WordPress for Your Real Estate Blog

WordPress Software Features and Functionality

What can WordPress do for your web presence? Why is it a good choice for real estate blogging? I'll tell you that and more, including why search engines like blogs, and how to get them to like yours even more.

First, let's separate software from hosting. The WordPress software that makes your blog function, and gives you the design and posting features you need is absolutely free. You get an extremely powerful software solution for blogging that will cost you absolutely nothing.

You can also have the software hosted at no charge at WordPress.com. You will end up with a URL address like http://yourdomain.wordpress.com, and it will function quite well. You can even point another domain name at it, thus using http://www.yourdomain.com if you desire. However, you will be limited greatly in design and functionality choices using the free solution.

By hosting your blog on a WordPRess friendly host like GoDaddy, Yahoo, or Bluehost, you'll be able to choose from thousands of design themes and plugins to get a lot more out of your blog. This paid hosting is usually less than $100/year, so it's really not a big decision if you want the most from your web presence. You just set up a hosting account and choose their WordPress install option to drop in the free software.

There is confusion when people discuss "websites" and "blogs." They're actually both websites, in that they reside on a site on the web. The confusion largely results from the look of the free blogs, as well as earlier versions of paid blogging software. They mostly just listed posts on the home page, with little flexibility in design.

WordPress allows great flexibility in design choices through "themes." Thousands are available for free, with more powerful ones at costs usually under $100. You can select a design and look to differentiate your blog, changing everything from fonts to colors to screen layout.

WordPress also allows the design of static pages with normal button navigation. So, there's really little need to discriminate against a blog simply because you want a different look for your site.

The reason the search engines like blogs so much is the regularity of posting and the way that they categorize content. WordPress allows you to set up your "permalinks" for better search engine optimization as well. Your permanent link to each post can have its category in the URL, and end with its title, as in:

http://yourdomain.com/neighborhoods/the-post-about-a-neighborhood/

This gives the search engine keywords that will help searchers to find your content. When you set up your categories for logical content filing, WordPress will keep your posts organized and present them to your visitors and the search engines for easy location.

You do not need a website and a separate blog, nor do you really need a website with a blog as a sub-site, such as http://yoursite.com/blog. You can have a blog as your complete web presence if you use the power and flexibility of WordPress to its full advantage.

There are "plugins" and "widgets" designed for everything from displaying the local weather to comprehensive listing display with mapping, images and video. The real estate professional can present themselves and their listings professionally on the Web with WordPress.

The blogging platform allows you to spend your time writing about what you know, and positioning yourself as the local real estate expert.