There are dozens of posts around the web that give you compelling reasons for why and how to start a blog.

This isn’t one of them.

In fact, in this post, I aim to give you a few compelling reasons why you shouldn’t start a real estate blog.

Not because it’s ineffective or because it’s a waste of time. But because frankly, it’s just not a right fit for everyone.

There’s tons of top producers out there who generate substantial incomes all without ever having blogged a day in their life. They’ve just mastered a different area of their marketing, that’s all.

At the end of the day, you just have to find what’s right for you. And starting a real estate blog may or may not be it…

4 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Start A Real Estate Blog:

1. If you don’t have the money or the technical skills to set up/design your own blog, don’t do it.

You’ll be doing yourself more harm than good.

Here’s the thing… Like it or not, people do judge a book by it’s cover. So within 2-3 seconds of landing on your website, people are going to make a decision as to whether they like you or not. Whether they trust you or not.

If you have a poorly designed website, you just lost a potential customer. Period.

Yes, great content is important. And a great site design is useless without solid content to back it up. But what good is a content-rich website if consumers aren’t staying on your site long enough to consider what you have to offer? And all because of a poor design.

Food for thought…

(Related Reading: https://www.ricardobueno.com/first-impressions-matter).

2. If you absolutely, positively hate to write, don’t do it. 

If I’m a consumer looking for info on the local market trends in an area I’m interested in purchasing in, and your latest blog post is dated April 2010… How well do you think that reflects?

Not very.

What that tells me is that your site is clearly outdated and that the content there is pretty unreliable. I want current data. Reliable data. Up-to-date data. If I can’t find it here, I’ll go look somewhere else.

3. If you’re shy about making your contact info public, don’t do it. 

Some people don’t like to have their phone number listed on their website. Believe me, I get it. Too many solicitation calls… Too many calls from unknown numbers… Et cetera.

But here’s the thing… If a potential customer wants to get a hold of you, you should make it ridiculously simple to do so (phone number or email – not a contact form with a thousand fields). Otherwise, you risk losing that potential customer to the competition (and you will lose them to the competition).

If you have a hard time processing the thought of making yourself accessible, then there’s just no point. Period.

4. If you’re unwilling to make the monthly financial and time commitment, don’t do it. 

Starting a business blog is going to cost you time (slaving over blog posts, email marketing newsletters, et cetera) and money. Still, it’s cheaper than starting a brick and mortar business. At a minimum, here’s what you can expect to spend money on:

• Hosting: On average you can expect to pay between $7 – $10 for a brand new, low traffic website. I recommend Bluehost.com. You’ll pay less than $100 for the year up-front in hosting fees and they have a fairly simple one-click install WordPress process.
• IDX: Searching for homes is one of the primary reasons consumers are coming to your website. You need a reliable, up-to-date, lead capture enabled IDX home search to offer them. Period. (And of course I’m going to recommend the Diverse Solutions IDX – Disclosure: I work for them).
• Email Marketing Service: When someone subscribes to receive my blogging blueprint, they receive a series of 7 emails and marketing lessons scheduled over a 30-day period. Wouldn’t it be great if you could do that whenever someone registers to use the IDX on your website? Well, services like Aweber and MailChimp make this ridiculously simple to do (and track). Cost = $10 – $30 per month.

At a minimum, those are some of the services you can expect to be paying for on a monthly basis.

Most Challenging Moments:

What about you? How long have you had your real estate (or small business) blog? What have been some of your most challenging moments? Was it the design/set up phase? Or content creation and promotion?

What advice would you give to someone new who wants to start a real estate blog? And under what circumstances would you advise someone to NOT start a real estate blog?

The comments are yours…