What RealTown.com did to their blogs worked...

4,208 Visits

3,860 Absolute Unique Visitors

I believe the RealTown beta started the last Monday of September 2007.   Above is the past 30 days.  Below is the previous 30 days so the very end of it the traffic was starting to ramp up because of the changes in the RealTown   blogs URLs.  These little graphs are from my Google Analytics.

1,375 Visits

1,154 Absolute Unique Visitor

Traffic isn't everything of course but I like traffic.  If I write, I want someone to read.  Google can now find the RealTown blogs. There is traffic on my other blog...   I am getting a huge percentage of the traffic on Discover Columbus my RealTown Blog from Google searches now. 

Before the changes to the URLS I wrote: 

 

Project Blogger on ActiveRain showed everyone that there was a problem in the structure of the RealTown blogs.  Mary Pope-Handy posted good content during Project Blogger but Google couldn't find the content to deliver traffic.  One of the judgings toward the end of Project Blogger highlighted the problem. 

More about RealTown on my ActiveRain blog... 

Is having a RealTown blog and an ActiveRain blog "stoopid"?  Some would say so.  Some would say both are "stoopid."  There are lots of reasons NOT to blog on either, if you are looking for an excuse to NOT to blog.  You don't own either.... I had my RealTown blog long before there was an ActiveRain and before I started a blog on WordPress.org like the big boys....

Discover ColumbusWhat is the difference in URL that made the difference?

Mine was http://maureen.realtownblogs.com

Is now http://realtown.com/maureen/blog

I know for a lot of peope that you after them is not a good thing but I would trade the traffic for second billing any day.  I can buy the URL and make it look like the URL is Discover Columbus if I want to... 

One really nice thing about RealTown Blogs is they are FREE... Yes you can get a real pretty blog from the real estate blog vendors.  Yes they have super dooper SEO... at a price. 
 
RealTown blogs are the Internet Crusade People.  The people who gave us the e-PRO Certification, the people behind RealTalk and ePROTalk. If you tried a RealTown blog and abandoned it, dust it off and try it.  There is a difference. It has been a long time since I felt I could recommend RealTown Blogs to a new or newer blogger... Or anyone not that I still don't think ActiveRain is more fun, more informational and more connected than an RT blog can ever be....but that more connected is not necessarily connected with consumers.  If you are using ActiveRain as a chat room and ignoring Localism, a RealTown Blog may not be for you either, because it is you and the consumers, they seldom comment. 

This is not a commercial for RealTown blogs.  I just have one.  I am not them.  Sign up for a RealTown blog no points, no shoes,  no games, there's nothing in it for me... RealTown Blogs has a default template now that has to make it easier to start a blog, less decisions to make, more like ActiveRain in that way, more plug and play.   Blogging on a RealTown blog is just pure blogging separately, you don't get the comments, there's no rah rah team spirit like Active Rain.  There's not the  blogging about blogging... I do that here.   

RealTown Blogs Sign UP 

 
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26 Comments on What RealTown.com did to their blogs worked...

I just signed up for an account. Thanks for the heads up. Phaedra

11/02/2007 08:45 AM by Phaedra Hubbard - Tampa Bay Real Estate Team (My Florida Home Store)


Maureen,

thank you for this info...but what is a "beta" and why does that change anything.....boy when it comes to technology things I really fee l stupid :)

11/02/2007 08:46 AM by Kathy McGraw ~ Calif Broker (CELLing Realty)


Phaedra:  Good luck.

Kathy I was going to say a beta is a fish but found on Wikipedia: " Betta, a genus of fish, often misspelled Beta"

I think Wikipedia is a great place to look up words that you don't understand when it comes to technology. Here's what they had to say about this kind of beta:

Beta on Wikipedia 

It is part of the release process, kind of like not ready for primetime in many cases.  The BlogRush Widget which has been frustration for some of us is a beta.  You can not expect everything to go right or smooth during the beta phase.  If you look carefully at Discover Columbus I had two little temper tantrums when things did not work right.  I always think knowing it is a beta 

When Localism was introduced last fall it was a beta, I am not sure if it ever was considered to be out of beta... but it just never really progressed.   Now knowing what happened  with Move Inc. it is kind of more understandable about Localism being the way it was for so long. 

They are redesigning Localism, I don't know that they will say it is a beta when it is introduced ...  

They called the changes in the URL at RT blogs a  beta, 

 Hectors's Thoughts -  Thinking Allowed - The Beta  Hector is a Tech person at RealTown.   good guy!

 

 

11/02/2007 09:07 AM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


Monika is still ranking high with her RT blog on certain searches and she hasn't posted there in awhile.  I don't think it's stupid to post on both as you just might receive different readers as well.

 

11/02/2007 10:16 AM by Jay McGillicuddy~Real Estate Broker (Prudential Verani Realty)


Maureen- thanks for the info...and I didn't really think it was a fish :) :) I saved the link you provided....and will read it tonight.

11/02/2007 10:35 AM by Kathy McGraw ~ Calif Broker (CELLing Realty)


Maureen - thanks for the info I will take a look but how do find the time to blog in more than one place. I have a hard time just keeping up here.

11/02/2007 11:24 AM by Kathy Clulow ASP® SRES® (RE/MAX Scugog Realty Ltd Brokerage)


Hi Maureen,

The folks at Real Town (Hector Virgen and the Blog Crew - sounds like a rock band name, doesn't it?) Were working on the rollout of these improvements for months before they were implemented. Fran (Frances Flynn Thorsen, the managing editor there and my coach for Project Blogger) kept telling me it was coming and that it would make a big difference.  I'm the first to admit that I was frustrated, unhappy, and thinking about pulling my blog off that platform prior to the changes. But I felt and feel deep loyalty to those guys and wanted to give them a little time. Boy am I glad I did!

In my case, you can see all my stats by going to the site meter at the bottom of my Live in Los Gatos site over on Real Town. My number of visitors has MORE THAN DOUBLED since they put in the changes.  Depending on the week, my average number of visitors had been about 30 per day. Now it is around 70. This week the numbers are skewed higher since I had an inordinately (wonderfully) high number of hits by folks looking for things to do in Los Gatos for Halloween (I had 171 visitors on 10/31) - so this week the average is 92.  Anyway, it's way more than "noticeable improvement". It's simply fantastic.

And overall, it is just growing and growing. I'm thrilled with the Real Town blog. Unlike the one here on Active Rain, you can personalize the header on RT and do lots of cool things with formatting for your audience that is just not doable on AR.

Good job, Hector and the Blog Crew!! My hat is off to you.......!

11/02/2007 11:24 AM by Mary Pope-Handy, ABR, CRS, ePRO, SRES (Keller Williams Realty)


Thanks all for the comments.  

Mary:  I had a day this week with over 300 visitors (not unique visitors.)  I stopped blogging and shut down comments because of problems with the comment moderation for 10 days in October, so the numbers are with 10 days of inactivity. 

Most of the time I've had the RT blog it has been unnerving to see how low the numbers have been.  My blog born in January on WP.org has had a lot more traffic in comparison

There was a time last fall (pre Move Inc stuff ) when AR talked about possibley having premium blogs that could be personalized.  With AcitiveRain I personally like the uniformity because of the way it all flows together. Of course if you can get a Free blog that is personalized on RT as long as it gets traffic, why pay for the same on ActiveRain. Unless you can't get any traffic on your RT blog because search engines aren't finding it. 

As someone who has blogged on RealTown since 2005 I say thanks to Hector and RT blogs but I also say what took you so long?  When I invited someone at RT to ActiveRain last fall he said "just wait" our platrform will be better... It's been about 14 months.  Thats a long wait in blog years. It's too bad so many people have abandoned RT blogs because it took them so long to pull it together.

11/02/2007 12:07 PM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


Hmmm, maybe I should go 'dust mine off' and see what you wrote about. Mine's been neglected for over a year, I think. I had it before I came here to AR, if I remember correctly. A agree with Jay, I don't think it's stupid either for just the reason he said, it just may be entirely different readers finding you. Thanks for the heads-up! John kept telling me to give it re-look, and I kept meaning to but just never did. He said good things were happening, and were going to happen. Looks like that's finally coming to be! Ann

11/02/2007 08:03 PM by Portsmouth NH Real Estate ~ Ann Cummings (RE/MAX Coast to Coast - Portsmouth New Hampshire)


Ann it's made all the difference in the world for traffic.  Having Google on your side is a good thing.  I don't understand why they did not do something sooner.

Any communication about the blogging platform is awfully dismal though.  I think I am still getting BlogTalk, just no one talks. Of course I seldom do... I tried to post something recently,a criticism and they did not post it. Frances asked for input on a problem, I input but it must have been too critical to post.

Dust it off... you'll be surprised I think.

 

11/03/2007 01:11 AM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


Or maybe don't dust it off... I thought you had a new shiny, pretty RSS Pieces blog... and I looked and you do. Would you post to all three?

Your RT blogs archive is funny Ann, it goes back to 1969.  I will have to look at my archive and make sure it starts in 2005 when I started blogging.

 http://www.realtown.com/AnnCummings/blog/archive

It looks like you were blogging on ActiveRain before your RT blog.

  • April 2007 (0)
  • March 2007 (0)
  • February 2007 (0)
  • January 2007 (5)
  • December 2006 (8)
  • November 2006 (20)
  • October 2006 (0)
  • September 2006 (0)
  • August 2006 (0)
  • July 2006 (0)
  •  

    11/03/2007 07:49 AM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


    I dusted mine off, yesterday. Added a few new things to it, including my activerain rss feed. We'll see, I'm having my wordpress.org built. But, number don't lie and Mary and Francis are awesome, so maybe I'll post there today and see what happens. I did notice in the cross over, my photo went away and I had to reload it. Maureen, I'll try anything and if it doesn't work, drop it like a hot potato.

    11/03/2007 07:53 AM by Missy Caulk Ann Arbor Real Estate (Keller Williams Ann Arbor, Michigan)


    Real Estate Blogs - Blog Top Sites  After Bloggers Connect when the Jim Cronin and Jeff Turner were talking about traffic  and they said Blogtopsites is a good way to measure traffic. This number is my blog on AR. If you look at my RT blog, it's down in the 40's (the lower the better.) I think my WordPress.org blog is up in the 80's or 90's. 

    I have so much content on my RealTown blog I could tell from the searches on my blog (I use Google Analytics for that for both CBB and DC) people were ending up on my RT blog for Halloween searches in early October because of content from 2005 and 2006 because Google was finding it.  I just don't have that kind of content for consumers on either my AR blog or my WP.org blog.

    I am not so sure any blogging is going to work if it is treated like a hot potato, because you have to have content.  I am sure it will be more fun for people on RT blogs to blog, knowing they have traffic but it still is not going to have the comments like AR.

     

    11/03/2007 08:19 AM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


    Maureen this has been an interesting discussion. Wow, that is awesome that you had 300 visitors to your Real Town site last week. That makes sense that once Google "saw" your site, the stuff from 2005 and 2006 would get pulled up. That makes me think that as the holidays roll around, it is not a bad idea to return to those old posts and put a link to the current year's activities for the same holiday. I did a tiny sticky at the top of my blog that led to my Halloween Events post that was big (and done fairly early so not near the top) and that seemed to work well. I'll be scrounging up Thanksgiving things next, in fact.

    Thanks again,
    Mary

    11/03/2007 08:39 AM by Mary Pope-Handy, ABR, CRS, ePRO, SRES (Keller Williams Realty)


    Mary I believe most day last week were over 200.  I am going to miss Halloween badly...it's been back down to 80 some for a few days.  If you look on BlogTopsites there's a place where you can click on the stats and there is a graph for the last 30 days. It shows the day that Google Analytics says was over 300 as over 400... (this is hits, not unique visits.) I don't get hung up on the difference in stats between G.A. BlogTopsites, MyBlogLog.com etc. I don't care which is right, how they differ.  I look at GA to see what people are searching for.  I look at BTsites to see how my three blogs compare.  Worrying about how the stats work, if they are accurate is not time well spent. Posting an entry that has content that  people are searching for locally does.

    I don't believe RT has superior Google Juice to AR now, just superior Google Juice to what it had. 

    I am not sure if Thanksgiving will give the same kind of search, Isn't Thanksgiving more family and food.  Christmas should...or "The Holidays." I have some Hanukkah because I love the story of the Maccabees.. I feel a bond...  I think I have lots of Christmas stuff from 2005 on it, I am not sure about 2006.  I hate doing time sensitive blogging (events.) What I was seeing on my RealTown blog was people searching for Trick or Treat times, local Halloween events very early in October.  It is purely LOCAL traffic.  Are they looking to buy a house? Not necessarily but maybe when they are, they will think of me.  Maybe not.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

    I have been trying to think what I can do to replace the Halloween traffic... I just might have to do something I did not want to do.

    11/03/2007 09:05 AM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


    I wonder if I should put a new post up on RT blogs...but I worry about too much duplicate content and I'm not mad writing machine...have my WP.org and AR to keep up with.  

    11/03/2007 06:16 PM by Monika McGillicuddy~NH Real Estate Broker (Prudential Verani Realty)


    Of course we can't blog on all the options available to us.  I just had such a big bunch of stuff on my RT blog I hated to dismantle it. I am glad I hung in with it and can see first hand the changes they made and how it affects traffic. 

    I miss Halloween though. I got so much traffic from Halloween posts.  

    11/06/2007 10:18 AM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


    Oh my...I need to learn how to get back into my blog over there! Yikes.

    11/06/2007 08:57 PM by Monika McGillicuddy~NH Real Estate Broker (Prudential Verani Realty)


    Maureen Great discussion you've generated! The search engine games is such an interesting one and it sounds like you really have a handle on what is and what isn't working! I've worked with Hector and the RT gang and have a lot of appreciation for their help!

    11/10/2007 07:05 AM by Joeann Fossland, Master Certified Coach (Advantage Solutions Group)


    Hi,  Just joined Real Town too.  Thanks for the information. 

    11/10/2007 07:51 AM by Deb Dahlberg-Rowland (Sky Realty Inc)


    Deb - it's considered spam on Active Rain to include a link (to yourself, your sites) in your response, FYI.

    Welcome aboard!

    11/10/2007 10:38 AM by Mary Pope-Handy, ABR, CRS, ePRO, SRES (Keller Williams Realty)


    Well....I guess I made an AR error! My sincere applogies to all who were offended by my bumbling error.  I put my realtown address down to acknowledge that the URL was done the right way as indicated in the original blog.  I guess that  this mistake proves that I am just not able to keep up with all the rules, regulations, and laws that affect my life on a daily basis!  It  just seems  overwhelming at times.

    11/10/2007 12:46 PM by Deb Dahlberg-Rowland (Sky Realty Inc)


    Deb wrote: "I put my realtown address down to acknowledge that the URL was done the right way as indicated in the original blog."   The system does that.  It's nothing we do or don't do.

    There are not a lot of rules about blogging or social networking.  It's really just common sense and respecting others.  There's a link to the  community guidelines at the bottom of the screen. 

    Welcome to both ActiveRain and RT blogs... 

    11/10/2007 02:15 PM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


    Deb edited her earlier post, which had included a link to her AR profile (but she took the link out).

    Deb, please don't be offended. I thought you'd want to know since it's not at all intuitive that we're not supposed to put links to our websites or pages on comments. I did the same exact thing when I was new and had no idea it was a no-no.

    I think the reason for that rule is that some folks would go around and make comments on other folks' posts and basically their comments were full of links to themselves - so thinly veiled ads. That is NOT what you were doing (or what I had done either) but I'm pretty sure that's the reason why the rule happened.

    Deb, again, welcome aboard!  I hope you will have as much fun here as I do.

    11/10/2007 02:27 PM by Mary Pope-Handy, ABR, CRS, ePRO, SRES (Keller Williams Realty)


    Maureen thanks for the post.

     

    I just joined RT & have been on AR for some time now.

     

    It seems like I'll get more out of AR, but have to try everything out there. 

    05/01/2008 02:13 PM by Eric Egeland (Chicagoland Realtor / Broker) (Re/Max United)


     

    It is different.  I like the traffic yet lack of  comments on my RT blogs.

    05/01/2008 02:40 PM by Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate (Real Living HER)


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    Real Estate Agent: Maureen  McCabe -  Central Ohio real estate  (Real Living HER)
    Maureen McCabe - Central Ohio real estate
    Columbus, OH
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    Real Living HER

    Office Phone: (614) 388-8249
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    A blog written by an agent with Real Living HER in Columbus Ohio.


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