Making your blog posts more effective is really pretty easy. Follow these simple rules and get more new and return readers.

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1. Use a compelling headline. The first thing your reader sees is the headline. If it’s boring, they’ll click away, if it catches their attention, you’re in.
2. Use images and photos. The effective use of images is one of the best ways to draw in your readers. Make them interesting, different or compelling. The human face grabs attention every time, especially attractive faces. Don’t use a human face if your post is about horses, of course.
3. Break up your text. Nothing make readers run away faster than large blocks of text. Somehow it feels intimidating or overwhelming to see 500 words without any breaks. Limit your paragraphs to 2 or 3 sentences, or even one sentence for some extra punch.
4. Write like you speak. When you write conversationally, it feels like you are talking directly to the reader and that can create a powerful connection to your audience. Imagine writing to one specific person for maximum effect.
5. Keep it short. 300 to 500 words is plenty to get your message across. If you write an article that is 1000 words or more, break it into several parts, that way you can hold your reader’s attention and get them coming back for more.

5.5  Bonus Tip. Add some links to other relevant posts on your own blog, or other resources that add value to the reader’s experience.

Take a look at what you’ve written in the past and see where you can go back and make some changes. Try these methods on your new posts and see if your results improve.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section and I’ll get back to you soon.

Reason #2 Why Your Website Sucks

Your website is all about you!

I know that sounds like a contradiction, because of course your website is about you. You’re trying to sell products or services, but….

Your prospect or customer doesn’t care about you (yet).

What they do care about is getting their problem solved.

So, give them some information that helps them. Tell them what to do, give them a free report or video that gets them on the road to their solution. (Note: please don’t title your home page “Welcome to my Website” or “Welcome to my Home Page”. Make it about THEM, your prospect.)

You only have a few seconds to catch their attention, so don’t waste the opportunity by talking about yourself.

Example: You’re at a cocktail party and you see an attractive person across the room. You want to meet them. You head directly toward them, stick out your hand and say “I’m Steve, I’m super cool, do you want to go back to my place?”

That’s the approach most websites take. Think you’ll get shot down? You bet. You just lost your opportunity because they clicked back to their Google search and went to another site to get their question answered, or problem solved. Or, in the cocktail party example, they slapped your face and went to meet the guy who’s been subtly flirting with them for the past 15 minutes.

You can also apply this formula to your social media marketing. Develop a relationship with your ‘friends’ before you offer them what you sell. Get to know them, offer some help and build trust.

So now you need to take a fresh look at your website and view it from the perspective of the consumer. Would you click away, or would you hang around for a few minutes because you found what you were looking for?

I can hear you now, “Oh, my website sucks!”

Part 1 of a Series

I recently finished teaching a series of classes for my office, Coldwell Banker Amaral and Associates, on websites, blogging and social media. I decided to share some of that information with you (Real Estate Agents in Brentwood, CA and any other Realtors® who might be interested) because a whole bunch of you are either; a) expecting results from bad websites, or b) have no web presence at all.

As a preface, there are lots of great blogs and websites out there giving lots of great advise and lessons on blogging and social media. But from where I’m sitting, most seem to be geared to the tech savvy agents, so I plan on giving some help to the beginners and the technology challenged.

That’s not to say I won’t throw in some intermediate and advanced posts. Hopefully, you’ll follow along, learn and embrace what I have to offer.

That being said, let’s get to business.

12 Reasons Why Your Website Sucks

1. No one can find your website
2. Your website is all about you
3. You have no target market
4. You have a cookie cutter website
5. Your website isn’t unique
6. Your headlines suck
7. Your copy sucks
8. Your IDX sucks
9. You don’t get the prospect’s contact info
10. Your website is static
11. Your prospect can’t find what they are looking for
12. Your website is old school

No one can find your website

There are many ways your prospects might find you on the web, but most people start looking by doing a search on Google (or some other search engine like Yahoo! or Bing or whatever). They type in a word or phrase like “Brentwood Ca Real Estate” and see what comes up. If you don’t have those words somewhere on your site, you won’t be found. It’s that simple. (It’s actually more complex than that, but let’s start slow, OK?)

So where should those words be? They could be in your domain name, in the title of your page or post, and/or in the text on the page. (I’ll interject some geek speak here, and I’ll cover these words in later posts.) Those words could also be found in your meta tags, like your title tag, page description and meta keywords.

Bottom line. Use descriptive words that help your prospects find your great information.

OK, that’s it for this time. Much more to come.