They don't call him the Chief Evangelist for nothing. Guess you can consider me part of the choir now. Bob Stewart is on a mission to share information about maximizing the power of Activerain. Today, I had the pleasure of speaking to the man, himself.
We had been emailing on the topic of Activerain "Neighborhoods". I
was finding it hard to understand the benefit of creating "Neighborhoods"
for my town. I live and work in Sharon, MA...a town with a population of
about 18,000. We don't really call areas of our town by neighborhood or
subdivision names. There are a few, but it seemed limiting to me to
identify with one particular area of town. Never think that a little resistance is an obstacle for Bob. He gave me some time to think about this (ahem...did I mention threats encouragement?), then he called me. After talking for a while, I had an "Aha!" moment.
Disclaimer: I'm going to try to relay what Bob explained to me. Please note that any confusion is mine. I hope Bob will jump in and clarify if I've made any mistakes here.
Bob explained that the term "Neighborhood" doesn't only represent the traditional definition of the word. It represents any "key word" topic that you could blog about or that someone is likely to do a search for. It could be "Market Reports" or "Colonial-style Homes". Now, I understood!
Here's a screen shot of three neighborhoods I've created so far.
1.Real Estate Market Reports 2. Sharon Recreation 3. Town Events & Celebrations
When I write a post about the town's Fourth of July activities, I'll post it to the "Town Events & Celebration" Neighborhood.
Anyone can add neighborhoods. You can do this at anytime, even without writing or publishing a post.
Here are the steps:
1. Go to "Write a Blog Post". Scroll down until you see the "Post To" section.
2. Click on the checkbox next to "Hyper-Local Pages". Select the State/Province, County and City.
3. Click on the words "Add Neighborhood" that you see just above the red arrow on the screenshot above. A map of your area will pop up.
4. Zoom in using the "+" sign. Double click on the map to place the red marker on the area that most closely identifies your "Neighborhood". Don't worry about placing it exactly. Just pick a marker location.
5. Type in a Community Name.
6. Click "Add Community". Only the Chief Evangelist can delete them so think about your Neighborhoods before you add them.
Why is this important? There are two really key benefits to publishing your posts at the "Neighborhood" level. 1. NAR data shows that when buyers search for, and find listings, using highly specific key words, such as a subdivision name or, for example, "golf course homes" the time it takes them to find and buy their home is reduced to an average of 120 days...down from an average of 8 months, and 2. Google finds and displays your content twice. Once, under the town name and a second time under the Neighborhood. A double shot of Google juice! I hope this helps you expand your list of Neighborhoods and increase you search engine optimization.
Thanks, Bob!
Comments(16)