I wanted to respond to a recent post by a popular real estate blogger, Shailesh Ghimire. The article is entitled “Blogging Begets Referral Sources,” and Mr. Ghimire is a big fan of blogging. He likes blogging, and he thinks you should blog too. I believe in blogging myself, but I also stand firm that blogging isn’t for everyone. Before you jump on the blogging bandwagon, there are a few things you should think about.
First, if you can’t write, forget about blogging. All of the top bloggers write well, and many of them are fabulous writers. While you do not have to be perfect when it comes to grammar and punctuation, you need to be confident in those areas. People will not take you seriously if you make consistent errors, and you certainly won’t be added to any important blogrolls (we’ll get to those later). Also, if you struggle with writing, the time it will take you to put together a post will make the whole endeavor cost prohibitive. You need to be able to write without thinking about writing. If you think you make the grade when it comes to writing skills, read on.
Next comes the technical stuff. The only way for you to make any cold hard cash by blogging is for your blog posts to show up in search results. To get inside the mind of Google, I read their ranking blog documents patent application. I wanted to see how Google decides who gets top placement in their search results. Section 0037 sums it up well:
“[0037] Positive indicators as to the quality of the blog document may be identified (act 620). Such indicators may include a popularity of the blog document, an implied popularity of the blog document, the existence of the blog document in blogrolls, the existence of the blog document in a high quality blogroll, tagging of the blog document, references to the blog document by other sources, and a pagerank of the blog document. It will be appreciated that other indicators may also be used.” [emphasis added]
The patent goes into each of these categories in more detail, but I’ll try to sum it up for you so that you don’t have to trudge through the patent application yourself.
Popularity of the blog document
Google estimates how popular a blog is based on feed readership. How do they know this? They have Google Reader, and since they own at least 30% of the feed reader market, they can extrapolate how many people subscribe to your feed. If your feed readership consists of you and your spouse, you won’t get too much respect from Google.
Implied popularity of the blog document
The patent states that Google analyzes the click stream of search results to arrive at an “implied” popularity factor. If one blog gets clicked more than comparable blogs, there is an implication that people like that document. “Catchy” titles on blog posts will get more clicks than bland titles.
The existence of the blog document in blogrolls, particularly high quality blogrolls
Google establishes a popularity factor for blogs based on a blog’s existence in blogrolls. A blogroll is a collection of links (usually on the home page) of one blogger to other blogs in which the blogger is interested.
Tagging of the blog document
Some sites allow users to “tag” certain documents using keywords. Tags are a good indication that people have read your posts and taken the time to categorize them for the benefit of other web travelers.
References to the blog document by other sources
This part is a little scary. Blogs are ranked based on “references to the blog document in other sources.” The patent application defines those “other sources” as “content of emails or chat transcripts.” If you are a Gmail user, it sounds to me like Google is reading your email! People aren’t reading your email, of course, but the spiders certainly are. They are crawling Gmail and Google Talk to find references to blogs. Again, because they own a percentage of the email and chat market, they can extrapolate to assign a quality ranking to a particular blog based on the “buzz” on the web.
PageRank
Google assigns each page on the web a PageRank from 1 to 10, 10 being the best. Google has a PageRank of 10, of course. Lenderama is a 5 (which is excellent). Dictionary.com is a 7. The websites of most ordinary folks usually fall somewhere between 0 and 4. PageRank is calculated based on the number and quality of links pointing to a domain. Google counts these links as “votes” for your site. In high school, one really popular friend was worth ten semi-popular friends. It works the same with Google. If you can get realtor.com to put a link to your site on their home page, that would be great for your PageRank. Most of us will take any old backlink. The more backlinks, the better.
The patent goes on and on. Google penalizes blogs for infrequent posts, for example. Most of it is common sense. I will also point out that this patent pertains to Google’s BlogSearch engine, which only returns blog documents. However, I think it’s safe to say that they use similar processes for returning search results in the main Google.com search engine that we all know and love.
Now let’s talk about what you have to do to be successful as a blogger. After doing the initial technical work to set up a blog on an established domain (Google snubs new domains), you still have a lot of work ahead of you — if you want your blog posts to show up in the search engines, that is. First, you need to get people to subscribe to your feed. Next, you need to make friends with the big wigs in the blogging community. I recommend sending chocolates and roses to Greg Swann at Bloodhound. Getting the Bloodhound Boss to add you to his blogroll or invite you to be a contributor would be a great start for your newly established blog. Next, you need to write good content so that your blog posts will get tagged in the social bookmarking world. Maybe those same people will talk to their friends about your insightful writing in their emails and chats. Next to getting people to subscribe to your feed, perhaps the most important (and, by the way, time consuming) work in front of you is establishing backlinks to your blog. You do this by blogging on other people’s blogs, getting listed on blogrolls, writing articles, establishing directory listings and commenting on other bloggers’ posts (which requires a lot of reading of blogs posts). When I look at the blogs that are being returned in the search results (meaning the ones making cold hard cash from real leads), those blogs have 5,000 or more backlinks pointing to their blog. Some have more than 50,000 backlinks. Yes, some blogs rank for certain terms that have less than 5,000 “votes,” but for the most part, the blogs I see that rank in the SERPs have between 5,000 and 15,000 backlinks, generally speaking. And last but not least, you need to post frequent, quality content.
As you can see, blogging takes a lot of work. You can’t just slap together a 10-minute written post each day and think you’re going to rake it in. I don’t want to scare you off, but if you are serious about starting a blog, you need to know what it takes to be successful. Even if you work diligently every day, it could take months or even a year or more before the search engines start recognizing your work. You would be surprised how much time it takes to put together a single article. Before you dive in, I suggest writing some articles for ezinearticles.com so that you can get an idea of the work that will go into regular blog posting. Ezine articles are reviewed by human editors, so if your writing isn’t up to snuff, your articles will be rejected. Also, you’ll want to start reading and commenting on blogs regularly so that you can get an idea of the time involved in establishing backlinks. Before you jump in the pool, dip your foot in the water.
If you do decide to start a blog, you may consider using the services of an expert like RSS Pieces. They can help you generate a game plan to make sure you don’t join the long list of failed bloggers. All hope is not lost. With some talent and a year of hard work, you too can join the ranks of people like Teresa Boardman, Lani Anglin-Rosales and Ines Hegedus-Garcia. I tip my hat to those folks. And I’ll give you one last tip: I heard a rumor that Greg Swann likes fine cigars and expensive micro brews.
Wade Young is a Denver mortgage broker.
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12 responses so far ↓
1 Brian Brady // Apr 13, 2008 at 1:54 am
“And I’ll give you one last tip: I heard a rumor that Greg Swann likes fine cigars and expensive micro brews.”
I don’t think he drinks much but I’m almost certain he enjoys a glass of Bushmills.
Impress him; you’ll get links. He’s a sucker for brilliance
2 Rhonda Porter // Apr 13, 2008 at 7:39 am
I agree that you should enjoy writing if you are considering a blog…however I don’t agree with you on writing for SEO/google.
I write with my clients in mind and google follows. Even if google ignored me, what’s most important to me is that my clients (consumer and agent) are reading my content and sharing it with others. Especially since my business is restricted to Washington state. When I have consumers in need of help who are in Florida (or anywhere else except WA); I cannot help them and it’s actually a time-sucker for me to respond and re-direct them to another professional.
“Google-Juice” is just frosting on the cake…which I enjoy but I don’t focus on nor do I recommend any new blogger to. I’ve seen noticed blogs who are really trying to write for SEO and it’s apparent.
3 Ling // Apr 13, 2008 at 10:19 am
A blogger needs to have two things, which are of paramount importance - A sense of humor and real life experience about the subject matter. The reason why almost every blog is a failure is because it’s either boring or the blogger has no idea what he’s talking about. And anyone interested in the subject can tell whether or not thew writer is an expert.
4 Todd Carpenter // Apr 13, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Good stuff Wade, but I’m with Rhonda. Blog to your clients and Google will follow. That’s how I built lenderama, and all my other blogs.
Also, I know it was half tongue in cheek, but I’d never think to bribe Greg Swann, or anyone else for that matter, just to be a part of their blog. I know from my own experience in recruiting and managing contributors that I’m not doing my contributors any great favor, the benefit goes both ways.
If you’re trying to win Greg’s heart, submit your good blog posts to his writing contest. If you’d like to fancy yourself as a contributor to lenderama, check out the “Sound Off” page for details on how to get my attention.
5 Shailesh Ghimire // Apr 13, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Wade,
Good article. Well put together. I agree that blogging is not for everyone, but blogging can be a good mix in a loan officers marketing piece. The beauty of blogging is that you define your own success.
I think reading your article I’d be overwhelmed as a first time blogger trying to see if it makes sense to blog. There is certainly a lot to learn. But no one is asking you to be an expert over night. You can learn all that stuff as you go along. Plus a lot of that changes over time too, so its not like you need to know it all before you start.
One point I would certainly disagree with is that you need to make nice to big time bloggers - that could help, but it’s not a requirement. Again the egalitarian nature of the Internet world means the power of many less powerful bloggers is greater than the power of one powerful blogger. It doesn’t hurt to get a linkn from a big blogger, but not a necessity. I guess Todd is making the same point.
I’d also like to add that most blogging systems are pretty intuitive. If you can do e-mail you can blog. The more time you spend on your system the better you get and you’ll be very proficient in a few weeks.
The two areas where I certainly agree with is that you do need to enjoy writing. If you enjoy writing your thoughts and are good at putting together some coherent posts then you’re good to go. You correctly point out that not everyone has that skill or inclination. Also, I agree with Ling that real world experience is very important to a successful blog.
The second area is that it certainly takes a lot of effort to get started and have a good blog in place. That though is a business decision. If you decide door knocking is for you then that too takes a lot of time and effort you don’t get any results until you’ve done it for a while with a certain degree of consistency. Same goes for any other marketing campaign you decide to execute. Again goes back to your marketing mix and how you want to get leads and referrals.
Great post Wade. This is probably the longed comment I’ve every left on anyone’s post. Thanks!
6 Ines // Apr 13, 2008 at 10:58 pm
I am flattered to be considered with such great company. The beauty of blogging to me is that there is no equation and there are no rules. I think that writing about a subject matter (whatever that is) with passion is what will get you readership, the rest is secondary.
People like my architectural posts, and no wonder because those are the ones I enjoy writing the most.
Then read, read and read some more to know how you are doing and to learn from the best.
7 Wade Young // Apr 14, 2008 at 7:42 am
Rhonda and Todd–
I don’t remember saying to write to the search engines. What I did say was to write good, quality content. Dealing with the search engines is a separate issue. That requires getting on blogrolls, establishing links, obtaining feed subscribers, posting frequently, etc. That’s separate and does not require writing with SEO in mind. I can’t imagine writing with SEO in mind. It would just be too difficult for a blogger.
Also, I’m glad Rhonda has a Rolodex of clients that she can blog to, but what about the new gal who is trying to establish a client base? She has to keep try to get her posts in the search results.
8 Wade Young // Apr 14, 2008 at 7:50 am
Shailesh–
“One point I would certainly disagree with is that you need to make nice to big time bloggers …”
I will quote section 0041 of the Google patent directly:
[0041] The existence of the blog document in a high quality blogroll may be a positive indication of the quality of the blog document.
I think it’s important that Google choose to make inclusion in a “high quality” blogroll separate from section 0040, which references blogrolls in general. It does indeed matter to Google if you are listed on the blogroll of a big time blogger. Like links with Google, a bunch of PR0 or PR blogroll inclusions will eventually equal one PR5.
I also want to mention that I did like your original article, and I agree with you that blogging is a great way to reach people, including referral partners. I like your writing too. However, before people jump in, they really need to know what it takes to be successful. Otherwise, they’ll just be wasting their time, and failure isn’t good for anyone.
9 Wade Young // Apr 14, 2008 at 7:59 am
Todd–
“Also, I know it was half tongue in cheek, but I’d never think to bribe Greg Swann, or anyone else for that matter, just to be a part of their blog.”
Yes, I meant it tongue in cheek — not half, but 100% –, but it does bring another concept to mind. The idea is paying to be a contributor. I don’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, I will go on record as predicting that it will happen. Blogs are getting more and more valuable as time passes (including those outside the real estate arena). As people hop on board to be contributors, eventually there will be too many people who want to write for a particular blog. The blog king will have to make a choice, and one obvious solution is for contributors to pay to be a part of the blog. I think it’s a ways down the road — maybe 10 years or so. If you have 50 quality contributors and you only need 25, what is a blog boss to do? You can cut people, or you can charge a fee to be a part of the blog. If you would have those people as contributors anyway, I don’t see how it would hurt the quality.
10 Brian Brady // Apr 14, 2008 at 8:14 pm
“The idea is paying to be a contributor. I don’t see anything wrong with that. In fact, I will go on record as predicting that it will happen.”
I don’t disagree with that premise at all. That said, I’d spring for a bottle of Bushmills
11 VA Refinance // Apr 15, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Wade great Post, I agree that you have to like and be good at wirting. I my self am not but I do like to comment on the posts. you have to know your limits. and my comes at writing.
12 Shannon-Chico Real Estate Vioce // May 1, 2008 at 10:45 am
Thanks for the informative post! I am new to this blogging thing and appreciate every bit of information I can get. I am finding that the more I learn, the less I know. Kind of overwhelming! Anyway, you just taught me a bunch. Thanks!
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