Allow Comments

One easy way to get interactivity, and thus leads, going with a blog is simply to allow comments on the blog. This will give a basic sense of who your readers are and allow you to interact with them. You can then both tailor blog posts to your readership more effectively and also market to them or inquire about housing possibilities. This is a basic and organic form of social networking but one which nevertheless works quite well. It gets interactivity, in this case real estate related interactivity, going with the blog and is a good setup for more sophisticated networking methods.

Link the Blog to a Website

You can also link the blog to a real estate or housing website that you own or participate in. In this way you channel a flow of real estate lead traffic from the blog to the site and allow readers to access forms and sign up for lists that you provide on the website. The link can be located at the end of blog posts or perhaps near the blog title. You can even set up the website and blog as pages of a larger integrated site.

Cover a Variety of Real Estate Topics

It’s a good idea to cover a variety of real estate topics so that you get a diverse range of readers. This will help the blog to generate traffic and leads with a variety of interests, budgets, and other characteristics. Getting diverse leads keeps things interesting and evolving. It means more leads and more referrals across a broad spectrum of people involved in real estate.

Post about Local Markets

Clearly it makes sense to post about local markets, chiefly the ones in which you are either seeking to sell or purchase property. This will get targeted local leads that are fairly likely to have properties or be interested in purchasing properties in the markets you are connected with. You can also post about more distant markets in various cities and other localities to give your blog relevance.

Consider Opt in Pop Ups

Email marketing from opt in lists are a widely recognized form of internet lead generation. You can consider using these on a blog to get targeted traffic and then market to them. You can send the people on your email lists offers of properties to consider for purchase, rentals, and so on. You can also get market to sellers in a similar fashion, furnishing them with lists of buyers interested in making a purchase.

Consider blogging if you are involved in real estate and have not already done so. They are an established form of networking, lead generation, and marketing that is well suited to the real estate industry.

Network, network, network. Want to develop relationships with other bloggers you could partner with for some guest blogging and blog linking? Then the expo is full of like-minded people who want to meet YOU The Internet is a global marketplace, and there’s nothing quite like connecting with bloggers on a global level, face to face, in one convenient location.

Social media marketing. Perhaps the most effective way of marketing your blog and growing your readership is through social media. The world of social media marketing is so broad and varied that it can be extremely confusing for those who want to market a blog, but who don’t necessarily understand the ins and outs of marketing through social media avenues. Presenters at blog expos understand your needs, and they are there to provide you with invaluable information for taking advantage of your greatest marketing tool.

Technology and tools. The world of technology seems to evolve at a head-spinning rate. How do you know that you are using the best and most efficient technology and tools for your blog or podcast? You really don’t – unless you ask a professional. At blog expos, that professional guidance is readily available to you.

Blog expansion. Are you interested in expanding your blog by making it into a podcast? Or perhaps you want to develop your blog into an ebook and you have no idea where to begin. Whatever your big plans are for your blog, you can find plenty of advice and knowledge to make that happen at blog expos.

Make more money. Every blogger dreams of making the big bucks doing what they love most. It is possible to monetize your blog, and to better your blog in the process. Find out how to do that the best possible way at a blog expo.

As a blogger, you simply can’t afford not to take advantage of every learning resource available to you. When you attend a blog expo, you expose yourself to, literally, hundreds of established and knowledgeable speakers who are eager to share with you whatever information you need to make your blog more successful. Plus, you will meet a lot of cool people and have a lot of fun in the process.

Display Images

There’s no denying the fact that blogs are the ultimate way to share bits of information with the world, but they are also a great option for sharing photos. Some blogs will even allow you to customize how the photos are laid out allowing you to create a digital scrapbook. This is a wonderful way to share memories with friends and family across the country, but you may want to require a password to keep your blog private.

Create a Virtual Resume

Just because you’re new to blogging may not mean you’re new to writing. A blog can be a great way to create a virtual resume that shows off a variety of skills. The first page might be used for updates on current projects you’re working on while another page could list your actual resume. You could even use other pages for links to your best work and referrals.

Start a Store

Love to work on crafts, but can’t justify the time spent on them? Sell them. A blog is an easy way to sell items. You can use the first page to list new products as they are completed and use a second page for additional pictures of the products. Yet another page could be used for shipping, payment and contact information. Just make sure to read your blog host’s regulations on selling items.

Make a Website

Want to make a business website about any subject, but aren’t that good with HTML? Use a blog. Most blogs allow you to create additional pages, which makes it easy to create a website. Your first page could be a live feed, while other pages are used for links, pictures or even videos.

Post How-To Videos

Last, but certainly not least, blogs can be used to make a vlog. If you’d rather share information with internet users through videos, so be it. Many blogging platforms allow the upload of videos and this is a much better way to showcase some how-to material than written instructions.

There are a number of great things that can be done with a blog. It doesn’t matter if you want to make a website, start an online store or create a blog, blogs are a wonderful platform for all of these things and more.

Your URL. Put your blog’s URL everywhere, and on everything. It should be on your business cards, in the signature line of all your correspondence, on your stationary letterhead, and anything else you can think of that you use to communicate with people outside of the virtual world.

Networking. Attend blog events like the BlogWorld Expo, industry seminars and trade shows related to your blog’s niche, local business networking club events, and chamber of commerce meetings to meet people who may be interested in your blog. (By the way, networking with other blog owners, in particular, creates opportunities for you to guest blog and get linkbacks to your own blog, which is powerful marketing.) It doesn’t matter if you end up talking to someone from a staffing agency or your local dive restaurant. When you meet new people through these networking avenues, hand out your business card – you business card with your site’s URL. You’re always making valuable contacts.

Advertising. Take out advertisements in newspapers, and place ads with direct mailing companies, to spread the word about your blog to people in the offline world. You can use these advertisements to promote your blog by creating a call to action, like: “Subscribe to my blog and you will be entered for a chance to win a new baby giraffe” (Or something similar.)

Sponsor locally. No matter where you live, there is sure to be a number of local charities, clubs, and community events that you can sponsor in order to gain respect and increase your blog’s readership. For example, donate to your local high school’s football team to get your blog advertisement printed in the high school’s yearbook.

Free stuff. Everyone loves free stuff. Have your blog’s logo (and URL) printed on coffee mugs, t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, pens and more, and give the stuff away wherever you go. Bring your SWAG (Stuff We All Get) to all the networking events you attend to get some real attention.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways for you to market your blog in the offline world. Follow these suggestions to add another, highly-effective dimension to your blog marketing efforts to ensure your blog’s ongoing success.

Never Use a Password That Is Used in Your Blog

People are accustomed to using pet names and other easily guessed information for passwords. You should never use anything you mention on your blog as a password. This includes pet names, favorite actors, hobbies..anything. Your password should be extremely difficult for a hacker to decipher. Use a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols (if applicable) to create a secure password.

Backup Content Frequently

Part of your responsibility to keep your blog secure is to keep your content protected. This means you want to be able to quickly replace the content should something happen to the site. The best way to do this is to backup any work you add to the blog. While it may be tempting to quickly jot down your thoughts in the blog and hit save, you need to backup everything. Losing your entire blog can be devastating, but if you backup your content you won’t have to start from scratch. If you aren’t sure where to store your backup, consider looking for an external hard driver or some other device.

Be Careful of Who You Invite to Do Guest Posts

Guest posts are not only a great way to ensure posts are frequently made to your blog, but guests can share information that you may not have, such as a new cooking technique. Guests can also offer variety to your blog, making it more interesting for readers. Unfortunately, these guests can also lead to a security problem. Not only may they decide to cause mayhem, but someone may hack their computer and then your blog.

Choose Legit Plugins

Many blogging hosts offer a variety of plugins to make your blog interesting. It may be the local weather in your area or a game to keep readers coming back. Either way, these plugins can be dangerous. The reason is anyone can create the plugins, which means they may can be loaded with viruses that may affect your blog and your readers’ computers as well.

Go With a Top Blogging Host

Do not fall for companies that offer big rewards for blogging when you’ve never heard of the company. You need to use one of the top blogging hosts to ensure the security of your content. Blogger and WordPress are two of the top blog hosting companies and are well known among the blogging community.

A blog is a great way to share information, but it does have the potential to be hacked. That’s why you need to take measures to ensure the security of your content. Remember to use strong passwords, be careful of your guest bloggers and to use a top blogging host to ensure the security of your blog.

Blog World

Blog World is the biggest and best known event in the blogging calendar, and is usually the one with the most attendees. The event boasts a number of key presentations and speakers from within the blogging industry, but also influential bloggers from other professions such as the entertainment and corporate worlds. The event runs for a number of days each year and provides the perfect platform for interaction with other bloggers, as well as the chance to grow your contacts book.

SOBCon

SOBCon is the brainchild of Liz Strauss, the head blogger and founder of the Successful World blog. Strauss has been an inspirational speaker in the corporate world for many years and her experience provides a great platform for bloggers from all walks to gather at her conferences and learn new skills. Key areas that are focused on during the event include blogging for the corporate world and the use of social media to connect with users online.

SXSW

SXSW is perhaps better known for its association with live music and film. However, there is also a massive blogging culture at the event, covering all aspects of interactive life. As you might expect, due to the music and film events also occurring at the festival, this conference is a bit livelier than the standard blogging event, but will certain provide any attendee with some memorable experiences and a lot of fun!

BlogHer

In what is traditionally seen as a male-dominated industry, BlogHer is dedicated to highlighting the interesting and diverse range of female bloggers in the blogosphere. Of course, male attendees are welcome too, although many of the talks and events at the conference are aimed at women and deal with issues for female writers. This is a great event for women bloggers who perhaps feel outnumbered or side-lined in a male-dominated world to attend, if only to meet some other inspirational female writers making their own names in the blogging world.

TWTRCON

Specifically dealing with issues arising from the use of micro blogging site Twitter, this event caters to business professionals looking to boost the profile and image of their company among Twitter users. The speakers at this event usually have a proven track record of improving their business’ image on Twitter or using the site to grow their customer base, and can provide some useful tips for anyone looking to leverage the power of Twitter for business reasons.

About Guest Poster:

Dina has interest in healthcare jobs, specially in area of certified nursing assistant. She is a LPN and would like to move to CNA. She has worked in the area of healthcare for over 7 years.

Create Unique Content

The simple fact of the matter is that no one will repeatedly come to your blog if it isn’t offering anything new. Maintaining fresh and interesting content is a sure way to improve the readability and interest of your blog to newcomers. Make sure you know your niche thoroughly and are in tune with subjects they want to read about, while at the same time adding your own individual angle in posts to keep them coming back for more.

Optimize Your Posts

A little SEO is essential if you want people to find your blog online. The best way to optimize your blog is by tagging it with relevant keywords that people search for online. Remember, with tagging the general rule is the more keywords the merrier, as it makes it more likely for your site to be visible to a wide range of people. Make sure you optimize each post as well to include a certain number of keywords that people are looking for – just be careful not to over optimize it as this may result in Google thinking the page is spam and blocking it from its results.

Invest Time in Others

Nobody wants to follow a blogger who doesn’t take the time to read their own writings as well. Not only will following other blogs expose you to a larger readership group, but if the blogs you follow are relevant to your own then you may get some new ideas for additional blog posts. You should also make sure you have a ‘follow’ button posted on your own blog so that people can follow you if they like what they read and want to interact with you.

Offer Advertising

You don’t necessarily have to partner with big corporations to get involved in advertising. If you want to really establish a connection with your followers, offer to promote their own blogs and writing on your pages. You could even add their pictures and other content onto your blog, if they let you.

Promote Your Blog

Social media services like Facebook and Twitter are great arenas to use when you want to promote your blog. On Twitter you can link your posts to hash tag conversations in order to expose your writing to an entire world of new bloggers. You could also try social bookmarking, a process that sees your blog promoted on a host of social networks all at the same time.

Following these simple techniques should help you increase the number of repeat visitors to your blog and gain new readers in no time.

Yuri is an customer relations, he also works in area of temporary staffing services and recruitment. When we asked him to talk about few good staffing services, this is what he had to say: Try out Adecco USA temp staffing services they know what they are doing, currently leader in the industry.

Changing Formats

While Denton went for the juiciness and opted for a baity title, picked up by several writers, let us first make it clear that Gawker Media’s redesign does NOT ditch blogging but the classic blog design format.

A blog (a blend of the term web log)[1] is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.((Source: Wikipedia)) [Emphasis mine]

It is clear that Denton has ditched the term blog(ging) for a long time already, a sentiment also expressed in a Tweet during the heat of Gizmodo’s ‘Lost iPhone 4′ scoop.

Gawker Media has, for quite some time, become ‘genuine Media’ already.  It ditched the term blogging as a verb, as brilliantly worded by former Valleywag contributor Paul Boutin for Wired.com more than two years ago:

Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

The time to retire the term ‘blog’ has come.

In other words, using the term blogging to describe professional citizen journalism is outdated and calling sites such as Gawker, TechCrunch, and other popular online publications a blog often is wrong and these sites, previously called blogs, often are journalistic publications.

In an otherwise excellent recap, Wired.com’s Dylan Tweney totally misses this point and, like others, completely digs into Denton’s announcement article title: Gawker Gives Up on Blogging (And That’s a Good Thing). The correct title would be: Gawker ditches the blog [design] format. A format also defined in Wikipedia’s Blog entry, which I take the freedom to rehash here although already quoted and emphasised above:

… Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order…

The real question I have is: Why did it take Gawker that long to move to a format already popularised on smaller blogs and sites since mid 2007, when Darren Hoyt released his first Mimbo Theme¹ ?

Why Does The New Gawker Look Like BBC News?

When I first saw the new Gawker design, my first idea was that the design was aimed to push more traffic from the homepage, a strategy popularised by magazine-like themes and seen on sites such as AOL News, our own redesigned BBC News and the New York Times?

While the position of the latest headlines block might be called controversial by advertising gurus, and one could expect a possible return of the left-sided skyscraper, the Gawker 2011 redesign does not introduce anything new.  It merely rehashes many popular aspects of news-based web design such as a lead story, section blocks dominated by story tiles, and – last but not the least – a huge amount of links, rather than content on the homepage. Just like the BBC News homepage.
Even the prominent display of the latest headlines, a smart way to improve page views on an otherwise very scarce design, is an approach used by many online publications, albeit not always positioned as high in the right sidebar. Just like on almost every BBC News article².

So why is the 2011 Gawker redesign hyped and discussed?

The real question is ‘When Will We Retire The Term Blogs’?

Denton’s announcement carried the clear message that the British born former Fortune journalist does not want his sites to be called blogs anymore and that they true media/journalism are. The guru, and doom predictor, understands the internet better than most bloggers and has long ago mastered and taught his crew the art of media and writing for the web. The art of the title and ‘co-owning’ stories are not Gawker exclusives, or attention points, but old MSM strategies used by almost any major publication and outcries by bloggers who feel abused when their scoop is stolen but not accredited don’t matter much. While accreditation might be nice and the ethical thing to do, in many a country accredited journalists do NOT have to cite their source and will never do so. Even one of the best Gizmodo entries ever, the SR-71 Blackbird piece, was compiled from several sources and initially did not have correct attribution.

The real problem though is that many sites and bloggers are stuck in their love for blogs, awarding the term a special meaning rather than defining it as what it truly is:

A collection of entries published online [often] without editorial control before publication.

Can we retire the term blog and become writers again, columnists, for those who highly value the editorial content freedom?

1. A magazine theme for WordPress
2. In a section with also most commented and most shared stories separated by tabs

While these are all jobs I do routinely as part of my job as a copyright and plagiarism consultant, I’m happy to say that Splashpress has adopted a practical policy on scrapers that not only allows them to enforce their rights, but prevents them from having to pursue every single case of infringement, regardless of how unimportant.

The company recognizes that, as an organization with over 100 sites and 200 people, that it is impractical, especially on a reasonable budget, to target every single scraper or spammer that wishes to misuse their content, let alone every attributed reuse by a human.

As such, the company carefully targets those that it goes after, using its resources to focus on those who cause the most damage and create the most headache.

While it is a relatively simple process, understanding it requires a basic grasp of how the search engines parse duplicate content and why not every case of infringement is action-worthy. Most importantly, it involves understanding tips that can show any blogger how to use the spammers to their advantage and turn duplicate content into free advertising.

Understanding Duplicate Content

As I recently explained on BloggingPro, duplicate content is when the same or very similar content appears on multiple pages. It can be pages on the same site or pages across different domains.

Search engines don’t like this because they want to showcase a wide array of original material with every search result. As such, they do their best to detect duplicate content, determine which URL is the best and/or original and then penalize the others with the same content. To do this, the search engines use a variety of tactics including looking at which URL was posted first and seeing which page has the most inbound links.

Fortunately, Google does a decent job of detecting which page is the original. Though spammers will scrape the contents of a site, usually using the RSS feed, and republish it on their blogs, they rarely fool the search engines. With few inbound links and URLs that appear hours after the fact, they have a hard time fooling the search engines into thinking they are the original work.

This doesn’t mean it can’t or doesn’t happen, which is why I do occasionally have to step in on rare occasions. However, realizing that most scrapers aren’t hurting the sites they lift from, no matter how hard they try, frees up SplashPress to focus more on creating new, interesting content and entertaining/informing its readers.

It’s a win/win but it wouldn’t be possible without a few additional steps.

Preventing Scrapers from Mattering

Just because most scrapers and other plagiarists don’t usually impact their original sites doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen. As such, we take proactive measures to prevent that from happening and decrease the chances of them hurting our sites.

One of the key steps we take is an internal linking editorial policy. Almost every article, when appropriate, has a link to a different relevant article on the same site or, if one isn’t available, another Splashpress property.

The reason for this is simple, in addition to directing readers to relevant content elsewhere on the network, these links are also picked up by spammers and republished. Those links, in turn, become valid, inbound links that search engines pick up and place value on.

This has two very important effects:

1. Increases Page Ranking: By generating more inbound links, the spammers are actually helping the sites involved rank better. Though the importance of links from spammers is likely minimal, it’s still a help and, given the amount some of our content is lifted, can be quite powerful when spread across so many sites.
2. Prevents Duplicate Content Penalties: Second, by linking to the original site, the spammer is essentially “voting” for the original site and search engines see that and weigh it when determining which version is the original. This helps ensure the original version isn’t accidentally penalized as a duplicate.

While the system isn’t perfect, it has served us well, making it so that well over 99% of all spammers can be safely ignored.

Still, every once in a while a spammer or scraper gets lucky and starts ranking well with our content. In those cases, that is where I step in.

Dealing with Outliers

In the rare cases where a spammer does manage to start causing harm to the original sites, we do have an action plan in place and it closely mirrors the Stopping Internet Plagiarism guide that I have written on my main blog, Plagiarism Today.

Basically, the system consists of first trying to contact the scraper, which is rarely possible, and then filing a takedown notice with the site’s host to get the entire domain removed. If that fails, we then file a similar notice with the search engines to get it removed from the indexes of the search engines which, while it doesn’t remove the site from the Web, at least prevents it from competing with the original sites with their own content.

To date, we’ve been able to resolve every damaging case of infringement without much problem. However, that wouldn’t be possible if we tried to stop every single one as, without the ability to focus on those that were actively hurting us, we probably wouldn’t be able to ensure resolution.

All in all, the need to take such action is very rare, a couple of cases per month at the most, but it is necessary and we are prepared. However, it isn’t nearly as necessary as many think that it is.

Bottom Line

In the endl, content management and enforcement is an important part of any site’s business. However, that isn’t the same as stamping out every unauthorized copy that exists. Not only is that impractical, but it is a tremendous waste of resources.

Managing your content is much more than simply removing works, it involves understanding how your content is being used, encouraging useful and beneficial copying and dealing with harmful ones.

Fortunately, this is something that Splashpress Media does very well and is something that I’m very proud to be a part of.

My hope is that others will understand this as well so we can all work on spending our energies on what’s really important, creating good content and promoting it well.

JOAB was feared – feared because both authors knew what went on in the blogging gossip kitchen and had no remorse, hiding behind their pseudonyms which were only known by other insiders. Let’s be honest, Jack of All Blogs was over-rated and our network owner, Mark Saunders, probably paid way too much for this site – an error this admirable and honest man would repeat over the next five years with a sense of stubbornness worthy of everyone’s respect, until he diagnosed himself and admitted that blog shopping his guilty Sunday afternoon pleasure was. Jack of All Blogs was also the first site I made a paid appearance on and ever since then times were bound to change. I personally – and the landscape as well – would soon undergo a major transition, both for Mr. Bloggy and the blogging scene in general. Things were about to explode.

In 2005 and 2006 a worldwide change was taking place, and more and more people realised that blogging the gateway to a possible new career online was. The days of JOAB were counted but we didn’t know yet. While Mr. Bloggy its own transition underwent and was rebranded as Splashpress Media, WordPress had opened the floodgates and soon everyone and their three nephews had at least one blog. Or were still stuck on Myspace. Twitter was still in private Beta, Facebook was still exclusively for students – let alone had it applications yet – and Digg was important and actually drove traffic to the unknown sites. Michael Arrington interested us and Robert Scoble had already become our Scoble-goat. Those were the days when people knew who Mike Rundle and Matt Craven were.

Much has changed since then, and many a popular and respected writer has said goodbye to blogging or to the scene. Only few are still going strong. Some reformed journalists have made fortunes, others turned to spam/scraping, and several have put the world of the independent keyboard aside. When Jeremy Wright left the b5media network, the good old JOAB scene had totally died and although still going strong under the helm of Andrew G. Rosen, JOAB wasn’t JOAB anymore. I was not a snark writer anymore either, although I would not resist the odd dig at Michael Arrington.

Here at Splashpress Media, we now maintain a select network of well-known and respected publications, led by a team of prolific editors. At some point I was put in charge of everything. I, the person who got hired after publicly hitting out at the network owner on my personal blog. Since then several months have passed, our team has found itself, and everyone has grown in their role – ready to tackle Fall 2010 and the next decade. Many things at Splashpress Media will change over the next months, and many sites will be relaunched.

One thing is important though: here at Splashpress Media we do things differently. We are not your Gawker, About.com, or any other network of online publications, and we don’t exclusively focus on traffic or growth. While both are important for most networks and also for us, our main focus is to create valuable content. Content you want to read and not just content we know will generate traffic.¹.

To kick things off, we now officially reboot Jack of All Blogs. Over the next months you will find articles written by all our authors and get an insight at how we run our show here. Don’t expect any gossip or snark anymore²; instead get ready to gather more knowledge about the ins and outs of running a network of online publications.

1. Although we should maybe craft more bait entries
2. Although a little bird told me that our CEO still struggles and often fails to shut up

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

If you are looking for the original Jack of All Blogs content, you can find everything archived here.

Photo Credit: Windel Oskay.