Blogs are the most powerful marketing tool you can use to attract leads and new customers, as well as increase visibility in your marketplace.

But what makes one blog successful and another mediocre? The majority of “so-so” blogs lack one or more of four important elements…  In this article I will introduce the CODA system and how it can driven traffic and engagement with your readers.

Some bloggers may be writing well, posting relevant and valuable content on a regular basis, but they aren’t encouraging reader interaction. Or they might have built a blog whose purpose isn’t evident.

Some blogs are difficult to navigate, making it nearly impossible for readers to find important information. Some look good, but they don’t have frequent or relevant posts.

And, most important to the first-time visitor, many blogs lack critical design elements. They offer no way for busy readers to quickly size them up and decide whether the blog is worth reading.

This is where the CODA system comes in, to serve as a guide for bloggers to monitor four elements of their blog and keep it on track as a marketing tool that serves their business. CODA focuses on Content, Outreach, Design and Action.

C Is for Content

The first essential component to a successful blog is content. It is often said that “content is king” because it is the critical element that will make or break your blog.

Always write with your readers in mind. If your posts are not interesting to the people you’re writing for, then they’re not going to come back. They’re not going to subscribe. And they’re not going to buy your products or services. Your content is where you have the opportunity to really penetrate your niche market and dominate, to become the de facto authority.

When developing content, keep in mind the three E’s of content: Educate, Entertain and Engage. The two primary reasons people use the web are to find solutions to their problems and to be entertained (as seen in the phenomenal growth of online video).

The first E is Educate.  A great example of educational blogging is Dr. Eben Davis’ Back and Wrist Pain Blog. Dr. Davis uses his blog to teach prospective and current patients about how the body works, why they might need help, or how he can solve their problem.  Nearly every post is educational and recently he told me that about 50% of his new patients come as a result of reading his blog and that they are getting better results because they are better educated.

Educate your readers so they know how you can solve their problems.

The second E is Entertain.  Video inherently is more entertaining than text (unless you’re really good at writing humor, which is tricky). Use video to tell a story or to better express your personality.  Check out Gary Vaynerchuk and his WineLibrary.tv blog. He posts videos five days a week and because he has a huge personality and is incredibly passionate about his subject, he rarely fails to entertain—as well as educate and engage—his audience, which is evidenced by dozens of comments on every post.

Video is inherently entertaining and quickly engages the viewer.

The third E is Engage. How do you get people to actually connect with you and participate in the conversation?  One way to do that is to use polls. Some of the free polling sites are vizu.com and polldaddy.com.  Create a one-question poll to encourage people to take the step and interact by answering your question.

Even simpler is asking for comments.  I often hear the complaint, “Nobody ever comments on my blog.”  My response is, “Do you ask for comments?  Do you tell readers how to comment?”  People need to be told what to do.  You might need to say at the end of your blog post, “Please let me know what you think about this.  Click on the comment link below.”

Keep in mind that when somebody actually interacts with something—they click a link, they post a comment, they take a poll—they stop being a passive reader. Now they’re actively engaged with you, and that can help bring them one step closer to becoming a client or a customer.

Ask for engagement. A poll gives your readers the opportunity to tell you what they think.

Finally, with all your content, keep it conversational and thoughtful, and be authentic and personal.

O Is for Outreach

Part of being a successful blogger means you should leave your own blog and participate on others in the blogosphere. It means reading and commenting on other blogs related to your industry or audience, reaching out to other bloggers, and becoming more visible. This is how you get known; this is how you build relationships that can turn into joint venture projects and guest interview spots, and attract more traffic and prospects back to your site.

Outreach is also about participating on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, among others, if that’s where your target audience hangs out.  Set up your profile. Make sure your avatar is consistent throughout so no matter where people find you, they recognize you.  Most important, make sure your blog content is syndicated via the RSS feed so your connections on social networking sites see your deeper content and can follow you back to your home base—your blog.

D Is for Design

Strong blog design involves a number of layout and usability factors. Design issues can greatly affect how readers experience your blog.

• Is it easy to use and understand?
• Does it build trust with readers?
• Is it easy to navigate?
• Does it look good?

The aesthetic elements also help people feel confident about working with you.  They may like your content, but does it look professional? Does it represent you well?  Do you make it easy for readers to hire or buy something from you?

One of the things to keep in mind when you’re designing your blog is it must be well-branded and it should be memorable. Make sure when people land on your site, it doesn’t look like every other blog.  Just about every blogging platform has templates.  If you use a standard template, that’s OK, but take a few minutes and customize the look and feel by using your brand colors and logo, at minimum.

Adding a custom-designed banner on your blog will help set it apart as well. Make sure to include the name of your blog and a tagline.  Remember that every day someone new lands on your blog.  When they land on your blog, are they going to know what it’s about?  Are they going to know if it’s what they’re looking for?  Make sure you have a tagline that tells people what the blog is about—what they can expect to learn about your subject.

A Is for Action

Finally, ‘A’ is shorthand for call to action. That is, are you encouraging people to act? How do you get your readers to become customers, to click on links, and to sign up for classes, reports, and other offers?

Effective business blogging is results-oriented, which means persuading people to interact with you in some way. Calls to action are crucial. Depending on the goals of your blog and/or specific post, you may include calls to action for:

• Posting comments
• Asking for a retweet
• Directing to download a freebie
• Downloading a white paper
• Taking a survey
• Registering for a program
• Checking out your new product or service

Being clear on the next step you want your readers to take will help them know what to do and help you get the results you want from your blogging efforts. You can see clear examples of calls to action on Rich Brooks’ flyte blog.

Tell your readers what you want them to do.

Putting it all Together for a Balanced Blog

If you’re going to invest time on your blog, you want that time to pay off. You want results.

Keep in mind that no matter which of the four elements (Content, Outreach, Design and Action) you like to focus on, a successful business blog—one that gets results for your business—requires all four to be addressed. A balanced blog that is built and maintained on the CODA system will contribute to getting more visitors, and more customers, for your business.

What would you add? Have you tried any of these techniques with success? What do you consider the most important element for a successful blog? Share your opinion

Good morning everyone,

I started this email with just a quick reminder about the broker brown bag meeting (see very bottom) but got fired up about the reality of today, please forgive my long email I just get so passionate about you, your lives, your opportunities and the short windows that open and close.

I am always shocked by how quickly it seems that we are staring at spring already. It seems to sneak right up on us.

Most of you know that statistics show that 80% of the transactions for the entire year are controlled (listed/put in escrow) between March and August. What this means to you is that 80% of the business available to you is staring you in the face NOW! You have 6 Months to capture the majority of the business that will be done in 2010.

So………what are you doing? Are you building your database? Are you prospecting daily? Do you have accountability to help you stay on track every day? Are you actually calling your sphere/past clients and asking for the order? (statistics show that most agents do NOT call don’t be a statistic).

So………. I always have to ask, HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT??

If you want the new car, house, college fund, dress, suit, vacation etc HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT?

NOW is your time, NOW is your opportunity folks as tough or bad as the news/economists say that our times are going to be, as tough or bad as the news/economists say that our market is going to be in 2010 I am telling you NOW wake up, commit, plan and focus on the next 6 months ONE DAY AT A TIME, starting NOW!

Most of you know that I got licensed in 1989 the hottest real estate market in years only to see the collapse follow less than one year later. I am telling you first hand as an agent who not just got by in a tough market but excelled/grew and captured market share I know what focus will do and do not buy in to negativity, focus on what the opportunities are.

Before you know it, it will be Holiday season again (2010) and your closings will be out of your control. Take control of your life, and your families destiny NOW DO IT!!

Again, sorry folks I got so carried away. This truly is what fires me up! Yes we have broker brown bag but FIRE is what fuels the actions every day!

LETS GO change the world, please join me.

Hope you can join us in the training room this Wednesday (and every 1^st Wednesday of the Month) for Broker Brown Bag.

This Month’s topics are…………

1.    C.A.R. Director update from meetings in February, Referral fees (can I pay non licensees, can I receive etc)

2.    Inventory – let’s discuss trends, I will share what I am hearing regarding REO’s, shorts, etc and love to hear what you are hearing on this important topic.

Thank-you and make it a great day!

Michael Simpson

NO. Part of the language in the bill agreeing to extend the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit (to April 2010) stated that the credit  would NOT be extened again (poison pill).

The Tax credit has been exteneded until April 30, 2010. However, purchasers who have binding contracts as of April 30, 2010 (before May 1, 2010), would still qualify for the credit as long as they complete the transaction within 60 days (or June 30, 2010). click here for more information http://www.car.org/tools/smart/new/homebuyertaxcredit/.

Please get the word out that this is the opportunity of a lifetime to purchase real estate!!  Rates are at lifetime lows, prices are at lifetime lows, dont miss the boat!

Alot of folks are still sitting on the fence thinking this will get extended again (not going to happen).

Yes that is true! in fact over 100 changes have been made to the Residential Purchase Agreement (RPA) and receipt and Joint Escrow instructions.  There has been only 2 changes to the form since 2002 so as you can imagine the new contract will have significant changes reflecting the market that we are in.

We (Keller Williams Coastal Properties) will of course provide training for the new contract as it is rolled out in late April. click here for more information. http://www.car.org/tools/smart/new/formsdrafts1209/?version=2

City of Long Beach, California-
The City of Long Beach, California in a consortium agreement with Habitat for Humanity Greater Los Angeles has been awarded $22,249,980 in NSP2 funds. These funds will be used in targeted areas across 44 census tracts affected by high foreclosure rates and subprime mortgages. The consortium will establish financing mechanisms, in the form soft second loans, loan loss reserves, and shared-equity loans, for 86 individuals to purchase and redevelop foreclosed upon homes and the consortium will purchase and rehabilitate 25 homes that have been abandoned or foreclosed upon in order to sell, rent, or redevelop these properties. These activities will benefit households whose income is at or below 12 percent of area median income, with 25 percent of the funds for households at or below 5 percent of area median income. These funds, and the leveraging of $1,725,000 in other funds, will help stabilize high foreclosure areas, arrest declining housing values, and reconnect targeted neighborhoods with the economy, housing market, and social networks of the community and metropolitan area as a whole. www.homepreservationcoalition.org/

This is an interesting article, it should be noted however that this is one case and does not necessarily mean that this may be a blanket position that courts would take for all. Additionally, I have heard that per deim charges (additional fees charged by seller’s typically bank reo’s charge when buyer does not close escrow on time) are being looked at heavilly and could be challenged as well down the road.

NONREFUNDABLE DEPOSIT DEEMED INVALID

An agreement for a “nonrefundable” escrow deposit is invalid and unenforceable, according to the recent California case of Kuish v. Smith (2010 WL 373225).  This case serves as a good reminder for REALTORS® that inserting a “nonrefundable deposit” provision into a real property purchase contract may be legally ineffective.

The Kuish case involved a $620,000 escrow deposit for the purchase of a $14 million oceanfront home in Laguna Beach.  Instead of using a liquidated damages provision, the buyer and sellers merely agreed in the purchase contract that the deposit would be “nonrefundable.”  According to the trial court, both parties were “big boys,” meaning that they were “sophisticated business people [who] understood all the ramifications of their actions in freely negotiating to make the [deposit] non-refundable.”

The buyer eventually cancelled the agreement.  The sellers refused to return the deposit to the buyer, even though they sold the property to someone else for $1 million more.

The buyer sued to recover the $620,000 deposit, and won on appeal.  The court stated that “any provision by which money or property would be forfeited without regard to actual damage suffered would be an unenforceable penalty.  To construe the term ‘nonrefundable’ to establish [the sellers'] entitlement to the full deposit without regard to actual damages would essentially create a liquidated damages provision.”  Yet, the parties in this case did not separately sign or initial a liquidated damages provision.

Under C.A.R.’s Residential Purchase Agreement, the sellers would have been entitled to the escrow deposit (not to exceed three percent of the purchase price), if the parties initialed the liquidated damages provision, and the buyer had no contingencies or had removed all his contingencies.  For more information about liquidated damages, C.A.R. has a legal article entitled Liquidated Damages and Deposit Forfeitures, which is available in English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

This is a great podcast with Gary Keller (founder of Keller Williams Realty) and Stefan Swanepoel, very intersting to me that they saying Social Media is at the baby stages. It seems like it has been around for along time now however, in the big picture it makes sense it really is just the beginning. This podcast has some great strategies on how to capitalize. 

http://www.swanepoel.com/media/real_estate_podcasts.asp

Inventory Report Long BeachInventory report Long Beach  Good afternoon everyone,

This is interesting to review this Month. If you notice there are 923 Active listings in Long Beach and 692 Pending/Backup. Inventory appears to be quietly creeping upward and according to the graph as of today we have more homes available for sale than we have had since May 2009 when there were 999 Active listings. 

Additionally, the 692 Pending/Backups represent the lowest amount of transactions in escrow since April 2009 when there were 674 Pending/Backup.

Lakewood’s numbers look similar with the inventory of available homes for sale showing a recent high of 141 Active and available. This is the highest we have seen since March 2009 when there were 151 properties available for sale. The Pending/Backups of 134 also represent a recent low since April 2009 when there were 129 P/B (although LW has remained fairly consistent with approximately 100 homes going into escrow every month since 2008.

What does all of this mean?

It could be cyclical/seasonal and due to the fact that there are typically fewer people purchasing properties and therefore less transactions during the Holiday season and as a result we are seeing a dip now.

Or it could show that more REO’s are hitting the marketplace as we have anticipated, most of the REO agents I have talked with have seen just a slight uptick in their assignments.

This is a far cry from the bleak 4^th quarter of 2007 when we had only 231 properties in escrow and a glutton of 2,113 properties available for sale in Long Beach.

However, the reality is that these numbers show a significant spike (upward) in available properties for sale, REO’s/short sales and/or regular transactions (or I should say non regular in today’s world), and while this is exactly what we need right now in our market place (more inventory), fewer transactions in escrow is NOT a trend we want to continue to see. Frankly, I don’t anticipate seeing P/B declining further and feel confident that this is in fact seasonal.

Remember “shifts” occur several times per year, sometimes they are extreme and hit hard and fast and other times they are slight, of course we also want to remember that these graphs are somewhat “global” and pockets and/or price ranges are not taken into consideration.

These trends are something we should stay on top of and keep a very close eye on moving forward so that you can continue to provide your clients with cutting edge information be the local economist in your area and capitalize on the opportunities in front of you!

Thank-you and make it a great weekend!!

Michael Simpson

p.s. Jessica Anaya, thank-you for continuing to provide these reports for all of us, you’re The BEST!

Four of the top cities in the state for median home price gains in December are in Orange County, according to the California Association of Realtors.

At the top of that list is Laguna Hills, with a 62.9% jump. San Juan Capistrano, Tustin and Costa Mesa follow; See the chart at right for details.

In Orange County, CAR says:

Yearly Gain

Laguna Hills – 62.9%

 San Juan Cap – 37.2% 

Fairfield – 30.9%

 Tustin – 27.1%

El Cajon – 26.7%

 Thousand Oaks – 19.5%

Escondido – 18.4%

 Costa Mesa – 17.3%

 San Pablo – 16.6%

 Encinitas – 16.3%

* The overall median price in December was $496,070, down 0.6% from November, but up 12.1% from the prior year.

* Sales were up 4.5% from November and up 17.9% from December 2008.

* The county’s unsold inventory was at 5.4 months in December, compared with 5.8 months in November and 7 months in December a year ago.

* Time that O.C. homes spent on the market: 33 days in December, compared with 31.1 days in November and 37.5 days in December 2008.

Newport Beach and Laguna Beach were among the Top 10 cities in the state for median home prices in December, at $938,500 for Newport and $1,230,000 for Laguna. Highest in the state was Beverly Hills at $1,400,000.

Statewide:

* Home sales increased in 1.7% December compared with the same period a year ago and 4% from November.

* The median price of an existing, single-family detached home in December was $306,820, up 0.8% from November and an 8.4% increase from December a year ago.

CAR Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young said:

“Home sales were unusually strong in December and were more consistent with peak season trends. Historically, the median price declines November through February and then rises in March. However, lean inventory, historically low interest rates, and incentives for home buyers have resulted in California’s housing market experiencing non-seasonal variations.

“Looking forward, we expect the state’s median home price to fluctuate around the $300,000 level throughout the first quarter. While we expect to experience price gains in the near term, it remains to be seen how the market will fare once the Federal Reserve discontinues its purchase of mortgage-backed securities.”

For city by city breakdowns, CLICK HERE:  

http://www.car.org/marketdata/historicalprices/2009medianprices/dec2009medi

For more on the state, CLICK HERE: http://www.car.org/newsstand/newsreleases/dec09salesandprice/