Links for those who are now considering entering the Blogosphere
As mentioned before, I'm now persuading my network of real estate professionals to consider developing blogs for their business. I promised more than a few of those contacts that I would provide a basic introduction to why they should blog, how they should get started and how to develop their blog strategy, and I'd do this over the weekend. I also said that I would be efficient... I'd deliver them just enough content so they can get a good idea on how to proceed into blogging after one hour of Sunday evening reading.
There is already a rich set of articles that I've found useful and inspiring while learning the trade. Compiled, I think they do the best job of getting bloggers on board. So instead of sending emails to all of my contacts, I'll just post this set of links and email my blog url...
1) Why
Blog?
- Steal
this Blog
- Real Estate Weblogging is a Journey, not a Destination....
- Teresa Boardman, a fine blogger, explains why she does it
- Why Blogging Works
2) Setting up the blog - which blog
platform? (btw, my preference is Wordpress, I'm trying it out right now and getting ready to migrate my blog to it)
- Test out how you might blog on Active Rain, a new real estate networking
community with a simple blogging feature. (I'll be inviting you...)
- Real Estate Weblogging Software?
- Technical review of Blogging Platforms by Problogger
- Check out a new hybrid blog/website product from MyRealtyBlog
3) How to
Blog
- How
to Make Money from your Blog - (a long read, but really tells the truth about blogging and what you're getting into)
- 8 P's to Blogging Success
4) More
links
- Copyblogger - definitive guide to writing content
- Problogger 's Blogging for Beginners series - useful for those who are naturally inclined to follow detailed instructions, like builders of model airplanes. I advise new bloggers to start with the articles listed above and then start tackling the series one lesson at a time.
Pat,
Typepad may cost more but it you signed up for a free trial you might find the it has all kinds of functions built in that you have had to find your self and set up. Some of the features you found on my blog. I did not have to do any research. I am thinking there are currently more blogs about blogging than there are about anything else. So young man take your most excellent professional blog and use a professional blogging plat form.
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Thanks as always for your great advice Teresa... it's interesting how certain products rise to the top, and even in this prolific space of blogging platforms, Wordpress and Typepad/Movable Type, seem to be praised most by veteran bloggers. I have now tried WP, Typepad and Blogger for a Japanese language blog I've been developing. I find WP and Typepad are tossups... I've also been a Palm devotee and admire WP being open source and allowing developer functionality to the application.
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Nice post. I can't stress enough the benefits of blogging for real estate folks. Real estate is a dynamic industry with so many changes variable ... blogs are ideal for communicating such info via the web. And then there's the search engine benefits on top of that.
Thanks for posting the helpful links!
-Brandon
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Thank you for the kind comments Brandon...
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I want to blog and make money, since I'm a writer, this seems to be a good way to do it.
However I'm at a impasse at finding out who to host me, so I can make make the money (not them) Suggestions??
Does Godaddy support Wordpress??
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Yes Godaddy and Bluehost support Wordpress and they both get good hosting reviews... and yes, use a Wordpress platform.
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Which is better Wordpress or yoomla? I've heard you can't do tags with Wordpress, and you can with Yoomla.
Thoughts??
I can use MS Word in some of the advanced functions, so some consider me some what "savvy". Which would be the better to use to create traffic?
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I had never heard of Yoomla and checked it out and noted that the site is all in German. So I don't know about yoomla...
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http://www.joomla.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joomla
I don't know much about it, however it's supposed to be easy to Html tags into it where as Wordpress it's very hard to put tags in, or so is my understanding from speaking to others. (I might have misspoken geek, but I hope you get the idea)
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I'm afraid I'm not technical enough to understand the Joomla architecture to offer advice.
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