Lance Sonka

Are you blogging? You should be.

In fact, whether you are a custom or production home builder with 1, 10, or 10,000 employees, all of you should be blogging.

Why? Search engine optimization. 

Why Home Builders Should Blog

It's no longer a secret that in the world of online marketing, content is king. "Content" meaning articles, videos, pod-casts, and text links which usher viewers directly back to your product or service. In our case, new homes and new home communities.

When a web surfer does a search for a specific set of keywords on a popular search engine like Google, MSN, or Yahoo!, the search engines do their best to return relevant results for that specific set of keywords or search terms.

You've read the statistics right?

According to the National Association of Realtors, "86 percent of home buyers start their home search on the Internet; and 98 percent found the internet to be a useful tool in helping to decide which homes to inquire about in person."

Eighty-six percent; that's nearly 9 out of 10 new home buyers searching and sifting through literally billions of web pages, hoping to find you and your newly built homes. Why not give them a hand?

Everyday home builders across the nation continue to wallow in extremely low consumer confidence. Where do you think that sentiment is being perpetually reinforced?

You got it, online directories, forums, news channels, and blogs.

Take another look at the title of this new home marketing article: Home Builder Blogs

Type that exact phrase into any search engine and chances are you'll find the same website at the top of the search results almost every time.

And unfortunately, it's probably not your home builder website.

So what can you do to be found at the top of the search engine results? Start blogging.

There are many free blogging platforms online. For no more than you'd spend on a single month of billboard advertising for a single location, you could probably have a custom blog system integrated into your existing website.

Both of the aforementioned ideas about home builder blogging will certainly help to tip the scales of new home marketing online in your organization's favor.