Do you remember the Kevin Costner film “Field of Dreams” when the Iowa farmer was told, “if you build it, he will come”. To paraphrase, if you build it, they will come. You might be asking yourself what you are supposed to be building. Well, don’t build a ball field but instead build a simple 7 letter word called content to your website.

So called experts have posted on reliberation offering simple seo optimization or offering website design services, discussions have been held about the pros and cons of requiring registration for MLS search, the best ways to capture leads and then follow up and numerous other subjects to increase personal business.  

I would like to suggest that you strongly consider the power of your blog to add content to your website. Not the reliberation blog, but the blog included with your website. Are you using it and are you using it to its fullest. Are you writing a message most every day to tell your prospective clients about your market, neighborhoods, what is happening in the mortgage market, market trends and statistics, advice for buyers and sellers, community events or even yourself. By the way, I do not post listings on my blog. I market listings in other ways.

And can you do all that without appearing to be selling.

I want to share a few positive results with you and certainly not to brag but rather to demonstrate my point. You see, I hate theory. I don’t sit in an ivory tower and tell people how to do things I haven’t done myself.

We all get phone calls every day promising instant first page on Google. I thank them for calling and tell them to call someone else. It’s not that easy and it doesn’t work. You have to do the hard work of adding content.

I am very fortunate to have high page rankings on Google for very desirable search terms. Before I started writing my blog, they didn’t recognize my existence in the first 100 pages for anything other than my own name.

Of course I get leads from buyer registrations but take a look at these emails I have received in the past month from potential clients directly attributable to my blog.

“Hi Howard, Thank you for the insight. It seems like you have a good grasp on the numbers, which is exactly what my wife and I are looking for in a future realtor. We're hoping to relocate to the Charleston area early next year. We'd like to begin getting an idea of the market and neighborhoods now, and be somewhat familiar by the time we get there.”

“Being a first time home buyer, I'm interested in finding a trustworthy buyer's agent. I've spent some time reading your blog and would like to discuss your services in more detail.”