A year ago, about a dozen of us Project Blogger Apprentices were typing our fingers off in a fast paced, intense, super-scrutinized contest. We were all working hard and were more than a little stressed.

I thought it might be interesting to do a retrospective on the experience and to see how things are going for all the apprentices now, a year later. I'm hoping they will chime in!

For me, it was an incredible learning experience but I'm far from done learning. This week I bought "Blogging for Dummies", and while I don't need every word in every chapter, there's a whole lot of value for me in that book despite my crash course in blogging last year.

One of the most important things I did learn in Project Blogger was that it's all about relationships. As bloggers we form relationships with our readers, and also relationships with other bloggers (who are possibly going to be our friends as well as our competitors, just like in the "real" real estate world).

A year later, I'd say the most important stuff I learned about blogging successfully is this:

• Keep it visually appealling (photos, some italics, bold, not huge paragraphs)
• Make it interesting and relevant to your target audience
• Invite feedback
• Variety is the spice of blogs! Vary things! (style, content, length of posts etc.)
• Read other folks' blogs and share with them, leave comments, etc. Get connected.
• Write using "keyword rich" phrases so Google and other search engines can find you
• Follow your passion - if you are bored, you won't be able to sustain the blog

In addition to what I learned about blogs, I look back with gratitude on the very cool people I got to know (or got to know better) because of Project Blogger. That would include Joeann Fossland and Frances Flynn Thorsen (my blog coach) as well as most of the apprentices and blog coaches from Project Blogger, and also several helpful and encouraging souls on the sidelines who were sort of indirect mentors for many of us. (I'd be afraid to list them all for fear of missing someone.)  Two Project Blogger apprentices and one coach even assisted me with posts on my hobby blogsite, http://www.hauntedrealestate.com/ by sharing their stories of showing or trying to sell spooky houses. How cool is that?

How About Business? Is It Paying Off?

Of course, the point in all this was to make blogging a viable part of our marketing, right? Is it working?  I know it is for several of the apprentices because we email back and forth about it! 

As for me, yes, it's paying off. I have found that it's a bit like other marketing methods - it takes time, and it's best if part of a concerted whole approach to marketing. I do have closed business from my blogs and the pace has been picking up exponentially lately. Right now I'm working with some fabulous buyers who found me specifically from my Live in Los Gatos blog, for instance.

With the market changing, I have lots of clients who are committed to me, and who found me from my LiveInLosGatos blog,  but who are waiting. Some are waiting to save more money since now they cannot buy the next home with 10% down but need 15%. Others see the market in Los Gatos appreciating slowly and need it to go up a little more before they can do the move they want. But I regularly get about 100 visitors a day to my site and am picking up at least a lead a week from my blogging efforts at this point. No complaints!

What About Niches?

I am having fun with my niche markets overall. (Too bad that writing about ghosts doesn't pay - but my Haunted Real Estate blog IS fun.) Over the last year I experimented with a variety of niche blogs: relocation, first time homebuyer, move up buyer/seller in Silicon Valley.

Know what I found?  I found that even if you want to do it, it's very hard to manage 6 or 7 blogs at once. It might be a nice idea, but it's not practical without a staff. I will be paring down in the coming months.


What's Still to Go?

So there are still lots of things where I'm learning, growing, and changing my business in response to what I have learned from Project Blogger. Here are some changes that are underway or that I anticipate:

1. I'll be getting rid of one of my "main" websites and migrating that URL to a blogsite
2. I have been getting rid of boilerplate content on my websites and rewriting (to give custom content) and adding extra content - this is working in terms of Google so I will likely do more of it
3. Recently my friend and real estate colleague, Steve Leung, invited me to participate on his blog, the absolutely excellent 1SiliconValley.com. I supplied all of one post there so far but am looking forward to doing more.
4. I want to learn how to podcast. (It can't be as hard as Wordpress.)

Anything else?

Yes. I have not yet managed all the technical stuff for SEO (I can write good keywords, but I do not know, nor do I really want to master, how to do the coding, the high tech aspects etc.). I hired someone to do that in January 2007. If I had to learn that part of blogging, I'd never have gotten anything else accomplished.

I hate Wordpress. I *know* it's "open source", I know the smart, skilled people love it. I know it's got great potential but it's like driving a stick shift on a rainy day in San Francisco when all you really want is a basic car to get you to your destination without sliding into a death drop into the San Francisco Bay.

In other words, I'm one of those people who really don't want to build a blog from the ground up, one brick at a time. I want to write and personalize without having to learn a ton of code.

The neat thing is, if you make friends in the blogosphere, you will have infinite resources for everything you want to do with your blog. Bloggers can be very generous in sharing what works for them.

Learning this may be one of the most enduring benefits of Project Blogger.

Thank you again, Active Rain and Inman News!