Aaron Hoos

The Question:

Should I use a blog or a website in my financial or real estate business?

Aaron’s Answer:

Here’s the really basic difference between a website and a blog:

• A website is like a brochure. You create it once and it stays like that for a while. Sure, you might make some changes over time but in general it has the same content.
• A blog is like a diary or journal. You add new content regularly to it and people who click to your site will see your most recent post.

If you’re wondering whether you should have a blog or a website for your financial or real estate business, you need to know this: Both are good and it’s okay to have both – a blog AND a website. Don’t think of it as one or the other.

SOME PROFESSIONALS CHOOSE TO HAVE ONE OR THE OTHER

Some professionals choose to have just a website because they want to create the content once and then not worry about it, and then focus on other things in their business. And, since it’s slightly more acceptable to “sell” your services on a website, some professionals prefer that clearer call to action. (Note: They can appear on blogs, too, but generally do so to a lesser degree).

Some professionals choose to have just a blog because their potential or existing clients like reading new content, and because search engines like fresh, authoritative content. Unlike a website, a blog has some relationship-building tools built-in (such as a commenting feature) so you can build a connect with your blog visitors.

SOME PROFESSIONALS CHOOSE TO HAVE BOTH

Some professionals choose to have both – a website at one domain and a blog at another. This gives them the advantages of both.

SOME PROFESSIONALS CHOOSE A HYBRID APPROACH

Some professionals have a website with a blog on it, or they have a blog with elements of a website on it (which is what I have on my site – it’s primarily a blog but there are website-specific elements like a Portfolio page, a Services page, and more).

WHICH SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?

It depends on your sales funnel.

If you have a well-established career with tons of referrals or you’re a face-to-face networking rockstar, then a website might be all you need because you’ll drive people to your site pretty infrequently. If you plan to sell downloadable products, you’ll also want to consider a website because you’ll need sales pages and hidden download pages.
If you want to grow your financial or real estate practice and you want to drive traffic to a site and build relationships with those who visit your site, a blog might be better.
But my favorite is both. You get the clear “sales-focused” calls-to-action that are more acceptable on a website plus the search-engine-loving opportunity to create fresh content and build relationships with your website visitors… and at the same time, you can also dial in other things like product sales.

It doesn’t make much sense for someone to type in the word “real estate professional” or “REALTOR” and find your website or blog in the search results. If they’re in Dustytown, Australia and you’re in Wausau, Wisconsin, there’s not much you can do to help them.

So you need a plan to focus your search engine optimization on only your most likely prospects. So where do you start?

STEP 1: FIGURE OUT WHAT YOUR TARGET MARKET IS LOOKING FOR

Well, you first need to start by figuring out who your most likely prospects are. Are they people moving into town from out of town? Are they people buying or selling within town? Do you have an even more focused niche than that? (Hopefully you do).

Each of these groups is looking for something different.

If your target market is military families who are moving to Wausau, Wisconsin from elsewhere to work on the ultra-secret military base then they are searching the web for very different terms than if your target market is soccer moms and dads who are looking to sell their first home and upgrade because they have baby #3 on the way.

Figure out what your target market is looking for and the types of words they are using to search online.

STEP 2: GET THE SEARCH TERMS

Head over to Google’s Keyword Tool and type in some of those words into Google’s keyword search. In the example below, you see I’ve done that with the fairly generic term “Homes for sale Wausau Wisconsin”…

By the way: The key here is to combine an action verb — “buy home”, “sell home”, “list home”, “find home” — with a location — in this case “Wausau Wisconsin”. Don’t forget to try mixing words like “buy house” instead of “buy home” and also try the short form of your state instead of the full name (or, drop the state altogether and see what the results are).

When you click the Search button you get the result of your search…

And just below that, you get a big list of ideas that are similar to the terms you’ve written…

This list is useful because it shows you related keywords that people are searching for that you might be able to use.

Find a few that you want to focus on — somewhere between 3 and 6 keywords. If you help people buy AND list homes then consider focusing on 3 buying-specific keywords and 3 listing-specific keywords.

STEP 3: USE THOSE SEARCH TERMS EVERYWHERE

You’ve found the terms that your clients are looking for. Now it’s time to use those search terms everywhere. Use them in the following places:

• In your website domain name
• In your website title and subtitle
• In the title of your blog posts and web pages
• In your article marketing (in the title of the article and in the text)
• In your press releases
• In the title of your ebooks
• In the title of your print book
• As the name of your ezine
• In the title of your Storify locally-focused stories
• In your Twitter description
• … and anywhere else that you put online and offline

Mix and match them. Pepper them throughout your work. “Own” the words by making your brand synonymous with those words.

If you are a financial advisor or real estate professional, a condition very similar to “the CSI effect” could be hindering your success.

WHAT IS THE CSI EFFECT?

The CSI effect is a problem faced by the justice system when juries place too much faith in fingerprints and DNA evidence. It’s called “the CSI effect” to suggest that forensic shows like CSI (and others) are tainting real-life juries by making them believe that forensic evidence is easy to obtain, can be processed by a lab in hours, and decisive beyond a shadow-of-a-doubt.

Although the CSI effect is just a hypothesis, it does raise the issue that today’s media might be making everyone an expert.

WHAT DOES THE CSI EFFECT HAVE TO DO WITH YOU?

You might not be prosecuting criminals but you might be impacted by the CSI effect anyway… or, at least something similar. Our prospective clients have access to all kinds of information — from us and from others; on TV and the web. There is no shortage to the information that they can access.

Unfortunately, it has made “amateur experts” out of many clients, turning naive homebuyers into superstar DIY real estate agents and untrained investors into the next Jim Cramer.

Let me be clear about something before you read any further: Savvy clients are good. I’m not proposing that financial and real estate professionals would be better off with clients who couldn’t tell their left hand from their right hand. The root of the problem is NOT that they have access to lots of information to make better decisions. Rather, the root of the problem is that they have no filter to help them navigate the complicated world of real estate or investing.

They’ve been empowered and informed but not equipped.

The result is: Real estate professionals are finding lots of people going the list-it-themselves route or are assuming that they are expert househunters. And financial advisors are finding lots of people who leave voicemails on the advisors’ office overnight because of some great stocks they found while browsing online.

WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

This is tricky. You don’t want to belittle them by telling them that what they know is wrong, nor do you really want to validate that their unsorted knowledge is a replacement for your expertise.

What clients really need is structure. They need decision-making systems. They need rules. They need ways to synthesize their information. They need frames. They need order. They need taxonomies. They need context. They need the bigger picture.

Right now, your clients are looking at splotches of paint on canvas; you need to help them step back and see the entire painting.

Here are some ways to work with your clients to counter the CSI effect:

• When writing your blog, make sure you use categories (or some other sorting system) that make sense in the bigger picture.
• In all of your marketing, make sure to highlight that the one piece of information you’re expressing is a single cog in a giant piece of machinery.
• Prepare information, verbal and written responses, and proactive marketing to address the reality that some of your clients will tell you about something they saw on TV or the web that doesn’t mesh with what you do. (For example, a normally conservative investor tells a financial advisor about a speculative stock they just heard about from a friend on Facebook).
• If you’re looking for a great idea for your next downloadable document, consider a “big picture” ebook that your users can use to sort out the huge, unsorted mass of information available to them on the web.

I believe the CSI effect is real… and it’s affecting more than just the justice system. I think many of my financial and real estate clients are facing a similar situation.

But I also think that this is an opportunity for you! Rather than joining the ranks of real estate and financial advisors who ONLY give out unsorted, unfiltered information, why not become the professional who helps prospective clients MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL.

If you are a real estate investor (or thinking about becoming one), a blog might help you build your business so you get more deals and can profit from them faster.

Here is a step-by-step to start your own real estate investing blog:

1. DECIDE WHO YOUR IDEAL READER WILL BE

Who do you want reading your blog? The answer to this question will be influenced by what kind of real estate investor you are. Do you focus on commercial or residential properties? Do you like to wholesale or flip or rent (or rent-to-own) for the cash flow?

With your real estate investing preference in mind, you can decide exactly what kind of blog you want — maybe you want a blog that builds a relationship with your bird dogs. Or maybe you want a blog that tenants will read. Or maybe you want a blog that attracts other investors. Or maybe you want a blog that attracts homeowners with bad credit who might be ideal for your rent-to-own properties.

My recommendation is: Start with just one audience in mind. This will help you to focus your writing and attract more readers to your blog. (In the future, you can always branch out… or, better yet, you can start additional blogs that is specifically designed for each of your audiences).

2. DETERMINE HOW YOUR READERS WILL GET TO YOUR BLOG

Most people are savvy enough to realize that people won’t just automatically appear on your blog because it is on the internet. Rather, building web traffic takes time and strategy.

Best place to start building web traffic in a situation like this is to think about who your audience is and where they are most likely to get to your blog from. Do they arrive on your blog because a column you write for your local newspaper? Do they arrive on your blog because of aggressive press release promotions you do?

You don’t have to already do this type of marketing but you should be thinking about what you will do in the future. My advice is: Start your blog, get used to blogging for a couple of weeks, then turn on the marketing and promotional efforts. By then, you’ll have a solid foundation of content that your readers can click around in.

And, the advantage of doing this kind of advanced thinking is because it helps you decide what you’ll be writing about. For example, if they have been reading your newspaper column, they already have some awareness of who you are and what you do so you can write very different blog posts than if you were using press releases. (More on that in a moment).

3. DETERMINE WHAT YOU WANT YOUR READERS TO DO ONCE THEY ARE ON YOUR BLOG

Your real estate investing blog is meant to build your business. To do this successfully, you need to think about how your blog fits into your sales funnel. Ultimately, you want your blog’s visitors to perform an action that advances them in your sales funnel so they get one step closer to doing business with you. (More about that in my blog post: Identifying the steps in your sales funnel stages).

So, what is that one step you want them to take? Choose one or two actions for them to do and focus all of your efforts on encouraging those two actions. (I talk about that further in my blog post: Little known marketing secret reveals how to get your phone to ring off the hook).

4. SET A GOAL FOR YOUR BLOG

Because you’re just starting out, you don’t need to set too many goals for your blog. (For example, don’t bother with how many visitors you want to get or how many comments you want to get. That stuff takes time and it all depends on different factors.

Instead, create an effort-based goal. In other words, take a look at your personal schedule and decide how much time you have and then set a goal for how many blog posts you can realistically write and publish in that time. My recommendation is that you publish at least once per day. (But that’s not always possible. That’s my personal goal, too, and I rarely achieve it). You should try to publish a few times a week… at the very, very least, you should publish at least once a week. If your schedule doesn’t allow you to publish even once a week then you should really re-think whether blogging is for you. There might be better mediums for your content if you are going to publish that infrequently.

5. BRAINSTORM SOME BLOG POST TOPICS

Now it’s time to brainstorm some blog post topics.

Using what you know about the people coming to your blog (step #1), where they came from (step #2), and what you want them to do (step #3), you can create content that speaks to your readers.

Here are a few other blog posts that might give you some ideas:

• Check out this list as a starting point: 10 blog posts a real estate investor should write
• Read 8 ways to discover what problems your prospects desperately want solved and then plan to write several blog posts about how you solve each problem identified
• Definitely read the blog post The most commonly blogged phrase and how to avoid it

Want to know how many blog posts to plan for your real estate investing blog? The answer is: As many as possible! When I write for my real estate investing clients, I try to plan at least 3 months (and often an entire year) of blog posts… even if I end up writing about something else on a given day, I want to always have more than enough ideas.

6. CHOOSE A BLOGGING PLATFORM

Many people make the mistake of putting this as their first step but you shouldn’t do it too early. But by now, you will have figured out if blogging is right for you and just how much time you’re willing to devote to it. Here are some good blogging platforms to consider:

Free blogging platforms
These blogging platforms are usually co-branded between you and the platform, so your domain name would be something like www.aaronhoos.blogspot.com. However, they are the easiest and fastest to set up.

• Posterous: In my opinion, this is the easiest, most user-friendly blog in the universe. If you want to just go in and blog without any fuss or muss, use this one. It’s great and ridiculously simple.
• Blogger: I like this one, which is owned by Google. It was where I put my very first blog (so there might be some nostalgia with this decision) and there was a while when I wasn’t as happy with them, but they have made some impressive enhancements that convinced me to add them back to the list.
• Tumblr: This is another really easy-to-use blogging platform. I’m not as familiar with it but I know a lot of people who swear by it. It seems to be similar to Posterous.
• WordPress.com: WordPress is a popular blogging platform that has a huge userbase and lots of plug-ins and add-ons. If you like to customize your blog, this is the one for you.

Paid blogging platforms
These blogging platform take a little extra work to set up but if you don’t mind investing the time, you end up with a blog that is entirely your own (i.e., you can have your own unique domain name, like www.aaronhoos.com).

• You can buy a domain name (I use GoDaddy.com) and connect it to your Posterous blog, Blogger blog, or Tumblr blog and you’ll get a blog with their functionality, hosted on their servers, but with your unique domain name. This is a good middle-ground between the free blogs above and what I’m about to describe next…
• WordPress.org: This is where you buy a domain name and hosting (I use Godaddy.com for this) and you add the WordPress open source software to your host. This allows you to access a content management system (similar to what you’d get with the free blog platforms, above) while giving you the most control over your blog.

So, which one should you choose? The WordPress.org option is the best, in my opinion, because it gives you the most flexibility for your business. However, it costs the most and requires the most work.

If you would like to “test out” blogging for a year or so and see what happens, you can always go with a free blog platform at first and then later change to a paid platform. The free blogging platforms give you the ability to make quick decisions to test things.

7. PREWRITE SOME OF YOUR BLOG POSTS

Now that you have a list of blog topics to write about and you’ve chosen a blog platform, prewrite a couple of blog posts. I say “prewrite” because you don’t need to publish them right now. Instead, get a feel for your blog and try to find your own blogging “voice”. If you write about 5 blog posts, you’ll start to see your blogging voice emerge and you’ll also start to get a realistic idea about how long it will take you to write a single blog post. From here, you can decide whether or not to continue.

If you choose to continue, you can schedule in those blog posts to start publishing regularly.

8. GET STARTED!

Now that you have prewritten some blogs and they’re being published regularly, it’s time to get serious about actually blogging.

Blogging can be a lot of fun but it can also be a lot of work. Here’s what I advise to help make your blogging a little easier:

• Set aside time to write every day.
• Try to write 2 blog posts per day. One for today, one for the future.
• Try to write a combination of timely blog posts (about what is happening now) and timeless blog posts (which can be published at any time).
• If you have content from other sources (for example: previous marketing you’ve done or an ebook) repurpose them into your blog posts
• Plan your blog posts as if each post is part of a chapter of a book. This allows you to repurpose your blog content in the future for other things (like ebooks, books, ecourses, etc.)
• Don’t expect immediate results. Success from blogging can take time.
• You can start to dial in keywords over time but be careful not to stuff your blog with keywords

9. PROMOTE YOUR BLOG

After you have a batch of blog posts (somewhere between 5 and 15), you should start promoting your blog. Start using the methods you thought about in step #2… since you’ve already thought about it. Of course you can always branch out but that is the best place to start.

A REAL ESTATE INVESTING BLOG CAN BE GOOD FOR BUSINESS

A real estate investing blog can be a lot of fun… but it can also be a lot of work. Stick with it for a while (it takes time) and try to not to be discouraged. Have fun with it and be consistent and you should see the positive results in your business.

Blogging is a great way for accountants and bookkeepers to build search engine optimized traffic and connect with their target market. If you are an accountant or bookkeeper, here are 10 blog posts that you should write:

1. Write SEO-friendly content to talk about the town or community you serve. Specifically, consider writing blog posts about the local business owners who work nearby.
2. Write blog posts about specific aspects of the type of work you do (especially if you specialize in a particularly type of accountancy, for example).
3. Remember that your clients aren’t just using your services because they don’t want to do their own books. Demonstrate your skills by providing a series of blog posts about how to make more money (i.e. through tax minimization, etc.)
4. Dispel myths that people frequently have about their finances (i.e. “Business owners can write off everything”).
5. Write a blog series about ways that people can save money (not just about saving money with the finances that you take care of, but rather about saving money in general).
6. Write the answers to questions that prospects and clients ask you frequently.
7. List the costs and risks that someone faces by trying to do their accounting or bookkeeping on their own.
8. Write a series of blog posts with each post defining and giving examples of finance-related terminology that they might not understand.
9. If you serve business clients, write about tips to help them make more money.
10. Chances are, you prospects and clients tend to think of you as a “number cruncher”. (Sorry). Show them your human side by including some blog posts about what you’re doing when you’re not working with a calculator.