Many real estate professionals have business blogs, and that time blogging can pay off in your marketing, according to the 7th Annual Blogging Survey from Orbit Media Studios, a website development company. Fifty-four percent of nearly 1,300 bloggers across industries said blogging delivers “some marketing results.”

“We find over and over again that greater efforts [in blogging] leads to greater rewards,” says Andy Crestodina, CEO of Orbit Media.

Bloggers who have a lot to say tend to see the best results. Blog posts that have about 1,000 words were found to be the most effective. But bloggers who wrote 3,000-word blog posts also reported “strong results” in the study. Also, bloggers who invest more time on each blog post—as much as six hours—tend to see better marketing results too, the study notes.

You needn’t blog every day to reap results. Bloggers who post once a week or several times a month tend to report the best results. “Conversely, inconsistent bloggers are least likely to report ‘strong’ results,” Crestodina says.

The Orbit Media Studios study found the following are the most effective types of blog posts in achieving marketing results, according to respondents:

• Webinars: 33%
• Roundups (which invites several writers to address a specific topic): 33%
• Guides and e-books: 33%
• Interviews: 33%
• “Gated content” blogs (which requires sign-up information from a visitor to read the blog): 33%
• Infographics: 31%
• Lists, such as top 10 lists: 31%
• How-to articles: 28%

To drive traffic to the blog, marketers overwhelmingly use social media. Other methods include email marketing, such as newsletters and search engine optimization. A small percentage use paid services, such as paid ads in search engines.

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