There are a few old-school bloggers here on AG. My question is this – If you were starting a blog today, what would you do differently?
I would have started with my own domain (I switched after the first three months) running Wordpress (especially after having watched Benn’s tutorial).
What do you wish you had known? Any major mistakes that you would care to share?
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Hey Jim, I don’t consider myself and “old school blogger” but I can tell you I would have started my own blog sooner – (which is about to turn a year old btw). I would have also adopted a “call to action” system right away. Let’s see what the wise ones have to say.
Like Ines, I am hardly old-schooI…but if I was I would have kidnapped Mary mcKnight , held her for ransom and made her tell me everything she knows…and then I would have recorded it all to keep forever. Then maybe…just maybe I would have let her go!
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Not that I am old school like Jay Thompson, you and Theresa, but I would not have gone anywhere other than a paid WP.org site. (I am too lazy to more my primary from Typepad, but I have managed other WP.org sites) I would have started off with widgets that encouraged consumer interaction. I would also have spent much more time on blogs like realestatetomatoes.com and rsspieces.com. Lastly, I would have pre-written a months worth of posts, so that I had enough to show consistency in writing, yet not missed a day when I was out with clients or such.
I am still fairly new at the blogging side of the game compared to some…especially on the RE.net. I would gone with more pictures–sooner. Graphics have a way of breaking things up and making a point. I would do a little less writing and a lot more photoshopping..
I’ll throw a supplemental question out there for the “old-school bloggers” since I am still new to the blogging world:
Is it worthwhile to have more than one blog? For example, a separate blog for a particular community or neighborhood? Or for a particular subject matter (income-generating rental properties, etc)?
I think there are some great points already made by some very smart people who are very modest. Here are a few thoughts that should help most new bloggers.
IMO You should own your own content and not be building someone else’s brand. Don’t invest to much time into REW, AR, or a “something.blogger.com” blog. The content isn’t yours and you aren’t building your brand.
Many bloggers seem to like to figure things out on their own, many times they just end up reinventing the wheel. IMO there are parts of online marketing (including blogging) that you shouldn’t fsbo, hire a professional and get professional results. What should be hired out will be based on your knowledge.
IMO consumer interaction is the key to a real estate agent blogging for business.
Remember your target audience is buyers or sellers, not other real estate agents. If you want to write to Realtors start a separate blog for that purpose.
Scott if you have time to maintain more then one blog then targeting specific markets can be useful.
Things I wish I’d known the first time are:
#1: Pick a URL keyword rich domain name and
#2 Wish I Understood categories better when I began. I would have limited the number of non-real estate categories (group many lifestyle ones in to a main one) and chosen different names on some.
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The biggest mistake I ever made (that I know of) is that I wrote about a current prospect … and then he read it and commented negatively and I deleted it. After not sleeping that night, I found his comment somewhere and re-published it. From then on, I –
1) Don’t write about current people without permission
2) Don’t delete comments (unless they are libelous/offensive/spam/etc)
I’m with Ken – maintaining one blog is time consuming enough. Scott, I do think that if you organize it well enough you can really achieve the different topics with categories within the blog – I do it with mine, but ultimately, you would be the only one to know what works better for you, that’s the beauty of blogging.
One “for instance” is that I post information about good foreclosure opportunities in my area on my blog. So….they are available on my main blog (http://www.scottprogers.com/blog) or in that category (http://www.scottprogers.com/bl.....reclosure/)
It has crossed my mind to start a second blog with only the foreclosure information so that I could more easily market that as a destination in and of itself.
Then I get into:
1. Should I also leave the foreclosure posts on my regular blog? Would I be depriving my regular blog readers if I took them off?
2. Should the foreclosure blog have the other posts on it? Would I be losing an opportunity to get other info in front of the people landing on my foreclosure blog if I didn’t have them on there?
3. If the posts are on both, would the search engines frown upon me because of duplication of content?
If anyone has done something like this, let me know, as I’d like to see how you did it, and know why you did it that way. Thanks!
Scott –
Re: #1 – why not advertise the category “Foreclosure”, rather than duplicating the process on multiple blogs? http://www.harrisonburgforeclosures.com, for instance, than have it point to that category? You’re not “depriving” readers by putting the information on there, so why not leave it there? I think you do a good job with that stuff anyhow, and I’m sure the everyday reader likely does as well.
Scott – you could also get a different domain and point it to the foreclosure category (Is that what you are trying to say Jeremy?) – you would get the keyword rich domain and add juice to one single blog (which is hard enough to achieve)
Jeremy — good thought (I registered the domain and pointed it there, so it should be live in the next hour or so). My only hesitation in configuring it as such is that the “foreclosure blog” (that isn’t really a free-standing blog) thus won’t be branded with an identify of its own. I think it could (possibly) have more impact and gain more of a following if I branded it separately…..
Ines — I believe that is what Jeremy was suggesting, and what I did. The only issue is (as far as I know) that Google (etc) won’t see any content on http://www.harrisonburgforeclosures.com, because it will just be forwarding to content that resides on a different domain.
That’s what I meant, Scott – it’s just a hunch, but I think you’re okay by pointing http://www.harrisonburgforeclosures.com to the category …
Scott – yes, that’s what I was suggesting. I have no imperical evidence to prove this, but I think you’re okay with just pointing to http://www.harrisonburgforeclosures.com. The information is great, people will be able to find what they need there.
Scott, I think you have to make a decision on whether you want to give juice to a single domain and what those implications may mean (what are the advantages?) or if you want to run 2 different blogs. I can tell you that it is definitely more efficient to stick to a few keywords to a blog but I’ve done mine completely different and after almost 1 year I am seeing unbelievable long tail results. I have different neighborhoods and write content for all of them – also have domains pointed to the categories.
I know Mary McKnight has a client with a foreclosure site that is getting unbelievable results (I just can’t remember the URL) – you can always start a separate blog with all the content you have now at a later date – talk to Mary.
I think that it is way more important to have a URL that you can brand then one stuffed with keywords.
Scott you can create a different “look” for any category on your blog (for sure with WP, haven’t used any others). It can actually look like a completely different site if you want, pull in different CSS and everything. At the very least you might want to pull in a different header and change up the navigation to make this idea really work.
Excellent point Ken — good idea — that way I can brand it and yet still not be dividing my efforts and content.
Exactly. The main blog can use all the content, but make the foreclosure category function like a stand alone blog focusing purely on that content. Naturally I would still link to other areas of the blog, but make the above the fold navigation all related to foreclosures.
Hi, Jim. Good topic.
1. Don’t write about current situations unless you are REALLY cryptic. I share this early mistake with you. I learned, but as Maureen posted recently, it is difficult, because the best stories are the ones we can’t tell.
2. Should have paid more attention to the template. Now I need a facelift (so does my blog), and I am paralized with fear at the thought of migrating 2+ years of content to a new design.
I don’t know if there would be anything I would want to change. It has been a wonderfully enriching learning curve, with many extremely helpful mentors along the way. That perhaps is the key in all of this – to simply ‘Pay-it-Forward’ – to take all that we’ve learned and be as willing to help/share with others as those mentors did for us. I would have started subscribing to more blogs sooner, to expand my blogging horizons, rather than being so focused on how and what I should write. I desperately need to read more than I do. I use to be a voracious reader, but life got in the way a few years ago, and I’ve lost that discipline.
I would have read more RE blogs before jumping in (though really there weren’t all that many RE blogs 3 years ago to chose from).
I would have linked OUT more frequently. This is a difficult concept for new bloggers to grasp. Your gut tells you, “If I link out to someone, my reader will leave and never come back”. Yes, that can happen, but the benefits of linking out to others FAR outweighs the few readers you may lose.
Trivial, but I would have picked a better name for my Feedburner feed. Rather than “JaysArizonaRealEstateBlog” it would have made far more sense to name the feed “PhoenixRealEstateGuy”. If I change it now, I risk losing some of the 350+ feed subscribers I have.
I would have posted more often in the beginning. 2 -3 times a month doesn’t cut it. Pre-writing several “date insensitive” posts for publishing later would have been prudent (still would be for that matter).
I would have selected a separate domain name long, long ago instead of waiting until nearly two years into the entire process.
Disagree with Jay on reading more as not reading the rest helped me find a voice. But it’s almost a moot point as the options were pretty thin even just two years ago.
If I write about prospects, it’s almost always stripped down to be more generalized and it’s virtually always positive and/or instructive. Things that could help others down the line …
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my comment was too long, it became an article.
I’m so new I still squeak!
I started this blogging thing in Nov 07. Why you ask?
This answer will haunt me – an RE client talked me into it. He also designed and built the site, got me pointed in a direction and said “there yah go – now start typing. Write a post a day – it’ll do you good” he said. Talk about blind faith. I have yet to figure out if anybody is hearing me splash and thrash.
What would I do different.
Like others, retrospectively I might have chosen a more area related blog name. It may have helped but I’m not certain if blog life is over without it. Certainly being first on the bus has it’s advantages if you are clairvoyant.
Contrary to many, something I’ve chosen not to do is have all the gadgets, widgets, counters, smileys and other toys I see on many blogs. To my eyes they distract from the essence, style of the site and the writer. I see each blogger’s visual voice clouded by all that stuff. It reminds me of web 1.0 junk. You get used to it, but it is I think, counter productive to the purity of the message. I live with the conviction that if the medium is the message – then why put junk in the message. Hell, my writing style by itself, is a sufficient distraction from the message.
I’m not very smart about the linking. Although for some reason others are linking to me. I don’t know why? I’m not that pretty! My town is not as intense about real estate blogging as say, Phoenix, so my excuse is that linking to others in the real estate community is more restricted.
Those few I do link to are non realtors who have something to say of value and for the most part live with a glass half full.
Something I hope proves valuable is to meet other bloggers who are not realtors. It’s my attempt at keeping perspective and making time for a beer.
whoops – the crooked cane is pulling so……………….
I’m still laughing that Lani included Jay and Perez Hilton in the same sentence!
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I’m not laughing. She made me feel o-l-d – she took a college course on email and forum etiquette??? We were just figuring out email when I was in college!
Jim – and here I thought I was cool because I was learning Fortran in Engineering school – that LANI will get us every time!
I would have started blogging much, much sooner!