Signing up for WordPress is a breeze, and it’s just a question of coming up with something interesting to say… for example, this blog post is saying absolutely nothing interesting.

This concludes my demonstration of how to post a blog.

I saw this great blog post and wanted to pass it along!
~ Dara

Food For Fodder – 101 Real Estate Blog Topics

Teresa Boardman, in response to comments in her most recent article, has whipped up a tasty treat for all real estate bloggers.  Grab a fork, and enjoy.

Food For Fodder – 101 Real Estate Blog Topics
By Teresa Boardman

In my last post on the Tomato I wrote about writing being the biggest obstacle for real estate professionals who want to have a blog.

Some of  our readers commented that figuring out what to write about poses the greatest challenge.

It is hard for many to come up with topics so I wrote a list of 101 topic ideas for real estate professionals who want to have a blog to expand their internet presence and to meet the home buyers and sellers who live inside their computer.

Potential clients are in your computer right now and are looking for great agents and lenders to work with.  The idea is to build enough rapport so they will stop hiding and give us a call or send an email.  Lets face it, consumers believe we all have horns and a tail and we need to put them at ease and establish a little credibility before we can earn their trust and their business.

The best posts come from the every day life of a real estate professional.  There is also what I call “the real estate bloggers conundrum”:  If we spend too much time writing, we don’t have time to sell real estate, if we don’t sell real estate, we don’t have those experiences to write about.  Our day-to-day lives and experiences in the real estate industry are filled with blog food, look for it, find it and start typing.

Here are 101 ideas:

1. A story about your neighborhood
2. Local business, and send them a copy.
3. Your pet
4. Go through your email, is there a question or comment from one of your clients that can be made into a post?
5. Listen  to your buyers, they give you blog food.
6. Listen to your sellers, they give you blog food
7. Conversations with other agents can be a source of great content
8. Architecture or housing styles in your area
9. Historic buildings
10. Market statistics for your area, including average prices and absorption rates
11. Read the blogs and look for ideas to build on or spin a new idea from..
12. Take a picture write a post.
13. Home maintenance
14. Take a walk
15. Senior housing
16. Pet  friendly housing
17. Staging ideas
18. local events
19. Your hobby
20. A closing
21. A lender who did a great job
22. Things that go wrong with real estate sales
23. Home owners insurance
24. Gardening and landscaping
25. Your city council
26. A new development
27. Lofts
28. Decorating ideas
29. Real estate industry news – with your own unique commentary
30. Mortgages news
31. Interest Rates
32. Credit scores
33. Consumer hoaxes and scams
34. First time home buyer programs
35. Working with seniors
36. Working with Baby Boomers
37. Second homes
38. Investment properties
39. Foreclosure
40. Property flipping
41. “Rehabbing” a home
42. Home energy conservation
43. Final walk through
44. Equity stripping scams
45. Agency
46. Real estate companies
47. Transportation & Parking
48. Schools
49. Churches
50. Day Care
51. Paint and painting
52. Pest control
53. Good neighbors
54. Bad neighbors
55. Over priced homes
56. The home buying process
57. The home selling process
58. Book review of a real estate related book.
59. Real Estate Laws
60. Real estate terms
61. Moving with children
62. Moving
63. Moving with pets
64. Places to eat
65. Places to shop
66. Commentary on local news stories
67. Commentary on local public policy
68. Tell a story about a client who was fun to work with
69. Write about what it is like to be  a Realtor
70. When taking classes find something you learned that could be used as a post.
71. Write off topic humor
72. Environmental issues
73. Land lord or tenant issues
74. How to sell a house
75. How not to sell a house
76. Building trends
77. Parks
78. Art
79. Home safety
80. Review web sites on local or real estate related topics
81. Property taxes
82. Crime
83. Open houses
84. Trends in kitchen design
85. Area events for children
86. The local zoo
87. Where to play golf
88. Coffee shops
89. Women home buyers
90. Advice for FSBO’s
91. Interview some one
92. Local  real estate market trends and observations
93. Furniture
94. Investment scams
95. Mortgage fraud
96. Types of mortgages
97. Home owners associations
98. Attend a public meeting and write about it.
99. Week end getaways
100. Credit repair
101. Fair housing issues

I once wrote an entire post about socks, and not only got by with it but got a great response from it.   Those posts help show our human side and make the horns and tail less obvious.
__

The answer is simple:

• No.

Unless:

1. You want to prevent others from buying a particular variation of your domain – like buying both a .com and a .ca
2. You have a different spelling (or misspelling) of your name (or domain) – like lindasmith.ca vs lyndasmith.ca
3. You want to own your own name as a domain so that you can use it in the future – note that you can always direct this domain to your website even if you’re not using it otherwise

Owning a bunch of domains doesn’t give you any advantage as far as search engines are concerned – it’s only the one in the address bar (main domain) that matters!

We have a Calgary Realtor, a Chilliwack Real Estate Agent, a Communications Specialist at BC Hydro, a Video & TV Producer, a Real Estate  & Social Media Specialist, a rep from Canada’s Legal Support Directory and an Office Furnishings business owner.

Two of our students came to use through Google Searches. We must be doing something right!

For example, here’s how to insert a photo into your blog post!

In this photo:

Christine Warner
Allison Currie, Victoria BC Real Estate Marketing Coordinator
Victoria Real Estate Agent Dale Kroppmanns
Rana al Soliman, designer of handmade ethnic bags
Amanda Swanlund, Vancouver Interior Design
Ronda Smyth, Affinity Law – Vancouver Corporate Law Firm
Steve Taylor, Okanagan Hockey Schools
Trish Beck, BC Fishing Guides
Laurel Miller, Vancouver Ad Agency DDB Canada
Mark Finn, Ad Agency in Vancouver BC DDB Canada
Manon Schonewille, Connecting Aupairs and Host Families

Hopefully this less on inbound linking and creating a new post will stick with the class well!

Our next class will be in January 2011, visit www.reachd.com/vancouver for dates

Here’s a quick photo of the group. You might notice that my blue Nalgene water bottle makes an appearance in a lot of the photos on my blog.

Above, we have Ashlee King from Vancouver Big Brothers, Rosie Nykolaishen, a Fraser Valley Real Estate Agent, Carol Jamieson, Advertising & Marketing Writer, and Mercedes Mackie from Vancouver Portrait Photography Studio Bopomo Pictures.

We’re learning lots here today. Stay tuned for blogging from all of these participants!

We’re just doing a demonstration of how WordPress works… here’s how you add a photo:

In today’s class we have:

Andrea Daem

Lani Ng

Giuseppe Ganci

Linda Buker