Hi All,
Yesterday I started my Project Blogger Round-Up series in an attempt to chronicle in one place my process going from 0 (brand new to blogging, Active Rain and Real Estate) to Mach 1 (two fully functional blog sites, one here on Active Rain and the other being Route66Living.com). It has been a very intense journey, with lots of wonderful sights along the way and a few bumps in the road as well.
I feel overall that I have been fortunate as the joys have far outweighed the sorrows and I have begun to reap the benefits of all this hard work... but that will come in the next article as I am trying to stick to chronology here. So... Without much further ado... Here we go.
When we last met our fearless heroine (that would be me :-) she had just discovered the wonderful world that is Active Rain and had been swept up by the cyclone that is Project Blogger. Her amazing coach Drew Meyers had started helping her get a foothold on some of what needed to be done before the contest had officially launched and together they had searched the Baby Blog Names Book and decided to call their firstborn Route66Living.com. Little "Routey" had big shoes to fill because someday mommy wanted him to become a great big successful blog like Aunty ARDELL's Seattle Area Real Estate Blog, or Uncle Dustin's Rain City Guide or Daddy's Zillow Blog.
In the midst of all of the activity surrounding what to call him, which was chronicled here in this post entitled "Episode Two - The Saga Continues... :-)", there was also a whole lot of effort going into what should he look like. (Funny that I see my site as a boy, me being a girl and all, but there you go... Incidentally, it was only today that I decided that my site had a gender... hmm). A HUGE amount of time was spent by "mom" trolling through Wordpress skins to find a few outfits that Routey would look good in.
Literally hundreds were viewed and considered. Some of the sites that I visited when I was in the midst of this search were Wordpress Themes, How To Blog, Wordpress Theme Browser, RockinThemes.com, WPSkins.org and SiteGround.com. Countless hours were spent on all of these sites looking at everything they had to offer. I was searching for just the right "look".
Since we were doing all of this work out in the open in front of God-And-Everybody, Drew and I decided that we would allow/ask/hope for the AR readers and anyone else who wished to weigh in, to help us by lending their critical eye. A number of different skins were tried on and tested before we settled on the RockinNewspaper Theme designed by Cory Miller of RockinThemes.com. I owe Cory a debt of gratitude as I know that early on he and Drew communicated and he advised Drew on some tweaks that would help us when we wanted to customize the theme to my needs, desires and taste. Incidentally, Drew liked the theme so much that he wound up adopting it for his own personal blog site as well.
I was looking for something clean, easy to read with lots of nice white space. Something that would not look cluttered or "busy" and I had Active Rain in mind during most of my quest. I have always liked the uncluttered appearance here, and I feel that it makes the words stand out more if the frame is not distracting.
At about this time we decided to formally announce the birth of the new baby blog. Active Rain was introduced to Route66Living.com with this post "Project Blogger, The Opportunity Of A Lifetime And An Easter Egg". From the very first day I thought it was beautiful, but this being California and all, I was certain that a few strategic nips and tucks by a skilled professional would only enhance its features. Drew was in charge of nipping and tucking. I was in charge of holding the mirror and saying, "Yeah, that looks good" or "Nope, not a fan". There was a whole lot of both going on at this time.
To anyone following along here, this is the point in the process where it gets really exciting and also quite scary. Very much like the feeling of bringing a newborn home for the first time. You are amazed that it is here, and it is so perfect. And you are astounded that someone is going to just hand it to you, all shiny, new and sweet-smelling and send you out the door. Are they crazy? I have never been able to keep silk flowers from dying and you are daring to entrust me with a life or a blog? Now what do I do, you wonder.
Well, I have learned that babies and blogs are a whole lot alike. They both require regular consistent feeding, a whole lot of sleepless nights, nurturing, cleaning up frequently, a whole lot of love and attention and a caring considerate, flexible and somewhat well-adjusted parent to survive and thrive. Route66Living.com had almost all of the above (I am not going anywhere near the well-adjusted part :-).
It was at about this point that I was also starting to really realize just what I had gotten myself into and the enormity of the task was looming large. I made a conscious decision from practically the very first day that I would maintain both my Active Rain blog and Route66Living.com equally and that I would keep the content for the two sites very separate.
I also decided at this time that I would allow just about everything that I have ever said or done here on Active Rain to be public. Of the 120 posts that I have crafted here only 2 have actually been designated as members only. The other seven that are reflected in my total are draft posts and, truthfully most will never see the light of day:-).
I reasoned that since AR is bigger and more important to the search engines than my site was, the odds were that someone would have a better chance of encountering me on Active Rain at first. So, I have always been very aware of that fact and even when I am writing primarily to other Real Estate professionals here on AR, I know that my present and future clients are reading my posts as well. I use the pieces created here as yet another opportunity for a future client to get a better fix on who I am.
Another decision that I made at about this point in the process was to remove comment moderation on my Route66living.com site. Originally, when the site went live, any comment that was posted was sent to me for my review before it actually posted to the site. This is intended to help cut down on spam or flame posts. Again, in the interest of full disclosure, and to show that I practice what I preach, I removed the need to moderate the comments from my site and allowed the chips to fall where they may. Sure enough, within days of making this decision, when my site was truly still in its infancy, I was confronted with my first opportunity to deal with the repercussions of that choice.
A local Claremont area blog discovered the infant Route66Living, and announced its existence to all and sundry around these parts. It was nice to be discovered by more of the hometown crowd but the site in question is generally more interested in politics and mudslinging. They were not particularly flattering as they seemed to look askance at the fact that I was a local area Realtor, and that I was not slamming the community or it's leaders.
I received a comment from someone who I think found me via this sites link, happened to read a post of mine and an article in the local paper and decided that they were too similar for their liking. The article concerned several new developments here in my community and since Claremont is truly a small city which rareloy gets large-scale new development as most of the area is already developed, this was big news. This also makes it difficult, if not impossible to have two articles which are covering the same story, useing the same facts and the same sources not have a similar sound.
I have heard from these types of folks a couple of times subsequently as they are not big fans of positive information where Claremont is concerned, but each time, I have chosen to address their comment instead of deleting it. Is my community perfect? No, not hardly, but then no one's is so I don't see this as a problem. I also don't see it as my job to fan the flames of political discontent.
Again, I subscribe to what I call the Thumper Principle, believing that If you can't say something nice...
After the first week or so, Drew posted his first update to let folks know what had been going on behind the scenes. Also, about this time, I hit what I called "The Content Conundrum" and began shaping what I wanted to say. Fortunately, the how I wanted to say it part has come easier to me, but the what is, I feel much more critical. I don't want to fill my personal site with garbage just for the sake of something to post. I don't really do that here either. If I offer you nothing else, I try to offer a good laugh.
I also wrote one of my most successful early pieces there entitled "10 Ways NOT To Buy A Home In A Buyer's Market". To date it has been re-published on the net (with my permission) repeatedly and has also been printed out as a hard copy item for distribution by countless others all across the country. I am still very proud of that article and I had a blast writing it.
Drew published his second update shortly after week two concluded. After the flurry of activity surrounding the initial launch things began to settle down a bit for me and the changes that were happening were more subtle and slightly slower in coming. Pictures were removed from the header and replaced with others that were more appropriate and tweaks on the sidebar content ruled the day.
One thing that I definately regret now is the fact that I was so new to the blogging world that I did not know how to take screen shots then. It would be great to be able to show you Route66Living.com's baby pictures. I would suggest that if you are building your very own blog, you should take a screen shot of things from time to time and just save them to look back at. Not only is it nostalgic, if things get damaged in some way it would make it easier to recreate what you had.
I was spending a huge amount of time linking and deep linking to relevant content and resources. I was also spending just about every waking hour that I was not actively engaged in the business of writing my blogs... or taking additional classes to increase my Real Estate knowledge... or working on lead generation... or baking ear shaped birthday cakes... reading everything I could get my eyes on.
I would HIGHLY suggest, before you launch your very own site, that you spend a bit of time looking at what others have done before you. Especiallyif you are in a market area where there is already a blogger who has established themselves, by seeing what they are doing, you can learn what you need to do to become their equal. If they are only talking about the ultra high end of the market then consider taking over everything else. The tighter your focus the stronger your beam.
During the first month, April 15th actually, Google Analyticswas attached to Route66Living.com. Unfortunately, we missed capturing the data for the very first days of life, but the information has been very interesting and valuable to me. I would highly recommend adding Google Analytics and/or something like it to your personal site BEFORE you announce the launch so that you can get even more accurate data.
One of the things that I pay the most attention to, with regard to Analytics, is not the total number of hits generated, but geographically where the hits are coming from. I take great pride in the fact that although I have been privileged to have received hits from all over the world, by far, my strongest presence is felt in California. The way I see it, although it is great to have folks reading me in Russia, and as a writer it is intensely gratifying as well, the odds don't favor my next client flying in from Siberia just to take a peek at a nice two-bedroom townhouse in Claremont.
I don't want or need millions of "readers", I want and need hundred's of local clients and since that is my goal, that is what I work toward continually...
In our next episode, I will talk about some of the other decisions that were made regarding Route66Living.com, getting into the swing of things, and getting my first blogging clients.
Take care all, help lots of people and have a wonderful day!
Tisza
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