The AR membership needs to have a standard to strive for.

How about “Publish your own content on your own domain”?

Now why would I spend the money to create my own event or promotion to attracts thousands of people when I can just knock on some doors on a Saturday afternoon?

Spoken with all the satire, tongue in cheeck rhetoric I can muster.

Mr Ferrara, this is a marketing ploy that we have used on MANY times to great success. It’s, as you know, called event or experiential marketing and it’s phenomenal…yet most agents won’t touch it because of cost and risk. I count on that as I know I will NEVER have any competition.

We have a great local website which features everything there is to do in Indy, which I have linked to.

I do find the local “real esate” specific posts can be mixed with our interests, posts for fun and just stuff, while still being found for real estate.

I also know, “hyper-local” is where I get most of my business from blogging. Once the online prospect has decided an area or neighborhood they want to live, they will find me, assuming I work in that area. I just mix it up!

It’s a balance and I’m still working on it.

Sometimes (OK, often) I think “hyper-local” is an over-rated and over-used term.

I had a ridiculous amount of traffic on July 3 and 4, for people searching for where to view fireworks. And yes, I had a post about that. Why? Because I found it was a pain in the ass to find places to view fireworks, so I compiled a list and shared it. Not to get buyers and sellers, but just because.

The good thing about that traffic is it was all local. And many visitors that came looking for that page viewed others. And they stayed around, they subscribed, and they saved home searches.

Not every post has to be about real estate. Many clients have told me their “favorites” have absolutely NOTHING to do with real estate. And not every post has to be about Phoenix either.

I write about what interests me. Apparently some others also find it interesting. My blog appears to be a hodge-podge of “stuff” but believe it or not, there is a method to the madness.

I don’t think, actually, I know that you don’t have to go “hyper-local” to have a successful blog (success as measured by checks in the bank).

I believe in the value of local events but it need not be a focal point. Try using a local events calendar or other sidebar widget or just link to a local events site in your sidebar or maybe a page for local events– the events are usually the same and you’ll only need to change the dates yr to yr. The value may come from including a signup for free email updates on local events & combine it with free blog updates– this will build your subscriber base. If you write a post about a neighborhood, just add the link to see local events, get free updates. Perhaps you contact event organizers and get some discounts/freebies and offer them to your readers— get an interview while you’re at it and create a connection. Like most of these questions, I think anything can work if packaged & marketed correctly– it just takes creativity.

Rather than just posting on local events, you might do better attending them — or starting your own.

My opinion on multi-author blogs– better for the transactional visitor if local– Rain City Guide is the perfect example. If you want to be a “national” blog– good writers from anywhere does the trick for readers but I’m not convinced of the efficacy for getting checks.

As time has gone on, I started plugging my services as an agent much less, though I do mention it lightly at the end of my posts about once a month that they can contact me if they need help with the topic of the day and don’t already have an agent helping them. There are still a lot of readers out there that aren’t very internet savvy, and they can use some help finding the information.

I also want to put in my 2 cents on posting on community events for the consumer focused blogs. I recently was looking for a comprehensive list of all the area summer free concerts in my town, and couldn’t find a site that had them all. So, I put together a list and posted it on my site. Even though I’m still in Google’s sandbox and have no page rank with them, my traffic from Google shot way up and this is now one of my most popular posts. The traffic should last all summer, and next year I can just update the dates easily.

My point is that if you put something out there that you were looking for and couldn’t find, then other people will likely be interested too. If you are just repeating the same event info that can already be found in a dozen places, then you are probably wasting your time.