I recently asked Brad Carroll to write a guest post about “The Making Of My Blog”. When I received the finished piece, I knew why he has grown so quickly in Active Rain. He has a straight forward, give you all the facts approach that truly seeks to educate his readers. This has been our journey in Project Blogger, though bumpy at times, and a little worse for wear, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I hope it helps!
I first met Brad about a year ago during a Web Marketing Conference in Dallas. As soon as I heard him speak, I leaned over to my assistant and said, “We have to hire this guy.” Ever since that day, Brad has been my go to guy for all my web and print marketing. When it came time to create a Blog it was a no brainer. I called Brad and told him I needed a blog.
In just a little over a month, Brad has shaken up Active Rain. From his first week on AR, he has been the most subscribed blogger week after week. What’s even more amazing is that he is currently the 10th most subscribed blogger on Active Rain. Not for the week or month but TOTAL! Even the Technology Guru, Jeff Turner (who I have a ton of respect for) has Brad in his Top Ten Blog List. This kid knows his stuff.
Kevin Tomlinson
Brad's Post:
It looks like everyone is giving out homework. After ARDELL gave all the apprentices of Project Blogger a few homework assignments, Kevin Tomlinson turned around and gave me a homework assignment. "Write a guest post in my Active Rain blog about Setting up an effective Blog." What I loved was the second thing he told me. – "Brad, make sure you educate them. Don’t hold anything back. Show them the ups and the downs." I loved his attitude and the fact that he really wanted to help others in Active Rain succeed. Is this the same Kevin who wrote about being in it to win just a few short weeks ago? I always knew Kevin had a good heart. After all, he has been a great supporter in helping me get the word out about my company. (Yes ARDELL, I did just give myself a little link love. I tried to do it subtly instead of stuffing in keywords like real estate web design *wink*)
Disclaimer: This post may step on some toes (thus keeping with the true spirit of this blog!) They are just my opinions so take them as you will.
Setting Up Kevin’s Blog
When Kevin approached me about setting up a blog, I started to immediately think about the platform for the blog. To me it was an obvious choice. Install WordPress on his domain. After all, this is one of the top choices for blogging pros. I am a huge fan of WordPress for a number of reasons.
Open Source and Tested: The software has been around for 4 years and because it is open source, hundreds of developers have worked on refining it.
It’s Truly Automatic:I have never seen an easier install. Don’t let a Web Developer trick you into thinking they have to do a lot of work. I literally can do a basic WordPress install in 3 minutes (and that’s including the time it takes to email you the username and password). In addition, the Install can also automatically add your blog to the big search engines including Technorati and Google!
Plug-ins: There are thousands of free plugins that you can use to enhance the WordPress site. Again, installation of these plug-ins is a breeze. You simply upload them to a folder and activate them.
Easy to Customize: WordPress also has tons of themes that allow you to customize the look of your site. You can download one of these themes or have one created for you.
It’s Free: WordPress is absolutely free. There is no cost to purchase the software nor are there any monthly charges.
You Control Your Blog: The contents of the blog sits on your website not on a third party domain. You have full control of your blog and content.
Customizing His Blog
After I had the basic WordPress structure in place, it was then time to customize it. I added a few plugins to the South Beach Real Estate Blog to make the site a little more search engine friendly and encourage the user to interact more. The plug-ins added the ability to edit the Title Tag and include Tags for each post, “send to a friend” functionality, a plug-in that displays recent comments in the sidebar and a plug-in that allows YouTube Videos to be easily added into the post. I also tweaked the look and feel to turn it into the "pretty blog." As time goes by, we will customize the blog even more. Most of these additions will center around next month’s launch of his new website.
Knowing the Rules before You Play the Game
It’s been a big learning curve for both Kevin and I. The other night, Kevin emailed me and told me he was reading this great book about Real Estate Blogging. He then told me that it included over 50 places that you could submit to for free! “Uh oh” I thought to myself. I knew where this was going. You see, for the past 2 months I have been writing an eBook about using other sites to increase traffic and SEO. I have tested hundreds of sites and know that all too many of them are just link farms in disguise! I have only been able to find about 10 blog directories that really give value. But it was too late. He said he already submitted to www.blogcatalog.com (sorry, no link love for you). I quickly told him to not submit the blog to any more directories. My suspicion was confirmed when he forwarded me an email from blogcatalog.com stating they did not include his blog in their directory because they required a link exchange to be listed! We all know that Google is really cracking down on Link Farms and being affiliated with Bad Neighborhoods so there was no way Kevin’s blog would be linking to that site!
If I Only Knew Then What I Know Now
I don’t think Kevin even knows this but the South Beach Real Estate Bloglearning experience. Looking back, there were a few things that I can’t believe I did! I thought I would share them here so maybe others won’t have to repeat the same mistakes again.
Not Having a Solid Launch
Unfortunately we launched the blog in phases. We took the approach of let’s just get it up and worry about the details later. And although the blog was "pretty", the functionality was not nailed down. It also took a while for Kevin to start posting (see next mistake). This didn’t sit well with Google. We told Google about this great site but then provided Google with no content to back it up! In the future, I will encourage my clients to have a few posts ready for when we launch the blog.
Not Educating My Client
I am a geek, so I can figure out just about any website control panel in a matter of minutes. After all, my company has spent the last year creating a new control panel so clients can manage their content leads etc. But I failed to think that Kevin may actually need a good walk through on how to use the WordPress admin panel. It’s not that the panel is difficult to use, but I should have given him an overview instead of throwing him to the wolves to figure it out himself. I will not make that mistake again. This week, I will be adding 10 video training tutorials on how to use WordPress to my website. Why didn’t I think about this weeks ago!
SEO Friendly Links
Just one file with 2 lines of code (called an htaccess file) makes links much easier (and more descriptive) for both people and Search Engines. It wasn't untill ARDELL pointed it out that the light came on.After all, I can’t believe I did not add this file from the start. I have been using htaccess files for years! But it took me almost two weeks to get this on Kevin’s blog. You see, without SEO friendly links, a link to a specific post looks like this: http://www.southbeachrealestateblog.com/?p=11 Search Engines and People linking to a blog post have no clue what that post is about! But adding the htaccess file transforms your links to look like this: http://www.southbeachrealestateblog.com/2007/06/16/florida-tax-reform-tell-me-how-much-already/. As you can see that is much more descriptive. Search engines can now tell what the page is about and other bloggers know they are linking to the correct post. You can even edit the text that appears in the link by changing the Post Slug. Thanks ARDELL for pointing this out!
Getting Caught Up In What Other People Were Doing
One of the biggest bumps in the road was spending too much time cherry picking from other people’s blogs. "Rain City Guide does it this way, No wait look at what they are doing over here." We moved, added and edited so many things that we lost sight of the overall usability of the blog. It took us too long to stop chasing other people and start looking at our own blog. Unfortunately, the reality check didn’t come until Marc hit us with the Paris Hilton reference on the Week 10 Results post! Ouch! But looking back, I think it was exactly what we needed. Because it did nothing but motivate us to prove him wrong!
To Wrap It Up
Even thought there were a few bumps along the way, I think we did a lot of things right. Kevin’s blog site has gotten great exposure. Half of his traffic comes from referring sites. About 40% comes from Search Engines. Yahoo’s Site Explorer shows 2,300 links to his blog. The Miami Herald quoted his blog and it’s only been live for a couple of months. Not too bad for a couple of newbies – well, 2 newbies and one seasoned pro!
So Kevin, I commend you for taking a chance on me (even if you didn’t know you were doing so). I know you got dinged a few times in the completion as a result of my learning curve. But, like you, I am fiercely competitive. All someone has to do is say I can’t do it. I will then fight like hell to prove them wrong. Maybe it’s being tenacious, or maybe I’m just hard headed. One thing is for sure. As a result of this experience, I am now confident that my client’s blogs will have some of the best setups in the industry. No matter what the outcome of this competition brings, I know that it was worth every minute of it. Thanks for letting me be a part of the team!
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