Much has been said about blog commenting here on ActiveRain, but what about blog commenting out in the real world? I'm talking about commenting on blogs that are not on the ActiveRain platform. Do you comment on other blogs within your niche? Do you try to grab the attention of the big boys? Why would you want to? How can commenting on other blogs help you?
Commenting on high profile blogs outside of A|R can have a huge impact on your publicity, your search engine results, and your overall popularity within the blogging world. Okay, so you won't get any A|R "points" for commenting outside of A|R, but there is a much larger benefit to be had.
Benefits Of Blog Commenting
Grab The Attention Of The Blogs Readers
Grab The Attention Of The Blogger
Increase Your Brand Awareness
Create More Back Links
Yes, blog commenting can do all those things, and much much more, however, there is a catch. You actually have to be a real life genuine human being when your commenting. None of this sissy, "great post thanks for sharing", stuff. You have to add value to the readers of the blog, and you have to add value to the blogger themselves. "Add Value" is the key.
GRAB THE ATTENTION OF THE BLOGS READERS
There are people out there that have never heard of you, never heard of ActiveRain, and surely don't know that you are a fantastic blogger. You have to show them that what you have to offer is something they might be interested in. Besides, they are already commenting on blogs and reading information in your niche, all you have to do is prove that you're worth their time.
How can I grab their attention?
It works much the same outside of ActiveRain as it does here. When commenting on most blogs, you get to add a link to your website or blog, which people will click on if you add value to a conversation. Here's an example:
Go to Google and search for your niche, and add blogs to the search like this:
As you can see by just doing a general real estate blog search, I have over 100 million choices to choose from. Now, click on a few blogs, and check out how they do their blog commenting. Make sure that when you comment you are able to leave a link back to your blog/website. It should look something like this:
The box that says website is where you want to enter your web address to your blog/website. That's all there is to it. Find blogs, leave comments, add value to the conversation, leave a link back to your blog/website, and use your analytics (click that link to learn how to install analytics on your blog) to watch the new traffic come in.
GRAB THE ATTENTION OF THE BLOGGER
When people comment on your blog, how does it make you feel? I can bet it makes you fell warm and fuzzy right? I'm talking about those people that leave a comment that makes you click on the link to their profile, add them as an associate, and go find their blog to leave them a comment. Those comments are the comments that get blog writers attention, and in a big way.
I found a blog called New Homes Blog. I started commenting on the blog, and I really enjoy reading what the writer had to say. So, I left some pretty meaty comments, and he emailed me. He asked me to be a guest blogger for his Utah section. A guest blogger! That means that he lets me write blogs on his blog, and leave a link back to my websites for Google juice. I got his attention by commenting with some great comments to add value to his blog.
The more you put in the more you will get. Start building a relationship with the blogger, and soon enough they just might start talking about you in their own blogs.
INCREASE YOUR BRAND AWARENESS
The more and more you start to show up on blogs in your niche, the more and more your brand is going to get recognized. By commenting on blogs all over th web,you're going to increase your online visibility.
The more you show up, the more people will be curious as to who you are, which will make people more likely to click on your link to learn more about you. Human curiosity!
Think about it. Who are the most popular people you know of on ActiveRain?
These people comment a lot and for good reason, they are creating brand awareness. The more you see them, the more you want to know who they are, and that gives you a click through to your blog/website.
How many comments have you made today?
CREATE MORE BACK LINKS
(If you don't know what a do-follow and no-follow link are, before reading this section, I would recommend you read this blog on no-follow and do-follow links first.)
Just like ActiveRain, when you comment on some blogs, you get a do-follow link to your website.
Every time you make a comment on ActiveRain while logged in, you get a do-follow link pointing back to your profile.
In order to find blogs that are do-follow around the web, you will have to do some research.
So far, I have a list of 25 do-follow blogs that I am currently commenting on. I don't do it just for the link, I also add as much to the conversation as I can.
If I don't have anything to say that is going to add value, I don't say anything at all. I found these blogs by searching Google and researching real estate forums. Unfortunately, I am not going to give you my list of do-follow blogs, I want you to find your own, because it will be more beneficial to you if you do.
What I am going to do is, give you a head start in the right direction. Finding do-follow blogs is actually pretty easy once you have the Firefox plugin as mentioned in the link above.
Start out by searching Google for do-follow blogs:
I use these tools and they helped me get a start in the right direction. If you're serious about ranking high for your keywords, commenting on do follow blogs can help you attain your goals. Remember, just because a blog is no follow, doesn't mean you can't get value out of it. Leaving your link is going to get people to click on it, which will bring traffic your way, and increase your brand awareness.
What's It All Mean?
Commenting on blogs is one of the most fundamental aspects of social media. You are interacting, creating relationships, and adding value to the on-going conversations around the web. Building your awareness through blog commenting takes time and effort to be successful. But I can attest that if you do it with genuine care you soon will start to see an increase in your blogs activity. Good Luck!
If you have any stories about how you comment, leave me a comment about it. Or better yet, write a blog about it, and leave a link in the comments so you can add value to my conversation!
6 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, completely updated, new kitchen, hardwood and tile floors. Big lot with animal rights, peaceful location. Great potential for rural housing loan. Buyer to verify all information.
With the amount of offers coming in on REO properties(Bank Owned Properties), there has been a new trend among buyers. The trend is to just offer as high as possible to get the property under contract. After the contract is accepted by the bank, they have to get an appraisal for the loan.
The appraisal comes in quite a bit lower then their original offer price, which means the buyers won't be able to get the financing. These buyers then have the right to withdraw from the contract based on the appraisal contingency. The deal is dead right?
Not so fast. The buyers agent has been planning this all along. The agent and the buyers will submit an addendum to the price to meet the appraisal, and will re-submit to the bank.
Now, the bank wants to get this deal done, and knows the same thing will happen with any other buyer. The appraisal has already been done. So, the bank just accepts the lower price, and the buyers get away with it. They knew the appraisal would not meet the original offering price, and they get a great deal.
With the new appraisal guidelines, this is happening more and more. Appraisals are coming in low, buyers are aware this is what's happening, they are offering high to get the property over the competition, and just wait out the appraisal to get a great deal.
How fair is it to the buyers that put in an offer closer to asking price? Is this fair and balanced? Is it unfair to the other buyers that put in a reasonable offer? Or is it a smart way to get your buyers the house they wanted?
There are currently 63 commercial properties in Logan, Utah on the market, as of November 2, 2009.
There are currently 1 commercial properties in Logan, Utah under contract, as of November 2, 2009.
If your interested in buying homes in Logan, Utah, I would love to help get you started. I have over 8 years of experience in the real estate business, and I have over 25 years of business experience. Buying a home can be one, if not the, biggest financial decision of your life. Don't go it alone, you need an experienced real estate specialist on your side.
If you plan on selling a home in today's real estate market, having an experienced listing agent on your side is crucial. I have been selling homes in Logan, Utah for 8 years, and I know the current market. I can help you stage your home, price your home to sell, and will negotiate the best deal for you. I will work in your best interests, and I have a qualified team to keep your best interests taken care of throughout the selling process.
In October of 2009 there were a total of 95 single family homes that sold in Cache County, Utah.
There are currently 742 single family homes in Cache County, UT on the market, as of November 2, 2009.
There are currently 160 single family homes in Cache County, Utah under contract, as of November 2, 2009.
The average sold price of homes in Cache County, UT for September 2009 was $167,841. The Average days on the market for these Cache County homes sold was 102.
In October 2009 there were a total of 4 commercial properties in Cache County, UT that were sold.
There are currently 87 commercial properties in Cache County, Utah on the market, as of November 2, 2009.
There are currently 2 commercial properties in Cache County, Utah under contract, as of November 2, 2009.
If your interested in buying homes in Cache County, Utah, I would love to help get you started. I have over 8 years of experience in the real estate business, and I have over 25 years of business experience. Buying a home can be one, if not the, biggest financial decision of your life. Don't go it alone, you need an experienced real estate specialist on your side.
If you plan on selling a home in today's real estate market, having an experienced listing agent on your side is crucial. I have been selling homes in Cache County, Utah for 8 years, and I know the current market. I can help you stage your home, price your home to sell, and will negotiate the best deal for you. I will work in your best interests, and I have a qualified team to keep your best interests taken care of throughout the selling process.
If you are blogging, writing web pages for your websites, or engaging people online, it's very important to understand how people read the web. The #1 reason people won't read your information is because you aren't telling it correctly. Here are some tips to help you get more readership and increase your effectiveness on the web.
Get To The Point With Scannable Writing
I myself struggle with this a lot, and no matter how hard I try, it seems I want to add more words where they aren't necessary. What's my point? Ha!
Be precise, get to the point quick, and explain later.
Example:
The long version:
When buying a home it's extremely important to know what the conditions of the market are, and you need to keep in mind the advantages of home ownership. Buying a home can be one of the biggest purchases of your lifetime, and can also be a great investment in your future.
To the point:
Things to know about buying a home:
Market Conditions
Advantages Of Home Ownership
Largest Purchase Of Your Lifetime
Great Investment
If you have both of these examples on different web pages. The first one is going to get a lot of people clicking the back button.
With the second example, you can take each point, and add more to the conversation. You have their attention, gave them something easy to read, and now you can give them more.
Get Their Attention And Give Them More
Studies show that 79% of people will scan every new page they come across on the web, but if you catch their attention, you can give them more.
Example:
Take each point and expand on the topic.
Market Conditions - Each real estate market is different and it's always a good idea to find the expert in your market. Talk to your family to learn what real estate agents they have used to buy a home, and interview a few until you feel comfortable with an agent.
Advantages Of Home Ownership - Purchasing a new home can be great for your families well being, and is also a great way to get a tax break. Home ownership is a great step to gaining wealth and comes with the social benefits of the American dream.
The key to writing for the web is getting to the point quickly, grabbing your readers attention, and then expand on your topics.
Check out these blogs and webpages for more examples:
So you've heard that social media and blogging can help your business. Your friends are doing it, your co-workers are doing it, and your competition is doing it. You decided that it was time to start building a descent web presence, but you have no idea where to begin. What you don't know is if you're reading this, you have already begun, so let's get started.
Social Media And Blogging - The Game Plan...
Starting a social media campaign is a lot like starting a new business. You need to come up with a game plan, set long term goals, and continue your education. If you just jump in, you may hit a wall, and feel like it's not worth it, which could lead to the end of your social media experience. If you follow these steps, you will have a better chance at succeeding faster, and getting more out of your experience.
Education - In order to start something new it's a good idea to educate yourself. Building from successes of others is one of the fundamental aspects of learning. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to be successful with social media and blogging. All you have to do is learn from what others are doing, and put your own spin on it. If you start out by modeling your social media campaign like others have before you, I think you will find it so simple, it will be almost like cheating.
First step to educating yourself is to subscribe to other peoples blogs. You have two options to subscribe. You can subscribe by email, or you can use a reader. (What is a reader?) Once you start reading other peoples blogs it's a good idea to leave a comment and add to the conversation. It's that easy.
If you comment on blogs you read and you leave truly thought provoking comments, people will want to know who you are. Of course, if you just leave the "thanks for sharing" bland comments every where, you are going to have a hard time connecting.
How do you find blogs to subscribe to?
It's simple, Google what you're looking for. I also have a list you can start with. Here are some of the best blogs I have found that will teach you how to blog:
Determine Your Goals - What can you get out of social media? It depends on what you put in. If your goal is to make money out of social media, that's a great goal, but I would reconsider. If your focus becomes making money, I think you are missing the point.
Instead, consider using social media to be the best you can be, to grow your business, and to create something useful for your clients. If you provide value, create something remarkable, and expect nothing more then to just be the best you can be. You are going to be rewarded with plenty.
If you strive to be the best you can be, truly add value to your readers experience, and engage in thoughtful conversation, everything else will take care of itself. Focus on the big picture, build an online brand that you can be proud of, and people will talk about you.
My Goals
I told you to learn from others, so here's what I have done. I started blogging and interacting on social media sites in January of 2009 which is only 10 months.
My short to medium term goals were to learn from others, create an online presence for my real estate business, engage my clients, generate new clients, and connect with other agents across the country in hope of referrals.
Long Term - Dominate my market online, grow my business, increase my brand awareness, develop long term friendships, and enjoy the ride.
Whatever your goals are, I can't stress enough how important it is to be your best, add value to others, and think for the long term.
The Fear
Ultimately, success in social media comes down to commitment, engaging the people in your market, and getting over your fear. The first step to getting over your fear, is to understand why you the fear exists.
I know a lot of business owners are scared to get into social media because they are scared of what people will say about them. That's the wrong attitude and if you are afraid of what people will say about you, I think you need to re-access your business practices.
Besides, people are already talking, why not create a place where you have a chance to respond?
If your scared that people won't like you, then you need to do some self evaluation. What are people saying about you and your business offline? Do you have happy customers?
If you believe the conversation is positive, there shouldn't be a reason your online conversation can't be the same. And you know what? Some people won't like you or what you're saying, but that's just how life is. Who cares? Some people will like you and some people don't. Your job is to engage the people that like you, and forget about the ones that don't, you can't please everyone.
Do It - Now it's time for you to just get started, learn as you go, experience what works for you, and create a lasting impression with your followers. You won't have success overnight, but if you work hard and stick it out, social media can do wonders for your business. You might also gain some friends, and create lasting relationships.
What's My Return On Investment?
You need to acknowledge that conversion my take a while to see, but your opportunity to connect with your market can become priceless. Determining a return on your investment through social media can be hard. It's not the same as old media but here are a few things to look at as you go along:
How many people are exposed to your ideas, how many people are reading your blogs, and what are they saying?
Where do you appear in Google search results?
What are your new clients from your internet presence saying about you?
How many people contact you about your conversations?
Why are you still here? Get blogging already and start a conversation!
Cache County Utah Real Estate - Here is the new Cache County listings that have hit the market. I have also included homes that have gone under contract, sold, and are currently active.
This week there are 34 new active residential properties. The week before we had 43 new listings. There were 22Cache Valley UT homes that went under contract, and 12 homes sold. There are a total of750homes in Cache Valley UT that are active.
For detailed information on these new Logan UT homes listings, click on the link, and it will redirect you to my IDX website. Those that don't have links, I will update them when they become available.
You may be relocating to or from Utah due to any number of reasons , whatever the case, when searching for a real estate professional outside the state of Utah, please feel free to Contact Me or call me at 435-881-3022 as I am more than honored to provide to you the contact information of exceptional agents across the U.S.
Cache Valley Utah Real Estate - Here is the new Cache Valley listings that have hit the market. I have also included homes that have gone under contract, sold, and are currently active.
This week there are 34 new active residential properties. The week before we had 43 new listings. There were 22Cache Valley UT homes that went under contract, and 12 homes sold. There are a total of 750homes in Cache Valley UT that are active.
You may be relocating to or from Utah due to any number of reasons , whatever the case, when searching for a real estate professional outside the state of Utah, please feel free to Contact Me or call me at 435-881-3022 as I am more than honored to provide to you the contact information of exceptional agents across the U.S.
One of the most crucial factors in ranking high for your targeted keywords in search engines is your Title Tag.
What is a title tag?
If you look at the top of your browser when you're on a web page, it's those words that are in the little blue bar at the top. The reason for this post is because of the number of real estate websites I see that don't take advantage of such an easy way to promote your website to search engines.
Did you know your title tags are what's holding you back in the search engines?
I hate to say it, but the reason you aren't showing up in search engines, is because you don't have your title tag optimized. Your title tags should be the first thing you "optimize" to be found in search engines. If you are blogging and generating back links to your website, but your title tags aren't optimized, your making it hard on yourself.
So, how do you optimize your title tags?
This might be complicated, because it all depends on your website, and not every website lets you access the title tags. If you don't know if you can edit your title tags, talk to whoever built your website for you, or you can always Google it. If someone else has a website like yours, chances are you can find out how to optimize your tags by searching Google.
How Should I Optimize My Title Tags?
Now that you know what a title tag is, it's now time to consider what you should change it to. For each page on your website, you need to determine it's purpose, and what the content on the web page is about. For example:
I have webpage dedicated to Logan Utah Real Estate, and if you look at that pages title tags, they define the page as "Logan Utah Real Estate, Logan Real Estate, Utah Real Estate Listing." The reason it has those 3 phrases, is because I know people, when searching for properties, will type phrases like that in the search box. You probably already know this, and that's why it's key to add those phrases to your title tags.
That title tag is "optimized" because the content on the page itself is about what the title tag says it's about. If you read through the content, it's keyword rich with the words: Logan, Utah, Real Estate, Listings, Property, and so on.
Warning: If you add title tags to a web page that don't really represent what the title tag says, it's going to be hard to convince search engines your page is about what your title tag says. Make sure that your title tag is related to the pages content. If you have a page about neighborhoods, your title tag should reflect those neighborhoods.
If you do this with every page of your website, you are going to see your rankings in search engines increase. You will be giving search engines more information about what your pages are about, which is the whole purpose of a search engine. They want to give their searchers the most relevant page to their search query. If you title a page correctly and create relevant content to that title, you're going to help search engines, which in turn, is going to help you rank better.
Title Tag Optimization Tips For Real Estate
When optimizing your title tags, it's a good rule of thumb to use these phrases, as they all relate to real estate.
Listings, Property, Properties, Home, Homes, Homes For Sale, Agent, Agents, REALTOR, MLS.
If you use these phrases with your town included, you will pick up more search engine results placements, and increase the traffic to your website.
Examples:
If I was a real estate agent in Seattle, I would use those same phrases, but I would add the different areas I service.
Seattle WA Homes For Sale, Seattle Real Estate Listings, Real Estate Property and MLS Listings Seattle Washington
With that title tag, I have given myself the chance to show up for broader searches. Say someone searches in Google: Seattle real estate listings for sale - With that search, I have my title tag optimized for all of those keywords, and if I build enough links to that page, I will show up in the searchers results pages.
Now, if you read this, I expect you to update your title tags, and optimize your pages to be better then your competition. I can't stress enough how much an optimized title tag can increase your websites visibility.
If you have any questions about this, leave me a comment, and I will do the best I can to help you out. :)
I am a full time real estate specialist in Logan Utah. I have almost 9 years of experience in the real estate business. If you need help selling or buying a home feel free to contact me. If you have any questions about the Cache County real estate area I would love to help. If you would like to just chat about the current market send me an email, and I would be glad to share my expertise in our local market. For those of you who are bored and wanna gime me some flack, give me your best shot!Subscribe to Logan Utah Real Estate by Email
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
When people comment on your blog, how does it make you feel? I can bet it makes you fell warm and fuzzy right? I'm talking about those people that leave a comment that makes you click on the link to their profile, add them as an associate, and go find their blog to leave them a comment. Those comments are the comments that get blog writers attention, and in a big way. 
The more and more you start to show up on blogs in your niche, the more and more your brand is going to get recognized. By commenting on blogs all over th web,you're going to increase your online visibility.
(If you don't know what a do-follow and no-follow link are, before reading this section, I would recommend you read this blog on 
Posted by 
With the amount of offers coming in on REO properties(Bank Owned Properties), there has been a new trend among buyers. The trend is to just offer as high as possible to get the property under contract. After the contract is accepted by the bank, they have to get an appraisal for the loan.
;)
;)
