It's fun to get caught up in contest, games and blog brawls. But sometimes, it's also good to take a step back and realize just how lucky we are. You see, myself and Bobby started helping Brian Chase - Charlottesville Real Estate Blog drum up some attention to his blog by encouraging him to enter the VarBuzz Blog Brawl. At first, it was all fun and games. But when we started brainstorming a new idea to drum up votes, Brian turned our ideas on it's heels.
Thinking About Those Less Fortunate
After Brian shot down some of our (admittedly) less than stellar ideas, he said "Isn't it amazing that our biggest "problem" is how to win a contest. After all, there are people out there who's problems are having enough money to purchase food for Thanksgiving dinner or toys for their kids to open Christmas morning . What if we could use this contest to help those less fortunate." Immediately, Bobby's eyes lit up. "What if we gave a buck to Toys for Tots for each vote!" We all agreed and put the plan in place.
Vote For Brian Chase - Do A Little Good
So Bobby and I were charged with the task of getting the word out - and that's exactly what I am doing here! So if you have an extra 10 seconds and want to help a child less fortunate, please take a moment to Vote for Brian Chase (Charlottesville Real Estate Blog) in the VarBuzz Blog Brawl. Then go over to Brian's Blog and leave a comment. For every person who votes and let's Brian know by commenting on his blog, he will give $1 per vote for Toys for Tots (up to a max of $200).
Help Us Get the Word Out!
I told Brian that I am going to do everything in my power to make sure we reach his cap of $200. So if you don't mind, please pass this along to your friends and family. Remember, each vote earns Toys for Tots another buck. And remember, it's one vote per IP address. So if you can manage to vote more than once (once at work, once at home), then tell Brian by leaving a comment. And thanks Brian for reminding us that with the upcoming holiday season, it's always good to take a step back and be thankful for how fortunate we truly are.
All the best,
Brad Carroll
Dakno Real Estate Marketing
As some of you may know, VAR is hosting a Blog Brawl over at VarBuzz. It seems that some people are pulling out all the stops to try to win this thing. Given the first rule of the Blog Brawl is that there are no rules, Brian W Chase (admittedly with the help of Dakno Real Estate Marketing) has resorted to "name dropping" and sharing link love to try to win more votes.
Since I doubt that Jeff Turner will be opening up a barber shop any time soon or Jay Thompson is going into the t-shirt manufacturing business, I don’t think you’re going to get anything from your vote other than a warm fuzzy feeling that you helped a fellow blogger. However, if Brian Chase makes it to the final round, I do plan on resorting to "real" bribery to help guarantee him a win. In the final round, a vote for Brian Chase (Charlottesville Real Estate Blog) will give you the chance to win a free SwiftBlog from Dakno Marketing! Stay tuned for details.
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Unlike some bloggers I know, it takes me quite a bit of time to write a blog post. I tend to slave over my blog post with research, creation of graphics, and gathering links. I was often frustrated when I saw other bloggers be able to churn out multiple blog posts a week with little effort. But the more I thought about this, I began to wonder if it's actually a good thing. Pat Kitano then confirmed this at Inman Connect when he talked about focusing on the quality instead of the quantity of blog post.
I tend to agree. The internet is all about information overload. We even see this on ActiveRain. With now more than 100,000 subscribers, it's getting more and more difficult to have blog posts stand out from the crowd. Instead of more content, I think it's time we shift to refining the quality of the content and then focus on getting that content to as many eyeballs as possible through automated content distribution.
Extending Your Blog Reach
If I am going to take the time to write a blog post, it's important that I get the most "mileage" of out my blog post. After all, it's all about return on investment. Right? That's where I think automated content distribution can help rocket the return you receive in your blogging investment.
Take the Ron Popeil Approach
I love automation. In fact, everyone in the office laughs at me because one of my most quoted lines is "Set it, and forget it!" If something in the office has to be done more than once, I am typically asking my programmer how we can write a script to automate that process. I think it's important to take this same approach with blogging. Now I realize that it's not possible to automate actually writing a blog post. (Don't we all wish!) However, it is quite easy to automate the distribution of your blog to reach more eyeballs.
What Happens When I Click Publish
Content distribution may be different for different people. But here is a quick example of what happens (automatically) when I hit the publish button on my blog...
Blog Post title automatically appears on the Dakno Home page (that links to the blog post)
Headline and link to the blog post appears on my staff page on the Dakno website (Thanks to the AgentBackdoor software)
Twitter post automatically goes out notifying my Twitter followers that I just posted a link (Yup, this can automatically happen without you having to even login to Twitter!)
By distributing your content to different sources, you are able to reach otherwise untapped market segments. For example, I may have one group of contacts that frequent Facebook. While another audience may be less tech-savvy and prefer to receive my updates via email. At the other end of the spectrum are those who would much rather receive a "tweet" than yet another email in their inbox. However, once automated content distribution is in place, I am now able to reach all of these different market segments and only have to originate the content from one source – my blog!
I believe that blogging can be even more effective as we begin to focus on quality content and then use automated distribution channels to extend the reach of that quality content to as many readers as possible.
To Your Success,
Brad Carroll
P.S. Ready to learn more about how to make your blogging efforts even more effective? Check out our 8 Week Blogging Webinar – BloggingBootcamp. ActiveRain members receive an exclusive $50 discount. Hurry, our first session starts Thursday August 14th. Sign Up Now.
I have to be honest, I haven’t really been following ActiveRain’s Outside blog service. Mainly because we have been so busy refining our own real estate blogging product called the SwiftBlog (based on WordPress). But a few of my real estate clients kept asking me to look into AR's outside blog so I took a few minutes to dig in a little more. Below is my initial assessment.
A Quick Message to the AR gods (a.k.a. Disclaimer)
The information below is from my quick assessment of AR’s Outside Blog. If I have anything wrong or didn’t interpret something correctly, feel free to chime in and set the record straight. The intention of this blog post is to help educate, not to slam your service.
The Duplicate Content Issue
From the moment that AR’s Outside blog was released, everyone had questions about the issue of duplicate content. Now, we already know that simply having a few syndicated articles on your blog isn’t going to condemn you to "Google hell" but unoriginal content isn’t going to do anything to help your Search Engine Optimization.
I thought Bob Stewart did a good job of clearing this issue up in his post about Outside Blogs and duplicate content. The only problem is I don't see that ActiveRain is actually doing what he said they were. Let’s break this down a little more.
Bob states…
If you syndicate your post to your outside blog and you do not geo-target it, your outside blog will show up as the originating source. (since the post is not geo-targeted, it will not appear on Localism). Your syndication partner (your ActiveRain blog) will have a link back to your original content (outside blog)
Great! The only problem is that I haven’t been able to find this "link" to the outside blog.
According to the quote above, there should be a link at the bottom of her post on AR pointing to her AR Outside Blog. However, when I visit her post on ActiveRain I do not see any link that references her AR Outside Blog. In fact, when I search for that post title in Google, I see ActiveRain as the top result not her AR Outside Blog. To make matters worse, the direct link to the article on Missy’s Outside Blog doesn’t even appear in Google!
Like I said at the beginning of this post, I have not extensively dug through all of AR’s post about Outside blogs. And perhaps I am just totally off base. But to me, it doesn’t look like AR’s Outside Blog has any authority. Combine that with the fact that you don’t have the option of posting only to your "AR Outside blog" and I have to ask - What’s the point of even having AR’s Outside Blog?
To Your Success,
Brad Carroll
**Update** I thought about this a little more and came up with what may be a workaround. You can actually write a post, send the post to your Outside Blog, then go in an immediately edit your post to include a link to your Outside Blog. Something as simple as "This article was originally posted on *Outside Blog Domain*" This may be enough to show Google that your Outside Blog should get the credit.
If you have read my Paperless Travels using an iPhone post, you know that I recently visited Miami. I typically don’t do much “on site” work, but EWM was in a pinch and Beth Butler asked me to come down and do some consulting. I have to say that it was great to finally get a chance to meet Beth in person.
Speaking of Miami’s top luxury condo Realtor, since I was in Kevin’s backyard, we linked up before heading to the airport. Kevin gave me a quick tour of the South Beach Real Estate scene and was then nice enough to give me a lift to the Miami Airport.
The Virtual Meeting
Obviously the internet has made it very easy to conduct business with very little need to interact face to face. Tools like GoToMeeting, Instant Messaging, and Streaming Video has made the world much smaller. But, even I, a 100% tech geek, think there still is value in connecting with people face to face. I think that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy attending conferences like Inman Connect. It gives everyone a chance to put a face (not just a 10 year old photo) with a name. So, if you’re going to Inman, I hope I get the opportunity to meet you and say hi.
I admit it. I am an iPhone junkie. The iPhone makes mobile surfing a breeze and the interface is so intuitive, even a 3 year old can use it. Seriously, I saw my son hit the home button, slide his finger across the screen to unlock, hit the photos button, then start thumbing through the photos. Of course, he is my son so I already knew he was a natural geek!
So, when EWM called me to come visit them in Miami and do some consulting, I knew my iPhone would make the trip with me. Before going to the airport, I jumped on the airline website, printed my ticket, and mumbled to myself about how antiquated a printed ticket seems to be these days! You see, anyone who knows me, knows that I absolutely hate paper! So, just for kicks, I made a PDF of my ticket and emailed it to my iPhone.
Bar Codes and iPhones
When I arrived at the airport, I walked to the kiosk and proceeded to check my bags. Instead of pulling out the printed ticket, I simply waved my iPhone under the barcode reader and up popped my itinerary! “Holy Cow,” I thought to myself. “This actually worked!” Now for full disclosure, this wasn’t an original idea. I once read a blog post about people who scanned their grocery store discount cards and stored them as photos in their iPhone. So when checking out, they simply pull up the photo of the discount card instead of the actual card. But, even then, I was still amazed that the barcode reader actually accepted my iPhone!
With my bag checked, I proceeded to the gate. Continuing with my attempt to have a “paperless” flight, I showed the TSA guy my iPhone displaying my boarding pass and my license. Let’s just say that he wasn’t amused. He told me that unless I wanted him to initial my phone, I had to show him a paper ticket (still not sure what the whole point of them initialing your boarding pass is all about). Reluctantly, I showed my backup printed ticket and proceeded to the gate.
The Virtual Boarding Pass
So far, I was batting .500 with my quest for paperless travel. When my “boarding group” was called to board, I once again pulled out my iPhone and made my way to the gate. I was greeted with a “Boarding pass please!” and handed over my iPhone. The gate attendant looked at me with a confused look on her face. I replied to her with a “Just try it.” Reluctantly she did. She swiped the iPhone a few times convinced that it would never work. About that time, I heard a friendly “blurp” echo from the machine. She handed me back my phone and said, “Have a nice flight!” So, with the exception of the uber-friendly TSA agent, I was able to make it to Miami without a single piece of paper!
I now sit typing this post on my return flight home. Just like on my trip down, my return flight yielded the same results. Again, only the TSA agent wanted to see actual paper.
I can’t wait to see how this will continue to expand – especially now that iPhone 2.0 is close at hand. For example, can you imagine an application that uses GPS to track your travel plans?
When you arrive at the airport, the iPhone automatically fetches your itinerary. As you walk up to the hotel, the iPhone pulls up your confirmation number.
But What About Real Estate?
These same principles can be applied to the real estate industry. Drive up to a house for sale, and the iphone pulls up stats on the home, comps of sold properties in the neighborhood and a scratch pad for you to jot down notes about the property. The possibilities are endless and the paper is non-existent!
Like so many of you. I was Meme'ed. So here goes...
Who is your favorite musical artist?
I am a pretty avid music fan. I studied music in college (I know, what the heck was I thinking?) But, in all fairness, it was actually Music Recording Technology. As far as favorite musical artist, I would have to say John Mayer. He’s a great guitar player (although he makes the weirdest faces when he plays).
Who is your favorite artist?
Australian Photographer Peter Lik. I first saw his work when my wife and I were honeymooning in Maui. He shoots on Fuji Velvia film which gives amazing color saturation! His photos are absolutely amazing.
If you could meet anyone (alive or dead), who would it be and what is the most interesting thing about them?
I actually have a few… Steve Jobs – He took a nearly bankrupt company and made it successful (and hip). Bill Gates - Gates told his professor he would be a millionaire by age 30. He became a billionaire at age 31. Henry Ford – We all know he was responsible for the moving assembly line - but that actually caused him problems. Every month, half of his workforce would turn over due to the boring work. In one day, he doubled everyone’s daily wage from $2.50 to $5.00. Suddenly, employee turnover disappeared. This was one of the critical factors that allowed him to double his company profits from 30 million to 60 million in just two years.
Who has been the person in your life that has had the greatest impact on you?
If my Mom or Dad is reading this, please read this answer. Without a doubt it would have to be my Parents. They always encouraged me and backed every one of my harebrain ideas. If my Wife is reading this, please read this answer.
Without a doubt it would have to be my wife. Stephanie is a pretty amazing woman. She is a stay-at-home mom to our two great kids. But, besides being a great mom, she is also a pretty incredible business woman. Much of our company’s success has been a direct result of her ideas and initiatives.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I think I always had the entrepreneur bug in me. In middle school, I setup a multilevel marketing system for selling candy. Yes. I was a candy pimp! I was always a fan of music and technology so Music Recording was an obvious fit. I had my 15 minutes of fame when I went to New York and had a 2 week working interview at Sony Studios with Britney Spears / Backstreet Boys producer Eric Foster White. Those two weeks made me realize that I didn’t want that life. I was offered the job but ended up turning it down.
If you could do anything what would you do?
I know it sounds hokey, but I am pretty much living my dream. I have an amazing family and own a successful business where I can use technology to help educate people and watch them succeed.
What is the most interesting piece of trivia you know?
You can use a phone’s dial tone to tune your guitar. The dial tone is 440Hz (The “A” note above middle “C”.) Just tune that to the “A” string on your guitar.
Bonus trivia…
The standard tuning on a guitar is E A D G B E. My mom (who taught me to play) taught me a sentence to help me remember – Elephant And Dogs Got Big Ears. Apparently she was a better guitar teacher than a grammar teacher!
What's your favorite game?
It would have to be college basketball. I’m 6’4 and live in ACC country so I have no choice but to love it!
If you could live in any point in history what would it be and why?
History? You mean that time before the internet? Now why in the world would anyone want to live in history?
When you look into the mirror, who do you see?
A taller version of my dad.
What is the most interesting job you have ever held?
I started a music lessons business where I taught piano and guitar lessons. I know. Not very interesting.
What is the worst job you've ever had?
I was actually an electrician one summer. Uhh, not fun!
What is your biggest missed opportunity?
Before blogging was “cool” a client came to me and told me he wanted us to create a blog for him. He kept telling me that “blogging is going to be huge.” Instead of listening, I told him that it was just a fad! What was I thinking?
I guess now I am supposed to tag more people. However, since I have been tagged so many times. I think this "meme" has plenty of traction without me adding more people to the list.
Typically, I try to avoid heated discussions about Search Engine Optimization - especially if it involves my competition. Most of the time, chiming in just adds fuel to the fire. But a number of people have asked for my take about the recent advice given by Mary McKnight concerning the number of comments in a blog post having a negative effect on SEO. So with that in mind, I decided to write a quick post to give my take on things. If you are not privy to the discussion here is a quick recap…
Mary basically said (paraphrasing) that lots of comments can alter the keyword density of your post and therefore can negative effect in your ability rank high in the search engines for that post. You can view the video below…
Matt Cutts', head of Google Webspam team writes on his blog "I'd recommend thinking more about words and variants (the "long-tail") and thinking less about keyword density or repeating phrases."
Amongst SEO experts it is pretty much agreed that you should NOT be concerned about the keyword density on your blog post. Google's algorithms are very advanced. This MIGHT have been a concern 3-5 years ago, but not now.
I would have to second Jonathan Washburn on this one. Now Marry does make an interesting case about this. In fact, I brought up a similar point a while ago in a post about too many comments adding too many outgoing links. But at the end of the day said...
I have to believe with the amount of technology they have, they are smart enough to know that these are simply links from comments.
So let's dig into this in a little more detail about why I think Mary's concept is a non-issue…
Keyword Density is an Outdated Concept
Today, it's more about the site or page theme. Let me give you a great example. My company originally a video and marketing company that simply fell into the real estate web design niche. So while I was busy designing websites for Realtors, I didn't have time to redesign or change the copy on my company website. Because of this, my site was not centered around Web Design for Realtors. In fact, it did not even mention the phrase "real estate web design" once in the entire website! Yet I still ranked on page one for that keyword! Why? Because I had so many backlinks and real estate related websites linking to me. Now I am not suggesting that you shouldn't include your target search phrase, I am merely using this example to prove my point.
What is the Theme of Your Website?
Think Site Theme and Page Theme instead of keywords. Jon hit the nail on the head. Matt Cutts specifically talks about this (the infamous Linux Printer Post). The old way of SEO was to repeat a phrase many times. The new way (not really that new) is to think about latent semantics (synonyms and themes).
Comments Reinforce the Theme
If I write a blog post about blue widgets, then it seems logical that people will comment about blue widgets. So more comments will only reinforce the theme, not dilute it. Plus, if a blog is written correctly, it will spark the conversation. People will leave relevant comments. You, as the blogger, can then make additional comments to keep the conversation going on the right track. Sure, there will always be people who leave the generic "great post" just to get their points on ActiveRain. But don't you think a $133 Billion dollar company such as Google has refined their algorithm to know the difference between the post and the comments? I am not a programmer and I can think of a dozen different ways to easily determine that by simply looking at the code.
High Value Posts Equals Many Comments
Many comments typically translate to high value. Now I know that this is not a hard and fast rule, but think about it for a second. If I write a dog of a post, I am probably not going to get many comments. But if I write something of high value, then it will probably spur many people to leave a comment. Plus, many people commenting, means that many people have visited your blog. The more eyeballs that are looking at the post translates into a greater chance of other bloggers and websites linking to that post.
Just Test The Theory
While it would be difficult to do a true scientific test, you can do a general test of this theory by looking at posts with lots of comments and see if they show up in search engines. I did a few different tests and found that many of the top blogs that show up in search engines do have lots of people commenting. Now keep in mind, it's difficult to accurately test this theory since posts with many comments also typically received many backlinks (which only reinforces my theory of more comments translate into high value)
So with that said, feel free to comment all you want on this, and any other post I write. The more the better! If you want, you can even link to it! I won't mind. ;-)
To Your SEO Success,
Brad Carroll - Dakno Marketing
One of our clients ran into a sticky situation the other day. They recently left a large franchise brokerage company and ventured out to start their own real estate company. Everything was going well until they received a letter from their former companies' lawyer stating that the real estate agent was still using the old company brand. He then referenced a few places online that still showed the old information. A quick search on Google confirmed that the search engine was ridden with references to the real estate agent and the old franchise.
Updating this information can be more difficult than you may think. After all, many of these references were from Social Networks, Directories, Internet Yellow Pages and more. To make matters worse, most of these sites were out of the real estate agents control so it isn't as simple as logging in and a company name and address.
But I Already Updated the Information
They also noticed that Google was still referencing information that had already been changed for quite some time. This is when they knew that erasing all of internet references to the former company in a matter of days wasn't just difficult, it was pretty much impossible. That's because it would take time for Google to show the new information. Ready to throw their hands up, they emailed me asking for help. They not only needed to give their lawyer a technical explanation of why they couldn't just snap their fingers and make the information disappear, but they also needed direction to clean up as many references as possible.
Why Not Turn It Into A Blog Post
I proceeded to write out some tips when I realized that there were probably many other agents that have encountered a similar situation. With this in mind, I quickly turned my email into a blog post. Let me give you a quick warning. It's not a quick and light read. But if Google is still showing references to your former real estate company, it can be invaluable information.
Here is a quick rundown of what the post covers…
Effectively searching the web for those old references
How to check every Word Doc, PDF file, presentation and web page on your website.
How scrapper sites grab your information
Online Yellow Pages
Keeping tabs on your link love
Google Cache
Outdated info in the Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org)
As I look through ActiveRain, I am amazed at all the great looking blogs that have been created in such a short amount of time. The ActiveRainCustomizer.com website has only been live a few days and already, almost 500 people have successfully customized their ActiveRain blog. And while the overall feedback has been great, there are a few people that have had difficulty customizing their blog.
Technical Support Options
Because this was simply a side project that I put together at no cost to the ActiveRain community, I am somewhat limited in the amount of time I can dedicate to free tech support. With this in mind, I have put together a Frequently Asked Questions post to help resolve some of the issues. If you are having problems customizing your blog, please visit the ActiveRainCustomizer.com FAQs Post on my other blog. I also address the various types of support that are available for your blog customization.
Also, if you have not already done so, I would encourage you to also subscribe to my Dakno Marketing Blog as we will also be using this blog to keep people updated on changes, bugs, etc.
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.
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