Christine - this is great!  What are some examples of success or sales you have had from your blog?  Any sales yet?

I've been able to track 3 listings directly from people reading the blog and subsequently contacting us.  In our market, average DOM is 90-120 depending upon price range - so haven't sold any of the 3 listings yet.  Now, this is small potatoes compared to our other marketing methods, but it is definitely a solid beginning.

Additionally, it is 'substantiating' our presence.  In other words, it's becoming yet another reason people should utilize our services - even though we've actually connected with the consumer via another method. 

Three listings is a great start--Congratulations on your forward thinking and action.

Norma - thank you. I have to say, most will say I was slow in moving forward. I realized that AR wasn't best suited as a blog platform for our real estate business (it is better suited for industry related content) when I wasn't able to customize my blog enough to make it a blog-site to replace our main website.  I could have been faster had I been willing to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for someone to build us a site - but I didn't like that idea either.

Thanks for the tip Christina!  When I first started RE in March, I was all over the web trying to create as many links back & forth to my website as possible in a shotgun-type approach.  Now I'm trying to be more precise in my efforts.  Your post is another point to ponder in trying to focus my strategy.

One thing you should do - when you do get your blog going and are actively posting to it - PROMOTE it to your clients & customers.  I set up feedblitz to do automatic emails once a week to our email subscribers and I transitioned our email subscribers from our typical emails to our blog emails.  This has made a huge impact on the success of the blog-site.  It also has helped reduce work load - I no longer have to manage a weekly email to our database, the blog does it automatically for me.

You are on the same path I'm on right now!  After consideration of the options, I figured out how to get myself on page one (with a great deal of reading) and see that it's not about spending your money with someone else on that part.  I'd like some design work done at some point but I'm less willing to spend money on it right now. In the future....

Did you have an existing domain name that was mature or did you achieve the page rank with a brand new domain name?

Nice job!

Christina--I started outside of AR on Blogger and have had a similar experience with my outside blog. I blog on AR for the feedback from other agents but do mostly localism posts as they are the ones that really bring clients...members only posts do bring referrals though. I knew that you hadn't gone away...that you were out posting somewhere in cyberspace. Do you have email subscriptions through feedburner or other??? It is easy to set up if you don't. That way I can keep tabs on you...LOL! Happy New Year!

Josette - the page rank is actually from the generic WP provided url.  I'm currently 301 directing the domain name I want to use.  My plan is to transfer the WP blog onto our own servers and use our domain in the next few months (I'm aging the domain right now).  I also intend on redirecting our main domain to this blog-site (that domain is over 10 years old and has a PR of 3).

Teri - I need to start working on some localism posts for the reason you gave.  Yes I have a subscription via feedblitz - go to blog and click on 'click to subscribe' or you can feed reader it as well.  Happy New Year and THANKS for your connection via snail mail!!!

Christina, Your site proves that it's all about the content. The bells and whistle are nice and purdy but it's the content that makes a site work. You done good!!!

Make it a great 2008!!

Christina, MY HAT IS OFF TO YOU.  We used one of the companies that you investigated, and they were great.  With that said, for anyone that is really computer literate and capable, it's fantastic to know that it can be done at a great price, with great results.  I am so impressed- you are a smart person!!

Thanks BB - you've got some pretty good content yourself ;) (just kidding TLW!!!)

Laurie - I have to say, setting this up with WP was insanely easy and FREE :) 

Hi Christina - That's a nice, clean template and good-looking site. Very impressive how quickly your subscriber list has grown. You've definitely proven that well-presented information and a solid online plan is all that's needed to build a strong online presence. Wishing you continued success in 2008!

Hi John - I like the template too.  It allows me to have elements similar in feel to our website (which our clients/customers want) integrated as blog.

The subscriber list is also our database we email to weekly, I've just integrated it into the blog so I have one less step to do.  It's a major step too.

Christina - Congrats to  you - it seems we've been on similar paths and glad you shared so I can subscribe and stay in touch as we move between the two worlds. Wishing you the best in 2008. Glad to hear it was so easy for you to do it on your own - many of my friends are interested in doing the same.   

Thank you for your post which gives me lots of new thoughs also from those that commented as well. So your subject was a teaching time for me. All the best in 08.

Wow that is great succes in 18 months! I can only hope to do the same..

Cyndee - thank you!!  I've been feeder subscribed to your 'outside blog' for awhile now - you are an inspiration!!

Clark - thank you!!

Joel - I guess in all actuality it took about 3 months :) Although, the experience I've gained from AR will continue to take a lifetime. 

Christina - thank you for that - wow I really appreciate it. I now have to pick you brain on your feedblitz usage.  We have lots of people we email to, etc after 2 years of internet PPC campaigns - you have done an amazing job and have inspired me in some new areas. 

One of the best parts of AR is meeting other REALTORS like you  that are pushing the same boundaries and learning the same things at any one time.  

I find sometimes when I start talking to people too new to blogging their eyes glaze over it's just too much - it's great to interact with more experienced bloggers - not from a snobby point of view but I love learning too and sharing tips has been a helpful way to learn.

May I call or email you for tips on the feedblitz?        

Cyndee - I LOVE FEEDBLITZ - LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT.  I have it scheduled to go out once a week and like clock work, the 48-72 hours after the email goes out I see HUGE traffic increases on the blog.  I have transitioned from using Constant Contact and sending out 'pretty' email newsletters (5 different kinds depending upon the client).  I decided to integrate the blog site to encompass all areas we focus on.  I also decided that my blog articles were prefect content for the email blasts so it was a great change for us.

Yes, definite glazing going on.  I just don't have the energy anymore so I simply don't talk about it with anyone really!

You are most welcome to call or email (I'm definitely much better with email, unless it's too complicated of a conversation of course).  It's really easy and I use the most basic version.  Another feature they offer you is the ability to send out additional 'newsletter' emails to the same database.

Like you, we've accumulated our database over the years that we email to and everyone of them is subscribed to Feedblitz and, every new contact we make we add to feedblitz as well. 

Amazing job. Checked out your wordpress blog and it looks great.

Christina, that is a great looking blog!  I'm thinking of a list of questions for you...I'm using the free WP template blog as well, but yours is very clean and consumer friendly...much better than what I'm doing!

Thank you for sharing, Christina.  I will bookmark your blog and do some research on my own.  I don't like the computer language but I have to start someplace, huh?  Great post.

Brian and Rita - Thank you so much.  It's always a work in progress.

Lisa - Please feel free to call or email.  I'll answer what I can, remember, I'm not a pro, just found something that seems to be working well for us.

Latonia - Yes, definitely start anywhere! 

Some interesting comments and thoughts here...Happy Spring ;)

Christina:    Good job, I am impressed, I reviewed you blog and was wondering if all the articles are yours or if you use some of the news from your local and national print?    I went looking for your orignal post and saw that you had so many pages I gave up to find the original page.  

Now that you have had the site up and have good placement are you attracting buyers and or sellers or both?  

Did you design the site yourself?   I have been looking into the possibility of putting in a blog, I just didn't think prosepects would come to the site just to read articles, but I am totally wrong after hearing you success. 

The blog section of your site, is that part of the canned web software? 

Keep up the good work and look forward to the answers to the above questions.

Hi Christina...great blog..I am having difficulty with the technical aspects of making mine more personal. How did you laod your image when you picked your blog template

Wow...this is just what I have been looking for...my goal this year was to evaluate web/internet options and increase my visibility.....I started with AR and looks like I will be following in your path...thanks for sharing!  Mike

And one more query....going back to your post I noticed you said your own blog jumped up in the google rankings....so do I get this right....your own blog with essentially the same type of content as your AR blog is ranked higher and getting more viz for you?  Similar keywords, etc?

Any thing else you changed?  Any other keys to outperforming your AR blog?

Thanks again, Mike

I have been wanting to get into somthing else myself, thank you for your post, looks like it will help me out---Bart

Rod -

Thank you for commenting.  First and foremost, everything on my blog is my own creation.  I do not reprint anyone else's articles or words.  I do site articles from our local paper - particularly if I feel they are something that my reader needs to know about.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'original post' - let me know so I can help you find what you are looking for.

As far as the client I am attracting, it's turning out to be both.  Heavier on the buyer side, but still attracting sellers none the less.  It's more that I'm securing the client - in other words, they may have heard about me (or the team) or they may have a referral for me, but the web presence 'seals the deal' so to speak.

I make heavy use of my current database - I started by sending them the blog articles each week - which drew them to the site itself.  It's just been in the past 2 months that I've seen significant traffic via web searches and I've started tailoring some of the things I write to beef that up.  In other words, when I see I'm getting searches with certain key words, I'll write things that feature that.  For example, if I'm getting searches because people are looking for info about a specific sub-division, I'll write some articles or provide stats on that particular sub-division.

I used a pre-made Wordpress template - it was free.  All I did was customize it to the best of my ability.  It was very simple.

I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say:  "The blog section of your site, is that part of the canned web software? " 

Let me know if you have any more questions.  I'm more than happy to share my experiences. 

Anne & Eddie -

I picked a template that allowed me to upload the image.  How you do it depends entirely upon your blog provider and template. 

Mike -

My "outside AR blog" has a higher page rank than my AR blog (a 4 vs. a 3).  The outside blog was started less than 6 months ago whereas the AR blog was started nearly 2 years ago.

What's awesome is between the AR blog, our websites and my "outside AR blog", we appear multiple times in search results - and even then, it's mostly AR and our other blog results that appear.

AR is still giving us lots of google juice, that is why I'm back posting about once a week on AR.  I had to go cold turkey for awhile there because I'm competitive and it started being all about the points for me.  That's not what I wanted.

If by essentially the same content you mean local, relevant real estate content aimed at the consumer, then yes.  Same content, same keywords.

I just keep plugging away - yes I have periods of time that I end up not posting and I certainly notice it in a decrease of contacts, blog traffic, etc.  For the most part, my goal is to get something on the blog at minimum every other day. 

Let me know if anything else in my experience will help you.

My biggest reason for posting on this was 1) I knew it could be done cheaply (free!!), with no more time requirement than a paid for blog and I 2) wanted to show that anyone could do it.  I don't have lots of fancy stuff on my blog - I don't twitter, jott, jaxtr, flickr or YouTube (or any other techie things) - I just provide content for my clients.

Thanks for stopping by Bart.  AR definitely has lots of info!

Christina,

 Thanks for the great post!  I'm going to give it a try.

Great job and congratulations to you! 

Thanks for stopping by Sandy - it takes a lot of work but it is definitely worth it.  We have a great business already, so it's been wonderful to see blogging bringing in a new pipeline.

Wow! that sure beats paying Google tons of PPC $.......congrats Christina.

Way to go,Christina. It's always nice when someone forges new ground in this business. Actually, it was that kind of self determination that built this fine Country up from it's bootstraps ! Way to go !

This is a very good information. It is just a problem where to take all the time.

I guess, you are fighting with the same problem yourself.

Hi Christina. Thanks for sharing the great tip! Keep them coming.