Perspective is a terrible thing to lose.
This morning I was talking to someone about the number of real estate bloggers there are here in the Phoenix area. We have one of the higher concentrations of real estate bloggers in the country, as best I can tell. And at the end of the day, we amount to less than one percent of the overall real estate population.
To my mind, we’re on the bleeding edge of the changes in the real estate industry. We’re the early adopters, the leaders of the 2.0 movement … and still, we’re in such a minority we barely count as a blip on the radar.
Your Sidebar Widgets Are Sirens
They seduce you and deceive you simultaneously into believing you’re more important than you really are. I’m as guilty as anyone of watching to see traffic patterns on my home blog, but they don’t impact what I’m writing to any large degree. I know that traffic in and of itself is worthless.
This was proven this week by the “SEO experiment” where traffic was driven to one blog using the name of Governor Spitzer’s favored prostitute.
How does this help you sell homes? What does this have to do with marketing real estate?
Absolutely nothing. The traffic generated was absolutely worthless. If you’re trying to earn a living from your blog, you need focused traffic not traffic for its own sake.
Technorati rankings? Alexa traffic ranks? Please let me know what St. Peter has to say about these some day. They’re irrelevant. Those clinging to them are desperate souls looking for any affirmation of their self-worth that they can find.
Don’t be seduced by the false god that is unfocused traffic.
Big Fish, Incredibly Small Pond
The notion of who has the most important real estate blog is far less relevant that the notion that it doesn’t matter in the slightest. You’re in a minority writing for a minority. It’s almost sad to see people lose sight of their insignificance.
Most of us write for the public to one degree or another. Most of us are attempting to generate business while simultaneously pleasing the Google monster. Some of us have more success than others.
Want to impress me? Tell me how many closings you have as a direct result of your blog. Tell me about the clients who read your extended resume and chose you from amongst all of the others. Many of the writers here can do that with ease. Some of the best and the brightest in the real estate blogosphere also can do so. Except you don’t see them telling everyone how important they are every other day – the role of a rank vendor or salesman on a me-first static site, not a real estate blogger in the 2.0 world.
Don’t tell me about your traffic numbers. They mean nothing. Because when you take a few million steps back to get the proper perspective, you’re residing on the same dot as me. And there’s nary an ounce of difference between us.
