BloodhoundBlog tends very strongly to cover news and views of interest to real estate professionals nationwide. And — guess what? — our audience, by an overwhelming majority, consists of real estate professionals nationwide.
Here’s the bad news: If you have a real estate weblog, the chances are excellent that your objective is to attract interest from buyers and sellers in your local market. But — guess what? — your audience, by an overwhelming majority, very probably consists of real estate professionals nationwide.
Why should this be so?
There are three reasons:
First, the permanent audience for real estate weblogs consists of real estate professionals all over the country — all over the Anglosphere, really, those countries most strongly influenced by the English language, its customs and traditions.
Second, to the extent that consumers are finding your real estate weblog by long tail search terms, they are evanescent — fleeting. For one thing, their interest in buying or selling a home has a limited time window; when they’re done, most of them are done for a long while. And, for another, they’re flitting in and out from Google just as you do, when you’re searching for something on-line.
But third, and most importantly, you don’t have a local audience because you are not cultivating a local audience.
This year portends to be the Year of the Locality in real estate weblogs. Active Rain is starting a new site call Localism.com, which is to be devoted to engendering very high long tail organic search engine rankings for locality and neighborhood-level keywords. MyHouseKey.org, to debut this week, is pursuing the same strategy.
These are not awful ideas, but they’re not great, either. As with your current conundrum, a long tail searcher is apt to be ephemeral, landing on and lasting at your weblog only an instant.
The better plan, I think, is to get local consumers to come and stay, to come and come back, to favorite your weblog, to — O, holy of holies! — blogroll your real estate weblog.
I have two ideas on how to do this, one great and one insanely great. I’ll share the great one, but my plan is to hoard the insanely great notion until I can implement it myself. That fact is, I thought of both of these ideas last Summer, and it did not occur to me to blog about either until Brian Brady’s weblogging salon yesterday.
Indeed: Duh!
Do this: Take yourself to Technorati.com. If you’ve never been there before, sign up for an account (it’s free) and claim your weblog. What you really want to do is search for your weblog among the 57 million weblogs Technorati tracks.
What are you searching for? Weblogs linking to yours. The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that your regular, repeat audience consists of almost nothing but real estate professionals — even worse, almost nothing but other real estate webloggers. This is who is reading you now. We don’t want to lose them, necessarily, but we really, really want to add some folks who may be in the market to buy or sell a home in your area.
How do we find them? Technorati is a good place to start, as is blogsearch.google.com.
What are you looking for? Local weblogs. Not local real estate weblogs — chances are, you know them all already. No, what you’re looking for are webloggers in your local area who are writing about your local area — news, politics, schools, restaurants, art, theatre, history, clubs, hobbies, etc. Truly, the best way to find a weblog is another weblog, so when you come upon a weblog that is right on target, pursue its blogroll and outbound links to find other weblogs that might be a close fit to your target market.
What should you do when you find weblogs that serve readers in your local marketing area? Link to them. Comment on their posts. Submit guest posts of interest to the weblog’s readership. Befriend the webloggers and offer to supply appropriate content on a regular basis.
Take careful note: Do not spamvertise. Weblogging is about giving without grasping, about forging relationships, making friends, weaving the net of community. If you comport yourself as a crass salesperson, you will alienate everyone you come into contact with. If you cannot give freely of yourself — think a moment about what I have to gain in writing this essay — work on your character until you can.
Nevertheless, what is your ultimate objective? To get links in return. To get long tail search rankings that point back to your real estate weblog. And — O, holy of holies! — to get blogrolled by local-interest webloggers.
This is not rocket science. It’s really not even a new idea, just an old idea applied to a new medium. Realtors have known all along to develop their warm network by community involvement. The twist here is to involve yourself in the local weblogging community. If someone finds you with a long tail search, they may stay or they may immediately flit away. If they know you day in and day out through your contributions to the local infosphere, they can approach you as a known quantity, a trusted resource, a long-time friend.
A great post — or a dozen great posts — on Canterbury Falls can’t hurt. But if the weblog readers of Canterbury Falls, whatever their other interests might be, learn to turn to you with their real estate questions, you will have liberated yourself from the vagaries of Google — and from all other sources of competition.
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Technorati Tags: blogging, real estate marketing
Brian Brady says:
just an old idea applied to a new medium
Most good ones are.
Greg,
Be careful. They’re starting to consider you sage-like at Active Rain. Can the real estate community handle another Gary Keller?
January 6, 2007 — 6:48 pm
Dustin says:
I’m with you on the idea of linking to local blogs… and it is something I’ve attempted to do with limited success in the past… The trouble I’ve found is that I’m not always all that interested in their blogs! AHH! It’s difficult (and dangerous) to blog about stuff you’re not interested in!
With that said, I’m very interested in your insanely good idea…
January 6, 2007 — 8:53 pm
Greg Swann says:
> It’s difficult (and dangerous) to blog about stuff you’re not interested in!
Here’s another way in the door: Every collective endeavor should have a weblog. Do the things you’re already interested in in your local area, and set up and host a WordPress weblog for the group.
We should be charging for this stuff!
January 6, 2007 — 9:21 pm
Marty Van Diest says:
It’s a great idea, but there is almost no one in my area that blogs. I don’t want to sign on to the junk “my space” blogs where they talk about which who cheated on them this week.
So, I’m waiting for your insanely great idea?
Has anyone ever tried advertising in print media? I’m advertising my blog in the real estate section as a daily updated newsletter. I just started the ad and have no idea if it’s worth the money.
January 7, 2007 — 12:44 am
Jim Duncan says:
The Charlottesville area is a bit different in that we have a blogging community. There have been coffees and breakfasts. There is a blog aggregator that aggregates all Charlottesville-area blog posts (even the crappy real estate blogs that do nothing but post their new listings).
Matter of fact, the poll I ran on my blog last month found that 56% of readers were either “curious consumers” or actively looking to buy or sell versus 39% of those who voted were real estate bloggers or real estate professionals. Certainly not a scientific poll, but those results fit into what I am trying to accomplish with my blog – to become the definitive real estate source in my region. National is good and necessary for so many reasons, but local is where people buy and sell.
January 7, 2007 — 7:58 am
David Saks says:
I was jesting referring to a blog as the “flog”, commenting on “Tomato Soup….”, Greg. But backpedaling:
Many Real Estate Blogs are becoming on-line confessionals for heavily mortgaged investors, homeowners and agents tottering bankruptcy, foreclosure and financial ruin, facing quit-claim and court ordered dissolution of property from divorce proceedings or other litigation. Miles and miles of pseudo-intellectual banter, espoused in form through indiscriminate tongue-in-cheek contributors, most sounding like second year undergraduates, are taking up the cause, ideology, practice, and method of someone else and using it as their own to project a semblance of creative prowess divested in kind through the need to overcome failure. Worse, they sound like they’re repeating the collective thinking coming from the mouth of some erudite’s sapience overheard in a classroom.
If you fall into the lake without a life vest and the shore is too far away your going to drown. It’s sink or swim and many real estate bloggers have turned to the web for a lifevest when their portfolios, property taxes and other maintenance become unmanagable and the cash flow chart plunges into deep water.
Will it get better ? And for whom ? More swindlers taking advantage of the “motivated sale” for the “quick flip” ?
The agents and representatives in the real estate professionial community that adhere to the standards of reason and ethics, when qualifying buyers or investing in property, are getting a bad reputation from those who don’t. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) membership exploded over the last five years because of the gold rush. It makes one agent look like a needle in a haystack by the count. Enrollment in real estate schools greatly increased. A very ugly concept arose from the opportunity to make easy money money known as “something for nothing”. It’s the single most widely accepted psychological theory behind gambling addiction. Now that mortgage fraud appears to be the number one financial crime in the United States, the banks, when they forfeit laundered loan proceedings, and the public, when they lose their homes to these swindlers, are going to blame somebody.
Could it be NAR ? Could it be your real estate agent ? Your mortgage broker ? Could it be your spouse for talking you into buying that house ?
Blogging is the beginning of the flogging; the inquisition, a real estate tribunal created to discover and suppress heresy within the profession. Opinions or doctrines at variance with the official or orthodox position of many will indeed, appear derisory, incongruous or cockeyed. By relegation to a canonical and basic mental position from which things are viewed, conforming to sanctions and recognized rules in demographic fashion make you a member of the local “club” in kind by the commercial processes involved in promoting and selling and distributing your product or service.
One inquisitor was overheard to have said on January 4, 2007, State of Ohio, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason :
“It’s time to deal with these sham financial and brokerage institutions as they really are, criminals. You predators are now put on notice. Those of you who engage in deception in the lending process will face criminal charges in the court room for your duplicity and greed in the board room.”
Don’t we open ourselves up to group boycotting voluntarily if we engage in the commercial promotion, sale, or distribution of anything, Greg ?
January 7, 2007 — 8:05 am
Greg Swann says:
> It’s a great idea, but there is almost no one in my area that blogs.
You might try the idea I mentioned to Dustin last
I wish you good fortune!
January 7, 2007 — 8:35 am
Dave Barnes says:
Greg,
Not all of your readers are in the real estate biz. At least one comes for good to excellent writing and to watch the slow motion train wreck of the market.
,dave
January 7, 2007 — 9:09 am
Greg Swann says:
> At least one comes for good to excellent writing and to watch the slow motion train wreck of the market.
Hmm… Does he hate captchas? 😉
Delighted to have you with us.
January 7, 2007 — 9:12 am
David Saks says:
This just in from Georgia
Real Estate Agents Arrested for Prostitution
January 7, 2007
“Lisa Ann Taylor and Nicole A. Probert
Two Atlanta, GA area real estate agents were arrested Wednesday for what police called “high end prostitution.”
Investigators said the women were real estate agents by day and prostitutes by night, operating out of one of Gwinnett County’s most affluent areas. The two women, 42-year-old Lisa Taylor and 30-year-old Nicole Probert, were charged with prostitution, racketeering and conspiracy to possess cocaine and they were allegedly operating out of a home in the Sugarloaf subdivision in Gwinnett County. Taylor also goes by the name Melissa Wolfe and is said to be a former Penthouse Playmate.
Investigators said the pair was running a high-end prostitution ring out of a home at 2800 Sugarloaf Club Drive and charging prices up to $10,000 for sexual acts. District Attorney Danny Porter said the women were real estate agents, but had been operating a brothel for the past three years in the gated golf-course community. “The customers ranged from doctors to car salesmen, to construction people. There were a variety of customers,” said Porter. Porter said he anticipated more arrests of more prostitutes and their clients. Porter said the suspects kept very detailed logs of their clients and the District Attorney’s office has now seized them. Both women were being held on a $27,900 bond Thursday afternoon.”
Greg:
See what I mean about giving the profession a bad name.
January 7, 2007 — 10:38 am
Doug Quance says:
That’s pretty funny… I heard about them – but didn’t know they had been licensed.
I say HAD been licensed, as Lisa A Taylor’s license is inactive and Nicole Probert’s license lapsed back in 2003.
Just like the media to link real estate agents in this story… where it obviously does not belong.
January 7, 2007 — 9:47 pm
Spencer Barron says:
David, desperate times call for desperate measures. The lawyer called them developers. The worst of the all of them.
As for the actual topic, I actually joined a meetup group of bloggers on Meetup.com. They meet up at an Irish pub so you really can’t go wrong. I’ll see how that goes but according to the group website the Denver area one had 40+ members with 10-15 showing up at each meeting. That would be a start at getting in with local bloggers.
What I really want to know is…what was the “insanely great notion.”
January 7, 2007 — 10:50 pm
David Saks says:
Thanks, Spencer, Doug…apologies to Greg for sidetracking. I thought it needed a gander. Hope everyone has a great week ahead…Saks
January 7, 2007 — 10:59 pm
Bill Williams says:
Going back to the post at hand…
Thanks Greg. I must be slow, but this was a headslapping “doh” post for me. Non-real estate blogs from the Boise area tend to be politically oriented, but there are a couple that I read more or less regularly. Never occurred to me to comment as a way to grow a long tail. After years of being a lurker it is a little difficult to force myself into the comment box. Thank you for teaching, and for the push.
January 8, 2007 — 5:29 am
Kris Berg says:
Marty, Same problem here. I see very few local bloggers, at least of the caliber and interest level I would want to associate with (not you, Jeff). Concerning marketing the local blog, we don’t go so far as to advertise in the paper. Honestly, I’m not sure anyone reads the Sunday Homes Section anymore. We do, however, include references in all of our print material, and I see that this is serving to allow us to slowly creep into the minds of our local audience as credible “authorities”. Most of what we have accomplished on the consumer front, however, is to gain a following of past clients who enjoy our blog, which is not without value – A form a past client “follow-up” which compliments the annual birthday cards.
“Do the things you’re already interested in in your local area…”
Great idea, Greg. What happens when it is “real estate” that interests you, leaving little time for the gardening club and bunko groups? Social networking has never been my strong suit, so maybe it is time to rethink that. Of course, time is always the issue.
Waiting for insanely great idea as well.
January 8, 2007 — 8:19 am
Debbie Cook says:
Hey Greg,
Thanks for the POWERFULL post. Jim Cronin of http://www.tomatoblogs.com (my blog coach)told me to do this same thing that you are suggesting with local blogs. It was so SIMPLE! I spend at least 15 minutes a day commenting on all the local blogs. It took a while, (maybe a month)for ALL but 1 out of the 5 local bloggers to have me on Their blogrolls and link to me. The only 1 that still doesn’t have me on his blogroll, did link to and discuss one of my posts2 weeks ago!
January 18, 2007 — 10:16 am