I cannot sleep this morning and sooooo. I suppose it is in my morning slumber I gather these moments of clarity. Sometimes you have to just remind oneself of why you do what you do. It is in this moment of reflection that reminds us of our original intent but also re-energizes us with new distinctions. And when virtually the same words still seem new,then perhaps you really have something of value.
So this early AM I ask myself, "why blog"? If you notice I have not been very active of late. I need that juice. SO I ask, "why blog"? And then....
"Why have a website"? "Why Tweet or participate in FaceBook?"
Today's interview is with Stephane Grenier the author of Blog Blazers. He researched the top 40 blog marketers online and then interviewed them. He asked them the following questions: 1. What makes a blog successful? 2.How long does it take to be a successful blogger? 3.What blogs do you recommend for others to read? 4.Whats your best advice as far as content and writing for bloggers? 5.What are you main methods as far as marketing your blog?
There are more but you get the idea. This is a most have and a treasure trove of actionable information.
I interviewed Steph and he helped to mark out several concepts that may be useful for you.
Some of the tips he gives:
Own your own domain.
Headlines are important.
Value your community, offer something of value, give them a reason to come back to the site.
Focus on a topic, not everything.
Revenues are not necessarily directly from the blog, the blog is an attractor to the service.
Blogs create authority, and reputation. So they find you.
Stephane Grenier FollowSteph.com Stephane founded LandlordMax Software Inc in 2003, a company specialized
in selling property management software to real estate investors, property
management companies, banks, and cities. Since its beginnings LandlordMax
has continued to grow, with sales in almost every continent of the world.
I had left a comment on Dustin Luther's post that was in opposition to posting affiliate ads all over one's brand.
Since the comment has been deleted I post it here:
I think this is a bad idea in so many ways I cannot count them all. Let me begin by going back to the movement towards localism. Why did that have to be? Because many of the posts had nothing to do with the real estate in that agents town. I remember seeing ( and still do at times) agents writing about SEO or Online Marketing. As a marketer and SEO vendor I find those posts interesting. However, it diminishes that authors brand. What are you an SEO or a Realtor?
In the case of affiliate marketing it is very tempting to slap a moving company up on ones blog. Moving.com, Foreclosure.com, Forsalebyowner.com are some places that would make easy fits.
For a few sheckles you just diminished your message. You would be much better served to offer this stuff on the back end of sequencing or an email campaign.
And in fact even better off to partner with local vendors to offer tips and strategies and commissions(textual, video, etc) as content for your front end and backend lead marketing.(I let you deal with the legalities one way or another as I have no idea how that would work)
In the end, why would you dilute your brand and message with other brands, stronger than yours stealing screen real estate?
I am not sure why Dustin deleted my comment post. Perhaps it was by mistake. However, presenting other's opinions are the point of comments. And in fact allowing for commentary that fly's opposite of yours is an opportunity to bolster your standing amongst your "tribe".
Blog and Ping. It is what the blogging myth was built upon. There was a day prior to 2004 that one could post a blog every 5 minutes and ping a number of web services and they would get almost instant Google love. The blog would get indexed along with tons of duplicate content (post page, archives, permalinks, etc) .
The madness had to end as SEO's pressed posts thru automation machines that spewed out utter junk just to get some juice. Well actually lots of juice. Then the hammer fell as these ping services would not play along anymore and the engines got smart enough to not respect the blog and ping thing.It still works but not as dramatically, and more reasonably. Meaning if you post like two or three times a day they will trust you more than if you "sping" every 5 minutes.
So what is it specifically? and why does it matter today?
When you post a blog you can list ping services into your blog set-up and your blog software will do the rest.
This picture below is actually this post and how I set up the ping services in TypePad. This screen is my editing screen for this very post.
This is a tale of tails that include blogs and traffic. You have heard the pitch all over the web.The pitch is the promise of traffic just from writing anything. Implied in that is the lack of a need for any "SEO" because of a magical phenomenon called the long tail.
That ain't workin thats the way you do it Money for nothin and chicks for free Dire Straits(not Sting as Jeremy corrected me)
We all love free and free is all over the net. The long tail theory is a phrase that has been co-opted by the blogging and SEO industry to explain non voluminous key phrasing as a possible strategic advantage. It also can produce higher lead conversions if used properly.
Cliff notes on the long tail:
From Chris Anderson of Wired Magazine who like Seth Godin and other web pioneers has flipped common web paradigms on its head. He wrote the infamous Long Tail Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More book. As well as his most recent Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business (try to wrap your arms around this one).
The Long Tail can be thought of as the 80/20 rule or Parettos Law ( I know all these rules. Don't you feel like in school again). Paretto noticed that 20% of the Italians control 80% of the land. That is, a small number of things have a larger impact. In sales 20% of agents do 80% of the sales. This notion permeates across all contexts of nature. Here is a terrific example of the 80/20 rule in sales.
Anderson noticed pre-internet that the brick and mortar stores were limited by the most sought after inventory. An inefficiency in distribution. In other words, Virgin Record Stores could only inventory the most in demand music choices. While niche or less in demand items could not be kept in inventory as their simply was not enough demand to justify the expense of stocking them on the shelves.
Anderson reminds us that the web allows niche songs to be sold because inventory is only stored once and digitally at that! (A newer example of the long tail going wild in music check out my Blip station.) "The Net has infinite shelf space". Thus making it possible for fans of Jazz musician Joshua Redman to purchase music. (never heard heard of him before huh? He has a fan base online that justifies his existence economically).
So the free Google traffic pundits soon co opted the Long Tail idea and applied it to search traffic. The Blogging Industry vendors soon saw this as a great sales pitch and have sold the Long Tail as the fast track to easy traffic. The sales points have centered on little competition means easier (not easy) traffic. That is true of course only if you have lots of pages with these words. And these pages are positioned in the engines.
Easy Real Estate Traffic
First of all lets look at Short and Long Tail as it applies to real estate web sites.
Short Tail keywords could be:
Torrance Real Estate
Torrance Realtor
Torrance Homes
Torrance Condos
Long Tail keywords could be:
New Homes in Torrance California by Lemar
Home For Sale in Walteria Area of Torrance
Homes For Sale in the 90505 Area of Torrance
Homes For Sale on Felbar in Torrance, CA
Home For Sale in the McChenty Elementary School District in Torrance
When searching "Homes For Sale on Felbar in Torrance, CA" in Google two pages of results show up. No competition.
The challenge is that there is no volume either. In other words very few if any people are searching.
So Anderson uses examples of Wallmart as an example of short tail and Rhapsody Music as long tail. But even Rhapsody has very measurable volume for its long tail words. A long, long tail for Rhapsody would be Rhapsody Music Everlong Marty INXS
In real estate the long tail words above simply will not be found on most keyword finder tools. Because truth be told, the local real estate searches are more like long, long tail.
Where is the Scale or Why the Long Tail Ain't All its Cracked Up to Be In Blogging?
So long as agents are writing or even paying people to write in their blogs then the whole idea of long tail blows up. That is manual labor and is not what Rhapsody is doing. For long tail efficiencies to work we must have scale. Think your IDX.
The long tail theory is important to know in reaction to the cheap storage of the net. But as I have pointed out, the theory does not fit perfectly into most agents business structure. The challenge is to be able to create meaningful content efficiently. So long as you and I write meaningful pieces such as this one (if I may say so myself), then the idea of scale is way off in the distance. Without scale, where is the long tail? In your mind saved for a future post.
Interesting fact: The majority of searches (67%) are made up of one to three keywords. However, 82% of searchers said that they are likely to enter a few more words when they cant find what they are looking for in a search. Phrases of four or more words are often used to deliver the targeted results that most searchers aren't seeing with broader-based search terms. These terms can offer you higher conversion rates at a lower cost per click, so it makes sense to have a stable of long-tail search terms, rather than relying on a few big money, high-volume search terms. Again, if you can achieve scale.
There are three types of blogs. But IMHO only one for a Realtor.
The Mega Blog like LifeHacker or Dave Taylor.
The Conversationalist. This falls in line with what you see mostly by the blog purists on the web. And I believe it is useful but can lead to very non targeted content production. I really do not think it relevant to making sales.
The Authoritarian. This is where you draw your line in the sand and say who, what, where,and why you exist. Why you matter. Some call it transparency.
I believe the more you stay in the realm of item 3 the more successful your business will be.
And while I am at it, it really isn't about blogging. It is about content creation. A blog is just software. Content Creation is about publishing and can occur on your website and/or on others websites.
Are your a wannabe blogger, or do you write to find leads?
ProBlogger is a blogger now selling something (books). CopyBlogger, Dave Taylor, Life Hacker. These are professional bloggers. It seems the advice that most take for blogging has been from guys and gals that blog professionally.
That is terrific resource when you want to be a professional blogger, selling to one specific community. The word "Blogging" itself has taken on a damaging aura. Writing or creating is a much more useful term.
And as a Realtor you must ask yourself what are you doing to serve your readership?
Here are some more questions to help break away from blogging, and transition back into Realtor the publisher.
If you have read any of HouseBlogger you know I am a bit of a curmudgeon on the whole Web 2.0 thing and Social Media and Blogs. This seems hypocritical I know. But, I am not against them, just the hype around these web 2.0 entities.
In fact, these platforms get lots of search engine spider activity and thus should be part of a marketing strategy. But these things are just words to describe platforms. And platforms are just software. And I am sorry I am not going to get too excited about my Outlook or Word Software programs. So why should I with a blog or social network?
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