I had been hearing and reading about blogs for some time before I sat in on the Inman News Teleconference this past spring when the 4 guests were Mary from RSS Pieces, Ardell, Noah and....I can't remember the fourth! Anyway, I decided then that since I didn't know anything about Word Press and Type Pad that I would hire RSS Pieces to create my blog. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to write about Lake Norman from a "transplant's" perspective. Over the past three months, this is what I have learned:
- I do not want the blog to look like a real estate website; no hard selling or self-promotion so it was designed with that in mind.
- I have received the most hits on posts about local events and such articles as "27 Reasons to Visit Historic Downtown Mooresville", "37 Reasons to attend the Cotton Ketchie Arts Festival" and "Trader Joes is Coming!". My best one time hits were actually for what I call a "guest blogger's" post on sailing on Lake Norman. I think he's got a lot of friends!
- I try to rotate posts about business and real estate with local human interest stories. I do a quarterly sales analysis as well.
- I get the most direct contacts from posts about new growth and development news as these tend to rank high in Goggle searches. I've had people come up to me and tell me they love my blog which they came upon while searching for....whatever. It's so cool!
- I am now getting leads from people who say they chose me because they read my blog and decided I would be right for them.
- My past clients tend to subscribe to my blog so this is another way to keep them in my life and let them know what is happening in our local market.
- When I want to explain something to a client, sometimes they will get it more easily because they read my post about it.
- I love having guest posts because the writers tend to send it to all of their friends. One of my favorite past clients and now good friends is my new Restaurant Critic! She has always wanted to be one and it is really fun getting others involved in my blog. I'm hoping to get more and more outside participation!
- It is definitely working! Here are some statistics for you number freaks: I have had 7,276 hits in three months. (Keep in mind that I started very slowly). On my best week I had over 150 hits per day but rarely under 50 and that's when I don't post something new. My best single day was 358 hits and I usually get about 150 hits on my sales analysis. The numbers are definitely increasing consistently.
I was a bit nervous at first because I didn't have a huge library of posts but it's truly amazing how fast you can build up a nice one in not that long if you are committed to succeeding! I get comments now like: "Wow, I can't believe how much you have on your site...it's going to take me a long time to read them all!"
Please check it out: http://www.bestrealestatelakenorman.com/ By the way, the name was chosen by RSS Pieces for it's SEO qualities. Feedback is welcome!
Update: It turns out there were some elements missing in my key words that RSS Pieces has now corrected. They told me I should get about 500 hits per day and that Laurie Manny gets about 3000 hits per day! Something to strive to achieve!
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