BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Blogging (page 44 of 84)

July 16, 2007

What would Seth Godin do? Probably not one-size-fits-all . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

(I’m waiting for a phone call, which is how Realtors address that awful burden of time that befalls them between birth and death.)

Joel Burslem mentioned the What Would Seth Godin Do plug-in today, and Jim Duncan has also written about it recently.

I like the idea, I just don’t like the execution. Too much one-size-fits-all for my tastes, where CSS and a WordPress theme can make everything unique and perfect.

I have code that will make the “intro.php” behavior introduced in WordPress 2.0 cookie-dependent. In other words, if the cookie is not set, visitors will see intro.php (or any other “sticky” pseudo-post you prepare under any arbitrary filename). If it is, they won’t.

I have it set with the cookie expiring in 60 days, so if someone has been away for a while, I can remind him of what’s what. People who forbid cookies will get the introductory post every time, but this is the default behavior for intro.php anyway. And if I change the name of the stored variable, I can cause everyone to see my presumably-substantially-revised introduction the next time they visit the site.

(There is a lot more you could do with something like this: Show it the first three visits, for example, or show a special message to very-frequent visitors.)

I don’t use this in BloodhoundBlog, although I could easily enough; it doesn’t require WP 2+. It’s really nothing but bread and butter PHP, as is WordPress itself.

If you want the code, it’s yours, but you have to hold your own hand. You don’t need to know PHP, but you do need to know how to edit and FTP your WordPress theme files. Email me if you want the files.

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July 16, 2007

The Carnival of Real Estate . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

…is up at Sadie’s Take on Delaware Ohio.

Host Toby Boyce does a truly amazingly phenomenal job as judge — and I’m not just saying that because our own Jeff Kempe won with The Imperative of Divorced Commissions, Part 2: The Inherent Value of Free.

Toby used the idea of a golf tournament as his theme, with the chart above illustrating the competition.

And the competition was fierce, with many first-quality contenders. Wheel you golf cart over to Toby’s place to see what I mean.

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July 13, 2007

Teri Lussier, blogging star

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

From email from Teri Lussier:

By the way, I’ve changed brokerages. Another agent and I have teamed up — he found me through TBR. He asked me yesterday if I subscribed to a blogging service for content feeds. “No, I write it myself.” I’m adding content he never considered. He’s a former IT guy, and he teaches the brokerage’s tech class. I know more about blogging than he does, so yesterday he tapped me to teach the blogging portion of the next tech class. REWL101 bookmarks for everyone! And I’m thinking of offering to hire myself out to guest blog — to plug in regular content for any agent who would like. Great fun.

I seem to remember there being some kind of weblogging competition, but I cannot for the life of me imagine how it’s being judged…

Furthermore: The girl is nothing but class…

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July 10, 2007

Ignore the so-called experts: Blogrolls are good, m’kay?

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

No one is better suited for a discussion of the value of blogrolls in viral weblogging than South Park’s Mr. Mackey. (“Drugs are bad, m’kay?”)

Some supposed experts have done extensive research by reading other weblogs and they have come up with (and reiterated) this startling conclusion: “Blogrolls are bad, m’kay?”

I would link to the source, but that might turn out to hurt their SEO prospects. I have, out of thoughtful consideration, removed them from BloodhoundBlog’s blogroll. Not, mind you, because, “Blogrolls are bad, m’kay?” but because I don’t want to promote pernicious nonsense.

Why are blogrolls thought to be bad? Because they might look like a link exchange, and they might get brand new weblogs temporarily sandboxed by Google.

What are we talking about? SEO results, yes?

What should be your objective in producing a real estate weblog? Viral marketing, yes?

If we stipulate Mr. Mackey’s case without contest, would blogrolling being bad for SEO imply that blogrolling is bad for viral marketing?

Take it apart. The masque of Mackey is bullshit: Brand new blogrolls don’t have extensive blogrolls, and, even if they did, there is no reason to suppose that Google is penalizing them. More likely the contrary. Google likes links.

But even arguing to the contrary, would a hypothetical Google-that-doesn’t-like-links make any difference in your viral marketing strategy?

First, lightning can strike with an over-the-transom lead from Google, but it’s not very likely.

Second, the objective of your viral marketing strategy should be to nurture a substantial community of people who are predisposed to use you when they have a real estate need. This has almost nothing to do with SEO results.

Ergo, everything you do with your real estate weblog — and with other viral marketing tools — should be focused on nurturing relationships with people who can and will do business with you, not with attracting random hits from all over the world. In other words, if your primary concern is SEO, you’re spinning your wheels.

So what does this imply about blogrolls? In a community-focused real estate weblog, a blogroll of other weblogs and web sites focused on that community is an immensely powerful viral marketing Read more

July 5, 2007

REMBEX Blog Fiesta promises facts, food, fun

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Todd Carpenter of lenderama and REMBEX fame is hosting the REMBEX Blog Fiesta on July 18th in Denver:

Blog Fiesta will be held at Garcia’s Mexican Resturant, on July 18th, from 11-3. Garcia’s is in the Denver Tech Center (South Metro Denver), near I-25 and Belleveiw. We have a room reserved to seat 60, and can spill into another room to support as many 100 attendee’s.

Appetizers, soft drinks, lunch & expert blogging will be provided!

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July 3, 2007

Clip show: Talk Radio and Pump up the Volume

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Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Continuing with the idea of weblogging as talk radio, linked below are clips from my two favorite talk radio movies. I wrote about Talk Radio in a post at Thanksgiving. I featured Pump Up The volume in a post about long-tail television. Both films, incidentally, illustrate the idea of infotainment necessary for a successful weblog.

In the Pump Up The volume clip, I’m showing a scene that I thought was particularly well done. The film itself wavers between anarchic wannabe-profundity and formula teen-angst melodrama. But the pomo-meets-goth love interest is fun. In this scene Mark Hunter and Laura De Niro shyly explore the undiscovered country of intimacy. Samantha Mathis, as Laura, is delightfully ingenuous I think.

The clip from Talk Radio is much, much darker. It’s the agonizing climax of the third act, and it’s just enough to make you shriek for relief. Everything is perfect, script, acting, direction, staging, music. Eric Bogosian is off-the-charts excellent, and Oliver Stone, despite his ever-lengthening list of shortcomings, shows himself here to be the complete auteur.

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July 3, 2007

The secret to building an audience? Weblogging is half news, half opinion and half show business

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I wrote this nearly four years ago:

Anyone who has ever been to Las Vegas has seen Showbiz Weekly and What’s On magazines. One or the other was waiting for you in your hotel room, but there were racks of them at the airport and at the car rental counter, plus single issues in the rental car itself. They’re slick and polished, but they’re free like a TV-Shopper, albeit a lot better distributed.

Functionally, they work like controlled-circulation trade magazines: Elaborate advertising and puff-piece promotional articles inform you of your buying opportunities in Las Vegas at the point where you have become a ready, willing and able buyer. That’s why they’re free: The advertisers are more than willing to comp you for as many copies as you might want, confident that your spending will more than compensate them for their investment.

What’s interesting about these magazines is that you cannot subscribe to them from back home. There are a couple of general interest magazines you can subscribe to: Greenspun’s Las Vegas Life is a city magazine, like New York or Los Angeles; it’s a fun read, but not terribly useful for tourists. Vegas Magazine, also Greenspun, is a confused fashion rag that is doomed to a very costly demise. Neither of these do the kind of job Showbiz Weekly and What’s On do, advising tourists on where and how to get the most Vegas from their Vegas-money.

And that is a market niche, a magazine that promotes Las Vegas tourism all year round, when the tourists are back home.

The Strip is a monthly; more frequent would be annoying. Show news, upcoming concerts, gambling tournaments, Vegas trivia and history, etc., all surrounded by advertising, since, in important respects, the advertising is the editorial product. Very slick, very polished, with a critical edge lacking from Showbiz Weekly and What’s On.

The loosely-focused target market is the frequent Las Vegas visitor, two or more trips a year of three or more days in length. The more tightly-focused target market is the high-roller, people who spend a lot of money when they come to Las Vegas, and who come to Read more

June 29, 2007

Three-Hundred-and-Sixty-Five Days of the Dog: Happy birthday, Baby…

by

Realtor, Staging Consultant

Author website

During all my running around today, I had meant to buy a silly little party hat for Odysseus to wear to celebrate BloodhoundBlog’s first birthday… but I never got around to it. And by the time I had picked up Ophelia from doggy-day-care, I’d missed my opportunity… can’t leave a dog in a 110&176; car. So on the way home I thought of the balloons Kris and Steve had sent us to commemorate the occasion (and show off their slick marketing swag… oops shouldn’t have said “show off”… didn’t I read that showing off is bad?). Anyway, when I got home, Greg voiced what I was already thinking, but he in a much more practical way, “Don’t be silly! Don’t go out any more tonight! Use Kris’ balloons, take your picture, write your post, then let’s raise a couple of glasses of Bushmills!” You see, I needed some sort of prop to take a photo of Odysseus because I love photos of my pets, and didn’t I read somewhere that you should always use photos on your blog posts? ‘Course neither hat nor balloon could guarantee a good picture, not when we’re talking about getting one dog to look into the camera long enough without other dogs and cats breaking his concentration or outright getting in the way. Anyway, here’s the best we could get:

(Sorry Kris and Steve, we couldn’t get one that shows your phone number, but you can see “erg” and the castle.)

All this just to illustrate (poorly I fear) my pure joy with being a part of this wonderful site and fabulous group, as we enter Year Two. If you’ve put up with me this far, I ask you to stay awhile longer as I share my favorite moments during the pup’s first year.

Yesterday, Greg wrote about our humble beginnings, so I’ll fast forward from there to my first honor here… being featured in Zillow’s inaugural edition of the Carnival of Real Estate. During the next few months Greg wrote a lot, I wrote a little, and Greg incorporated posts from an earlier failed blog by attributing them Read more

June 29, 2007

Seven Days of the Dog: Old Bushmills on the rocks . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Today’s the day, the first day of the second year of BloodhoundBlog. We’re at 1,473 posts (which tells you that Jeff Brown killed 127 posts in draft mode), with 9,144 comments. Right at this moment we have a Technorati authority of 526, with 4,443 links from other weblogs. Yahoo is showing us with 36,243 total inbound links. We have served over 150 gigabytes of content this month, with 30 hours left in the month.

Please understand, I’m not bragging. I’m just amazed at what we’ve managed to do in a year’s time.

I did a lot of the work here, and it’s not in my nature to pretend I didn’t. But I could not possibly be more proud of the amazing people who set their shoulders beside mine and Cathleen’s to build this thing. We are each of us very strong of mind, but we are stronger because we are here together.

I had thought to write a post about past BloodhoundBlog controversies, but, honestly, who doesn’t know that this is the kennel of controversy in the RE.net?

Instead, I will do something I don’t often do: I will admit to being a man and not a machine. I’m tired, and I want to have a drink. Kris Berg sent us a birthday card with balloons, but we weren’t able to schedule a time when we could get the Phoenix-area Bloodhounds together. Even so, I’ll blow up a balloon and pour myself a tumbler of Old Bushmills on the rocks.

Here’s to Cathleen Collins, Cameron Swann and Odysseus the TV Spokesmodel Bloodhound; to Kris Berg, Russell Shaw, Jeff Brown, Doug Quance and Jeff Kempe, our real estate brokers; to Brian Brady, Dan Green and Morgan Brown, our lenders; to Michael Cook, our investment guru; to Allen Butler, James Hsu, Jeff Turner, Lani Anglin and Norma Newgent; to Teri Lussier, aghast no more; and to Richard Riccelli, our gadfly genius.

And here’s to you, too, for being here with us through it all.

Cheers!

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June 29, 2007

Google’s reciprocal link penalty for real estate sites explained

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Who will be affected by Google’s real estate reciprocal link penalty? The answer in words and in pictures.

Cliff’s Notes: If you aren’t part of one of those goofy link exchanges to your static web site (we get spam for these every frolicking day), you’re not the target. Likewise your weblog. If you’re linking out like a normal web site, within and without the real estate industry, you don’t have a problem.

On the other hand, if you’re linking to hundreds of other Realtors’ static web sites, which are also linking to hundreds of Realtors’ static web sites, you could be screwed for a good long time.

Here’s a general principle: When you’re confronted with an idea that will “fool” Google — don’t do it.

Here’s an even better general principle: SEO is Plan B at best. The kind of community building we’ve been talking about here and at Real Estate Weblogging 101 is the way to grow your business on-line.

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June 28, 2007

Seven Days of the Dog: That’s no Bloodhound, that’s just a mangy old mutt!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We write a lot about real estate weblogging. We have categories on Blogging, on Blog Carnivals, on the Carnival of Real Estate and on Weblogging 101, with much of what we’ve written on real estate weblogging having been repurposed into a blog-book on the subject, RealEstateWeblogging101.com.

Truly, weblogging is a self-referential medium, but there is so much on the subject here that I am going to add only two items to that mass.

First, if you are graced with the opportunity to speak about real estate weblogging at your company sales meeting or whatever, if you like you can print out some of the bookmarks I made for the Southwest Real Estate Blogging Conference. They’re built to print four-up on a letter-sized sheet, with faint gray lines where they should be cut apart. The book is a very thorough introduction to the art of real estate weblogging, so your colleagues might get themselves off to a better, faster, less-costly start.

Second, I thought I would take a moment to show you where we came from. This pitiful mess, not a Bloodhound but simply a mangy old mutt, was the second of our failed attempts to start a real estate weblog. The first failure — even worse — was incinerated long ago. The posts you see there were sucked into BloodhoundBlog by WordPress, giving us a history before we had one. The first BloodhoundBlog post was People power, categorized under Blogging and Disintermediation and establishing a number of themes to which we have returned again and again. I wrote about the pre-history of BloodhoundBlog about a month after we started. The point of this is, if we’ve come this far in a year, you can, too.

Thanks for being here with us.

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June 28, 2007

New Homes Sales, Market Slowdowns, and Investor Irrationality: Looks like its Time to Face a Correction

by

Real Estate Investor

Author website

Tanking new homes sells should have real estate flippers and small investors worried. Today KB Homes reported a loss of $149 Million. Additionally, CEO Jeffrey Mezger remarked in the Wall Street Journal, “We can’t predict when market conditions will improve,” essentially ensuring investors conditions will not improve next quarter. Homebuilders have been feeling the pinch for over a year now, but it is finally getting serious.

Surface level analysis of the problems with homebuilders points to signs of a tanking real estate market and excess supply of new homes in some markets. Given the choice between a new home and a “used” home, most consumers will choose the new one. Additionally, homebuilders have the power to offer incentives like upgrades, favorable financing, and lower prices to move their inventory. Investors in hot markets that are cooling will find it hard to compete with institutions like KB Homes, Toll Brothers, Lennar, etc. This will make it tough to move, even the nicest flip.

Furthermore, this situation definitely signals a slowing in the real estate market. Despite what many have been saying on the Realtor/NAR front, investors and agents alike should be preparing for a real estate slow down. KB Homes sites access to capital as one of the mitigating factors affecting home buyers among other factors. This access issue will affect buyers, as well as more aggressive investors, who opted for no money down loans.

The deeper analysis suggests all of the negative news will eventually affect the market sentiment on real estate. Over the past six months the real estate market has seen the collapse of the subprime real estate market, issues with commercial and investment banks, mortgage rates rise, and issues with homebuilders. At some point investor and consumer confidence in real estate has to be affected by all of this news. While this news may not be the tipping point, investors should be asking how much more can the market take?

Investing is part fundamental and part irrational. At times the market seems to go 90/10 one way, and at times those proportions flip. As more negative real estate news emerges Read more

June 27, 2007

Jeff Brown hits the big time: Copyblogger praises Brown and Brown’s give-to-get white-paper strategy

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

From Brian Clark’s Copyblogger.com, guest contributer Mike Stelzner writes:

Mistake #2: On the flip side, how often do you see a white paper that is instantly displayed with the click of a link? While this provides immediate access to a reader, it fails to capture any information or make it easy for readers to sign up for your newsletter.

The Solution: What I am about to propose is a strategy that appeals equally to readers and businesses. Revisit my earlier premise, when you provide value, you gain respect.

Consider real estate investment specialists Brown & Brown. A few pages of their white paper, Achieving Early Retirement With Real Estate: Rethinking Traditional Retirement Planning, are presented before the registration form appears.

With this example, readers are given plenty of sample content before they are asked to trade their personal contact information for access.

This idea flows from the video game market. Remember playing video game demos that provided you access to the first two levels? By providing a good sample taste of the product, the hope is that people will act and want the full game. The same strategy can be applied to white papers.

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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