It's always Raining.........'ActiveRain'

Using Your Blog To Enhance Existing Relationships

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:56:30 -0500

Alright folks, it's time again for me to bribe entice you with ridiculous amounts of points. The last few times it was me giving you lots of points to do a few things you should be doing anyway. This time I'm going to bribe you to help your fellow bloggers.

I have a hunch that not as many people are going to be able to participate because I get the sense that not as many people are doing this. Doing what? Glad you asked.

How are you using your blog to enhance your existing relationships with clients and prospects?

I had the pleasure a number of months ago to speak with one of our local ActiveRain members at the REBarCamp held in Seattle at the Zillow offices. One of the questions I asked him was how he was using his massive library of content to reach out to his existing prospects? This was a 200,000 point plus member and he must have had 300-400 posts in his archive at the time. I assumed he must be leveraging all that content with his existing database or sphere.

His answer? He wasn't. He was only thinking about his blog in terms of how it could help him find his next client or prospect. This was a little bit shocking to me (but obviously not shocking enough to do something about it then). It's come up a few times in the past week in conversations that I've had with other members as well. So I thought it was time we all put our heads together and we wrote about how each of us is using our blogs to reach out to existing prospects and clients.

Think about it for a minute. How many of you have people out there who are in some stage of looking? How many of you out there have leads (prospects) that have landed on your website and come back to look for houses every now and then? How many of you have former clients out there that you don't do a very good job of communicating with? Do you think you could use some of the content you have written to enhance those relationships? I think you can and I think you should. From what I have seen, people are so focused on using their blog to attract that next prospect, they forget how powerful it is as a tool to enhance their existing relationships.

The Challenge:

Write a post detailing how you have used the content of your blog to reach out to an existing prospect or client.(The key word is 'detailing'....we want examples, a play by play of how you utilize your library of content). This is going to be tough for some of you because you are not doing this. I don't think I'm going to audit you if you were to come up with an idea and write about that idea. That would be just fine. For those of you that don't have any idea.......you won't get the reward.....but your reward will be much larger. You will learn how to use your content to enhance relationships with your existing prospects and clients.

The Reward:

5000 points for every blog post that details how to use your blog to enhance relationships with existing prospects and clients. (limit one 5000 point reward per person). I am going to judge the posts. If I think you threw something together in an effort to get 5000 points, I may only give you 500. However, there will be no first, second and third. Every post is eligible to get 5000 points.

What would be some examples?

Did you complile a bunch of your posts together into a relocation packet? Do you send that relocation packet to every lead that registers on your webiste? If so, share with us what you put in the package. Share with us how you determine when is the right time to send that to them. Did they appreciate it?

Do you use your blog posts in a monthly newsletter that you send to your past clients? What kinds of posts are you including?

If you have someone you are working with ask you a question, do you use that opportunity to highlight their question in your blog and then send them the link instead of sending them an email response? Do you post the link on their facebook wall instead of emailing it so that their friends can see as well?

I don't know how you are using your past posts to enhance your relationships......and I'm not alone. We want answers!!

Leave a link to your post in the comment section of this blog. I would ask that you have them in by Friday of next week, October 30th at 11:59pm Central time.

(If you never got your points for the last series challenge, please do not bring it up in the comments here. You may never get them. There were quite a few people who couldn't follow the rules and it became a disaster to try to get all the points awarded. Please email me personally and I will get them awarded for you)

Do you care what I'm doing and thinking? (I can not for the life of me imagine why) If you do, you can find me on some of these places........but remember, if you are offended by anything you see or hear, I didn't force you to follow me!!:

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf - Do the right thing (Or Do Something....and QUICK)

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:45:29 -0500

I don't generally write about anything other than ActiveRain. Every once in a while I'll write about my kid, but for the most part I try to keep my personal views and opinions to myself. I don't want them reflecting on my company (I have pretty strong views and in my personal life I have no issues sharing them if someone asks.........ok, sometimes I'll just butt in and share them even when I wasn't asked).

Have you guys seen this? A Wells Fargo executive in charge of Foreclosed Commerical properties decided to take full advantage of a home that had been foreclosed on in Malibu. The $12,000,000 home was forfeited by a family that was swindled in the Bernard Madoff Scam. You can read the entire story here, here, here or here and probably 1000 other places......I won't rehash it for you. My post is a plea to John G. Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo to do something about it.

Dear John,

You must move swiftly. This is not going to bode well for your company if you don't. You have the ability to let the public know that even the appearance of impropriety will not be tolerated within your company. Most stories of foreclosure are heartbreaking enough on their own, let alone knowing the folks who forfeited their home lost it in the Madoff Ponzi scheme.......but really??? One of your Senior VP's was using the place as a Vacation home and throwing parties there like she's the Great Gatsby??

I'll bet she wasn't the only person from the bank at those parties. What do you think? I'll bet there were more than a few people that knew about this. If you find out that was the culture in her division of your bank, what are you going to do about it? This is not acceptable. I'm not a shareholder in your company, I'm just a concerned member of the real estate community. If I was a shareholder though I would be demanding to know the reprecussions. And I'd want to know them quick, because this story is going to reach MILLIONS of people in the next 24 hours.

You are a Minnesota native, from the midwest, the heart of America. How do you think the folks back in Minnesota would feel about this? Let's just pretend this happened in their community. Not a $12,000,000 beach house, but a magnificent $860,000 place in the Highland area of St Paul. And the Senior VP of their local branch was throwing parties and carrying on in the house as if he deserved to. How do you think that would sit with them?

Do you read the news? Do you keep your ears and eyes open to places like Facebook, Twitter, ActiveRain (you really should be here keeping the pulse of the people). In case you haven't heard, banks are getting a pretty bad rap right now. Yep, your reputations as a whole are kind of soiled. Here is a great chance to rise above the other banks slopping around in the mud and do something that shows your bank is different. Or, you can hide behind statements like 'we plan to conduct a thorough investigation'. Buddy, the investigation was done by the Associated Press. I would suggest your investigators call theirs and you compare notes.

The damage to the reputation of your company is being done RIGHT NOW. Where did I see this? Facebook. Do you know how many millions of people are reading this and hearing about this right now? Be decisive and swift, it's your only chance to make this a positive. 'Wells Fargo is not like these other institutions. We do not take advantage of our customers and if we have rogue employees doing such, they will be punished to the full extent of the law. This employee has been suspended until the completion of the investigation'. That is what you should be saying.

John, I don't think you guys in the ivory tower understand how fast information is moving down here on the street. You don't even have a handle on how your own employees are using social media. I'd extend an invitation to help, but I've already done that. I hope you are able to set an example of how to deal with something of this nature within your organization because lots of people are looking at you to see what you're going to do.

What will you do?

Link Continuation for Series Challenge

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:07:07 -0500

Please leave the rest of your links here for the 'Series' challenge.

All points will be awarded at the conclusion of the challenge. Please try to follow the directions I put forward in the original post. If you do it how I asked, it makes it MUCH easier for us to award the points. If you can't follow directions, don't be surprised if you don't get any points (I'm just sayin.......because they were not that complicated)

1000 Point Challenge For The Rest Of Our Members.....'The Series'

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:29:56 -0500

I have run a series of 1000 point challenges for our members over the past few weeks. The first one was designed to get everyone writing about 'Hyper Local Neighborhoods and communities' in their market. The current one, set to end Wednesday August 12th is designed to get our members out meeting local business owners and giving them some internet exposure.

Really, anyone could participate in these challenges, and we have many non real estate agents who have jumped on board and written about neighborhoods or local businesses in their market. I can certainly see, however, that these challenges are more specific to our real estate agent members.

So this time we are going to let our non real estate agent members get involved.

We have quite a variety of profile types on ActiveRain: Loan Officers, Home Stagers, Inspectors, Appraisers and many others. So after putting my head together with Steve and Janet and quite a few other people who have expressed an interest in participating in these challenges, I think we have come up with something so everyone else can get in on the points smogasbord.

The Challenge:

Over the next 14 days, I will be giving 1000 points per post for posts in a series designed to educate your local consumers about some component of your business.

SAY WHAT!?!?? That seems a little ambigious doesn't it? Yes, yes it does!

The problem is obvious......what theme or topic could I come up with that covers such a wide variety of businesses? So my theme is to write a series that highlights SOMETHING, ANYTHING. I don't care what you write about, but the series must have a theme and you must stay consistent with that theme.

Here are a few examples:

Home Stagers: If I was a home stager, one of the components I would want present in my blog would be a series dedicated to 'before and after' staging jobs of specific rooms. My seven part series (or if I only had time for five, my five part series) would consist of

Before and After Staging of a Kitchen
Before and After Staging of a Master Bedroom
Before and After Staging of a Children's bedroom
Before and After Staging of a Guest Bathroom
Before and After Staging of a Living Room
Before and After Staging of a Garage
Before and After Staging of a Den

I wouldn't just throw up some before and after pictures either. I would do a great job of explaining why the before pictures were an undesirable presentation of a particular room. Then in the after photos I would explain what we did to make the room a presentable room. I would create a series of blog posts that I would be PROUD to send to a potential client or referral partner showcasing my staging abilities.

Inspectors: If I was a Home Inspector, I would do a series of common issues that I come across when doing inspections in my market. The posts would have pictures of what to look for or what I see. There are a few inspectors that do this on a regular basis and their posts are outstanding information dedicated to their particular markets.

Loan Officers: If I was a loan officer I would do a series about the available loan products that I offer. I would even ask permission of some of my former clients who have used these products to allow me to use them (or their scenario) in the post in order to exemplify how this product was a good fit for their family. My seven part (or four parts if you don't have the time to do all seven) series might look something like this....

FHA Mortgages | Buying a home in Bellingham with a small downpayment and a short credit history
Reverse Mortgages | Using the equity in your Bellingham home to pay your mortgage
30 Year Fixed Mortgage | A traditional mortgage for your Belligham home purchase
USDA Home Loans | Does your Bellingham Home meet the requirements for a USDA Loan

(ok, ok.....three years ago I could have rattled off a ton more options and I know they are out there today......if you're a loan officer you know what they are)

Maybe I don't want to write about products because they change like the wind.......fine, write about Getting approved for a home loan. That would be a great series. Take each step and break it down so that a consumer can really get the details. Add in pitfalls that often trip an application at that point in the process. Include personal experiences of how not preparing to have your rental history verified led to a delay in funding. I don't care what you write about....you are much more qualified than I to understand what your consumers are in search of and what kinds of information they are most lacking.

What if I'm a real estate agent and I want to do a series? Go for it! Maybe you want to do a series on 'Getting Your Home Ready to Sell'. Or maybe you want to do one on 'The process of buying a home'. You could even use real life scenarios from a current client you are working with (with their permission of course).

What if I want to do a series helping real estate professionals understand email marketing? GREAT!! If your business is helping real estate agents, by all means, write a series of posts that caters to your strengths and your audience.

What if I want to do a series about nothing real estate related? I don't care.....but, I wouldn't advise it. The point is to get you conditioned to write blog posts that help your business. If you want to write a series about 'how to potty train your child', that's fine (and I will read every word as Kelan is currently leaning how to use the big boy potty.....but he's actually got the hang of it so I'll just be looking for tips on getting him to stop faking at bed time) but it's not really the point.

Here are the rules:

You can do one post every two days for 1000 points. The challenge will start on Thursday 13th at 12:00am Central Time (Central Time is what the AR clock runs on for stamping posts and comments) and the challenge will end on Wednesday August 26th at 11:59pm Central Time.
You must do at least 3 posts in order to qualify for the 1000 points for each post. Two posts isn't really a series. I thought about making it four, but I guess 3 is a series.
You must leave a link to each post in the comment section of this post (or the subsequent post I'm sure I will have to start once this post gets too slow).
In the comment section, when you leave your link, you need to leave the name of the series and a link to your post, for EVERY link you leave. PLEASE INCLUDE THE NAME TO YOUR SERIES. There will be some of you that have great ideas and I would like others to be able to use those ideas for their own series. If you don't want to share your idea for your series, you don't get to play!! Sharing is a cornerstone of ActiveRain.
Please keep track of which post in the series you are leaving a link for and leave the number in the comments. For example your comment might look like this: "Having the Perfect Tailgate Party for Your Seattle Seahawks Tailgate (I don't need to read this series, my people KNOW how to get DOWN!) http://activerain.com/........... (that's the links), post #4"

If you are not sure if your series will qualify, you didn't read the post close enough. I don't really care what you write about. I just want it to be a series. Write about something you are passionate about. Write about something that is going to help your clients. Write about something that is going to help your peers. Write about anything......as long as the posts have the same theme, and the name of your series imparts that theme, you should be fine. Feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly if you are unsure about anything I have written here. I only bite when asked 'where are my points' (and only if it's the 20th time I have heard the question for that particular day) and I promise to help you if you ask for the help.

(IMPORTANT: If you have not read Brad's post about writing to attract consumers and search engines, READ IT NOW!!! If you are not using the tips that Brad gives in this post you are only hurting yourself. I don't mean use them when you feel like it, or use them every now and then......USE THEM EVERY POST ALL THE TIME!!! They are that important. You should work this stuff into your series. Make sure to use geographic terms in your titles specific to your market! Do IT!! Don't ask questions!! Just do it!!! Don't be surprised, if I see you not using his advice, when I send you a message taking away points and reminding you. The loss of points pales in comparison to the loss of traffic and consumers if you aren't doing what Brad suggests in that post.)

COMMENTS ARE CLOSED ON THIS POST. SEE MY BLOG FOR THE CONTINUATION POST TO LEAVE ADDITIONAL LINKS

Link Continuation For Local Business Challenge

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:45:01 -0500

What you haven't heard about this?????

This is the place we moved after the last post got very slow in loading. We have a ton of new people joining this challenge as well so I won't be surprised if we end up needing a third blog post so everything loads in a timely fashion.

Please enter your links below for the Local Business Challenge. The other post has had comments closed

I will not award ANY of the points until the completion of the challenge. If you email me asking where your points are I will reset you to '0'.........hahaaha! (Sorry it probably wouldn't be that funny if I actually did that but....I just get a lot of email and try my hardest to respond to it all......and a contest like this tends to put my inbox on overload)

Confirmed Loan Officer Program

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:03:40 -0500

A few weeks ago, we launched the Ambassador program on ActiveRain. One goal of the program was to work with our most passionate members to welcome, and educate all new ActiveRain members. We hoped that once educated, a high percentage of these new members would choose to upgrade their account to the Rainmaker level.

Happily, this is exactly what happened: a very high percentage of new members contacted by our Ambassadors chose to upgrade! However, even with our Ambassadors' help, we were unable to reach all corners of the Rain and properly educate and welcome the sheer amount of new members joining every day.

We found ourselves still short of finding a way to educate and train all of our new members. Going back to the whiteboard for new ideas, our big epiphany came when we realized that our best loan officers build their businesses by creating solid relationships with successful real estate agents, and this program would provide a perfect opportunity for loan officers to take the first step in building those relationships with new members of ActiveRain. Compensation would be valued not only monetarily, but in the depth and success of the relationships established through this opportunity.

Here's the facts:

Yes, our Confirmed Loan Officer Program puts loan officers through a crash course, using the ActiveRain system to maximize an agent's exposure to the consumer audience. Loan officers can then take that knowledge and pass it onto new ActiveRain members.
Yes, there is a fee to loan officers to participate: Initially, we planned to offer the program for free, but we realized that the strongest commitment would come if our successful LOs put some skin in the game alongside us. LOs who meet the requirements of the position will not only earn their committed funds back, but a little extra to help with the bills in this recession.
Yes, we are offering this to our highest point-earners first, through private communique to those hand-chosen people. We will open the program up to a wider audience in the next few days, after we have reached out to these earners.
Yes, this is a huge. This will be an enormous opportunity for loan officers to build an advantage by nailing down strong, resilient relationships with real estate agents based on reciprocity, mutual respect, and a shared desire to increase one another's businesses.

If you are interested in additional details, and you are a loan officer, you may contact Doug Ching with ActiveRain, who is spearheading this effort. You may also leave your question here, and Doug or I will answer it for you as quickly as we are able. As always, we truly appreciate the support and commitment our members have given to this community, and with the combined efforts of our Ambassadors, Confirmed Loan Officers, and Members alike, ActiveRain will continue to change lives in the Real Estate Industry.

Aside and finally, the Ambassador program is still very much front and center for us, and the Confirmed Loan Officers Program does not affect our current Ambassador program. We believe the main strengths of the Ambassador Program is on a grassroots level, fueled by Ambassadors doing what they've been doing all along: giving presentations in their local areas and adding value to the network through increased member rank

Local Business Challenge | 1000 Points every two days for 14 days

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:00:07 -0500

Last week and early this week we have engaged in a crash course on our hyper local markets. We got hundreds and hundreds of great posts submitted by members from Alaska to Florida, Maine to California (oh yeah and Hawaii too). These posts covered every corner of the country and shined a light on hundreds of great neighborhoods and communities. Many of the members participating were able to see their posts skyrocket to the top of Google search results for their market. I couldn't be any more pleased with the response or with the successes that were reported.

Ready for the next challenge? (I know the first one isn't quite over, but hear me out)

Local small businesses are the cornerstone of the American way of life (at least that's my opinion). I was raised in a small town, Ashford Washington (pop. 267 as of the 2000 census). My parents owned the only grocery store in town, Ashford Valley Grocery. My Grandpa went to breakfast every Saturday morning with a few of his buddies at a place called Flo's, the only diner in town. Since Ashford is on the route to get from Seattle to Mount Rainier, our town had no shortage of cars passing through on any given weekend. Flo had a couple of daughters that helped run the place, but I am pretty sure that if we had the internet back then, Flo wouldn't have had a clue how to allow someone to find her if they were searching for a 'place to eat in Ashford WA' on their iPhone as they neared the base of Mount Rainier.

The same thing is prevalent today in mom and pop shops all across the country. It's true in your towns and cities. We have small business owners with little understanding of how to expose their businesses on the internet. Many probably think that there is no room in their budget to have an online presence. Many others are no doubt cutting corners in other parts of their business to come up with the monthly fees they are being charged to have a listing on some online directory, as if that constitutes a presence. And, unless the person reading this blog post (yeah, I'm talking to you) is a networking superstar (don't worry, we can learn this stuff) many of these small business owners have no idea they have a patron who is capable of exposing their business to the almighty Google giant.

Who is that patron? DUH!! It's you. You don't think the only thing ActiveRain is capable of ranking well for is neighborhoods and communities do you?

Over the next two weeks, I am going to challenge you to write about local businesses in your area. These are businesses that, like you, know how to treat their clients. These are businesses that you rave about to your friends and family. These are businesses that you would send your next client toward in an instant, because you know they would walk out the door satisfied. These are businesses that you yourself frequent and for whose service you would personally vouch, because you've been there and you've tried that.

The primary purpose of this challenge isn't really to be able to get your blog into the first position on Google for the businesses name (although my guess is a few of you will). The primary purpose isn't to get your blog post into the first position for keywords that are relevant to the businesses you chose to highlight (although in conjunction with geographic terms, I'm sure some of you will get your businesses to rank for key words). The primary purpose of this post is give you a great reason to walk in and speak with a fellow local business owner in your neighborhood, town or city. It gives you a chance to let them know what is working in your business and how you have chosen to differentiate yourself from the 10 other agents in town, the 100 other agents in town, or even the 1000 other agents in town.

Of course, you are going to want to follow Brad's advice on these posts as well. We can rank well in the search engines if we make a decision to do it!! You can make that decision by studying Brad's post and incorporating the stuff he talks about into your blog posts. Or, you can make a half-ass effort and wallow in mediocrity, unfortunately I will probably still give you the 1000 points, but 1000 points won't pay your bills. Quality relationships with local business owners will go a lot farther in doing that (paying your bills that is)

(Folks, I am not kidding. That post I just linked to.....here, I'll do it again, is probably one of the top five posts you will ever read on this network. If you haven't taken the time to read it and digest it, and you are still blogging....you just DO NOT get it. If you don't do what Brad is telling you to do then you are just blogging for fun, not for business)

A few Caveats for receiving 1000 points per post:

The post must be written after my post. So please do not just go dig up an old post. The idea is to get out and talk with and meet business owners that maybe you have never talked with. Or if you have, to do something new to stimulate a relationship with them.
I said 'over the next two week'. This means you are going to get two days per post. You can only submit one post every two days. Since I am encouraging you to go out and meet the local business owner and maybe even get some pictures of the business (Did I tell you posts on AR with a picture have more than three times as long of average view time than a post with no photo?) you will need an extra day between posts.
This challenge will start on Thursday, July 30th. You have until midnight (Central Time) on Friday July 31st to post your first link to a local area business. Then every 48 hours after that you can post an additional link. Please don't put links on here prior to that. The reason I am giving you a few days to think about this one is that I believe this will be more challenging. In fact, some of your are going to probably be forced out of your comfort zone....but that's alright, you'll do great!
You do not have to do all seven posts. You can do one, or two or seven. I don't care. You don't have to start on the first day. However, no posts will be accepted after 11:59pm (Central Time) on Wednesday, August 12th. If you find this post late, you can start late....but you can only get 1000 points every two days until the last day.

For some reason I don't expect the level of turnout that we had in the first challenge. My guess is that it is easier to see direct tie in for writing about local neighborhoods and sub-divisions. I sure hope that just as many, if not more people take advantage of this though. Using your blog as a tool to get involved in the local community is the stuff that can take your blogging efforts to a whole new level. Your blog can become what it was meant to be, a complete guide to living in your town and a way to reach out and be proactive marketing your business and yourself.

Ready, Set, GO!!!

(Well get ready to go anyhow. This one is going to take some planning. Who is first on your hit list? The butcher? The baker? The......do they still have candlestick makers? Of course they do!! In fact, I saw a great one at the Puyallup fair last year. Too bad when I JUST Googled 'Puyallup Fair, Candles' I had a tough time finding the business I was thinking about. If I had written about them they would be right there. Since I haven't I spent about 4 minutes browsing through this and that and then I finally gave up......but man, those were cools candles! I could seriously go on and on for hours........haha........)

EDITED: This post is closed for comments. You can leave your links here for the rest of the challenge

Continued Links For Hyper Local Challenge

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:57:14 -0500

Things were getting a little slow, weren't they?

Put your links here for the rest of the Hyper Local Blog Post Challenge

Comments have been closed as this contest ended on July 29th at 11:59pm Central Time

We are in the process of awarding points for all the links that have been left on this post.

Hyper-Local Content worth 1000 Points For Everyone That Can.........

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:11:20 -0500

......Write a blog post using Brad's suggestions for a neighborhood in your city.

We ran a real estate brokerage prior to starting ActiveRain. This is where Matt Heaton and Jon Washburn, ActiveRain Co-Founders, sharpened their search engine optimization (SEO) skills. One of the things that we found was that the more specific a person was when they searched online, the closer they were to actually making a purchase.

Say what?

We generated lots of leads. At some points we were generating over 100 per day in the state of Washington. Our site ranked well for lots of general city level searches. Searches like:

homes for sale in blaine, wa
Redmond Wa real estate
Longview Washington houses

But we also ranked very well for more long tail searches, especially neighborhood level searches. Searches like:

Semiahmoo Blaine homes for sale
English Cove Redmond real estate
Bankers Corner Longview houses

Semiahmoo, English Cove and Bankers Corner are all neighborhoods within their respective city. Now back to one of the things we found. The more specific a person's search, the closer they were to actually making a purchase. Depending on what study you want to look at, the average internet consumer starts researching real estate online about 8 months prior to buying their home. People that landed on our site, who eventually bought a home with a Brio agent, that used a neighborhood term in the search, took an average of 121 days to buy a home. That's four months, half the time of the average person searching for real estate.

So what?

So start writing more blogs targeted to the neighborhoods in your market. These are the blog posts that allow you to reach the top of the search engines. The competition for these hyper-local terms is much less crowded.

Briorealty.com still ranks #1 for the search term: 'English Cove Redmond' (and English Cove Redmond real estate) and we ha

ven't touched that website in four years. If an ActiveRain member had written a post about that neighborhood using Brad's suggestions I have no question they would rank #1. There are only 3640 competing results for this term. Now remember, way fewer people will do a specific search of this nature compared to 'Redmond Wa Real Estate' but don't you want them to find you when they do......since they are going to be closer to buying something?

Here are some great examples of posts focused to a neighborhood level. Some of these posts actually focus to a specific sub division of homes within a city:

Gunston Cove - New Developments Just Minutes to Lorton and Fort Belvoir (ranks 2nd on Google for: Gunston Cove Lorton)
Seattle, Washington Water Front Homes: Eastlake Floating Homes (ranks 1st on Google for: Eastlake Seattle Floating Homes)
Condo For Sale In Newbury Village Cranston, RI (ranks 2nd on Google for: Newbury Village Condos for sale)

A few Caveats for receiving 1000 points

The post must be written AFTER my post. Meaning you can't just dig up an old post.

The post must be a minimum of 300 words. I'm not going to count but consumers want good information and you need to be able to explain the essence of the community.....it should be somewhere close to that length.

You need to READ BRAD's POST. You need to study the post. You need to implement his suggestions. He gives some SUPER HELPFUL pointers that I would like you to adopt in your post. The purpose of this is not to get 1000 points. The purpose is to write a blog post that ranks well in the search engines and focuses on a specific neighborhood in your market. Use this exercise to incorporate the things Brad discusses and get busy dominating hyper local search results in your town.

Since you read all the way to the end, a bonus........you can do one post a day for the next week. And I'll give you 1000 for each post. (that's 7000 points total) Don't half-ass it. This isn't for the points. This is for you to get better at writing neighborhood level posts that target consumers. Every time you write a post, I need you to come back and leave a link to the post. That way I can award your points. So in seven days this post should have TONS of links to quality neighborhood level posts. The link should be the title of your blog post linking back to the post. That way, if your title is no good, we can help you fix it. Of course, YOU ARE GOING TO READ BRAD'S POST so your titles will be great.

It's late in the day today. You have until tomorrow night July 23rd at 11:59pm (CST) to get your first link up. Then every 24 hours after that you can put an

other link up for the next six days. 7 days in total ending on July 29th. If you do one tonight, then don't do one tomorrow.....since the 22nd and the 23rd are counting as one day.

Ready, Set, GO!!!!

(EDITED: If you are not a real estate agent. Hang tight. I am working with a few people for a series of similar challenges specific to the other professionals on the site. I think I have a pretty good idea for Stagers and Mortgage people and even inspectors. Appraisers I'm a little stumped on what to do for you guys. Any ideas?)

I HAVE TURNED OFF COMMENTS HERE. YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR LINKS ON THIS POST HERE

Add $50,000 to your bottom line: Hit your target with your links!

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:40:08 -0500

Linking from your posts to your IDX home search site should be one of the primary strategies you employ as you create content for your blog. How you create these links and where you send the person clicking on them could make the difference in how your readers interact with you. The proper implementation of this strategy could be the difference between converting your blog readers into clients and ultimately business and simply being someone providing information out of the goodness of your heart.

Remember, you should be blogging for business!

It is no secret that consumers want the information they are after in the easiest, most direct fashion possible. One need only look at Google's insane traffic numbers to prove that point. Google does a great job of letting consumers search for exactly what they want and returning results that are relevant to the search they just did. Are you employing a similar technique when you create links on your blog posts? In most cases the answer is NO.

Sometimes the answer is no because you don't know where you should actually be linking (or maybe even that you should be linking at all) and sometimes the answer is no because even if you wanted to, your site doesn't allow you to link to the right place. In a lot of the cases I come across on ActiveRain it's probably a combination of both.

So first let's deal with where you want to be linking when you create links in your blog posts. You want to send the person to the exact information you just told them you were going to provide with the link you created. Does that make sense? Let's do an example:

The correct way:

(Click on the link below and see where it takes you. DO IT, I'll wait! Now once you are taken there, pay attention to the URL that we land on. It is specific to the exact link that we created, and more important takes to the results that we said we were going to deliver)

Affordable homes in Seattle under $300,000 with 3+ bedrooms

sends us to: http://www.servingdowntownseattle.com/listings/area/seattle/propertytype/single/maxprice/300000/beds/3/ See that URL? It's exactly what we just said we were going to send them to.

Maybe our blog post for this specific search was referring to affordable homes for new families in the Seattle area. New families need at least 3 bedrooms, and they generally can't afford much more than $300,000. So does it not make sense to send them to a SPECIFIC search on your website that delivers the information that your reader thinks they are about to find?

The way many people are doing it:

(In this example you can only mirror the wording for the above link if you can create a unique URL to a search of that nature. Otherwise, you are simply sending them to a page where they expect one thing, homes for sale in Seattle under $300,000 with 3+ bedrooms, and they get something else.........the home page of your website or a search page where they can then do that search on their own)

Affordable homes for sale in Seattle

sends us to: http://www.servingdowntownseattle.com/ See that URL? It's the home page of her site. Now she has to depend that the person will actually perform the search once they reach the site. Her site makes it really easy to find that search function. It's right there, at the top left of the page, the place a person's eye naturally falls so she has a better chance of them performing the search then most people do.......but why even take the chance if the post they were reading was about affordable homes for families buying their first home?

Biggest Folly I see when people include a link: Linking to your home page

What if, unlike our home page above, the home page of your website doesn't make it so obvious how someone actually searches for homes? Here are three completely random examples that I just pulled from ActiveRain members in Seattle:

Affordable homes for sale in Seattle (http://www.murphybrown.com/)
Affordable homes for sale in Seattle (http://www.seattlecondohotline.com/)
Affordable homes for sale in Seattle (http://mssold.net/)

Please click on those sites and you tell me how long it takes you to actually get a list of homes for sale in Seattle? 5 seconds? 30 seconds? you couldn't figure it out? (I'm dead serious!! This is important!! Do it! Click on those links and figure out how long it takes the consumer to find homes for sale in Seattle) How about on your own website? It's going to be hard to judge your own website, hopefully you know how to quickly access your search feature. Have someone else try it then, your spouse maybe or a friend. Stand and watch them do it. How long did it take them?

"Remember, consumers have an average attention span of 3-5 seconds. When they’re scanning your website for an answer to their question or problem, they want to find it quickly. An effective website doesn’t force a customer to frantically search their website." Is your website consumer focused?

The better place would be to link them directly to the home search function on your site:

Most of you have the ability to do this with your site. For the three examples above, here are the links to the home search portions of their site:

Affordable homes for sale in Seattle (http://www.murphybrown.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Listing.SearchPropertyNeighborhood&st=wa)
Affordable homes for sale in Seattle (http://www.seattlecondohotline.com/Seattle_WA_listings/index.shtml) This one was actually tough. I still couldn't really figure out how to access a complete home search and I've seen way more real estate websites than any consumer
Affordable homes for sale in Seattle (http://lakere.com/search/property_search.php?county=no_king) This one redirects away from her site to what appears to be the brokers site. I wonder if it tracks that traffic as having been sent from her and if that consumer registers does she get the contact?

The best place to link them is directly to a specific search that best matches your blog post:

Of these three completely random sites, none of them have the ability for you to create custom URL's out of the search functionality. They all use database queries to pull up the results that you search for. Anytime you are searching on the murphybrown.com site, you remain on that same URL and the home search results load in a framed solution. There is nothing wrong with that per say, but if you are writing a blog post about Affordable homes in Seattle under $300,000 with 3+ bedrooms, the only options these sites provide for linking out of the post to the home search is to drop the consumer on the front of the home search page. And if that's the case, can you really make your link say 'Affordable homes for sale in Seattle under $300,000 with 3+ bedrooms' if the link actually takes them to a default home search page?

What kind of options does your current home search solution give you?

If a consumer is reading your blog post, chances are they are already a highly targeted visitor. Does it make sense to take a highly targeted visitor that knows they want to look at affordable homes in Seattle under $300,000 with 3+ bedrooms and send them to a page that forces them to figure out how to actually navigate a search to obtain the information they desire? Remember above? You have 3-5 seconds.

If you haven't heard, ActiveRain is offering an IDX solution, Vision, through a partnership with Market Leader. The site I was using above in the example is one of those sites, servingdowntownseattle.com.

You can find out more information about it here and you can get started with your own Vision site here.

(Disclaimer: I only used $50,000 in the title line to grab your attention. I don't know how much you will add to your bottom line. The more content you produce the better your chances and the more targeted your links the better your chances of adding real dollars to your bottom line.)

Would You Like A Side of Spam with That? Of Course Not!!

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:20:58 -0500

I don't know exactly what else to say other than, I'm sorry.

(Hi. Whatever you fear most has no power - it is your fear that has the power. Help me! Could you help me find sites on the: Wash hookless shower curtain. I found only this - spotted shower curtain. Nice! Love the shower curtain good choice, and this one will probably last longer than the one from target. Hookless shower curtain ezinearticles. With best wishes :rolleyes:, Neta from Tajikistan.)

If you are reading this, you probably have been swamped today from a ton of spam comments. We are doing everything we can on our end currently to stem the tide of this garbage.

In order to put an absolute stop to spam comments right now, go to the 'settings' link on the left hand side of your my home page and uncheck the box that says 'allow non-member comments'

Mine is set to allow non-member comments. You want to uncheck it, then hit update. Of course, that will stop consumers from commenting on your blog. However until we can get this knocked out, that is your best option.

(Hello. I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters. Help me! Could you help me find sites on the: English bachelor degree online. I found only this - second bachelor Degree nursing programs. Online bachelor degree programs go mainstream. Online bachelor degree programs go mainstream. Thank you very much :o. Abira from Israel.)

Jorgen, Mike and Diego are monitoring and blocking IP addresses and blocks of IP addresses in an effort to thwart these rascals. If it's a battle of wills, Jorgen will win, I promise.

If you can believe this, it appears as if these are real people leaving these comments. Most likely sitting in a room somewhere overseas being paid pennies every time they leave a couple hundred of these links. Whatever you do, DO NOT CLICK THEM. Even if you are like me and love Nike Air Jordan's, I promise you that the page you land on is not going to be a place you want to be.

(Hello. Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant. Help me! Could you help me find sites on the: Texas transmission. I found only this -electric companies in north texas. Helps texans evaluate and choose from among many texas electric companies. Online pharmacy cheap meridia texas electric companies low cost car insurance phentermine mexico buy phentermine us pharmacy phentermine wordwide shipping. Best regards :rolleyes:, Runa from Bhutan.)

I'll let you know on this post when it is safe to allow non-member comments.

Again, we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience and hopefully you can hang in there with us as we work to get this taken care of. If you can't, feel free to call me and rip into me, I'm a big boy, I can take it :-)

Announcing The ActiveRain Approved Business Builders Blog

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:30:02 -0500

Back at the beginning of this month (June 2009) we announced the introduction of the ActiveRain Approved Business Builder Program. At the time, the pickings were pretty slim by way of Vendors and more importantly deals for our members (if your clients all want a deal, why shouldn't you get a deal).

Over the last two weeks our team has been working hard with lots of the companies out there to bring some great deals to the table for our members. The companies we are lining up to work with are being impressed upon that the culture here at ActiveRain is one where we lay all the chips out on the table and allow everyone and anyone to have an opinion.

In order for the Approved Business Builder program to really have an impact on the businesses of our members, we need your participation. If you have ever used the services of any of the Vendors in the program, we (and the other members on the site) need your feedback. Did you have a great experience? Let everyone know. Did your experience leave something to be desired? Leave constructive feedback so that the company can have a chance to grow from your experience and potentially rectify that portion of their business for the next person using their service.

Are you a bitter bitter person who has it out for everyone and everything that comes in your path that doesn't turn your $99 investment into $1,000,000? Think about how you can be constructive. The idea here is not to bash or beat these companies into submission. If you truly had a poor experience, be constructive in your feedback. We have decision makers at all of these companies following the feedback of our members. Your constructive feedback will get you so much further than a rambling rant. Hopefully our research into these companies has produced a crop of the top vendors in their field; none of them having ever had a dissatisfied customer. Of course that's a pipe dream!

If we can leverage where these companies have fallen short to help them raise the level of their service and their product, then we have something valuable for everyone involved.

We want you to become familiar with the ActiveRain Approved Business Builder Blog so that when you see it, you stop by to check out the special deals that are being announced. We also want you to use this as a tool to investigate products and services before you take the plunge into buying something. Of course, that depends on the feedback of our members. So if you've used the products or services being offered, take the time to leave your comments. You can find each of the companies on the home page of ActiveRain, on the right hand side under the 'ActiveRain Business Builder' title, directly under the featured members.

Hopefully everyone can see how the vetting process here could be very powerful. Not only can your peers see your experiences with particular companies, we also have an opportunity to help raise the level of service for these companies across the board.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be featuring a profile or an offer from each of these companies on the ActiveRain Approved Business Builder Blog. As these companies make additional special offers we will be featuring their posts so you can be made aware of it. Check the newsletter as we will be running special offers from these companies in there as well. The idea is that you are already buying these products and services in the course of your business. As a group, we have the potential to get a better deal, let's take advantage of it. (who doesn't love Costco or Sam's Club, right?......buying in bulk is the coolest).

Get familiar with this image:

When you see it on the feature board or in the blog roll, it means another company is ready to bring you a good deal. Right now below my post is an offer from the folks at Real Estate Lead Source. Take a minute to check them out. You'll see many more in the days to come.

Some of the links in the Business Builder area on the home page say 'coming soon XYZ Company'. You can head off and check out the companies website right now, their special offer and blog post to give feedback on is on it's way.

If you are interested in getting more infomation on becoming part of the ActiveRain Approved Business Builder Program, you can contact Chris Martin, ActiveRain Director of Sales.

The ActiveRain Approved Business Builders

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:29:17 -0500

At 12:00 Pacific Time on June 1, 2009 we will be introducing the 'ActiveRain Approved Business Builders' feature on the home page of ActiveRain.com. The 'ActiveRain Approved Business Builders' will be an area where we highlight some of the many tools available to help take your business to the next level.

On the Home page when you are logged in, you will simply see links for a series of different categories ranging from 'websites' and 'IDX providers' to 'signs' and 'print and mail'. We are starting with 14 different categories. You can see them here:

As we bring on approved business builders, the power of the network will take place behind the simple link. After clicking on any particular link, you will be able to see a list of vendors in that category. Looking deeper at any particular vendor will take you to their 'ActiveRain Approved Business Builders' blog post where they will be able to give a basic description of their product, tell about what sets their product apart, and potentially provide our members a discount on their service.

We will be strongly encouraging our approved business builders to offer best case pricing and in some cases will be able to get pricing at a better rate than ever before provided. Bulk discount pricing because we have such a thriving network is a great start, but being able to get immediate feedback on products from your peers may be even better.

In true social media fashion, the 'ActiveRain Approved Business Builders' will have their blog posts on the ActiveRain Approved Business Builder Blog and will be able to allow comments from users of their product. This healthy discussion allows members considering using the product to see the experience of other members. It also allows the vendor to get candid feedback from users of their product thereby helping them perfect their service. This is the essence of businesses participating in social media and we hope to bring some transparency to the multi-million dollar real estate vendor business. The great vendors deserve to have their praises sung by the people that use their products with success.

At launch today, things are going to be a little bare as we have a team of people and lots of interested vendors putting the finishing touches on some great product offers. As new vendors come on we will be featuring their posts on the home page so that you are aware of some of the great offers that will be available. However, make sure that the next time you get ready to purchase some kind of service that you take a look at the 'ActiveRain Approved Business Builders' area and make sure you are making a smart decision based on the experiences of others and that you are getting a great price.

Vendors: If you are interested in having your product represented, you can contact Chris Martin, head of advertising here with ActiveRain for details.

My new startup Timu officially launches

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:44:09 -0500

Congratulations Matt! I've had my profile up for a while now....maybe I should fill it out with some eye popping stats so someone will want to pick me up on their softball team for the summer :-)

If you have kids or grandkids in sports you have to check this out. It's a great way for little leagues to do some cool stuff with their stats, pictures, videos (I think) in a social environment. With Caleb and Matt on board I have no question it will be great!

Via Matt Heaton (Timu Corp - CEO, ActiveRain - Co-founder):

Yesterday was a big day for me, after 8 months of planning and product development work finally launched my new startup, Timu. Timu gave me a chance to apply many of the lessons learned with designing and building ActiveRain to another market, amateur sports.

It's a social networking platform specifically built to solve the communications problems encountered by athletes, sports teams and their fans. Online social networking is a natural way to solve many of these problems. Yet, existing social networks provide disjointed solutions that do not handle sports specific features, such as player rosters, game results and statistics. At the same time existing sports web site offerings provide little interactivity and user engagement.

Individual athletes can setup an profile on Timu in minutes. Profiles can be customized with information about the sports they participate in, teams they play on, and their competitive highlights. Photos, videos can be uploaded, and various “widgets” can be added or modified. These profiles serve as one center of communication within Timu.

Coaches, players, or parents can create a team center for your team on Timu. Team centers provide many features like team news, schedules, player rosters, photos, game results, statistics, statistics and a wide range of commmunication tools. All of the people associated with the team can be invited to become members of the team center, which can then function as a hub for team communications.

A few examples of team centers: http://bellevueblaze.timu.com http://dreadsox.timu.com http://baseball.timu.com

Currently Timu supports about 30 different sports ranging from baseball and soccer to unicycling. Each of these sports has it’s own section or hub on Timu including photos, videos, game results and discussions. Timu members can participate in the conversation at these hubs about their sport. As Timu grows we will be providing the ability to view these hubs by region, subsection of a sport, or even by sporting venue.

Create a Sports Profile

Setup your Team on Timu

Taking a minute to let Jeremy know our thoughts and Prayers are with him

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:26:09 -0500

When you work for a company that has employees spread all over the country, (not to mention members in every corner of the Country) events take place that, in a time gone by, would have seemed distant. But when one of your own sits on the doorstep of a very real and scary natural disaster, your thoughts and prayers are quickly focused to that person.

One of our Community Builders, Jeremy Blanton lives in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. If you haven't heard, Myrtle Beach has a large wildfire raging that has already forced the evacuation of thousands of people in the area. Over 15,000 acres have been burned and 50 homes have been destroyed. Jeremy reports that he is safe right now, as are his wife Katherine and baby daughter Isabelle, but wanted us to know that if he disappears online that he may have had to evacuate. It's OK buddy, we'll hold the fort down, you make sure your family is safe!

I have been on IM with Jeremy all day and unless the winds change in his direction, the fire is still about ten miles from his home. But take a look at the pictures on his blog and you can bet that ten miles has never been so close.

Jeremy isn't the only one of our members who are thoughts and prayers are with. We have quite a few members in that area. Please take a minute to stop by and let them know that we are thinking of them and that our prayers are with them.

Stay safe everyone!!

ActiveRain's Newest Community Builder - Jeremy Blanton

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:52:09 -0500

Since the day he got here, Jeremy Blanton has been building community. He has written more tutorial posts than just about anyone on the network with the exception of those being paid to do so. Of those members joining in 2008, Jeremy was the top contributor. I've seen him out answering other members questions on so many occassions I stopped giving him bonus points for good behavior (I was almost out). His selfless presence on the network is exactly the kind of culture we strive for here at ActiveRain.......so with that said.......

We figured it was time he started getting paid for his contributions to the network.

Welcome aboard Jeremy!!

(NOTE TO ALL ACTIVERAIN MEMBERS: Every and all inquiries that you had planned on sending to Brad and/or me can now be sent directly to Jeremy. Brad and I are going on vacation.......)

On a serious note, this actually gives us our first employee in the Eastern Time Zone. So with this move we really hope to be able to assist those of you on the other coast a little bit better (or at the least, a little earlier). Jeremy has been a valuable asset to our community since he first came on board as a Realtor in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. Adding another member of the community to the staff really helps us expand on an already stellar team. Having someone that knows what it's like to be in the trenches selling real estate on a day to day basis helps us to serve the needs of the community even better.

I'm looking forward to working with you Jeremy and anyone that is going to be at RETechSouth in Atlanta on March 20th will be able to meet Jeremy in person as that will be his first official event representing ActiveRain.

(Although you will have to settle for a handshake and an affirmative nod, he is not allowed to speak in public until he passes some grueling initiation procedures)

ActiveRain on the road this weekend: Sunny SoCal

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:05:14 -0600

Jon and Jeff and I will be down in Southern California this weekend.

When it snows in Seattle at the end of February, we have to pack up and hit the road. This is normally the time of year that Jon gets a bee in his bonnet and relocates to Orange County California anyway. This year, we have convinced him (albeit temporarily I fear) that we need him up here in Seattle. So in a compromise, we agreed to take some long overdue business meetings in the O.C. with Jon so that he could keep his sanity amidst the dreary Seattle winter.

Since we are going to be down there, we thought maybe some local area ActiveRain members would like to meet up and have a little gathering. The three of us will be spending Saturday evening, Feb. 28th at Javier's Cantina & Grill in Newport Beach.

The address is:

7832 E. Pacific Coast Hwy

Newport Coast, CA 92657

If you have nothing better to do on a Saturday night and you are in the area, we would love it if you came and joined us for a few hours. We'll probably get there around 7.

UPDATED TIME!!!! We went sailing and got a bit behind schedule so we won't be able to make it to Javier's until around 8pm. Sorry for being late.

(I hope I didn't jinx us by titling the post: Sunny SoCal)

No Parking on this blog post

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:32:21 -0600

I am honored the TLW would ever consider parking her comment on my post so that she can follow what may develop in the comment thread. It's a common tactic around ActiveRain and the greater blogosphere. Maybe you don't have anything to say right that minute about a particular post, but you want to see what others are saying and have those comments delivered to your email inbox. Maybe you just want a little time to collect your thoughts so you can go back and comment later. Maybe you just want to see how the thread develops before you leave your comment, but you don't want to have to remember to go back and find the post later. So what do you do?

You park your comment on the post and check the 'notify me of comments' box. But you have to leave something, so you just say "parked".

Well those sneaky developers of ours slid in a little feature sometime in the last few days so you no longer have to do that. You can just ask to be notified of comments without even leaving a comment of your own. TLW, you are still welcome to park on my posts, we just didn't want you to have to if you didn't want to.

At the bottom of every post now is a check box that says:

'Notify me of new comments'

This isn't just a feature for logged in members either. Anyone can park themselves on your post and ask to be notified of comments. It makes sense, right? They could come back tomorrow and read all the comments if they wanted to, so we are just making it easier for them to keep up with the conversation on their terms, in their own inbox.

Once you would prefer to stop being notified of comments on the post, you can go back to the post and there is a button that will say:

(I must admit. I could be losing my mind. This feature could very well have been around for a lot longer than the last few days. Jeff is the only other one in the office and he thinks he saw it sometime last week. Jorgen isn't here for me to ask him when it was added. At any rate, none of us have written about it and I thought it was cool. I often want to follow comment threads but don't necesarily have anything of value to add at that moment to the post)

(update: I am not crazy!! Jorgen confirmed it just went live this morning.........well I'm not crazy on this one thing. I could very well be crazy on many other accounts :-) )

Update: I guess this would be a little cooler if you still had the ability to subscribe to comments when you leave a comment. Should have that back soon. Right now this is the only way you can subscribe to comments. I'm so out of touch.........

Hit Router Now Auction-Based

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:42:17 -0600

Now you can drive traffic to your website at the same cost as the big boys do. ActiveRain announces wholesale auction-based pricing directly to real estate agents for the first time ever.

Today we upgraded our Hit Router pay per click marketplace from a tiered pricing plan to an auction-based platform. This change takes away the predetermined pricing for Hit Router clicks and lets the market dictate what the price should be.

Why buy clicks to your website?

Consumers are getting smarter. In a time gone by, large lead generation companies could drive high volumes of consumers to their sites based on economies of scale. They would then convert this traffic to a lead and sell that lead to an agent. Today, the idea of converting leads on a massive scale is much tougher. The new 'lead' has become traffic to your website!! The Hit Router marketplace allows ActiveRain members to buy traffic to their websites without facing the retail mark-up. We are partnering with companies in the industry that specialize in generating consumer clicks and offering those clicks to ActiveRain members at wholesale prices.

This new shift allows you to control how much traffic you drive to your own site. It also puts you in the driver seat for determining how you convert that traffic into a lead. The entire consumer experience of searching for a home can take place on your own branded site.

ActiveRain's hit router is a way to drive traffic to your IDX (home search) site.

Is this your first time hearing about Hit Router?

I beg you, if you are not familiar with the hit router concept on ActiveRain, take the time to watch this video and read the additional posts linked to on the bottom of that page. After watching the video and reading the accompanying links, you should have a good idea what hit router is about.

How did it work? How does it work now?

When we initially launched Hit Router, we put set pricing on the cost of clicks in each market. Members could then decide to purchase traffic from Hit Router at the set price and the traffic would be dispersed on a rotating basis. If Jon and Jeff both agreed to pay $2.89 per click (the price we set) for traffic in Seattle, Jon would get click one and Jeff would get click two and it would continue in that fashion until one of them hit their budget.

The new upgrade to Hit Router has transformed the pricing into an auction based model. Pricing is now set by what someone is willing to pay for clicks for that market. In a majority of markets across the country, Hit Router will deliver clicks and traffic to our agents far below market value. Not only that, but as a buyer of Hit Router clicks, you only pay for traffic that is delivered to your site. In addition you can set your budget, make changes in real time and there is no contractual obligation. You can start and stop campaigns any time you choose.

Auction-Based Pricing:

Auction-based pricing allows our members to take advantage of the remnant traffic we were selling at wholesale rates. It also allows the market to set a price for the traffic. No longer do we have set pricing. The person who decides to bid on traffic and has the winning bid will get first crack at the traffic for that market. They will continue to get the traffic for that market until their budget is met.

One other upgrade:

An additional enhancement has been made so that you can now edit existing campaigns to change the bid price, maximum spending limit and URL.

Additional Links for information:

The ActiveRain Listing Router

Listing Router - How To Setup & Save Your Own Traffic

How To Setup Your Own Click Campaign

The SUPER LONG Tail...................

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:49:28 -0600

Jon, our fearless leader (ok, maybe not), just sent an email out to our staff here at ActiveRain letting us know that yesterday we set a new daily traffic record. We had 20% more visitors to ActiveRain in a single day than we have ever had. Whenever he sends something like this, I always jump into our analytics account and try to see if there is any reasonable explanation.

I don't think I really found a reasonable explanation, but I did stumble across an unbelievable example of the long tail at work.

For those of you that aren't familiar with the term long tail, let me explain as I would if I was talking to someone that had no idea about the long tail. I don't know who originally came up with this parallel, but I think it's really easy to understand (I know Chris Anderson coined the term Long Tail, just not sure if he was the first to use this analogy although my guess is yes).

Consider your local bookstore. They carry less than 1% of the books for sale in the world. In fact, they probably carry less than .001% of the books for sale at any one time. However, the books they do carry make up 60% (maybe even more) of the sales that take place for books in a given year. That leaves a pretty large chunk of the book market, about 40% in our example here, that are not sold by book stores. The big selling books sell tens and even hundreds of thousands of copies a year. But there is a HUGE segment of books out there, the remaining 99% of the books in fact, that make up the remaining 40% of the sales. The thing is, any one book might only sell 3 or 4 times a year. So the cumulative of all those books selling once, twice, maybe even ten times a year make up that 40% of the sales. Amazon thrives on selling on this long tail. They don't have to hold and display the inventory on shelves, so it makes sense for them to have available that book that only sells 10 times a year. They do quite well selling all kinds of merchandise in this fashion.

You can see then that the long tail is where a lot of the sales of books takes place. Something simiar happens in search results. While you may have certain key search phrases making up the majority of the searches, a vast majority of the long tail searches make up a pretty decent chunk of the overall search traffic.

So back to our Google Analytics account........One of the terms that sent a decent amount of traffic to ActiveRain the last two days was the term: '7500 tax credit' (no quotes, just that term typed in Google or some other search engine). This particular term drove 513 visitors. A secondary search of: '7500 tax credit home buyer' drove an additional 360 visitors.

So in total, those two searches drove 873 visitors the last two days. But let's look a little further down the tail, shall we?

In total, we had 1570 visits in the last two days based on a search with the term '7500' in the keyword string somewhere. The next biggest search with the term '7500' in it drove only 15 visitors. So we can pretty safely assume that everything after that term is on the long tail, no search result with the term '7500' will drive more than 15 visitors. Care to guess how many terms, other than the two most popular, were typed into a search engine using '7500' as one of the keywords? 539!!!!

538 times someone typed in a variation of keywords using the term '7500' in the last two days and landed on ActiveRain. Those 539 searches resulted in 697 visits. So the first two (2) terms accounted for 873 of the 1570 total visits or 56%, and the remaining 539 searches resulted in 697 visits or 44% of the visitors searching for '7500' something.

.3% of the search terms drove 56% of the traffic and the remaining 99.7% of the terms drove 44% of the traffic. If that's not the long tail, you will never see it!!

What kind of searches on are on that long tail? Here are the next most popular variations:

Nothing very shocking there. Just lots of different ways people think to type the same thing into a search engine and find their way to ActiveRain. It's when you get much farther down that you start to see something very interesting. There are HUNDREDS of ways someone searched and many of them match how someone would naturally asked the question if they were speaking it.

These type of search engine queries often find their way to ActiveRain because of the way they mimic natural language. Your blog posts are written using this kind of natural language so it only makes sense that the search engines would return results that match the natural language queries.

Please keep in mind, this is TWO DAYS worth of searching. I'll tell you what though, there is some accountant out there that really wishes he was getting referrals from a few ActiveRain members, because whoever is writing about this '$7500 tax credit for first time home buyers' (that's how I would have searched for it) is getting a TON of traffic.

The point? Our long tail is sending visitors every day to your blog posts based on natural language search, and 40% (or in our specific example 44%) of the searches being done out there are of this nature. So you just keep on writing solid information about your market or your area of expertise, let people get better and better at searching for exactly what they are looking for and let Google and the other search engines sort out the traffic.........much of which will end up on your blog posts on ActiveRain!!

Growth Leader Test Program Update

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:01:06 -0600

Since ActiveRain and Market Leader launched the Growth Leader test program a few months ago, it has created quite a bit of interest and spawned more than a few curious onlookers. Many ActiveRain members have been following the progress of the participants as they take this new product offering from Market Leader through the paces.

What is Growth Leader? How does the system work? Is it the right fit for your business plan? I’m sure these are only a few of the questions swimming in the heads of many Rainers.

The participants, who are all very engaged and vocal on ActiveRain, have been answering many of these questions. 90+ blogs have been written by the participants about Growth Leader, most of which are posted on the Thought Leader Channel. The participants have also been very generous with constructive feedback to help Market Leader continually enhance the agent and consumer experience. And for that, Market Leader would like to extend their thanks.

We are still in the early stages of the program. The most tenured participants have been using Growth Leader for 9 weeks. Within this short amount of time, we’ve already seen some incredible successes, even with participants who have had Growth Leader for only a few weeks.

Let’s look at some stats from these last 9 weeks:

TOTAL VISITORS: Growth Leader has driven a total of 7546 visitors to the websites of 21 participants. The average is 359 visitors per website.
TOTAL PROSPECTS: Growth Leader has generated a total of 1070 prospects (visitors that registered on the websites). The average is 51 prospects per website
CONVERSION RATE: The average conversion rate of visitor to prospect is 14%. (According to NAR survey results, the industry average is 1-3%.)
LISTING ALERTS SUBSCRIPTION: Of the total prospects generated by Growth Leader, 507 prospects have registered for listing alerts. The average registration rate of prospects signing up for listing alerts is 51%. (The higher that the percentage is, the more likely prospects are to convert into clients.)

Here’s what some participants are saying about Growth Leader:

“In just 3 weeks with Growth Leader, I’ve already closed a transaction and am showing homes to other clients that found me through the system.”

Greg Nino, RE/MAX Houston Professionals, Houston, TX

Click here to see Greg’s "swwwweeettt" week with a couple various clients.

“Within one month of signing up for Growth Leader I have already closed escrow with one client, helped another client present an offer and generated a total of 45 clients. I'm very optimistic about Growth Leader. It's a very good product and easy to use. The advertising program they are doing on my behalf is much stronger than my best efforts as my site shows very high in the search results. ”

Chuck Willman, Gentry Realty, Gilbert, AZ

Click here to see Chuck's take one of the features that is "a real difference maker"

“I LOVE the Growth Leader product - I love this system! I am showing houses to a prospect that found me on my Growth Leader website and we even wrote up an offer. After just a few weeks, I have a buyer in my car as a result of this wonderful system! Am I getting results from Growth Leader? Yes!”

Courtney Cooper, Cooper Jacobs Real Estate Services, Seattle, WA

Click her to see why Courtney is so excited

"In just the last couple of weeks with Growth Leader, we have gotten two signed Buyer's Agreements, shown homes to two different potential clients, and we have one Buyer now under contract on a home. Our prospects tell us that they keep coming back to our Growth Leader website because of its valuable information, professional appearance and easy-to-use interface."

Brande Bradford, Bradford Realty Group, McDonough, GA

Click here to get the recap of Brande's success to date, including a contract signed sealed and delivered

“On top of the great Growth Leader website and the prospects, the support you get from Growth Leader is personal – a welcome change from other companies that just collect your money. Growth Leader strives to ensure the success and happiness of the agent.”

Konnie Mac, Realty Direct, Haymarket, VA

Click here to see Konnie's "hot tamale" and a decent conversion rate for a small town girl

“Growth Leader does not sell leads. Growth Leader is a system that enables me to GENERATE and MANAGE my own prospects. Growth Leader promotes me and my website through the Internet and each prospect chooses to engage with me on my site. The bottom line is that Growth Leader works because they are NOT selling leads, but providing me with tools to grow and manage my business.”

Steve Shatsky, Keller Williams Dallas City Center, Dallas, TX

Click here see Steve admit it takes hard work, but it's worth it in the long run

To find out how you can participate in this program, read up on my earlier blog:

Growth Leader Marketing Program, anyone want to play?

For more information about Growth Leader, click on the button below.

First Upgrade to ActiveBlogs

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:09:39 -0600

Back in late October, ActiveRain launched listing router as a tool for members to drive traffic from their blogs to their home search site. You can watch the video and read all about it here. (if you don't know about listing router, you HAVE TO click that last link, I beg you!!) Since then we have given our Localism sponsors the chance to use the feature to enhance their Localism sponsorship (although I must tell you, not everyone has taken advantage of this awesome upgrade). You can read all about that on Jorgen's blog, here.

Late Tuesday night (1/13/08) we will upgrade our new ActiveBlog platform by adding the Listing Router Feature. (You can read about the new ActiveBlog platform here and here)

If you have upgraded your prior ActiveRain Outside Blog to the new ActiveBlog platform you will now be able to integrate listing router with your new ActiveBlog. Giving visitors an outlet from your blog to search for homes is a critical component in converting that reader into a client. Of course, an effective home search or IDX solution is just as important so I strongly suggest you read Jeff Corbett's take on effective IDX solutions.

At some point, every one of your potential clients is going to be out on the internet looking at homes for sale. In a perfect world, a potential client woud land on your blog because of a search they did on some search engine, they would read your incredible prose and they would immediately pick up the phone and beg you to help them find their next mansion. This isn't a perfect world. In fact, the reason internet leads have gotten a bad rap from many is because of the time it takes to cultivate a prospect that you may have 'captured' on your website (you are trying to capture some component of contact info from your site visitors, right????? If not, you really need to read Jeff's post).

If you haven't figured it out yet, blogging is a powerful tool to bridge that gap between when someone first starts looking and when they are actually ready to work with you. So if you are writing content on your blog that is engaging your visitors as they research (then research more, then keep on researching) where they want to live, it only makes sense that your blog have a clear avenue for them to search for homes on your site.

Listing Router is that avenue.

Your new ActiveBlog will now display a prominent listing search box that will route visitors from your outside blog to your home search solution. It will look like this:

At this point, I beg you that if you are not familiar with listing router, please go and review my post that I linked to above. It will save all of us a lot of pain and suffering in the comment section.

Your ActiveRain listing router account will be where you manage how traffic is routed on your blog. You can find it on the left hand side of your 'my home' page.

Jon Washburn, our CEO and ActiveRain co-founder has been driving traffic to and converting clients from real estate websites since 1997. We've had numerous sites and tested over and over how to get people clicking on what we want them to. We'll get them clicking over to your site, you worry about what they click on once they get there. (again, please read Jeff's post about effective IDX solutions if you skipped over it above)

Additional tutorial posts from Brad:

How to set up and save your own traffic from Listing Router

How to set up your own click campaign with Listing Router

How to opt out of Listing Router

EDITED:

Quite a few people already are leaving comments to the effect of: "I'm really starting to fall behind on all this stuff........"

Please, if you feel totally out of the loop and wish there was someone you could just talk to and get an explanation from, that person is me. Do not hesitate to pick up the phone and call me. 425.753.7340. That's my cell phone and I try to answer it any time I am free and it rings. If you combine it with an email to me, I'll do my best to get you a call back. If you send a second email saying, 'gee, you're a real jerk for not calling me back' you can pretty much assure yourself a call, haha.

Network News - Groups, Localism, Outside Blogs oh my!

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:56:11 -0600

As necessary, but at least once a week I am going to post this and place it in the ActiveRain channel under the topic 'network news' to keep you updated on what's going on around ActiveRain. I know, I know.....where the #$% was this a week ago? The apology comes later.....read on.

We did a major infrastrucure upgrade last week. As a result of that upgrade we have experienced a rash of issues. In order to alleviate some of those issues we had to make some quick decisions to triage the groups area of the site, as it was responsible for the majority of the proxy errors.

Proxy Errors

As you can see from the graph below (sshhh, don't tell Jorgen, I shared his super secret proxy error graph.....he's on a plane home to Kansas for Christmas right now so maybe I can sneak it by him. Don't worry, he'll be working the entire time he's on vacation) proxy errors are almost non-existent.

Groups

Groups were the major cause of the proxy errors that were abound last week and early this week. Some of the groups have gotten so big that our existing infrastructure for groups was no longer sufficient to support the amount of content contained in them. We made some temporary changes to groups in order to stop the proxy errors and give the developers enough time to fix the infrastructure.

Right now, Groups are only showing four pages and are arranged by 'last comment'. That is being fixed and on Friday morning when you wake up Groups will be back to being arranged in chronological order and you will be able to see much deeper into the archives.
Member lists in groups are still accessible, but the button has moved. To access member lists you now click on the hyper-link for the group member count. If your group has 300 people in it, the 300 will be a link you can click to access member lists. Currently you can not administrate member roles but that will be fixed Friday morning as well.

Posting to Localism

Posts are not currently feeding to Localism. This fix will be in place Friday morning. Posts that you have posted in the last week that are tagged to syndicate to Localism will feed over there retroactively once the fix is in place.

Posting to Outside Blogs

Posts are not currently feeding to your outside blog. This fix will be in place (take a guess......) Friday morning (man, I can't slide anything past you, can I?). Posts that you posted in the last week that were tagged to syndicate to your outside blog should retroactively feed once the fix is in place.

Tags on the sidebar of your blog

Right now, if you go to the tags dropdown of your blog, it's possible that you will see someone else's tags show up. In fact, you will see the same tags in the dropdown menu on every blog you go to. If you see your own tags on your blog, go to my blog.....you will see your tags on my blog as well. We call this the 'ActiveRain soulmate bug'. The person who's tags are following you is your ActiveRain soulmate and we expect that you will get to know them well and maybe make a new friend.

Any guessers for when this will be fixed? Yes......you in the back with your hand raised.......BINGO!! Friday morning.

The Apology I was talking about

I want to express a very sincere "sorry" to everyone. This last week has been a little bit tough. Our internal communication broke down and we weren't able to relay this information to you in a timely manner. Please know that the frustration that you encounter is multiplied by 1000 for every member of our team. That's not to discount your frustration because you should be able to count on ActiveRain to function properly. It's just saying that we work tirelessly to provide a product of which we can be proud and when we hit a patch like the last week our utmost concern is getting the platform stabilized so that you can utilize it. (Someone just informed me that my goatee has gray hair in it.......and I'm 100% sure it wasn't there prior to the last week)

I've never come out and asked anyone to subscribe to my blog (I just figured everyone took one look at my Shakespearian prose and immediately subscribed, hahahaha) but moving forward this will be where you can get updated consistently, so take a minute to hit that little subscribe button on the right. (Brad will attest to my HTML skills and if I was to try to pull that subscribe button in here I would be here for the next hour)

From our ActiveRain family to theirs - Let's help a family in need

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:50:37 -0600

ActiveRain adopted a family for Christmas this year. We want to see if you will help us give them the best Christmas ever.

We actually adopted a little girl and her family through the Seattle Children's Hospital. Zorra is the little girl and she lives with her five siblings and their mom. The family is facing significant financial stressors, like many families across our country, that will prevent them from obtaining needed items during the holidays. Beyond the items they need, we also want to raise the spirits of five children in our community who will not have a Christmas if not for the helping hands of our great network.

Zorra's mother described how the family has lived in battered women's shelters and has faced homelessness on several occasions after she and Zorra's father separated. The mom and her six kids, ages 7-17, have been exposed to domestic violence in their home. While the family now has a stable home, the financial stressors are such that having enough food in the house is a challenge. Mom isn't able to work because several of her children are high needs, medically complex kids requiring a high level of supervision and frequent medical appointments. Mom does everything she can to make ends meet for this family. She feeds her kids each month with donations from the food bank and she was hoping that the family would be eligible for a holiday program otherwise her kids won't be able to open presents on Christmas.

The thought that there are kids, not just these six but many, who won't have presents on Christmas is heartbreaking. Here's why this hits so close to home for me.......

I grew up in a single parent home. My parents got divorced when I was 8. My dad used to beat up my mom. One day my mom decided enough was enough and loaded all of us up and never looked back. I have three younger brothers. My mom worked her butt off to provide for us when we were growing up. I can't remember one time looking back where I felt like I didn't have everything I needed. There may have been times I wanted something and didn't get it, but my mom made sure we got everything we needed.

So Zorra and I have something in common. I was raised by a single mom and I was exposed to domestic violence. But by the grace of God our family had our health. Let's give this family something to look forward to on Christmas.

They need everyday things that many of us take for granted. Paper Towels, laundry soap (can you image how much laundry 6 kids produce?), shampoo, bars of soap, pillows. I'd venture that very few people reading think twice about any of these things. The kids need things like underwear, socks, shoes, pajamas, rain coats. We would really like to get them a few things beyond this as well so that when they wake up Christmas morning they can experience some of the same joy that my son and your son's and daughter's get to experience on Christmas Morning.

If everyone just gave $5 or $10 we can really make a difference in this family's life. So if ActiveRain has helped your business this year, I'm just asking that you take a minute to donate what you can.

I need you guys to come through for me so I am going to offer a free year long Localism sponsorship to anyone that makes a donation of $50 or more. We really want to make this a special holiday for this family.

Recent Upgrades and his evil twin Mr. Proxy Error

Bob Stewart - ActiveRain (ActiveRain) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:18:35 -0600

Our site is growing at a pretty steady clip. Almost every day we are getting a couple hundred new people signing up on the site. When we first launched ActiveRain, we had very aggresive goals for membership numbers. We also had limited programming resources. So as we added features and members at a dizzying pace, sometimes the necessary attention was not paid to scalability issues.

Over the last six months we have been retro fitting the site to make sure that all of our features can scale with the increasing membership numbers. Last night, we pushed a critical infrastructure upgrade to the site. As you attempted to log on this morning, or today you may have been met with upgrades evil twin Mr. Proxy Error. He is a mean guy who does not care about your passion for real estate.

What the heck is a Proxy Error anyways?

Whenever you click on a page on ActiveRain, a query is sent to our database to display that page. There's a pretty good chance that someone else clicked on another page .001 seconds after you. This happens in succession and there are always pages waiting to be loaded. Every once in a while (although it seems more frequent recently) one of the queries will run into a problem and not be able to display the page in a timely manner. This is where the Proxy Error starts. At the same time, Queries that are in line to be displayed begin to time out and the result is proxy errors for pages that would otherwise display fine, but since they are behind a page taking too long to display, they are affected as well. Of course, if you are anything like me, you hit the refresh button five times and force the query to be requested again. The vicious cycle then displays Proxy Errors for everyone in line.

(please note, this is a very elementary explanation because quite frankly my understanding of it is very elementary.......the developers are busy fixing this stuff so the PHD explanation is not available)

Please know that your frustration is shared by our entire team. Our developers have been working their fingers to the bone over the last few days to ensure that Mr. Proxy Error is eradicated. Mr. Proxy Error is still lingering a bit but his appearances are becoming fewer and farther between.

In addition to Mr. Proxy Error there may be some other minor issues on the site today as well. We are aware of many of them but if you know of something please feel free to leave it in the comments.

We are really sorry for the annoyance that these upgrade cause and want everyone to know that we are continually making improvements to the foundation of the site so that you don't have to worry about stability. I promise you that no one reading this is getting more gray hairs over this thing than Jon and Jeff (wait, nevermind not those two.....they have no hair) Brad and Rich and I.

Thank you for your support and your patience, we really appreciate it!!