According to research firm Gartner Inc. using data partially provided by Technorati Inc.,more than 200 million blogs lie abandondoned in cyberspace. The number of active bloggers worldwide is expected to peak this year at 100 million and then drop off to 30 million.

None of my clients even bothered to start blogging. It seems they already knew what those who have started blogging have since discovered - that it takes an awful lot of time and it is very hard to write about something interesting on a regular basis.

I suppose it gets even harder to rationalize the time spent writing a blog when one comes to the realization that few if any actually read the blogs. At that point many blogs become "flogs" - just an online brochure for the Realtor that is never updated.

Do you blog? Why? How often do you write an entry? Who reads it? Do you think it is just a passing fad?

Political blogs have been quite popular from what I hear.

The only blog I read regularly is Dave Barry's 24 blog.

I hope that my competitors agree with your belief that blogs are dying. Mine took my web site from a PR3 to a PR5 in less than three months.

The url I purchased to point to the blog portion of the site is showing up three positions higher in Google for my best keyword string than the site itself.

As far as time involved, I spend less than an hour a week posting. I use Google Alerts to send me local information that I can comment upon in posts, as well as getting good post ideas from the local newspaper, etc. My clients read and comment.

Though the blogging universe may have peaked, successful real estate blogging hasn't even begun to run. I have written several articles on the subject and how to blog successfully for real estate.

I agree with Jim. It will not only help the search engine position of your site but will also provide fresh content that your visitors might be interested in.

My personal blog is going for over 2.5 years. I started it to help my SEO similar to Jim but eventually found out that there are people out there who actually read my personal blog???

Someone even wanted to put a paid link on it

I did not say that was my belief. My post refers to the results of a study which came to that conclusion - I did not say that was my conclusion. My post asks for opionions and I thank you for yours.

Sorry Doug, I must have misconstrued these paragraphs as agreement with the study.

Words and data that other people find interesting can always find a market, if it is marketed appropriately.

Words for the sake of words is an SEO game that lots of people attempt to play. That just makes more noise in a word full of noise pollution.

I look forward to spending some time reading Jim's articles. It looks like good stuff.

With internet marketing, the spoils go to those who genuinely apply themselves.

Jim,

I said that my clients seemed to be on the same wavelength as those bloggers the study talks about - I did not say that I think blogging is a waste of time. I blog myself and I also have a real estate blog directory - search Google for "real estate blogs" and see what comes up #1.

My own clients seem to think blogging is a waste of time from a real estate sales point of view - not one is listed in my directory - because the type of clients I work with would rather be out face to face with buyers and sellers than playing with their website which includes writing in a blog even though they would be on a PR4 page. Blogging for SEO reasons is not really what I intended the the point of the post to be.

Again - the point of the post is in regards to real estate blogs and members experiences with them - not blogging as a SEO exercise.

To get back to that - my question was "Do you blog? Why? How often do you write an entry? Who reads it? Do you think it is just a passing fad?"

I blog. I blog to let my readers stay current on the local real estate market. I write entrys twice a week. I think out of town buyers who use my website to search the MLS are reading my blog. I think blogs are here to stay and are not a fad.

I would think that out-of-towners would find blogs about current market conditions a real benefit. And they are usually the best buyers to pick up from the net!

Doug:

In the past year I've changed from my own custom site which I built and a Blog on Typepad to a Point2Agent Site with an integral blog. I'm in a vacation/resort market. It was a big decision to get rid of the custom site with a PR5. I ran both together for about a year. The new site had a PR3 and the blog was added about six months ago. The blog portion of the site already has a PRS, while the site itself is fluctuating between a 4 and a 5.

I attribute the quick recent gains totally to the blog. Since every dollar of my real estate income comes from my site and I do No other marketing, print or otherwise, I think blogging is great for me. I agree with you that it's not for everyone.

This is the conversation that i have been having with myself about blogging and SEO in general.

From what i see a blog will have great effects on SEO, but i still dont know who reads it? and if it results in $$, and How much time it takes to get a great PR

In Australia the tech side of real estate is 3-5 years behind the USA, so seeing what you are doing is great, it keeps me up the front of agents in my local area.

So If blogging is dead (and i dont think it is) what is next?

Hmmm...well my internet strategy is based around blogs. We're going to use them for farming. So far, blogs pay off more than the expensive SEO that I pay for.

That is interesting Dee - what are you doing? Are you setting up a different blog for each neighborhood and driving people to them with admail? That would be a good idea I would think.

Jim... are you using the same domain for the new site?

If so, the existing links that were pointing to the old site are why the PR came back so quickly ... Blogs don't create PR (not that PR is a good indicator of anything anymore) ..but can be a valuable tool for adding relevant content to a main site or developing niche sites for town/development level visitors looking for highly targeted information.

No matter what your using...the important thing to remeber with a blog or site is the old adage ... "telling isn't selling" ... don't forget to build in lead capture everywhere and automated follow up with highly targeted and valuable information for those that aren't ready to close the deal today ... This will pay dividends in the long run

I blog - less than I should - but I try to post at least a few blogs per week. I do it for a few different reasons:
My main reason is to add relevant local content on a regular basis in an informal manner. I think of my blog as my conversational voice when my static website is my advertising voice.
I also use my blog to add fresh content to my site - not just for the sake of fresh content, but for the long tail search results that add up.
Finally, I use my blogs for SEO purposes to get pages indexed and add external links. I have several blogs for these particular reasons.
Eric
Aurora Real Estate, Golden Oaks Subdivision, Foxcroft Subdivision

Blogs are one of the best online marketing tools. Business owners should rethink abandoning their business blog.

Q...

I have a few blogs and look at them as a great way to put out content without having to work very hard at the layour. In fact with a blog you only have to setup your layour once and then you have all of the page layour done until you change the templates.

I do not think that i have that many regular readers for mostof my blogs but the most important thing is that that platform allows you to publicize your content well and you can just concentrate on what is most important on the internet and that is content.

While it is true that having a blog is not the only thing that matters for an online presence I believe that if you have a series of focussed posts on different aspect of your market you will bring in real customers.

This is a big point and one of the main reasons why I think they will actually increase in usage and not fade out. Blogging content is not only a simple quick way to publish information using an attractive layout but also this layout is configured to be VERY search engine friendly automatically. There are a lot of dormant blogs out there, but a lot of these were probably experimental and automated ones by persons/groups who launched large numbers of blogs and simply dropped the non-performing ones. Of course also when blogging started to get really "cool" a lot of people took on the trend and then lost interest.

I plan on creating a blog for each neighborhood, then marketing the blog instead of a website. We'll use the same farming campaigns that we normally do, but post pictures, stats, etc. of the neighborhood on the blog realtime.

We'll interview teachers, residents, builders, etc. and post their pictures if they'd agree to it. People like being "published", so we'll also offer to send out a link of their interview to all their friends. :-)

Blog are very much alive. Please remember that for every blog opened and not started there are thousands being started.

Blogging will overtake websites in popularity in the no too distant future.

A successful blog depends on many factors - including platform selected! My Space won't cut it if you want to rank well

I know many Realtors that set one up and abandon them for an hour of golf

I have three blogs that make money from Google adSense (not $1000s a month) but enough t keep me in toys and frivolous wants.

I have three BICs with VERY successful blogs

My message don't underestimate the power of Blogs - they are here to stay and will grow in popularity as newspapers fade into oblivion

My first post here - hope it was good for you

David

Doug,

I was in another fourm recently, and an anti-reciprocation zealot was taking me to task. I asked him how he'd get links (in large quantity, similar to what is possble with exchanges) without recirocating

He told me to look at a big-time bloggers site that was ranking well.

So I did. It turns out that most of his link were due to reciprocation. They had simply replaced directory-to-directory reciprocation with blog-to-blog reciprocation. Same difference to search engines.

It was then that I realized that a lot of blogging is for the purpose of swapping blog links. Reciprocation is inevitible, because people tend to stay within their own realm.

I have nothgin against any of it. I am even looking into it. It seems to be rather messy, getting it all set up.

But, in the end, it's just lipstick on a pig. For some reason, blog reciprocation appeals to people who don't like directory reciropcation. I fail to see much of any difference.

Blog reciprocation will probably run into problems in the future. It will be targeted by Google and seen as un-natural the same as comment spam eventually - even if done as article exchanges. Having someone else's content (with a link back to them) on your site is no different from comment spam by definition and to keep Google happy the link would have to have the "no follow" attribute.

I think the blogging for links idea is definately a fad and will dissappear once the links are proven to be a problem.

Blog for the benefit of readers - and future clients - not as a link strategy.

For the record, I do not have a problem with reciprocal links and think they are beneficial as long as they are done right. I use them on almost all of my sites and they are beneficial still. But that is a whole different topic

According to Google, any links that could have been placed on your site by anyone other than you and/or for any other purpose other than as a resource for your visitors - is a bad link and should be using the "no follow".

If you are a web designer and put links back to your site from the sites you create - it is a bad link by that definition. If you create blog articles that have a link back to your site it is no different. The web site or article you create for someone else to place on their site may be seen as a resource but the link back to your site is not - that is what Google has in their sites now. It is not yet been implemented as far as I can tell but it is only a matter of time.

Blogging more than once a week will provide fresh content for your blog. This will keep the search engine spiders returning. However I try to post at least once a week.

Be sure to claim your blogs at technorati.com As technorati is the largest blog search engine. Be sure to tag your keywords in every post. And as much of an inconvience as it is, submit your post to social bookmarking sites. This creates links and traffic back to your blog. Also a quailty pinglist will drive traffic right away as long as your content and blog is a good read. There are many plugins to get readers to subscribe to your blog (news feed).

Go to feedburner.com and burn your blog feed. If you use wordpress on your own hosting account, your feed will look like this http://www.domain.com/feed or http://www.domain.com/feed/rss

My feeling is what good is a blog if noone knows about it! My blogs rock!

You're still blogging aren't you? Even if there are a ton that are abandoned there are still millions (hundreds of millions?) being used. Is that a fad? How many people bought Von Dutch? Now that was a fad.

I certainly hope you are still blogging. Honestly, I doubt blogging will ever be considered a fad, especially from a business perspective. Blogs are some of the primary sources for fresh content, which is what search engines and spiders love. If a search engine can not provide people with recent content, then they will end up moving to another search engine that can.

Not only that, but using blogs get new websites indexed very quickly.

I don't think so. At the very least, in our profession it's a good way to communicate and network with other RE professionals and get ideas.

I'm meeting with several buyers whom I "met" because of my blog.

I'm writing up a contract for one that will end up netting me about $3700.

Most of my customers have come from my blog, it's been very worthwhile and I don't see an end in sight. My blog is getting more and more traffic and it already has a page rank of 3 (it's only been live a few months).

This is just the beginning.

Hopefully it'll be the end of the worthless blogs, the regurgitated cut and paste garbage that people see everywhere.

Hey Karen, do you mind if I blog about your blog on my website? I have a Real Estate Marketing blog and your blog is the perfect example of what I am trying to convey to agents...

Sure, Fadi - thanks for thinking of me! I'm flattered!

Congratulations. Your blog is your fastest way to get traffic and buzz online as search engines look at them first. Updating on a daily basis even if it is only to post up a few listings will help your PR greatly in Google.

Here is a really simple trick to getting a better ranking for your blog. Use the Google External Keywords tool. Before you go there build a list of keywords, write down all the possible word combinations that home buyers and home sellers or commercial buy/sell may use to find you or real estate searches in your business' area. Also write down all the zip codes as well.

Sample list idea:
Boise real estate
Boise listings
Boise Homes For Sale
Boise Housing Market
83701 homes for sale
83704 real estate listings
Karen Agent ReMax real estate Boise ID
Karen Agent real estate listings
(Note replace Karen Agent with your name)
ReMax Real Estate Boise ID
Remax real Estate 83701
(NOTE you should add as many as you can of specific combinations)

Once you have the list go to:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?defaultView=2

Insert your word phrase into the box next to where it says: Descriptive words or phrases

The next page will supply you with a list of keyword ideas.

Then use those keywords phrases it spits out (you can download it to your computer) in your blog posts. Sprinkle them into your copy like salt on green beans. They will help your ranking for those terms.

But you have to make it sound natural and that is the key.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Jim Lillig

Really nice Jim, never thought of that :) thanks for the tip...

For me, I have created a google gadget/widget that people can add to their igoogle and it will show my blog posts the same way news posts show up and registered it with google's gadgets directory.

It will take some time for it to show up, but once it does... I will have high exposure using it. Meanwhile, those who find my website can add it through my website.

This does sound like an EXCELLENT tip and I will be checking that out!