So you started a blog, now what? How do you get and retain readers? How do people even find your blog? You will hear a lot about search engine optimization, or SEO, as you get more involved. For those of you not familiar with the term, SEO is the act of taking steps to make your blog or site search engine friendly. We are going to give you some SEO tips, but first off, keep in mind as you write your blog posts, you have two audiences. Your first audience should be your readers and your second audience is the search engines. Like losing the forest for the trees, it is important to remember that if you focus too much on SEO you will miss the point of blogging, which is to provide your readers with information, to network, and create community.

Simple SEO Tips:

~Be specific in your blog topics and page titles. You will rank higher on search engines with “Red Brink House on Mulberry Street” than you will with Anytown Real Estate.

~When loading images, make sure you have named them and are not using the standard camera assigned identification.

~When writing your articles, use key words more often than the word “it”, to improve your ranking opportunity.

Marketing your blog is as important as search engine optimization and does not have to be time consuming. Consider your blog as one more item in your branding toolkit. Prospecting in this business is an on-going effort. Consider your blog one of your tools in your long term investment. Much like your pipeline of prospects, to maintain readers and enjoy return visitors to your blog, you need to offer an incentive. Provide your readers with information that they need. Create a niche market, just like you did when you first got into real estate. You are already a pro at networking, take those skills on line to increase the radius of your circle of influence.

Tips for gaining readers:

~Read and comment on other blogs
~Join social networks like LinkedIn, Face Book, and Agent Nation
~Start a twitter account and follow others in your market
~Create an RSS feed through feedburner
~Join MyBlogLog

The final step in maintaining your blog is monitoring your traffic. Find out where your readers live and what websites are referring them to you by utilizing analytics applications like Google Analytics and SiteMeter. These applications are free and easy to set up. Analytics allow you to monitor your readers, and your progress. Use the key word feature to find out what folks are looking for when they end up on your site. This is a great way to come up with blog ideas.

Last but not least, have fun with your blog!