Here’s an example of a real estate blog, which I got from Robert Scoble’s blog
I like how Stan Mackey integrates the blog with his website (Seattle Real Estate), and with a virtual tour of each house.
He uses the blog as a way to highlight interesting details, share funny stories, and talk about things like the “Top 10 most common items found in a Seattle home inspection”
According to Scoble, Mackey says that 65% of his traffic comes from his blog, which has only been up since May. So far, the traffic hasn’t lead to additional sales or listings, which is the ultimate goal, of course.
One of the commenters on Scoble’s post thinks Mackey needs to post more often, but hey, it sounds like he’s getting decent results the way he’s going. Sometimes a blog has to build up an archive of posts before it hits “critical mass.”
Of course, more posts are better. And more articles which show his expertise, rather than simply featuring the houses, would be good. Posts which combine both would be best.
And a webfeed (RSS) icon would help, too. He does have two feeds, but that’s not apparent from the site.
But this is a great start, and an encouraging sign — there are non-geeky people out there who “get” blogging.
So come on, Connecticut Realtors — where are you? If you need help, contact Valorie Luther, or me, and we’ll get you started.
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June 26th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
That’s one of the drawbacks of having a blog hosted over at Blogger (Blogspot). There’s no way to add RSS icons to the templates. I agree that this is an encouraging sign. Blogging is becoming less “geeky” all the time, as people realize that it’s another great tool for conversation and information.
I realize that you’re talking about realtors, but I’m working on getting our local elected officials to understand how it can help them. So far I only have one that’s onboard. It’s nice to see this kind of communication opening up, though.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Hi, Tom. Thanks for dropping by!
Actually, I think you can add icons and links to the Blogger template — I did it. But it isn’t easy, I’ll admit.
You’d think Blogger would do that by default, wouldn’t you?
I know what you mean about local elected officials. In Connecticut we have one who is trying to get elected, and some of her advisors are very leery of blogging. As for our elected officials, Chris Dodd has a blog, but it’s pretty obvious that he’s never touched it. His staff does a decent job, but it’s not the same.