Have you ever wanted to start your own land blog, but never knew how? We here at REALTORS® Land Institute have got you covered! Blogging about land real estate is a great way to attract new clients, establish yourself as an industry expert, and share your knowledge with other land professionals in the industry. We’ve put together some tips that will help you create and maintain a memorable land blog.
What Are You Great At?
Everyone has their own area of expertise. What’s yours? Is it residential land real estate, selling land, buying land, helping investors, 1031s, mineral rights, hunting, or something else? Whatever your specialty is, there are people out there that want to learn more about it.
Tailoring your blog to feature what you are best at is a great way to help it stand out. There are a lot of land blogs out there, so the more specific you can make your content, the more unique and valuable your blog will be.
Post Regularly On Your Land Blog
Nothing kills a great blog more than irregular posts. If a blog doesn’t post for months at a time, people will lose interest and stop coming back. Over-posting is also a problem. A blog that posts multiple times a day can be overwhelming for some readers.
Consider posting on a weekly or monthly schedule. This way, readers know when to expect new content from you. Then, make sure to share out your new posts on social media to increase your blog audience.
Pick Your Tone
You might think that tone would be the least of your worries when creating your blog,but tone is actually one of the most important things to consider. The tone of your blog is set by the topics you choose, your unique writing style, and the layout of your blog. Do you want your blog to be informative? Funny? Casual? These are all things to consider while making your blog. Whatever tone you take, make sure to keep it professional and watch for grammatical errors. Nothing can hurt more than a typo or misspelled word when trying to gain respect and position yourself as an expert.
Have Back-Up Articles
Posting an article every week doesn’t sound like too much work, right? Easy peasy. But when you get to a week where you have a huge to-do list for work, you are sick, your car broke down, and you’ve got to take your dog to the vet again, writing a blog post is the last thing on your mind. For these weeks, be prepared by writing a few back-up articles during weeks where you have a little extra free time.
The Layout Of The Blog
Tons of pop-ups adds, white font on a white background, and blurry pictures are just a few things that can make a land blog look unprofessional. You can get some great blog site templates from a website like WordPress for free. Use a simple, easy-to-navigate site design. Some of the design options are really eye-catching and fun, but they can be an eyesore if not done correctly. Remember, your readers are coming to your blog for your content, not for the colors of your blog.
SEO, OMG!
If you have a land blog, you will run into SEO. SEO (search engine optimization) helps improve an article’s search engine ratings.
When it comes to using SEO, you want to make sure your SEO keyword is specific, but not so obscure that no one else will have heard of it. For example, a good SEO title for this article about starting your own land blog could be ‘starting land blog’. Using an SEO keyword like ‘land’ would be too general. There are thousands of articles with the word ‘land’. A SEO keyword of ‘starting a land blog 2018 RLI posting monthly’ is too specific.Think about what people would type into Google when they are searching for your blog, and tailor your SEO to that. If you want to learn more about SEO, here’s a great article to get you started. If you are using WordPress for your blog, we highly recommend the free SEO by Yoast plugin.
Follow Other Land Blogs
The best way to learn how to make a great land blog is by learning from other great land blogs. Kent Morris, ALC recently posted an article about his recommendations for top blogs to follow on his blog, Land Blog… Get The Dirt!. Check it out!
Another great ALC blog is the Southeastern Land Group’s blog. Jonathan Goode, ALC writes great articles about the latest news in the land industry. Great Southern Land also features the writing of ALC members.
Here are a few great land blogs to help you get started:
– REALTORS® Land Institute’s blog. We post a mix of expert guest posts, land news, and informative articles about the land industry.
–Land.com. This blog is focused on the art of buying and selling land. The layout is also very clean and easy to use.
–LandThink blog. This informative blog has a lot of no-nonsense articles that answer common questions about land real estate.
– Land Blog… Get The Dirt! Kent Morris, ALC, is an expert in all things timber.
–Whitetail. Any hunting enthusiasts out there? This is the blog for you!
–National Land Realty blog. This blog covers a wide variety of topics from hunting to owning land, but it’s the industry news section we always go to first!
Starting a land blog is an excellent way to get connected with other professionals in the business and show off your knowledge and experience to clients. We hope these tips will help you create the land blog of your dreams.
About the author: Laura Barker is Marketing Assistant Intern for the REALTORS® Land Institute. She graduated from Clark University in May 2017 and has been with RLI since October 2017.