Even if you’re not the type to get on a soapbox and let everyone know how you feel about something doesn’t mean you can’t, or shouldn’t, blog. As you probably already know, blogging is the latest marketing venue and it’s a great way to draw attention to your business. Here is how you can have complete control of a forum in which to market your services to a global audience.

Increase Your SEO by Blogging

Many bloggers blog just to increase their search engine rankings. If you include specific, targeted keywords in your blog, the search engines will pick up on them. Having a link from your blog to your website will help increase your ranking.

Blogs that include keywords that your potential clients will use to search for your services is important because the search engines will use these words or phrases to rank your page. Obviously the higher the rank, the better your search engine placement. Getting in the first page of search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN is a feat unto itself. After the first page, people tend to stop searching thinking they've found the most relevant material for their search terms. And, by the way, those rankings are fleeting; they change daily. An organic placement in the number one spot one day could end up on page 10 the next.

Using keywords will definitely help maximize your SEO but that doesn’t mean throw them around here and there in order to have keyword-laden content; just try to fit in as many as possible without your blog sounding like you're writing for the search engines.

Need Another Reason to Blog?

There are probably as many reasons for blogging as there are bloggers. People blog to establish credibility in their industry, build brand awareness, discuss hot topics and much more. It's not so much a matter of why you decided to blog but what you plan to get out of it. Knowing this will help inspire ideas for subsequent posts after those initial ones that came rapid-fire fast and easy.

What if I Can’t Think of Anything to Write About?

If yours is a business blog, tell your readers (who are probably potential clients for your products or services) about you, what you do, what you offer, what sets you apart from your competition, etc. If you really think about it, there are an infinite number of topics on which to blog. This is your forum to get your message out.

Think You Don’t Have Time to Blog? Think Again

To make blogging a regular part of your business, set aside a certain time each week devoted to blogging. This will help you establish a routine and get into the swing of blogging regularly. If you're having a hard time coming up with ideas on what to blog about, just do what I did: think about the things that are important to your world and your business. I'm sure that most days you come across a topic that you have an opinion about – blog about that.

If you are so inclined, you can hire a Virtual Assistant that specializes in writing and/or blogging to blog for you. I do this for clients who either don’t want to take the time to blog or aren’t comfortable with their writing abilities. Typically they provide the topic or area of interest and I’ll research it, if necessary, and write and post it for them.

A Word of Advice

Be careful; remember, your potential clients could be reading your posts and you want to maintain an air of complete professionalism. Be sure your blog posts are error-free. Reread your posts prior to publishing them. If you're not the world's best speller, copy and paste your content into a Word document and run spell check. That won't catch everything but it sure helps.

Also be sure not to offend your readers. Sure this is a forum for you to say whatever it is you want to say but remember that your potential clients could be reading it. I'm not saying you can't bring up current issues and your stand on them, just be careful how it is worded so as not to highly offend potential clients. Write with as much of an open mind as you can muster. You can't please everyone all the time, but you don't have to offend them either.

What Some VAs Have to Say about Blogging

Laura Monroe of Creative Agent Solutions says, “Real Estate blogging is one of the best ways to brand yourself and your business. A Blog not only offers a way for agents to get closer to consumers in the form of interaction, and comments, but is also one of the best ways to boost website performance on search engines, by providing fresh quality content! It’s as simple as letting your personality, your value and your ‘voice’ as a real estate professional shine through.”

Using real estate-centric blog sites such as Active Rain can increase your exposure as well as your credibility. Oftentimes, when you blog about a particular topic you become an expert in the eyes of the reader.

Kandra Hamric of Assistant For Real Estate combined forces with Ralph Roberts – Time Magazine’s ‘America’s Top Realtor’ for 1995 – to create VREA.com. It’s a popular blogging site for both real estate pros and Virtual Assistants. Kandra says, “If you have a real estate company, you should be blogging. If you are already blogging, you know that you are able to keep your clients in the loop. You know that sellers are able to find valuable tools and that buyers are aware of properties soon after they come on the market. Even when you're not talking with your clients every day, when you keep a blog for your real estate company, they will know that you are working for them.

If you're not already blogging for your real estate business, consider the following benefits:

1. Communication - A blog is a great way of letting your clients - buyers and sellers alike - find the information that they are looking for. You can use your blog to explain processes or steps in the home buying or home selling process.

2. Offering tips and tools - You may already have a moving guide sheet that your real estate company offers to buyers and sellers. You might give your clients access to mortgage calculators, neighborhood guides or even home staging tips. You can create less detailed versions of these tools and add links to the documents on your website.

3. Website traffic - Your real estate business already has a website, right? A blog is a great way to promote your site. Search engines are drawn to sites with frequently updated content; when you blog every day, you update the content of your site every day. When you focus on keywords specific to your website, your real estate business and your area, you will be able to use your blog to boost the traffic sent by search engines.

4. Your customer base - Not only will you be able to communicate with the clients that you already have - buyers and sellers alike - but also you will be able to reach out to others in your area who are trying to choose a real estate agency. With your blog, you can give your company an edge over your competitors.

In other words, by blogging for your real estate company, you will have the opportunity to touch upon your services, to reach out to buyers and sellers, to bring traffic to your company's site and to increase the number of clients you have. By not blogging for your real estate company, you're missing out.”

Carolyn Nelson of Online REPA advises using “MS Word 2007 to write, post and manage your blogs.

Word 2007 has the added feature of blogging. I love the new features of Outlook and Word 2007; especially, the feature that allows me to implement RSS Feeds. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, allows you to receive and store in one place, information from a number of sources on an on-going basis. The information can be from any source on the web that has implemented RSS and to which you have subscribed, often for free. Normally, the information is from sites that frequently update their content, such as Active Rain, CNN, MSN, or active blogs (web logs or online journals) from both individual and companies.

I manage several blogs for clients, organizations, and my personal journals. The primary reason for RSS feeds is that they allow you to collect information from many different sources without having to visit all of the sites. However, we have learned to use blogs for other valuable reasons. The new features of Outlook 2007 allows us to read blogs from a large number of places as the information is updated and the new features of Word 2007 allows me to post blogs and select categories directly from word. For example, when an agent gets a new listing, I can easily create the new listing flyer and upload it to the blog, send out price changes, client testimonials, buying and selling tips, and use the blog to keep in touch with  sphere/circle, buyers, sellers, and past clients. Each client or member of the agent’s sphere is sent detailed instructions for subscribing.

If the buyer, seller, agent, etc is not a user of Outlook 2007, there are other feed readers available online that will help you with your blogging options. If you are a user of 2007, check it out.”

Join the Revolution

Do you have teenagers? If so, more than likely they have a MySpace.com page, right? It's their way of networking – and it’s an extremely popular and effective way of networking I might add. That generation will certainly continue to blog as they establish their careers and blogging will become second nature to them (if it hasn't already). That, in and of itself, is reason enough to start blogging – keeping up with the next generation. And, as I mentioned before, blogging is easy, free and anyone can do it.

Evy Williams is our VA QUICK TIPS columnist. She specializes in designing marketing materials to sell homes through her company, BrochuresByDesign.com. She holds a Master’s degree in Administration and is a certified Master Virtual Assistant, Military Spouse Virtual Assistant, Professional Real Estate Virtual Assistant, Real Estate Support Specialist and is EthicsChecked. Contact her at Evy@BrochuresByDesign.com.

(NOTE: Mr. Internet®, his company and staff receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors or service providers. Also any virtual assistant or consultant mentioned in this publication is not to be construed as an endorsement of their services by Mr. Internet or his company. Always remember to do a thorough due-diligence before hiring any kind of assistant.)