I’m not hearing anything. Not even you.
This has nothing to do with my ear infection that I mentioned last week. In fact, it doesn’t really have to do with my ears at all. Allow me to explain…
As you may know, I began my humble blogging beginnings right here on AgentGenius. I had been lurking and watching and started commenting when Benn and Lani approached me about writing about my experiences as a new blogger and new agent. They encouraged me to write about the good, bad, and ugly and to tell you about my successes and failures (and even told me that I basically had a huge group that would help guide me via their past experiences, so I’d be a step ahead of the game). They encouraged me to start blogging and sent me on my merry way.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I dove in with a lot of gusto and love blogging and real estate – combining the two has made it even more exciting for me. I am having a ball. I’ve recently been really trying to build my blog/site and work on making it even better. I’ve had some good successes lately – my traffic is picking up and I’m even receiving comments from people other than Jeff Turner and my dad. This is the tipping point we all waited for at one point. Its the day you know you’ve made some impact. I have miles to go, but at least I know there are people out there.
With my new found traffic, the world seems so silent.
Now I know people don’t just start calling and emailing the first day and say “sell my house” or “I need to buy this house, will you be my agent?” I have received some calls and emails, but I kind of was expecting a few more. Just a few, I’m not asking for much.
Today, while researching something totally unrelated to my blog, I had a revelation. There was a simple reason no one wanted to talk to me about my blog or why they hadn’t come calling to buy and sell with me as their agent. In all my work to build a great blog and an interesting site (which is still being worked on every day), I had totally let something slip. In months of filing out online profiles for this social media gadget or this networking tool, I had become so used to my face, my name, and my contact info being everywhere. Guess which one I forgot? That’s right, on my entire site, there is no contact info! I couldn’t believe it when I realized it. I had been building and thinking and planning and coding and tweaking – and never once thought of how someone could pick up the phone or send me some email. Grrrrr.
Lesson learned, research started.
I’m going to go do some research now on some contact plugins and forms to see what I want to use. Expect to see something up there tomorrow at the latest. Let it serve as a reminder that sometimes, in all your hard work, you might be missing the most obvious thing on earth. Take a few minutes and try to be a blog reader, not a blog writer – what’s missing from your site? Sometimes, you just need to take your fingers out of your ears to figure it out.
photo courtesy of Gramody
Ben Goheen
April 22, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Ahhh, sometimes it’s the little things that get missed and are the biggest oversight.
I see you’re using WordPress on your site. If you’re going to include your email make sure to use the PHP enkoder plugin (https://www.weaselhat.com/phpenkoder/) so you don’t get spammed to death. Notice the source code of our contact page: https://www.mnhome.org/about – no email to be found but you can’t tell by looking at the site.
Matt Stigliano
April 23, 2009 at 11:48 am
Ben – That’s just it, it was so little and so obvious, that I just completely overlooked it. I’ve learned over the years to constantly stop what you’re doing and go back and look at things trying to find the obvious.
Thanks for the tip on the encoder. I just looked at your site – that’s pretty cool how it does it.
Matt Stigliano
April 23, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Ben – I installed it and a contact form, so I’m up and running!
Michelle DeRepentigny
April 24, 2009 at 10:49 am
🙂 Bless your heart, it is so easy to overlook something. The best thing I ever did on my blog was install the text widget from RETechBlog.com, it has really increased the amount of contact I get.
BawldGuy
April 24, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Now I don’t feel so bad. 🙂
Missy Caulk
April 24, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Happened to me too, oh the info was there but not easy to find.
Gwen Banta
April 25, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Matt, you are THE EXPERT to me, so I am trying to learn from you. I would never have thought of the need for contact information myself if it hadn’t been for you. Maybe I’ll change the name of my blog to GwenBantaCallMeNowBeforeIHaveToBegAt323-656-0714 just so it doesn’t slip past anyone!