I read blogs every day, I speak with local Houston area real estate agents every day, and I hear/read different plans on how people believe blogs can help business.

So, I am gonna begin writing my HAR.com blog about blogging and it's relationship with real estate marketing.

Please do not fall asleep as I dispell myths and expose the secrets of this beast we call blogging.

Where to start, where to start.....

I will begin with my pet peeves, which will lead into my helpful tips...

1) BLOGGING FOR SEO(Search Engine Optimization) IS A HORRIBLE IDEA!!!!!
            Many agents believe that they have the secret to blogging. That crappy secret is: that blogging and abusing the use of key words will help their SEO(Search Engine Optimization), and in turn gorw their business through increased site traffic. It may increase your SEO, it may increase your traffic, but it will more than likely scare off your readers and lose you a following and lose "business"? "How is that?", you say.
If you have ever read a blog that overuses keywords, you already understand this. The keywords do not help the blog flow and they often make the reader bored because the keywords are forcing out entertaining content. The key to a successful blog is to develop a following and to establish yourself as credible in the topic that you are blogging about. If you write for the readers and for solid, entertaining content, you won't need keywords to help SEO. People will follow your blog and direct others to do so, as well(word of mouth is much better than SEO).

TIP: If you absolutely must write to help SEO, here is how you do it: At the end of each blog, write a little "About The Blogger" message about yourself and your area of expertise. You can add in Keywords and not worry about being penalized by the Search Engines, and you will not lose reader's interest. HOW AWESOME IS THAT? So, do you readers a favor, and stop writing crap with tons of keywords, it pisses us off.

2) PEOPLE LOVE REAL CONTENT!!!!
               Write about your passions, write about what really intrigues you, write about your pet peeves. For instance, many people know that I am a huge Houston Texans fan. I write about them, I get in arguments with Cowboys fans. That's okay. I develop a following of Texans fans, and I do not want Cowboys fans as clients anyways. That's just me. You have to pick your battles. You can keep it real estate or get off subject as long as you care about what you are writing about and they can feel it. When they are entertained, they will respond and want more. Somtimes I write about what is really important to me: My relationships with my kids, volunteer coaching football(GO MCA REBELS!!!), real estate issues that bother me(HVCC), etc., etc., etc....
When I write about stuff that interests me, it shows, and for some reason people can relate.
3) UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE!!!
               When writing in a professional blog like the HAR.com blog I am writing to a different audience than say, if I were writing on a Houston Texans fan blog site. I may cuss more, use abbreviations, or funny sports quotations. In this blog, I will be much more conservative, but I will still manage to be myself. Think about how your audience might respond. Is your content offensive? Can it be misconstrued? Blogging can be a real headache if you make a mistake.
4) HELP FROM MY FRIENDS!!!!
               Blogging alone may eventually build a following, but why not get a little help. Learn how to use your Social/Digital Media tools to gather more readers. I am a huge fan of Facebook/Twitter/Myspace/YouTube/Blog/Etc. marketing. The funny thing is, they can all help eachother out. Nowadays, they all connect in some way or another. You can upload a video to your youtube account, link it to your blog, then post it to Facebook and Myspace, and tweet a link to all 4. How crazy is that? Use your friends and followers on all of these sites to drive traffic to your blog. Trust me, it works.
The best part of this kind of marketing is..... It's $Free.99!!!!
I am not going to share all of my secrets in one blog, you will just have to subscribe.

Hopefully one lost blogger soul will read this and find their way in this wild world of blogging for business.
Stay Tuned.... I have a lot more to blog about.

ABOUT THE BLOGGER:
My name is Ozzie and I enjoy networking and building relationships. I used to joke and tell people that I was the "Networ-King" and that I was gonna write a book titled: "Networking for Net Worth". Maybe I still will. Who knows. What I do know is that I love football and I am extremely pumped about this football season.
Visit AskOzzie.com for "Real Estate Answers" or just continue to read this blog.
Follow me on Twitter.com/AskOzzie