Home > Blogs > John Lockwood > Elite Properties Sacramento - Broker's Blog

Real Estate Blog Platforms - Integrated Web Sites and Blogs

By John Lockwood

Real Estate Broker/Owner with Lockwood Real Estate

October 25, 2007 02:09 PM

Part three of my series comparing blog platforms -- Integrating Web Sites and Blogs -- is now available.

I'll tell you what, though. Because you're reading the ActiveRain Three Part Series linking to the Real Three Part Series, I'll post the best part for you:

Unlike 90% of the authors who write about blogging, I don’t think that the main goal of blogging is to establish you as an expert. Certainly I don’t have a lot of buyers who call me up and say “I heard you were an expert.” What I DO have is a lot of buyers who call me up and say “I saw a house on your web site”. I think we can dispense with a lot of the silliness that’s written about real estate blogging with a simple quiz. It’s fill in the blank:
“My ideal customer is someone who is pre-approved and has a strong need to buy or sell a ____________ this weekend.”

Comments(12)

Comment

Show All Comments

Sort:

Marchel Peterson

Results Realty - Spring, TX

Spring TX Real Estate E-Pro

John, I have been trying to decide whether I should have a stand alone outside blog or tie it to my website. Your articles have finally made some sense out of this for me. Thanks!

Oct 25, 2007 02:26 PM

Trent Cluley

Jasper, GA

John,

For a standalone versus integrated blog:

Is having prominently displayed links to MLS search, Free CMA, personal website, etc., as effective as integration? Even with integration, navigation is still required from blog to other content, such as the home page, so as long as there are "action" buttons on a blog, won't it work the same?
Would duplicating standalone blog content on a real estate website help/hurt? My understanding is that this could hurt SEO rankings? Or would it serve the same purpose as integrating?

For social networks or collective blogs (AR, REALTOR, etc.), as you pointed out, there may be little chance of featuring on search engines for anything but the odd long tail term. But, do you see any benefit in having a presence for users searching the sites themselves, rather than search engines? These "massive-content" real estate sites get good traffic, particularly from consumers looking for info . . . as blogging grows, will internal searches of these sites by consumers justify the effort of maintaining multiple blogs?

Thanks for the posts, definitely thought-provoking (I have myself spread out and am looking for ways to consolidate, without losing eyeballs).

Oct 25, 2007 02:48 PM

John Lockwood

Lockwood Real Estate - Sacramento, CA

Marchel: Thanks, glad to help. At some point (soon) I'm going to be actually opening the doors on a new business offering this as one of the services. Actually, I shoudn't say "new business", since software developer was what I was before Realtor. Let me know if I can be of any help.

Trent: Thanks for the input -- excellent questions. I think having good calls to action on a site to your web site is a reasonable alternative. In principle, a link is a link is a link, so yes, to some extent it makes no difference, but I do think a fully integrated solution makes for a more natural link structure. There are links on my Sacramento Real Estate blog that I wouldn't maintain if it were a standalone blog. Also, I think the emphasis on blogging has blinded many of us to the advantages of having deep-content web sites that aren't chronological.

I would probably be somewhat wary of duplicate content if it were me. If it were me I would probably set up the new blog and start pointing my old readership to it, perhaps gradually moving my human readership over to the new location. There's a slim possiblity depending on your blog platform that you may also be able to redirect readers of the old blog to the same content on your new blog. If you do this right (using permanent redirects), then the search engines will reindex the same content from the new location. More important I think is to just start moving readers (and perhaps some content) over to the new location. Hope that helps.

Oct 25, 2007 04:28 PM

Nancy Moeller

Seven Gables Real Estate - Anaheim Hills, CA

You are right. It all comes down to selling houses.

Oct 26, 2007 02:52 AM

Trent Cluley

Jasper, GA

Thanks John -- That does help. With new tech so much is trial and error, and often changes so quickly, it can be overwhelming trying to learn, innovate, and maintain, while performing routine duties, so any tips to streamline are great!

Oct 26, 2007 04:20 AM

Marchel Peterson

Results Realty - Spring, TX

Spring TX Real Estate E-Pro

John, so I have been cutting and pasting my area AR localism post over to a seperate page I have been making for each subdivision and then putting the page on my website. Then I have been tediously rewording the entire post so it is not duplicate content; so I guess you are saying that I'm doing the right thing in changing all the wording. I've been doing the cut and paste because it is a really easy way to get the pictures over there.

Oct 26, 2007 04:22 AM

John Lockwood

Lockwood Real Estate - Sacramento, CA

Thanks all for your feedback. Marchel, cut and paste is a time honored computer programming tradition! :)

Oct 26, 2007 10:13 AM

Joanne Hanson

Coldwell Banker Colorado Rockies Real Estate - Frisco, CO

Summit County, Colorado Realtor

I post to my outside blog first, and then copy to AR. I have heard conflicting opinions on if it is ok or not, so I don't do it on all posts, but do it on quite a few. Do you think it is a problem John?

Oct 27, 2007 10:10 AM

John Lockwood

Lockwood Real Estate - Sacramento, CA

Joanne,

My understanding (which is supported by an article I just found by a Google employee -- http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/12/deftly-dealing-with-duplicate-content.html) is that you won't so much be penalized as you may only have one version indexed -- perhaps not the one you want. I'm seeing you have 218 URLs indexed for your mountain living blog (querying site:www.http://www.mountain-living.com/blog),so this doesn't look like a big issue.

So no, I don't think it's a real problem, but I'd be inclined to keep the good stuff on my own site. My way of thinking is I want the good local stuff where it has a clear path to my search tools.

For posts you have duplicated, have you checked which posts are appearing higher in the search results?

Oct 27, 2007 01:28 PM

Joanne Hanson

Coldwell Banker Colorado Rockies Real Estate - Frisco, CO

Summit County, Colorado Realtor

Hi John, thanks for the info! I post to my outside blog first, make sure it shows up on my google alert, which takes a day or less, and then, if I am going to, post to AR. If they show up in a search, it is usually my outside blog, but sometimes it is both.

Oct 27, 2007 02:36 PM

Ginger Wilcox

Sindeo - San Francisco, CA

John,

How do you find out how many urls you have indexed on your sites? I would love to know for my other blog. Thanks for all of the information. As Joanne, knows, I have the same questions on duplicate content!

Oct 27, 2007 10:26 PM

John Lockwood

Lockwood Real Estate - Sacramento, CA

You do this query, naturally without the quotes and with whatever replaced by, well, whatever! :)

"site:www.whatever.com"

Oct 28, 2007 07:24 AM