what a blog is supposed to do. This particular client is one who has been a customer for less than one month.

It’s important when blogging to think about what the customer is going to think when she reads it. A good understand of human psychology is essential. The thought process that goes into writing a blog post is one that requires a deep level of commitment to the human brain. And by that I mean simply that the blog post writer must consider the needs of the reader - the information and emotional needs - and meet those.

Great blogging is about more than search engine optimization. Of course, we always consider the SEO aspects of a blog post because if you don’t position your message in front of the greatest number of people within your target market as possible then it won’t matter how effective it is as communication. The message should communicate, but it also needs to be in front of a lot of people. That’s why SEO is important.

Conversely, getting your message before everyone in the world is not necessarily a good thing. If the communication is ineffective in drawing results then it doesn’t matter that 100,000 people saw it. Therefore, bloggers must have an ability to read readers’ minds.

That’s where psychology comes in. How will the reader receive the message? Will he be put off by it? Will it excite him or her? Will she pull out her credit card and make a purchase?

Closing the sale may not be the goal. In fact, for most blogs, the goal is not to close the sale at all, but to capture the lead. We want to drive traffic to your website so that you can close the sale. But to do that we must understand what it will take to get the visitor from the blog to your website. What will be the trigger that motivates the action? Bloggers who consider these things make much better bloggers than good writers who don’t.

While Blog Content Provider paved the way into business blog ghostwriting, there are other services up and coming. We welcome them. It keeps us on our toes. But we’ve also noticed that most of these companies charge more than we do. Recently, a competitor engaged in a spam tactic that I think you all should know about.

Trackbacking is a legitimate practice that involves linking to another blog and the post from which you link appears as a comment on that other blog. Examples of this practice abound. But there are ways to game trackbacking and scam unsuspecting bloggers into approving an illegitimate trackback that is nothing more than spam.

It happened this way for us: On our Mortgage and Real Estate Blog I recently found a trackback that needed an admin approval (I highly recommend that you set your blog settings to require approval before all comments go live). You should also visit every site by a commenter or trackbacker to ensure the site is good. If the site itself doesn’t meet your approval then don’t approve the comment or trackback. I always do this.

When I visited the trackbacking site by clicking on the URL provided, I perused the blog post of the company feigning a legitimate trackback. The problem was that there was no link in the blog post leading back to our blog. In other words, they programmed their blog software to make it appear as if they were trackbacking to our blog, but the link wasn’t there. It was hidden. That way, the search engines see it, but human visitors do not, cutting off all traffic from their blog to ours. If I’d approved the trackback then the relationship between their blog and ours would have been one sided. They would have benefited from our traffic, but we would not have benefited from theirs.

This is called cloaking. It’s a practice that all of the search engines frown upon. It’s also a widespread practice by devious webmasters who try to gain an advantage in ways that are unfair. If your blogging company engages in this practice then I highly recommend that you drop them immediately and use a company that engages in legitimate and search engine approved tactics.

This trackbacker operating under the veneer of legitimate practices was a blog ghostwriting competitor trying to target real estate agents with their services. Beware of these types of spamming operations. They will hurt your business more than help it.

In a forum the other day I had an interesting conversation with a couple of marketers. They believe somehow that content isn’t king. In fact, one of them went so far as to say that links are king. But if you try to build links to a web page with no content then Google is going to have a hey-day with you. My view is that links are just another form of content - off-page content.

Links are important, but on-page content should always be your starting point. Some people think that quantity of content is what makes or breaks your site or blog. Not true. Quality of content is far more important. But quantity does help. Especially on a blog.

Google will only rank one page on a website for a particular key phrase. Which blog post do you want that to be? Preferably, it will be your blog’s index page. But you won’t get your index page ranked highly on Google for popular key phrases without targeting that key phrase consistently over time. We’ve proven that you can do this. Yes, it takes time. And the more competition you have for your key phrase, the longer it will take.

At Blog Content Provider, we don’t discourage alternate ways of driving traffic and making money. But we do encourage using the search engines to take advantage of the natural, free ways you can rank your pages. Consistent daily blogging is one of those ways. We’ve done it time and time again, and we’ll keep doing it as long as it works.

Audio blogging hasn’t caught on yet, but it will. It’s just a matter of time. All it requires is a microphone, which is built into most laptops now, and the software to record your voice. Audacity is a free software that can take care of that for you. With WordPress and its podcast plugin, you can have your very own audio blog.

To create an audio blog all you need to do is set up WordPress the way you would an ordinary blog and install PodPress, the plugin. Download Audacity then take an article that you’ve written and record yourself reading the article. You should also be able to find some free music that won’t require permission or a copyright notice to use as an and opening and closing theme. After you’ve got your podcast edited to your satisfaction, upload it through PodPress and write a description of 50-100 words to give the search spiders something to feed on. Otherwise, they won’t know your podcast is there. Save and publish and you now have an audio blog post. That simple.

Need a blog consultant?

Earlier today I posted an article on where to get article ideas from on the Article Content Provider Article Marketing Blog. You can actually use the same list to generate ideas for blog posts. Here are my top 5 recommendations for places to get blog post ideas:

1. Blogs - You should read and subscribe to as many blogs as you can within your niche. Read the top ones every day and scan the headlines of the rest. You can usually come up with good topics to blog on.
2. Search Engines - The search engines have great resources: Yahoo! Answers, Google Trends, Dogpile, and MSN Live all have resources that will help you get a good idea of what you can blog about.
3. Technorati - This isn’t on the list at the Article Marketing Blog, but it should be. Technorati has a top 10 list of most searched and blogged about topics. Good way to get ideas.
4. Old Articles - Pull up some old articles you’ve written and recycle them. Don’t print them verbatim, but with articles you can actually cut them in half and have two blog posts. Rewrite them so you don’t get dinged with duplicate content.
5. Blog Directories - This isn’t on the ACP list either, but I recommend joining Blog Catalog and MyBlogLog. Join neighborhoods and make friends. By networking with others in your niche you can get good ideas with hardly any effort at all.

If you just check these five resources once or twice a week you will never run out of blog post ideas. Of course, you can always hire a ghostwriter too. Let them come up with the ideas.

Here’s an excellent article for real estate professionals on the different types of blog that you can start for your local real estate market to help you market your business:

Real Blogging - 3 Creative Ways to Use a Real Estate Blog

By Brandon Cornett

Blogs are a simple and efficient way to publish information onto the Web. Blogging programs are flexible, versatile, easy to set up and even easier to use. Because of these benefits, people from many different industries are using blogs in creative ways to support their business.

Real estate agents have also found many effective uses for the blog. This is the industry I am most familiar with, so I would like to contribute a few ideas of my own. Here are five ways real estate agents can use blogging to support their business.

The author actually only introduces three types of real estate blog, but I’ll provide the other two. We have had many clients succeed with their real estate blogs and I know we can help you too.

1. Relocation Advice and Support

A savvy agent could create a blog catering to people who plan to relocate to the agent’s city. This would be a great way to keep these folks informed on local real estate issues. It’s also a good way for the agent to connect with future clients who are moving to the area. Blogging programs are easy to set up, so an agent could create one specifically for this purpose.

This strategy is perfect for areas with a high rate of buyer influx and population growth. For example, here in the Austin area where I live, there are a lot of folks relocating from California. If I were a local real estate professional, I would launch a blog that catered to these people. It would be a great way to generate new business, so it would be a worthwhile venture.

Relocation advice is one of the most popular types of real estate blog. Not only can you share information about relocating to your particular area, but you can also provide general relocation tips like this moving company does. In fact, why not partner with a moving company in your area to write a combined blog dealing with relocation advice? You can market both of your companies and share the expense.

2. Local Real Estate News Source

An enterprising and web-savvy agent could also manage a blog like a real estate news website. It could be hosted under its own domain with its own web address, separate from the agent’s main website. That way the blog could be named something appropriate, like the “Raleigh Realty Weekly” (or whatever is applicable to the agent’s locality and specialty).

This publishing strategy would benefit the publisher in several ways. First of all, the agent gains another source of Internet traffic, which can be valuable in terms of business growth. Theoretically, two websites could mean twice the traffic … and twice the leads.

This is also a great way to network with professionals in related industries, such as home inspectors, mortgage brokers, home stagers and more. These folks could even be invited to contribute information to the site.

A news blog would also help the agent establish a level of authority. For example, few agents would be able to say something like: “Jane is also the publisher of the Dallas Real Estate Review…”

Excellent advice. One well-written mortgage and real estate news blog is the Mortgage and Real Estate Blog. This is a blog that covers the mortgage, banking, and real estate industries. It also sometimes promotes real estate and mortgage blogs that use the Blog Content Provider services or that choose to sponsor the blog (contact BCP).

When it comes to blogging, the real estate industry probably has the most natural creative outlets for meeting the needs of its customer base. Why not use them?

3. Timely Market Updates

Blogging is easy, even for people with little or no web-publishing experience. As a result, blogs are ideally suited for updating an audience about timely topics. This is why a lot of realty professionals use blogging programs in the first place. They realize that their audience (home buyers and sellers) wants current information about the local housing market. So these Internet-savvy agents use their blogs to share information about local sales trends, housing prices, new homes for sale, new neighborhoods being developed, etc.

Blogging seems easy, but it really isn’t. You have to understand how to get attention for your blog and many self bloggers stumble through it without ever achieving any level of success with it. But blogging about your local real estate market is probably the easiest way for real estate self bloggers to get in on the action. Doing it this way will demonstrate your level of knowledge on your market, but it will also mean you are just like everyone else. You have to do something to set yourself apart from other real estate bloggers like Adrienne Francis has done.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the ways you can use a real estate professional can use a blog to grow his or her business. There are plenty of other creative strategies as well. The point of this article is merely to open your eyes to the possibilities of blogging. Not all of these ideas will be right for you, but one of them could be. So do some experimentation and see what you can come up with. Use the ideas I’ve listed above to get your creative juices flowing. Good luck.

Brandon Cornett publishes a number of websites related to real estate marketing, mortgage web site strategies and more. For more marketing tips, visit the author online at http://www.smartmortgagemarketing.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brandon_Cornett

This is a great article by Brandon Corbett, but as he said at the end, there are other ways you can make a real estate blog work for you. One other type of real estate blog that you can write is a community blog. Instead of focusing entirely on real estate, you can make your blog’s focus the entire community that you serve. You can lead people to the parks and rec department of your city, discuss neighborhood improvement, community service projects, or anything of service to your community. This type of blog will make you a pillar of the community and not just a real estate agent.

Another type of blog that you can write is a local listing blog. Why not make each blog post highlight a listing in your portfolio? This is relatively simple and can be done through RSS feeds or simply by copying and pasting the descriptions of homes in your portfolio listings to your blog. There will be a high degree of duplicate content with this type of blog, which may cause it to not do so well in the search engines, but because it is a blog and not a static website, you can reach your market through ping lists that are off limits to static web pages where real estate listings usually appear. You can essentially use this type of blog to target a market demographic that you can’t reach through normal organic search marketing.

There are other types of real estate blogs that you can put to good use as well:

• Hybrid - Combine one or more of these types of blogs into one.
• Specialty - Write a green real estate blog or target another specialized market segment.
• Use your imagination - There is no limit to what you can achieve through a real estate blog. Have an idea? Let us know. Blog Content Provider is ready when you are to do what they say can’t be done.

Many people still do not know what a blog is. As long as this form of communication has been around you would think that business owners would begin to understand. But they haven’t. Especially small to medium size business owners.

It’s makes sense really. You’re busy running your business. You don’t have time for blogging and you’re not sure why you should. Well, that’s understandable.

While you may not know what a blog is today, you will in a few years. I predict that in five years everyone who is online will be running a blog, or they won’t be getting much traffic to their website. A blog is the best way to attract search engine spiders and humans interested in your topic. But what is a blog?

I will attempt to define a blog in terms that you can understand: A blog is a new way of presenting a website using custom or off-the-shelf software that places the latest information on your website at the top and that also allows you to categorize your information according to keywords that are important to you and your target audience.

Does that confuse you? Let me break it down:

1. A blog uses special software - You have to have blogging software of some kind. There are various software packages on the market, but the one I recommend is WordPress. It’s free and relatively simple to learn.
2. Organizes latest information at the top of the page - Which means the oldest information is at the bottom and if it’s real old then it’s archived on separate pages.
3. Allows you to organize information by keywords - Blogs have categories and tags that allow you to organize your information. Categories are usually niche-related words that you can use to organize your blog posts that are related to each other, but which may contain different information. Tags are better for addressing each separate blog post such that you could have blog posts with information about different topics and placed in different categories that share the same tag simply because you mention a certain item in those blog posts even though the focus of the information is different.
4. You become a publisher - As a blogger, you have editorial control. You decide what’s important and what the focus of your information should be. You can write, edit, and publish the information on your blog or hire someone to do it for you.

This is a simple snapshot of what a blog is. It doesn’t contain everything you should know or can know about a blog. Consider it an introduction. If you want to see an example of a blog, you’re looking at one now. Blog Content Provider is a ghostwriting services that manages company blogs for a list of clientele in various industries. Our knowledge of SEO and Internet marketing can benefit you as every blog post has the potential to rank in the search engines for your key phrases. For more information about blogging, check out our website.

We had a real estate agent as a client who was getting more leads from our daily blog posting on her blog than she’d ever received before. She stopped using our service because she said she wasn’t closing any sales. Hey, agent! That’s not my job. It’s your job. But if I can drive traffic to your website and make people pick up the phone to call you from your real estate blog then it’s the best marketing tool you can have.

This article explains it very well:

Do You Need a Real Estate Blog?

By Alyice Edrich

Every real estate agent should have his (or her) own website and with web hosting fees and domain registrations so affordable, there’s no reason not to “get with the times”. Websites are more than business cards or lead generators, they’re customer relation tools. By adding “search listings” or “featured listings” to your website, it becomes a dynamic tool that allows your customers to know firsthand what’s available on the market. And with the advanced technology of blogs, you can keep your customers informed without pestering them.

Blogs are social networks that work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They never close for holidays, vacations, or sick leave. And if it’s good enough, there will always be someone recommending you via a link exchange, a reference post, a forwarding email, and even word-of-mouth.

Realtors® are probably the slowest group of individuals to embrace the idea of blogging to generate leads, and who can blame them. We’ve all been taught to “get out there and sell”, “you’re not making money if you’re sitting behind your desk”, and finally, “person to person networking gains more leads than any other type of advertising and/or marketing method”. But times are changing and you need to change with them. People are growing more and more accustomed to “trusting” people they’ve only met on the Internet-which makes blogging a great lead generating tool!

And if that’s not enough to convince you to give blogging a try, think about this: People turn to the Internet before they open their telephone books, before they call 4-1-1, before they read their daily newspaper, and before they hit the bookstores.

Don’t you want to be the first person they see when they type in “your city, your state, real estate agent”? Don’t you want to earn their trust and gain their business?

Alyice Edrich is the author of Tid-Bits For Making Money With E-books. Learn how you can earn $10,000 a year or more selling information you already possess-from the comfort of your own home. Visit http://thedabblingmumpress.com to order a copy today!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alyice_Edrich

Seriously, a blog can drive traffic to your real estate blog and increase your business. A blog isn’t used to close sales. It’s used to generate leads and communicate with the market place. Why not look into ways that you can use a real estate blog today, and join the ranks of the dozen real estate professionals we have as clients.

Business blogging is starting to catch on like a fever. Actually, it’s been pretty hot for a little over a year now, but I see it picking up speed if only because more and more business owners and leaders are really understanding what a blog can do. It’s more than just some fun tool or joy for high schoolers. It’s a communication medium with its own set of useful guidelines. Here’s a great article by Adam Blust on how you can use a blog to boost your business:

Using Blogs on Your Business Web Site

By Adam Blust

Blogs have come a long way in a few short years. What started out as a vehicle for disaffected teenagers to vent their deep feelings of alienation and for shut-ins to post cute cat photos has become a flexible, low-impact way for all kinds of businesses to make the most of the web.

At its most basic, a blog is just a special kind of web page, with 1) short items of news or other timely content 2) listed in reverse chronological order, with the newest items listed first. Both of those concepts are perfect for the web, because the web is 1) geared toward fast reading and 2) emphasizes newness.

Plus, blogs have gone a long way toward de-mystifying the web for even the most non-technical business owner. Tools like Blogger, WordPress and TypePad have made setting up a blog simple, easy and (in many cases) free. You can link to your blog from your main web site, or even make the blog a replacement for your site’s front page. Posting a new item to your blog is as easy as writing an e-mail, and even adding photos or video is a snap.

But then what?

Because the blog format is so open-ended, there are many ways you can use it to improve your web site, depending on the type of site you have and your business goals. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Post the latest industry news, culled from elsewhere on the web or from other sources.
• When you find a web site your customers would find useful, post it to an “Around the Web” blog on your site, with a short comment about why this link is so interesting.
• Use a blog to manage a Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) document, one of the most useful pages for any web site.
• Post product tips and tricks on your blog. Let customers do it too, through comments.
• Invite some of your best customers to post on your blog. They can write testimonials, recommend related web sites, and even give advice to other customers.
• Let employees have their own blog pages on your site, allowing them to show their expertise and help customers solve problems.
• Keep customers updated on rapidly-changing topics like product schedules, sales and upcoming events.
• Let students in a classroom start a class blog, so they can share what they’re learning and practice writing and editing skills.
• Use a blog to help a team manage a project. When one team member makes a contribution to the project, they archive it on the blog. That way, everyone stays updated on what everyone else is doing, without a lot of meetings.
• Give each division of your company a blog, so they can update the whole organization on what they’re doing. Again, the result is fewer meetings and more information exchange.
• Keep an employee bulletin board blog on an internal web site (intranet), cutting down on those “send all” e-mails about muffins in the break room and what to bring to the company picnic.
• Write original mini-articles tailored to your customers’ interests. If you sell gourmet foods, post recipes. If you run a lawn care business, write about new landscaping ideas or how to save water.

Once you start using them, you’ll be surprised how many applications you’ll find for blogs on your web site. A blog is just an easy way to organize and post useful, up-to-date information to your web site, without waiting for a web guru to post it for you. The web thrives on freshness, and blogs can help give that to you. In the end, you get a better site and your customers get more timely information that they can really use. What’s not to love?

Adam J. Blust is a web designer, writer, photographer, graphic designer, programmer, pop culture fanatic, and head honcho of lucky8ball design in Madison, WI. lucky8ball specializes in helping small businesses create web sites that get results. Visit his web site at http://www.lucky8ball.com or call him at 608-661-0888.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adam_Blust

There are a lot of ways you can use a business blog to communicate with customers, employees, and partners. You can increase your brand’s awareness in the marketplace and establish yourself as a voice of authority. Or you can use a blog to further improve your performance in the search engines. But the best blogs do all of these. And all it takes is a little creativity and the desire to succeed.

Everyone needs validation, right? Well, ghostwriter Crystal Smith recently gave me mine. She said the same thing that I’ve been saying for a couple of years now, since I started writing online. And it’s almost word for word. Here are a few snippets of brilliance from Crystal’s article on blogging and article writing:

Firms that specialize in online marketing will tell you that search engine ranking is of critical importance. To compete in your industry you need to rank well on Google and, to a lesser extent, on Yahoo and MSN.

OK, so it’s not genius level. It’s a repeat of what you’ve heard a million times. It never hurts to hear it again, does it? The fact is, search engine rankings are the most important measurements of online success and have the potential to drive your business to the highest levels of achievement. It’s getting there that is the battle.

There are two keys to ranking high - optimized content and link popularity.

Once again, two things that drive your rankings. Need I repeat them? Sure: optimized content and link popularity.

The main factors involved in optimizing content are keyword relevance and volume. Keywords are the terms used by people searching the Web. If your site is particularly relevant to the keyword term, it has a better chance of ranking well in the search engine results.

Keywords are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, if you mismanage them you could get a reputation as a spammer. On the other, you’ll be limp and ineffective. Proficient optimization requires the proper use of keywords throughout your content such that your writing appears natural but has the effect of feeding search engine spiders with the necessary food to elevate your web pages in the rankings.

To gauge whether your site is relevant to a keyword term, search engines need to see a lot of content. Pages should be between 400 and 500 words long.

There is no optimal length for web pages or blog posts, but you don’t want them too small. Anything less than 400 words in today’s competitive market is too small. Feed the spiders!

You should have a page for each keyword term you want to rank for, and the keyword phrase should appear about 2% of the time on that page. But you have to avoid spamming, that is, having the keyword just appear for no apparent reason. Keywords have to be used in context.

One aspect of optimization that many inexperienced Web writers miss is the semantic language aspect. Search engines now have the ability to analyze your content and make judgments about it regarding context. Synonyms and synonymous phrases can work wonders. It makes your content look natural and less contrived. Filling your content with keywords just to rank higher will likely not achieve the goal. I do believe in optimal keyword densities, but I would not go less than 2% on any page. Going higher depends on your content, the level of competition, the specific keyword phrase you are targeting, and your ability as a writer to achieve the necessary results.

The best way to manage the keyword ratio is to write well. Don’t just try to fill space.

Didn’t I just say that?

If there are lots of links pointing to your site, you are seen as an expert in your chosen field. As people figure out the tricks of keyword optimization, inbound links are becoming increasingly important to good search engine rankings.

People don’t realize it, but all you have to do is write good content and you’ll be linked to. If you don’t have other bloggers within your niche linking to your blog after three months then you are probably not writing good enough content.

Content for this blog post was taken from an article by Crystal Smith: Crystal Smith is a professional writer who specializes in search-engine-optimized Web site copy, article writing and blog posts. Writing samples and more information are available at http://www.tigerlilymedia.ca

Want to know more about blog optimization techniques and how to use your blog as a pre-sales tool with SEO benefits? Contact Blog Content Provider today.