I still remember that day I called my brother, (July 2007) I said, Rick, do you know anything about blogging, the reason I ask is our MLS is offering it up, and I was thinking about subscribing to it?
He laughed a little, see he was a big-shot with Real Estate marketing firm, very successful one, and proceeded to remind me that he signed me up with a new company "ActiveRain" and they looked kind of promising....... He said if I was going to try blogging, I should do it with them, and the rest is history!
July 3, 2007 @7:37pm, I embarked on a new journey.
How I found the value in ActiveRain: In the early days I purchased several web domains and monitored where the hits came from. I was looking to see where my dollar was best spent. So when I ran an ad in Homes And Land, it directed you back to BestKonaHomes.com, when I ran an ad in the newspaper, it went back to BuyMeKona.com, when I wrote a Blog in ActiveRain it directed you KonaHomeTeam.com ....... you get where I am going.
Those ads, that cost me $100s of dollars, as much as $400.00 EACH , were netting me maybe 3 o 4 hits to my website, but when I did an ActiveRain blog..... $$$$$$$$$ - I was getting 100 plus hits back to my website! It became a no brainer, spend $400 for a print ad that lasted a day in the paper, or a month in the magazine vs spending an hour a day, once a week, putting together a blog - that last forever?
One year I sat down and dissected my year and where all my clients came from - the number 1 answer (65%) , you guessed it, the Internet, and basically besides my website, 90% of my Internet marketing was ActiveRain.... I think the year I analyzed, I had sold $4,000,000.00 worth of real estate, not a bad year.
Many of my early blogs were market reports, in fact here is a screen shot of my very first blog:
(don't you love how all your updated information goes all the way back to your first blog)
I used to grill clients on how they found me, overwhelmingly the answer was on the Internet, but they never really nailed down any particular blog, just the fact that no matter what they Google about Kona - Lance Owens showed up everywhere, the weather, the surf, the fishing tournament......... I never got sidetracked though, my blogs always led back to real estate - take the one on the fishing tournament, it ended with a plug about a home that had views of the harbor.
Funny story on that one, I get a panicked call from a guy at the pier, looking for the fish I promised him - I was dazed and confused but as I unraveled why this guy called me... He was at the pier, couldnt find the boat he was looking for, called his wife, asked her to google the fishing tournement and get him a number to call to see where the boat was, and there I was, page one, number one, google search :)
ActiveRain I just wanted to thank you for being a big part of my success
And Ben Kinney , thank you for taking AR back!
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