San Antonio's Rockstar Turned Realtor®

Sometimes you have to look back.

I was searching for a post that I wanted to send someone today and while looking through the lists of posts, I saw one that I couldn't quite remember.  I knew I wrote it, but I just didn't remember what it said.

Taking a few moments to read through it, I thought it was a interesting look at where my mind was (in this case, on September 16, 2009) and where I was in real estate and more specifically, blogging.

I was just about to hit my one year anniversary at AgentGenius and I was reflecting back on a few things I had learned about blogging in the 359 days previous to that post.  Reading through them, they all still hold true to my efforts today.

The five things I had learned?  1. You don't have to be an English major.  2. Your looks are important.  3. Commenting is crucial.  4. It's not just about real estate.  5. When in doubt, read.

Stop by the post, "5 Things About Blogging I Didn’t Know 359 Days Ago" and see if these still hold true for you today.  Are there other valuable lessons you learned along the way?  Any you'd like to share?

photo courtesy of gbaku

I'm frustrated by what I see.

Imagine what a consumer feels if I'm frustrated.  I work in this industry, so I know what's going on and read up on everything I can.  I spend hours doing research for posts, ideas, and clients.  I actually enjoy that side of real estate and real estate blogging.  When I see misinformation being passed around on things like the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit recently, it really frustrates me.  Not just because I then have to field questions from my clients and locals in my area who say "but I just read on ______ that it was extended," but also because I worry about those consumers who rely on someone's blog who didn't check their facts first.

As a real estate blogger, I feel the necessity to try and deliver the most timely and correct information to my clients as well as to those who aren't my clients, but choose to read my blog anyway.  In some ways, I have even more responsibility to those non-clients.  When a reader stops in to read an article I've written on the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit from Kalamazoo, I hope that my post helps them understand it and encourages them to seek a local blogger in their area who upholds the same ideas as I do and can be a great real estate agent for them.

But Matt, it's such a small percentage.

Most of the incorrect posts and tweets about the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit were done by a small number of agents when you look at the big picture.  Most of the agents I consider friends and mentors didn't tell anyone that it was "passed."  They wouldn't dare, but a quick search on Twitter for "tax credit extended" brings up all sort of results that say it "has been extended" (in all fairness, there are a bunch who say "has not").  What is even more shocking is that when you look at the "has been extended" tweets and then follow the links to the posts, they typically say "might be" or other such non-definitive words.

So what?

Our industry should strive everyday to be better and more educated.  We should do everything in our power to help people make sense of real estate.  Giving them false hope or misinformation is not a good way to do either.  We require clients to trust us as we go about our work in helping them buy and sell their homes, yet we give them a great reason to distrust us with things like this.  We will destroy our own industry if we let ourselves.  "But Matt, I don't do this."  Ok, so you're on my side then.  So when you hear people giving out incorrect information - get involved, do what you can to fight the wrong information.  You may not save everyone, but at least you'll be fighting to save our industry as a whole.  And who knows, someone might just hear you and think, "hmmmm...I'd like to work with that person."

photo courtesy of hyku

FTC handing down $11,000 fines?  Yikes!

When first announced, the changes to the FTC Act of 1980 caused quite a stir throughout the blogging community.  The idea was that if you were endorsing a product, you had better disclose your relationship with that company.  Were you given a free sample?  Did they let you keep that $5,000 product in exchange for a glowing review?  After many for-profit bloggers were seen as becoming the mouthpiece for advertisers and more or less company spokesman, the FTC decided to step in and stem the tide of possible false claims in exchange for free stuff.

Although some of the heat from the initial announcement has died down thanks to some explanations by the FTC, it is still a good idea to disclose any relationships between blogger and products or services.

Enter CMP.ly.

I bumped into Kris Smith of CMP.ly (as in "comply") quite randomly at Blog World Expo 2009.  He started a conversation with Jeff Turner, Todd Carpenter, and I and he gave us a quick rundown of CMP.ly and I thought it sounded like a great, simple idea.  Back in the hotel room, I loaded up the site and checked it out.

screen capture from CMP.ly

Use of the site is about as simple as it gets.  Go to CMP.ly and select one of the five (currently) available disclosures.  Once selected, the site will give you a quick and easy cut and paste wording to provide a link to your disclosures (which according to Kris Smith were checked out with the FTC and comply to their definitions of disclosure).  Paste onto your post and away you go.  Full FTC disclosure compliance in seconds.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

(see how it works?)

photo courtesy of Google Analytics and RErockstar.com

Will you miss me when I'm gone?

You've all heard it before, your blogging needs to be consistent to matter most.  The veterans shout it from the rooftops all day long, yet when you're new to blogging it's hard to see why.  No one's reading your blog anyway, right?  Wrong.  Google is always out there, day and night - reading everything it can get it's hands on.  (Note: when I say "Google" I mean all search engines and not just the mega-giant that I prefer to all others.)  Google never sleeps.

Google does have a terrible short term memory problem though.  If you don't remind Google you exist, it will forget you.  Take a week off and you'll find those precious visitors just aren't finding you.  Take a month off and your page one results will slip through your fingers.  Without a consistent feed of reading material from your site, Google will forget you.

Dear Google, I will be away for a few days.

The graph above is from my personal Google Analytics for RErockstar.com.  There I was trucking along when I left for Vegas last Wednesday.  Thursday?  A few less visitors.  Friday?  A few less.  Saturday?  A few less.  You get the picture.  I posted on Monday (the last point on the graph) and it wasn't a hot topic, but as you can see, the act of posting something alerted Google that I existed again.  The article itself wasn't even the source of the most traffic, but even the not-so-well-read articles matter when Google takes a look at the whole picture.

Of course, there are other reasons for fluctuations in the number of visitors (you can see earlier on the chart that I experienced a spike in traffic that I was able to hold for a few days), but time and time again - when I have been less than consistent, my numbers have slipped.

Do you want more traffic on a regular basis?  Well then, start writing.  The veterans have been shouting it from the rooftops since you started - don't ignore them.

This post is part of my Ambassador Series - posts designed to encourage new bloggers and help answer some of the questions you might have.  These are tips I learned that have become inavaluable to me, so I wanted to share, like so many others did with me.  You can check out my posts, as well as other Ambassadors' posts that are part of the series by searching ActiveRain for "Ambassador Series".

You know I like to write more than the average blogger.

Not that I enjoy writing more, but that I enjoy writing more words than the average blogger.  It's an affliction that I was born with and it hasn't gone away.  I like to be as in depth as possible and in some cases it may scare away some readers at www.rerockstar.com, but for those that are willing to stick around and bear with me (and there seems to be plenty), I think I often provide a pretty complete picture of the issue at hand.  Some call it over-doing it, I call it more interesting.

In my never-ending quest to bring my readers the best blog I possibly can, I have been wondering if my current set up is what readers want.  I know there are a lot of theories out there in real estate about how one should set up their blog (just look at the opinions on whether you should force registration on your search) and what is best for the consumer, but I'm not 100% sure what I think on this issue.

The issue at hand.

To the left, you can see a screen capture from my blog with a recent article on it.  This article appears on the front page of my blog (as do all recent articles) and the post is actually quite a bit longer than what you see in the image.  Just look at the topic and you can imagine why it's so lengthy.  Quite a hefty topic.

Because of the length of the post, it winds up taking a majority of room on the front page of my blog (or second or third or...).  I like the idea that a user can scroll through the front page, picking and choosing what they'd like to read when they land on the first page or they can read from most recent to oldest all in one go.  I know when I read blogs, I often start at the top and scroll my way through them (I have a tendency to read most of the first page at least, just to get an idea of who I am reading and what their thoughts are).  I also recognize that I am a little different than many people who use the internet on a regular basis.  I'm not much of a scanner and prefer to find what I need and read the whole thing.  I don't bounce around from point to point searching for the nuggets I want and need.  I read the whole thing before realizing that Google lead me to the right or wrong place.

So I started toying with the idea of making things a little shorter and more to the point and allowing the reader to decide if they want to investigate further and read the whole story.  Enter the more tag in Wordpress.  By using this easily inserted tag, I can decide how much of a post I'd like to show the public on the main page of my blog (and the archives as well).

As you can see from the image on the right, the blog now only shows the title, first headline and first paragraph (there are actually six paragraphs and two headlines in the full blown post).  It's a condensed version of the post allowing just enough so you know where I'm heading with the post, but not giving you everything.  The "Read the rest of this entry" link at the bottom of the post allows a reader to click to learn more.  They have the ability to choose whether they want more, need more, or even care about the topic at hand.

Of course, the danger is that when given the power, some people won't use it at all.  Will they click the link?  Or will they just see it as a nuisance barrier that they have to pass before reading and deciding if the article is worth it or not.  In a world where we're competing for time and attention span, I wonder if it's a helpful or hurtful addition to my blog.

I'd love to hear from some consumers as well as agents who have employed this tag (or similar) on their blogs before.  Did traffic go up?  Did you receive more comments?  Did your overall visits plummet?  What happened that you feel may have been caused by your addition of a gateway to the post?  Any suggestions, thoughts, ideas, or solutions would be appreciated.  In the meantime, I'll just keep writing my posts the way I always have.  Thanks everyone!

photo courtesy of DarrenRowse

31 Days To Build A Better Blog Challenge.

If any of you followed my series on the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog Challenge you'll know that I had a great time doing it and learned a lot (and yes, I still have a few more posts due and they are coming soon).  Not only did I make some great friends, learn a ton about blogging, write some great blogs, earn a ton of points on ActiveRain, and have a bit of fun - I also increased my traffic (to both ActiveRain and RErockstar.com), started to understand how to interact with readers better, grew my sites' usefulness (by providing so many new posts in a given period), and increased my vision for what my blog should be (it often took me a few hours to come up with a topic, now I have hundreds of them at my disposal when I want to write).

Everyone who joined us on the Build A Better Blog Group had a good time and learned a lot.  Now is your chance and you can help me out as well.

The 31 Days To Build A Better Blog eBook.

Darren Rowse, author of Problogger.net, has released a eBook version of the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog Challenge with additional material for those of you that have already completed the challenge.  I'm planning on using the eBook as a refresher when I feel like I'm stuck in a slump and to remind me of all the things I've already put into use.  I mentioned increased traffic, well, RErockstar.com traffic doubled on average and at times has quadrupled (based on daily visitors).

I don't hawk products unless I like them.

I try to avoid hawking any product or service on my site, unless it's something I use, like, and think can be of value to others.  The cost of the eBook is $19.95, but each day gives you a task and a theory behind the task...at about 64 cents a day, I'd say that's a great value.

How this helps me.

I like to be upfront with the things I do and I am asking you to spend your hard earned money, so what's in it for me?  Darren has set up an affiliate program for those of us that took the challenge previously.  Yes, I will make money off of your order of the eBook.  But here's why I want to make money:

photo courtesy of bfishadow

Now that I'm getting more into video, I need a Flip.  They are gorgeous and shoot some amazing video.  Here's my idea.  If I can get around 26 people to purchase their eBook through the link below, I can afford to buy a FlipUltra HD and my blog will only get better.  If I can get 29 people to purchase the eBook, I can afford to a buy a FlipMino HD.  If I can get one person to buy, I can go to McDonald's and eat a few cheeseburgers and wish I could video it.

So, please, I'm asking nicely - help me out!  Trust me, the eBook is worth every penny.

Order the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog eBook now!

Please note: the 31DBBB isn't just for Realtors®, it's for all bloggers!