I maintain my activerain account but I don't publish much there. You can do better on your own platform - AR has good google juice but they aren't google god. lol

the value in AR to me now is just reading all the good business info (tips, ideas, etc) you can find once you sift past the market reports and the nonsense...

I totally love my new blog. Wish I'd had time to get it out sooner today but my dang phone just kept ringing with this, that and the other thing....

http://pikewaynepablog.com/2011/03/17/an-irish-greeting-from-pike-county/

Notice how I got some important keywords in there but the blog wasn't really about real estate? I actually think I laid it on a little too thick, but hey - it's a Blarney Day anyway. I love blogging. Wish I had more time to mess with it.

bloggimg is not dead but though it's kind of a long term process, when you are talking about serp. To be a good blogger, you don't need to be a master of all the markets in your area, you just have to have a little knowledge about your area of specialisation or location in real estate and start even if it's a few sentence you are able to write. Blogging helps to increase your online presence and widen your reach on the net. Ant realtor or broker who is not combining blogging with his website is missing out on a large chunk of the market.

I blog regularly on my web site. I installed wordpress for my blogging platform. Google loves to index the blogs from wordpress and my blogs appear on google within couple hours if not less.

Nice thing about blogs is when people search for terms that you cant even think of, your blog will show up as a result which driver people to your web site.

I might blog about a flower show and there are people searching for a flower show in my area which in turn end up reading my blog entry.

It is another tool to driver people to your site. You just have to have a nice web site to keep them there and hope they see something they like.

I love the Link Bait Perky! Blogging is one of the best tools you can have in your arsenal if used properly and on the other hand if misused can waste a ton of time. I remember when I started out I was a total SPAMMER and it did absolutely nothing for me and since I actually became a valuable part of the blog community and do great posts I see consistent business from my efforts.

Conversion is not rocket science, but it's more than just "hoping" your audience sees something they like. It's about making your calls to action obvious and well placed, and making sure that the consumer gets exactly what they expect on the other side of that click. And getting rid of unnecessary information that no one is looking at. For instance, analytics show that no one looks at buyers and sellers tabs -- yet almost every agent site on the planet has them.

No blogging isn't dead! Email is dead, print is dead...but not blogging!

You need to know which ones are good to use. WP is the best of course! If you're not too familiar, use .com/training wheels til you are able to consistently deevote yourself to it. Once you are able to come up with content consistently, move to .org

The good google juice is in WP, other than that, you can probably use a blogspot and get the same results, just know you need to submit your blog to the search engines, set up your meta tags and put the right content on and you're good! If your content is the same as so many other agents, you're simply on a treadmill going nowhere! Consumers don't need yet another article on how to choose and agent!

I don't think blogging is dead, I just think a lot of people became disillusioned with it. There was a time when blogging exploded and everyone thought they were going to be the next big thing. After a couple of months that didn't happen for a lot of people and they put it on the back burner. Keeping a blog requires commitment and time, both valuable commodities.