Activerain went through a dreadful experience over the last couple of months. Everyone knows about the proxy errors, bad gateways, inability to post comments, and more time spent worrying about losing content and clients than worrying about your own business. Don't be held hostage again. It's time to learn and grow from this experience.
Learn and Grow
I first learned how to blog and how to tie SEO into my daily life from Activerain. I bet there are over 180,000 people that have done the same thing. It was amazing the stuff I learned from Activerain, but I wanted more.
I learned very quickly from the top bloggers here on A|R, if I wanted to truly be effective, I needed to branch out. Activerain held my hand for the first 5 months, but once I learned I needed to do more, I broke free of the points, the awesome number of comments, and took my butt over to the other side.
Activerain is awesome but you can do more, and should if you expect to be a top player in the online real estate world. If I can do it, so can you. What do I mean by not being held hostage? I mean once you learn how to do something, do it, and do it anywhere you can. Activerain is full of posts that will teach you how to setup a self hosted Wordpress blog. Google is filled with information if you look for it. Learn how to setup a blog on your own, it took me a couple hours, it's really not that hard.
But Activerain has so much Google juice!
Then use it. Setup your own blog, and start posting content. Then come over to Acitverain, write a summary of that content, and throw a link to your own blog. Take Activerain's juice and squeeze it into your own blog. Go through your old posts and edit them, add a link to your new blog, and viola Google juice in your new blog. Fix your profile with a couple links to your new blog and look at that, more juice.
Next go to your current website, and throw a couple links over to your new blog. Bam more Google juice. Next, write a couple articles, submit them to some article directories, and throw a couple of links to your new blog. Then, check out this list of do follow real estate blogs, and add some comments with a link back to your website. More Google juice.
I'm Not Leaving Activerain!!!!!
Why would you??? You don't have to give up Activerain, in fact, you should use it more to drive traffic and links to your new blog. By setting up your own blog, you will have more chances to be found by consumers, another platform to generate links for your website/s, and you won't have to worry about what someone else is going to do to your content.
You just never know what will happen on a third party site. Don't get me wrong, third party sites are useful, but you can't rely on them for your business. Rely on yourself.
I barely have time as it is...
Hogwash. How important is your business to you? I bet it's second to only your family. Your family depends on your business, so really, it's just as important to you as your family. Putting all of your effort into one basket is going to bite you in more ways then one. If you truly want to be a successful online marketer, you have to be better then everyone else in your niche. In order to be better, you have to do more. Find the time, hire an assistant, or just learn how to time block better.
Field Trip!!!!
I want you to see what some of the best are doing and emulate them. Check out these links and tell me what you see:
Lenn Harley - 1-10 of 663,000 results.
#1 in Google for Maryland Virginia Real Estate out of 44 million!
Bill Gassett - 1-10 of 27,700 results.
#1 in Google for Metrowest MA Real Estate out of 425,000!
Jason Crouch - 1-10 of 627,000 results.
#3 for Austin TX Homes And #4 for Austin TX Real Estate out of 88 million results!
How do you emulate them?
First off, you need to realize these guys and gals have been doing this for many many years. But they had to start somewhere. Now that you started with Activerain, it's time for you to put the knowledge you have learned to good use. Start building your own Google juice using the power Activerain has, but don't stop there. After you build your new blog, I want you to use these tools to build your own juice, and soon you will start climbing the search engine ladder on your own.
Tools to market your new blog:
Go to that link above with the do-follow blog list. Start commenting on those blogs and develop a relationship with the bloggers. Start asking them if you can add a guest post to their blogs with a link back to yours. Ask your friends here on Activerain if you can guest post on their blogs.
Submit at least one article a month to those article directories. If you don't know how to submit articles, follow the link above, and it tells you how. It's just as easy as submitting a blog post.
Update your Facebook with your new posts from your blog. Tell your friends to share it, and watch your traffic grow.
Write a unique summary here on Activerain with links to the posts to your new blog. Update older posts with links for more information from Activerain. Add a link to your new blog in your "links section" on the right side of your blog. Add a couple of links to your profile page to your new blog.
Submit your best posts to social bookmarking sites like Stumble Upon, Delicious, Digg, and Tweet your new posts to your twitter followers.
All of this is dependent on you. It's really not that hard to start ranking for long tail keywords on your own. With the power you push to your new blog through Activerain, article submissions, blog comments, and social bookmarking. You will find you are ranking your posts on your own in no time.
Don't be held hostage again, learn and grow from this experience, and move on to the next level of internet marketing. I know I have, and it's worked like a charm.
Lisa Udy - 1-10 of 441,000 results. #3 for Logan Utah real estate out of 176,000 and moving!
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