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First Upgrade to ActiveBlogs

Listing Router on ActiveBlogs

Back in late October, ActiveRain launched listing router as a tool for members to drive traffic from their blogs to their home search site. You can watch the video and read all about it here. (if you don't know about listing router, you HAVE TO click that last link, I beg you!!) Since then we have given our Localism sponsors the chance to use the feature to enhance their Localism sponsorship (although I must tell you, not everyone has taken advantage of this awesome upgrade). You can read all about that on Jorgen's blog, here.

Late Tuesday night (1/13/08) we will upgrade our new ActiveBlog platform by adding the Listing Router Feature. (You can read about the new ActiveBlog platform here and here)

If you have upgraded your prior ActiveRain Outside Blog to the new ActiveBlog platform you will now be able to integrate listing router with your new ActiveBlog. Giving visitors an outlet from your blog to search for homes is a critical component in converting that reader into a client. Of course, an effective home search or IDX solution is just as important so I strongly suggest you read Jeff Corbett's take on effective IDX solutions.

At some point, every one of your potential clients is going to be out on the internet looking at homes for sale. In a perfect world, a potential client woud land on your blog because of a search they did on some search engine, they would read your incredible prose and they would immediately pick up the phone and beg you to help them find their next mansion. This isn't a perfect world. In fact, the reason internet leads have gotten a bad rap from many is because of the time it takes to cultivate a prospect that you may have 'captured' on your website (you are trying to capture some component of contact info from your site visitors, right????? If not, you really need to read Jeff's post).

If you haven't figured it out yet, blogging is a powerful tool to bridge that gap between when someone first starts looking and when they are actually ready to work with you. So if you are writing content on your blog that is engaging your visitors as they research (then research more, then keep on researching) where they want to live, it only makes sense that your blog have a clear avenue for them to search for homes on your site.

Listing Router is that avenue.

Your new ActiveBlog will now display a prominent listing search box that will route visitors from your outside blog to your home search solution. It will look like this:

Listing Router on Outside Blog

At this point, I beg you that if you are not familiar with listing router, please go and review my post that I linked to above. It will save all of us a lot of pain and suffering in the comment section.

Your ActiveRain listing router account will be where you manage how traffic is routed on your blog. You can find it on the left hand side of your 'my home' page.

Jon Washburn, our CEO and ActiveRain co-founder has been driving traffic to and converting clients from real estate websites since 1997. We've had numerous sites and tested over and over how to get people clicking on what we want them to. We'll get them clicking over to your site, you worry about what they click on once they get there. (again, please read Jeff's post about effective IDX solutions if you skipped over it above)

Additional tutorial posts from Brad:

How to set up and save your own traffic from Listing Router

How to set up your own click campaign with Listing Router

How to opt out of Listing Router

EDITED:

Quite a few people already are leaving comments to the effect of: "I'm really starting to fall behind on all this stuff........"

Please, if you feel totally out of the loop and wish there was someone you could just talk to and get an explanation from, that person is me. Do not hesitate to pick up the phone and call me. 425.753.7340. That's my cell phone and I try to answer it any time I am free and it rings. If you combine it with an email to me, I'll do my best to get you a call back. If you send a second email saying, 'gee, you're a real jerk for not calling me back' you can pretty much assure yourself a call, haha.

Friends, followers, and connections are the way of the future.

Make sure you check out some of our Facebook Fan Pages Too!

Posted by Bob Stewart - Community Evangelist - ActiveRain on 01/14/2009 12:09 PM

Comments (59)

ActiveBlogs in the ActiveRain Channel

listing router, activeblogs, outside blogs, listing router on activeblogs

Originally posted at: ActiveRain - The Official ActiveBlog: First Upgrade to ActiveBlogs

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59 Comments on First Upgrade to ActiveBlogs

JAN

2009

I'll be posting a short sweet tutorial Wednesday detailing how you can get this feature started on your existing new ActiveBlog.

Bob, will this box be in the same position (top left of screen) that it currently resides or is the formatting for it going to be different and placed somewhere else?

BTW, your little guy is growing up so quickly!

Thanks for the update. Very interesting. I will be sure to look at everything when posted.

Have a great day

Tony

Bob, it's obvious I have a lot of catching up to do. Off to read about Lisitng Router and then back here to re-read and try to get it all the 2nd time around.

thanks for the update - I will definitely check it out

ahh...more work and reading to do! Bookmarking for repeated reference and guidance. Thanks!!!

Bob: First of all... great picture of "you" in your profile.

Now... each and every time another new "feature" is added to Active Rain by all of our fabulously geeky leaders (that's you guys up in WA)... this whole Active Rain train seems to be pulling further away from me. I have become so incredibly lost as far as many of these new "features..." that I feel kind of "stuck" in the past... and being unable to get "Back To The Future." Or even "Back to the Present" for that matter. :(

So tell me... just what is a non-geeky older chick with less than average geeky skills, but pretty good writing and relationship skills to do ?

Bob - I sponsor Westport, CT on Localism and also have Listing Router for Westport. I missed the announcement that the two could be integrated. I just checked it out through the link to Jorgen's blog.

I didn't see the Listing Router search box, which was supposed to automatically be on my Localism page. So I signed in, to add it but didn't see a box to enter my search url.

I left a similar comment for Jorgen. It's a great idea. Would love to see it work.

Bob, thanks for this update. You keep us all well informed on the changes coming.

I'm really glad you guys are finding a solid route to monetization. And I am excited to see all of the different ways you are building to convert consumers.

George Bush Is Funny bush breaks some wind very funny stuff with nice song ^__-yap bush act cool i think he is not dump guy after all heheheh This is my 2nd football video, just a compilation of videos and pictures I found on the internet. Don't forget to watch in high quali... a crazy cow It is so funny Hidden Camera Cousin Sal from Jimmy Kimmel Live does a Hidden Camera Prank to a locksmith and several singing telgrams older Posts : http://easylnk.com/?7643

it grows and grows and grows. Active Rain the present & future of online marketing.

I am still not sure how (and why) I need this. I don't want a group blog, so am I paying to get the listing router? I have tried to do my own research, but is there somewhere that I can get an overview of the upgrade, how much it will cost (I saw something about charge-per-click and a flat monthly fee elsewhere) and why I would need it?

BTW, several of the links in this post do not allow me to navigate back to the original post which makes me end up getting frustrated since I rarely get to focus on something without business interuptions.

Thanks for the update. I have seemed to started to fall behind in all the upgrades. One of my many New Years Resolutions is to get with the Program!

Thanks for the update. I have to figure all these things out.

Kris,

The picture at the top of my post shows where it will appear on the new ActiveBlogs (outside blogs). So no, not in the top left but instead on the right hand side of the blog posts near the top of the screen. You should be able to see clearly in the picture up above.

Karen Anne,

"just what is a non-geeky older chick with less than average geeky skills, but pretty good writing and relationship skills to do ?"

Call me! I am pretty sure that in about 20 minutes I can get you up to speed on everything and at the very least I would love the opportunity to give it a shot :-) 425.753.7340

Marilyn,

It works so it's possible that you just were not looking in the right area (or possibly it's an issue with the browser you are using as that has been known to happen). I just tried to call you and got your voice mail. I would love to show you how to get listing router up for your Localism community as well

(however, let it be known that Marilyn may very well call me and when we go in together I will get a big helping of crow because it won't work at all, just like she said..........I must admit, it would not be the first time)

aboood bus4all,

You are joking me right? Who spends time doing this sort of thing?? I guarantee if you put your brain to something more useful than leaving idiotic spam around the internet you will be a lot better off in 5 years. Regardless, I just blocked your IP address from ActiveRain. Have a nice day partner.

Holly,

Since your time is money (I'm very familiar with that concept) I would encourage you to give me a call as well. I can generally get across a heck of a lot more information in a phone call then by writing and I think you would have a more clear understanding if we were to speak.

425.753.7340

On the links.........they all work for me and each link opens a whole new browser window so that in order to get back to this original post all I do is close the browser window for the post that I jumped off to.....That's why there is no back button, because you are in a new window.

Bob - Thanks for the update. As you know from our previous conversations I am dying to get going with this but have my outside blog on an outside domain....When will we have the ability to get going under this circumstance?

I'm having a heard time understanding all this. Is there a charge. I see if tonights tutorial helps.

Bill,

Here is the answer I got from the developers. If you have an existing URL pointed at an old outside blog and you upgrade it, it will work. If you have a URL that you own that you want to use for an upgraded ActiveBlog and we are not currently being routed the DNS records, you will have to wait until January 26th. On Jan. 26th we anticipate being able to allow members to point their DNS records on domains they own to a new ActiveBlog.

Does anyone want to fix my listing router problem. I emailed twice and no resolve yet. Stopped working mid december. Your help is appreciated.

Cindy,

There is a charge for our new ActiveBlogs. That charge is $19 a month for your own unique domain to host your blog outside of ActiveRain. If you have decided to purchase the new ActiveBlogs (you can read all about that here) then adding listing router on to your ActiveBlog is free.

Again, feel free to call me if you want to just throw your hands up and walk away :-)

(You should sit in here with Jeff and Jon and Jorgen when we are thinking this stuff up. I want to throw my hands up and walk away all the time. Instead I use a few choice words, pound on the table once or twice then throw my hands up......but they never let me walk away, haha)

Heather,

Mike, our newest developer extraordinaire is looking at your account right now.

very cool Bob:)

Thanks, Bob, for all of the info here and on the other posts. I am slow, but now all my questions have been answered and I am really excited about the upgrade for only 20 per month.

Speaking of getting problems fixed, some change in the Outside Blogs has resulted in the loss of contact information for my Outside Blog www.HuntingLandIowa.com

Will this be fixed? No sense in having a blog that has no contact information.

I see now on Jorgen's post he refers to Outside Blogs "These replace the antiquated (and hilariously dilapidated) Outside Blogs." What the heck. wasn't it just like a few months ago and these were all the rage? How did they become so outdated so quickly?

Bob: That's what I get for not looking after my 2nd cup of coffee :-) Thanks for pointing that out to me.

January 26th Can't come fast enough!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH! Bob - YOU GUYS ROCK!!!!!

Even more the reason to upgrade to Activeblogs! I can't wait. I could not be the first one even though I wanted to be because I want to keep my domain I bought from Godaddy that I started using on the outside free ar blog. Thanks for all you do. I feel sorry for you that your phone is going to be ringing forever but then again, you are the one that is broadcasting your #!

Bob - Will be looking into this soon. Looks very interesting. You guys rock indeed! I am also using my own domain name on my outside blog. I'll wait to see what happens in the next few days. How's my localism community fix going? :-) Thanks from the other Bob H

Sorry had to laugh about the idiot that spammed you and you blocked him! That'll teach him to mess with you! Thanks for the continued info and updates. :-)

Well, I guess I'd better make my links to my web site's IDX search more prominent on my blogs!

A lot of information here! Thanks for the post!

Good job with the video. This makes total sense.

Can I unpoint the domain I own and bought from GoDaddy to the new upgrade from the old outside AR blogs ? Before I do it, I need to know if it is possible. If not I could or can buy another domain. But, I really like that domain, owned it for awhile and really don't want to start over as it is just starting to get indexed. I think I found it on page 4 finally.

So let me know my options...

I like the Lisitng Router idea on front page.

Curious - your screenshot shows the listing router on a group blog. So if I have a group blog and we're all in the same area, with a single listing router box... to whose IDX is that visitor sent?

Jason,

I'll have the guys look at the contact information issue. We aren't trying to strong arm anyone (as you suggested on a comment left on Jorgen's blog) and my guess is it may have been an oversight. The 'about' tab at the top of your blog has all your contact information and I suspect that you will find most blogs on the greater internet having a similar set up. It could be that a deliberate decision was made to go the route of having your contact info be available on the about tab in order to give the blogs a cleaner look.

Of course, if each post has contact info that could be one way to cover it.

Jorgen's comment of 'antiquated' was probably not the best choice of words on his part. From a development perspective there was a lot left to be desired when they first came out. Jorgen is very hard on himself and somewhat of a perfectionist so the fact they had languised for an extended period without additional love probably made them 'antiquated' in his mind.

Missy,

I'm calling you because I dont understand the question exactly......

Kelley,

Well the person that paid the $79 of course.....

In my mind this is more geared toward the individual ActiveBlogs. However, let's say a broker buys a group blog for his/her office and agents can send their posts over there for free (because the broker is paying) then the broker could certainly use the listing router to drive traffic to the brokerage's IDX site, which in many companies benefits the agents ultimately anyways, as they may get the leads generated on the brokerage site.

Hi Bob,

I can tell you're blog brilliant, but I'm not! I had to copy, paste and print out this blog so I can read it later, over a glass of vino and Chinese stir fry.

Thanks for sharing your info!

Tamara

GREAT UPGRADE!!! This is a great new addition for those who purchased additonal blogs. Thanks Bob. Keep up the great work!

Sincerely, Active Castellum ( Castellum Realty llc - lancaster pa real estate)

I'm getting dizzy just thinking about new and newer outside blogs, activeblogs, upgrades, listing routers, Localism sponsors.... aaaccckkk. Just send me the leads please, and hurry up will ya? : )

thanks for the info.

I am in ActiveRain overload! Plese give us a break, and stop innovating so much so fast! LOL.

An annoucement for anyone following this post:

If you have your own domain that you have registered, you can now upgrade your outside blog and use that domain name. The instructions will be on your upgraded blog under the 'domain' tab

Bob, Dont hit me and I still love you and the AR people. But I'm not crazy about the Outside Paid version. I do not think it is as robust as a say, Wordpress platform where I can create pages, customize the site to look and the feel I want. Add widgets, etc.

Then also the Listing Router is cool, but I want the IDX solution to appear in my outside blog.

Am I asking too much?

I'll look forward to seeing one of these new prototypes live. :o)

Bob,

I am really excited about this new outside blog and think that it will have alot of power. Now I need more time to just get it done. I am looking forward to more information coming out about this soon.

I promise not to bother you w/ a call....hopefully sometime soon I'll be able to catch up on it all. You AR folks certainly do move at warp speed, but it's all good stuff.

Thanks for sharing that information. I am going to have to re-read this later this week

Thanks for the info, Bob. One more selling point for the ActiveBlog platform.

Keeping up with all the upgrades can be a part time job. Keep up the great work.

Oh my gosh..there's still so much to learn.. I need to pull this up during the day instead of late at night to really allow it to sink in! Thank..I've bookmarked ya!

Have a great day or night!

Cindy

Bob - I left you a voice mail regarding a client's upgraded blog the other day and haven't received an answer back yet...I know you're busy, so I will shoot you an email in the am as well. Thanks!

JAN

2009

Bob:

I am so glad that you re-posted this information. It is really exciting. I will be giving you a call next week to see if you can help me out.

Bob, thanks for the update and I will click on the links you provided once I am ready to make the leap. Take care and happy blogging!

There seems to be so much to learn and some new enticing feature almost daily. Thank you for the information in this blog. I will surely follow all the links above and try to digest everything. I'm sure we all really appreciate your offer of personal help.

Bob - First off....Love your hat! you look so much younger when you shave!!!

Next, thank you for taking the time to provide the info as well as the "how to's" for us.

You guys make life in the Rain so much easier.

I am holding off on the listing router for now. It seems like a good idea but I am waiting to see what other AR'ers are saying after using it for some time.

Thanks for the update, Bob.

JAN

2009

Great read. I'm trying to put these two things together to rock the house. Great site and nice to see it constantly evolve.

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