Pittsburgh Homes Daily

Long time readers of Pittsburgh Homes Daily know that I love Problogger group writing projects.  In June, when this blog was just 1 month old, I participated in my first project on blogging goals, and had such fun that I created a 40 entry long hit list of the entries of others.  I’ve missed out on a few in between because I’ve been busy, but I’m really excited about this one.  Great topic, Darren!  Like last time I participated, I plan to put together another list of my favorite blog entries, so stay tuned!

My dilemma for this project was how to balance the interests of three sets of readers: those interested in moving to Pittsburgh, real estate professionals, and Problogger readers.  Since I’m guessing that most people who read my blog about Pittsburgh write a blog themselves, I’m hoping that this post is relevant to (almost) everyone.

Three months into my blogging adventure, I’m ready to spill what I have learned into a list for aspiring bloggers. 

• Make friends and link ‘em up!

In my highly educated (but unproven) opinion, the benefit of running a blog doesn’t come from the fact that search engines love it or that it can generate revenue through advertising.  The strength of blogging is the relationships that you can build with other people.  Blogging is a very easy way to meet those with similar interests as you and make friends.  Call it: networking on steroids.

After three months, I’m most proud of the relationships that I’ve made while blogging.

One thing that I have noticed in the real estate community is that the most popular blogs link up others.  As I’ve surfed around putting together a list of real estate blogs by state, the neglected and hard to find blogs tend to have no links to other blogs.  It’s as if they talked to a computer professional that said, “Don’t link out because you are losing a potential buyer.” 

After three months, I’ve seen a lot more people driven my way because of links to other blogs than I believe I have “lost” to those links.  If you make a good first impression, people will come back.  Those are the clients/customers that you want, anyway. 

• Don’t go for the quick buck.  Consider blogging a long term adventure.

In real estate, first impressions matter.  If a buyer walks into a house that doesn’t have curb appeal, they are more likely to have a negative impression of the inside of the house than if the house had better curb appeal.  The outside sets the stage for the rest of the visit. 

It’s the same way with blogs.  For two weeks, I have been trying to find a wordpress theme that balances the amount of content and advertising that I would like to show on this blog above and below the fold without looking busy, cluttered, and unprofessional.  I’m not sure that I have the right balance on my blog;  I’m still fooling with the color scheme and the placement of the advertisements. What I am sure of after lots of surfing is that you will catch more flies with honey. 

When starting up a blog from scratch, you’ve got to attract readers.  While the role of good content in that is important, image matters almost as much.  Whenever I see a blog that is done using the theme Problogger Clean, I cringe.  It may be a great theme for generating clicks, but my guess is that many potential long time readers (non-RSS readers) never really get started because the theme is just too busy for them.

As I’ve surfed around, I’ve noticed that I’m more likely to feel positive thoughts about clean looking blogs rather than cluttered ones.  I’m not saying that you can’t have advertising … and I’ve seen very professional looking blogs that have a lot of advertising.  I’m just saying that beginning blogs need to consider whether they are after long time readers, in which a cleaner theme at the beginning is probably worth it, or if they are just after the one-time click from a search engine user.

Many real estate agents “blogs” that I’ve seen have actually left a negative impression of the agent on me.  Why?  The first mistake I’ve seen is when they post every week about how great they are.  A promotional puff piece.  While it may fool an unsophisticated person … you’re not getting my business if you post the same marketing piece every week!  It just isn’t using blogging to its full potential: a means to truly communicate with clients.  The second mistake I see is that they don’t understand how to use the technology.  I actually saw an agent that had posted 5 updates in the comment section to his only post on the blog.  I nearly died laughing.  I’ve also seen users call a blog what is essentially a forum.  Or automate their blog pulled from a rss feed.

While it’s a valuable piece of marketing if you do it right, it’s a turn-off if you do it wrong.  Spend the time to “learn it” and take advantage of it.

• Don’t check your stats (too much or too little)!

I love to check my stats.  Constantly.  Every day.  Sometimes every hour.  Maybe every 15 minutes if I’m on the computer.  Just like my email.  I’ve found a couple days where I look back on it and all I can remember doing, for the most part, is checking my stats.  While it’s fun to check your stats and it’s an unbelievably important activity, I’m done losing days to my stats checking addiction.  It’s unproductive and counterproductive for the long term.  Spend your time writing content!

On the other hand, you’ve got to check your stats.  It’s important to know who is linking with you (Technorati doesn’t always catch it) and where your traffic is coming from.  A real estate agent that I know put up a static website and it was six months before she ever look at her statistics.  She knew that her clients were impressed by the website but she wasn’t generating any new leads from it.  Turns out that no one was going to it because her marketing of it was practically non-existent.  She thought that you could just put it up and people would find it.  While that may happen for some, I think you’ve got to check your stats to see how your marketing is working and test different campaigns.

I’ll sum this point up as: Moderation is key.

• Step away from the computer.

I’ve seen many people write about the benefits of taking a break from blogging to avoid burn-out.  But there’s another good reason.  The blogs that I enjoy the most are written by people that seem to have a life outside of blogging.  They’re interesting, articulate individuals that have a lot to say on different subjects because they don’t sit behind their wordpress login screen all day.  My best blog posts have been inspired by reading or seeing something interesting and having a desire to comment on it.  They’ve never started by sitting at the computer thinking: I’ve got to write something today.

So what does this mean for real estate bloggers?  It means go out on the town.  Enjoy a new restaurant and write about your experience.  Visit a town that you haven’t been to in a while and tell your readers about it.  You’ve got a wealth of information about your town as a real estate agent because you’re out and about everyday: Use it!

• Contribute

Darren and others have said no one links to a linker.  I smirked the first time that I saw that phrase.  Why?  Because I think that the best bloggers are great linkers.  They link to what someone else says and contribute their own thoughts.  As I grow to value their insight, I usually don’t care if they just link something up and say check it out.  If they say so, it’s probably worth checking out.  

On the other hand, I saw a blog the other day that did trackbacking on steroids.  Basically linked up 15 blogs in one line posts each day and added a sentence that didn’t have enough meat to tell the reader what he was truly thinking.  That’s not good practice either.

• Learn!

Blog authors contribute a wealth of information and different perspectives to their audiences everyday.  So go out there, read what others have written, and learn from it!

What are you waiting for?