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Jim Duncan
October 14, 2008 at 7:58 am
Carson –
Thanks for this. I’m in the process of building another hyper local blog from scratch, and I’d forgotten just how much work it is to get started and to populate it. It’s a lot of work and time! What’s frustrating for me is that this new one doesn’t have local bloggers with whom to network … but that’s just another opportunity.
Now … to sign up for the school pressers …
Jonathan Dalton
October 14, 2008 at 8:39 am
Here’s my question … why a full-on blog and not just a blogsite? Is there sufficient competition in this hyper local area that it’s the only way to differentiate yourself?
Not trying to be argumentative, in all honesty. But I’ve come to believe you can accomplish as much in terms of lead generation with a hyper local blogsite with the only dynamic changes being the listings than you can by killing yourself searching for content.
At least, that’s what I’m seeing here.
Ryan Hukill
October 14, 2008 at 8:41 am
Carson, thanks for the in-depth explanation of your thought process and how you got there. I have a similar blog in my area, and also struggle with what to post at times, so your list here gave me a few ideas. Sounds like you’re approach is working.
Kim Wood
October 14, 2008 at 8:42 am
Perfect timing, Carson. I am in the process of building a few neighborhood focused blogs.
Your source list is awesome! Lots of work to set up, lots of work to keep content flowing… but hopefully the benefits will roll in! I’m hoping to find one or two local bloggers/residents that will help to post as well.
Susan Milner
October 14, 2008 at 8:44 am
Ok, I need to do this. Wow, what a lot of work.
ines
October 14, 2008 at 8:48 am
Congratulations – I know it can be a lot of work. There is a hyperlocal blog here in Miami (not real estate related) but has become the place to go for news that pulls links from all kinds of sources. The author posts 3 times or more per day – a morning sift with interesting news from local blogs, a water cooler with links to actual news from the media and an evening sift (sometimes he even does personal posts with his take on things). – Talk about work!!! but he has become the place to go for the latest and greatest.
Mark Eckenrode
October 14, 2008 at 9:44 am
the blog looks great.. nice content, too.
now, i need to echo dalton’s comments and ask why a full blown local events blog? if the purpose of the blog (and i may have this wrong) is to build your real estate business, then why create a site that functions as a newspaper of sorts? i’m not seeing how the blog builds your real estate name or funnels clicks to your real estate blog.
if your purpose was to build a good looking blog with great content about your local area, i think you’ve succeeded. if the purpose was to build a blog that builds your brand name and generates leads, i’m sorry but i don’t see it.
Bob
October 14, 2008 at 10:16 am
Echoing Mark and Jonathan here. Why re-create Topix? It is a huge time and labor commitment, but the biggest concern I see is that this commitment never ends. If you could generate the same traffic and business, would you still do it this way?
Kay Baker Wilmington NC Real Estate
October 14, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Truly loved ideas for blogging. They really work, too!
Jason Sandquist
October 14, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The site has definitely come along way since I last visited, looks good BTW.
Not going to repeat what Jonathan and Mark said, but don’t see the branding. Are any of the realtors seeing any clicks thru to their sites, any successes? How is the workload trying to keep up on everything?
Daniel Bates
October 14, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Carson, I’m a hard person to impress but I am truly amazed by your website. I’ve been hyper blogging for over a year now and I’ve learned a lot of the same sources you’ve provided. I’d also add that forums are a great source for traffic. I think you’re doing a great job at taking a tool like blogging to the next level with things like advertising, video, multiple authors, etc.
I noticed that you come up on the first page of Google for “Katy TX’ and “Katy Texas” searches. I’ve achieved the same thing in my town and found that while not every visitor is a current buyer you are building a great long term marketing strategy. It’s also great place to advertise the vacation rentals that I manage. Most readers are either going to be local (in which case statistics show they’ll probably sell their home in the next 7 years), visiting (need a place to stay), or considering moving there (want to buy or rent a home). That is every aspect of our profession covered with one effort.
I’d like to offer my answer to everyone’s question: Yes, it is a lot of time and work (but it beats paying for leads or costly mailouts and print advertising) and it IS worth it because readers can tell the difference between quality articles and regurgitated feeds from other sites. Topix is hardly all inclusive and is watered down with useless information. Running a blog like this allows you to filter the news and provide relevant material to your readers and build a larger following.
PS – Once you’ve been blogging for a year and cover reoccurring events you can link to the new post from the old post and often gain very high search results. My suggestion to the naysayers is to never under estimate the power of helping people, because it will be returned to you.
Carson Coots
October 15, 2008 at 5:39 am
Thanks for the compliments on the site…
Daniel – Thank you for addressing some of the issues with the strategy, your answer aligns with my reasoning also.
I mentioned the customer life-cycle in the post to explain why I think this approach is worthwhile. The news-style blog building I am describing helps you create an online resource that would/could be noted, bookmarked and hopefully returned to repeatedly by residents in your local area…the ones you would be wanting to target if you were to spend money on an ad. The repeat exposure is exactly what an agent needs…
It definitely doesn’t present itself as a real estate site. Of the people who land on the site looking for various local topics, many can tell right away that it is serving as a ‘media’ outlet first, on par with the local paper or magazines. This gives it “3rd party” street cred. So we get credibility combined with repeat exposure.
I notice real estate companies and builders placing ads month after month in local publications. They are aiming to catch readers in the market and hopefully increase name recognition. The scope of content is going way beyond real estate, but it presents more opportunities to publish relevant stories. It’s no different than running an ad or renting billboard space on a local street.
My #1 goal has been to build a base of local traffic… not sure what I am going to do with it outside of placing ads yet. It’s a work in progress. But I bet a real estate agent would like to own it if I were to offer it.
One thing is for sure… it’s a ton of work. I am not a Realtor, but have local writers contributing on the site so they trade content for exposure…and the aggregate of the efforts benefit the group as a whole when it comes to traffic – much like AG. The content would not flow as well without them. I have not added a home search feature or any messages aiming to convert real estate leads yet.
I’m working through the process and sharing what I have learned so far.
tony - forsalebylocals
October 15, 2008 at 6:41 am
One of the things that we’ve come up with to help is a local content feed for just about every town in the US – here’s the page for Miami Shores, FL for instance:
https://forsalebylocals.com/localdata/m/english/united+states/fl/miami+shores
There is an RSS feed in the upper right hand corner to which anyone can subscribe and a search mechanism to find your local area at the bottom of the page. All of the the marketing reporting reports are geolocated by lat/long so they know where they are in relation to other content. We have a process that works in the background to constantly improve initial results based on 5 relevance measures – you can see examples of changes that have been made by the automatic process at https://forsalebylocals.com/tools/selfcorrectingcontent.asp.
Hopefully, this can be make the list as another free resource to help those looking for local content.
Tony
Kim Wood
October 15, 2008 at 9:31 am
I do believe the neighborhood focused blogs can be successful. It’s not about us, as agents or whomever to just talk about the community. It’s about getting the community itself talking to each other – but using your blog to do so.
It is imperative that it does not scream “advertisement” or “real estate agent trying to sell a house”, however.
Also agreed, that maybe not a “full blown blog” where you update content constantly – but to stay on top, you do have to update periodically.
Vicki Moore
October 15, 2008 at 8:53 pm
I like to add posts that are unrelated to real estate. Although the main topic of my blog is real estate, there’s more to me thus more to my blog than that.
I “re-posted” an article from the local online paper that has gotten more interest/comments than a lot of others. I just need to get in front of people. If a post about the police does it, I’ll take it. Each person knows – what 300 people? I don’t make a habit of it, but I get tired of talking/writing about real estate.
I read my blog more than anybody else. I want to enjoy it and want others to as well. I think if readers see my enthusiasm it will be contagious.