BloggingSystems

In another example of my personal motto of “just produce valuable content that people find useful” google is closing the door on cross link farms. It took too long IMO but this will shake up major blog players SERPs to say the least. So instead of trying to game this or that i still suggest creating good “structured content” that people will link to organically and let the kids over at google sort the wheat from the chaff.

Simply stated this means: quality original content with descriptive links inbound and outbound with context sensitive keywords through out content and meta description but like used in normal writing and speech, topped with simple and unobtrusive valid XHTML that is lean on the “noise factors” of css and JS.

Link:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/24/google-declares-jihad-on-blog-link-farms/

Check out my Active Rain blog for this.

Trying to find a place to grab lunch in the hotel was nearly impossible. We had 45 minutes between sessions to do so. Wasn’t enough time I’m afraid, so I missed most of this session.

Here’s the Flickr site.

I’m really looking forward to this session, so I hope I’ll not be disappointed. The panel is good, so I shouldn’t be. Without further adieu…

Moderator: Jessica Swesey, Managing Editor, Inman News

Panelists:

• Anil Dash, Chief Evangelist, Six Apart
• Pat Kitano, Managing Principal, Domus Consulting Group
• Dustin Luther, Director of Interactive Marketing, Move, Inc.
• Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, MyBlogLog

Jessica starts out by asking, what is social networking? Pat Kitano says it’s the rolodex for the next generation; the next generation phone book. Dustin suggests that the reason it works in the real estate field is that social networking is all about grassroots recommendation…word-of-mouth…people recommending a Realtor to their friends. Use of social media is untapped in real estate field. Blogs are a part of that.

Robin says that, via social networks, you are a real person again. (I have to second that motion. Facebook allows me to present who I really am to the world.)

Anil is disagreeing. He says social networking is not about tools, but about people. Social networking is what people do…whether via a web property or via a handshake. These tools are not as important, he says.

What social network sites do you use, Jessica asks.

Panelists…

Pat: Facebook is like the “white pages” and your blog is your “yellow pages.” Big fan of MyBlogLog. He also says maintaining social network sites is easy.

Dustin: Facebook more for personal; talking about Rain City Guide, his group blog;

Robin: Facebook and her blog; MyBlogLog (her company); used to use MySpace, but not in about a year; LinkedIn; email lists

Anil: “I use all of them.” It’s his job to be familiar with them.

Now, the panelists are talking about wackos and weirdos who leave nasty comments on a blog or social network site. Somebody mentioned death threats. What? Anil says it has to do with the anonymity factor.

Pat is talking reputation management and mentioning a couple of agent review sites: Yelp.com and Homethinking.com. He’s also suggesting people use Google alerts on your name, company name, etc.

Taking questions from audience now. Only one guy at the mike. Hum. He asked, “What’s wrong with just publishing one-way content and not allowing comments?” Anil says that’s OK to start, but that people want to connect and want to give feedback. (It’s all about creating conversations dude. People add value to what you have to say…my thoughts)

Dustin is weighing in (and needing to take a breath btw!) and suggesting that people aren’t interested in hearing what you have to say if you aren’t interested in hearing what they have to say.

Dustin is also suggesting, in response to another question, that you should have some type of analytics on the site to see what keywords people are using to come to you. That gives you insight as to what to write about. The question was about what widgets to use on the blog. Anil says don’t put too much junk on the site. (I hope he hasn’t seen this blog…bunch of stuff in the sidebar!)

Discussion is still going on with audience questions. I’m going to shut down for a while. My fingers are tired.

PS: I apologize for all the sucky photos. I forgot my camera, and am using my cell phone. I’m sitting quite a ways back, too. Anyway, I’ll find the flickr site for this and get better ones.

Technorati tag: connectsf

(I’m finding no other posts being indexed by Technorati using the tag connectsf. What, am I the only one live blogging the event? Surely not.)

This panel is discussing what I would consider the “real deal” so far as real estate blogging is concerned, that of using blogs to generate leads.

This ought to be an interesting panel. Mary McKnight and Jim Cronin are competitors, and both worked on my Project Blogger apprentices site, Miamism.com. Jim started it and Mary finished it. (I have to confess that Mary is a dear friend of mine, so I’m biased in her favor and very grateful she and her husband John took over the project.)

Here’s the panel…

Moderator: Kevin Boer, Founder, 3 Oceans Real Estate Blog

Panelists:

• Brian Brady, Managing Director, World Wide Credit Corporation
• Jim Cronin, Owner/Author, Real Estate Tomato
• Mary McKnight, Blogging Evangelist, RSS Pieces
• Noah Rosenblatt, Founder, UrbanDigs.com/Licensed RE Salesperson, Citi-Habitats (Noah was featured in our book and is an acquaintance of mine.)
• Charles Turner, Real Estate Broker, Prudential NW Properties

Kevin is asking, “Show me the money. How do blogs serve as a lead-generating mechanism?” Noah is the first to say that it’s working for him.

Mary is talking about Laurie Manny’s site, which RSS Pieces did I guess, and how it rose to the top of the search engines and is reporting Laurie gets 1-5 leads per day from the site.

The panel is dealing with the issue of content, suggesting that’s what separates a blog from its competitors…i.e., quality of content. Brain said people form an impression of you immediately and know quickly whether they want to do business with you or not.

Question asked…”How do people find my blog?” Mary is answering with “SEO.” She’s also saying that you need a lead generator on your blog…some type of call to action. Amen to that. Jim Cronin is saying you need to allow comments, because that will allow the formation of relationships. Brian is asking whether customers actually leave comments, suggesting that none do. He’s saying each post needs a call to action in and of itself.

Jim is touting a client of his. So, that’s one for Mary and one for Jim. I’ll keep a tally.

Brian is now asking “Why are we doing this?!” He’s cutting to the chase.

Kevin is asking, “If you started your blog over again, what would you do differently?” Jim says he would build his Tomato blog using WordPress. It’s presently a Typepad blog.

Discussion has cycled around again to call to actions. Also, whether to post listings.

Now, taking questions from audience and a bunch of people are in line at the microphone). Good question about SEO advantage to hosted vs. non-hosted sites (i.e., Typepad vs. WordPress.org). Jim is responding by saying the platform isn’t always the most important thing. It’s about content. He prefers WordPress due to the ability to customize, etc, but has had good performance from TypePad.

Noah is suggesting that it’s important to be in Yahoo! and DMOZ.org. Mary is saying that purchasing a keyword-oriented quality domain is vital. Also, keyword-optimize your blog post. (She also just plugged her platform.) She’s mentioning a tool, YDexel or something. (Let me go check Google…can’t find it…still looking)

Brian is touting his use of teasers on Active Rain and other places he posts. He always links readers to his home blog to drive traffic. Kevin called that the “drug dealer” approach…just enough to get them addicted. Personally, I take exception to that approach, but to each his own.

Now discussing SEO…again…blah, blah, blah, keyword density, yadda, yadda, yadda, keyword-optimized titles….blah, blah, blah…

This has proved to be an informative, lively session. But, they do have five panelists for this one as opposed to three each for the others, so that allows for greater synergy.

Question from audience members about use content of site to sift through leads to qualify them? Brian suggests that we anticipate questions consumers may have. (My thoughts…blogs are self-filtering mechanisms. The content of your posts help you attract those that you want to reach and filter out those you don’t.)

Mary is expounding on the need to get RSS subscribers. She’s saying you should have 200-300 within the first six months. Also, 2,000 unique visits within first six months.

Technorati tag: connectsf

Glenn Kelman is starting to talk about “60 Minutes,” angry bloggers, controversy and a NAR uproar. Glenn is the CEO of Redfin.

He says an exciting trend is the emergence of candor, and that’s why blogging has been so successful in the RE industry.

He’s using an example of Rolling Stone’s reporter(?) Lester Bangs, who he says was the first blogger.

Now, he’s going to talk about the 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl. I have to say I didn’t really follow this story (probably should have)

How they dealt with it in the blogosphere…

• Alerted key bloggers
• Tell people what it was like
• Write quickly
• Avoid being self-congratulatory

First question “60 Minutes” asked was, “You’re not going to blog about this are you?” Ha! MSM doesn’t get it.

Now, talking about what he’s learned about blogging. Done with “60 Minutes.”

He’s touting Adam Koval’s blog, Socketsite. Says he is so freakin’ good.

He’s shifted to talking about ways to syndicate content: Feedburner, Feedblitz, Del.icio.us, Technorati, message boards, Digg, etc.

Now taking questions from the audience. He says that the readership on the Redfin blog is larger than it used to be, but not as large as the effort put into it would justify. Also, talking about why he switched from Movable Type to WordpressMU.

They have a no delete policy…with some exceptions. He says they don’t moderate comments either. Only delete them on an as needed basis. I think that’s typical for bloggers in the Seattle area. More progressive in their attitudes.

Technorati tag: connectsf

UPDATE: We had an interesting, though not so lively discussion. I ended up sounding like Paul, the Answer Man. D’oh!

I was kind of hoping we could get into a more “spice” over the issue of PayPerPost, but that didn’t happen, even though Rudy egged it on a bit.

I was impressed with Ted Murphy. His personality was different than I would have expected a CEO of a popular company to be. He appeared almost timid. Anyway, he’s a very likable guy.

All-in-all I think it was a decent session that the audience found helpful. Of course, you’re welcome to express contrary opinions.

——————

I’m speaking on the panel in the next session, Monetizing Your Blog, soooo I’ll try to do a summary of it in a post.

Technorati tag: connectsf

The first Blogger’s Connect session has started. The topic is “finding your voice.” Joel Burslem is the moderator and the panelists are…(wait a minute; I’ve got to get everyone’s name)

• Ardell DellaLoggia, Associate Broker, Sound Realty
• Philip Ferrato, Editor, Curbed SF
• Marlow Harris, Realtor, Coldwell Banker Bain Associates
• Drew Meyers, Community Relations Specialist, Zillow.com

The questions so far have been about “how” to find your voice. Most everyone has used the term “passion,” as in follow your passion.

Finding your voice takes time and involves experimentation. At first, as one of the panelists said, it seems strange. Marlow said her blogging voice is reflective of sitting in a room having a conversation with someone…or cocktails with someone.

The question was raised, “What do you do when you have nothing to write?” Drew said he has probably 20 drafts sitting in the admin. He advises reading other blogs to get inspiration. He also said it’s sometimes good to take a break.

Ardelle said, “Blogging is ephemeral.” Oooo! She asked how many in the audience are agents, and suggested using the blog as a way to archive all those questions every agent gets asked all the time. She adds, “Write about what people what to know about.” People don’t care what you want to write about.

Ardelle is talking about who she wants reading her blog. She’s not after the same eyeballs everyday. She wants new people who are interested in buying houses. She said that blog clients are ready to buy right now. (This lady is VERY articulate. She gets my vote for best panelist here.)

Drew just p*ssed off everyone over 50…he referred to the “older” generation. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be offended myself, since I’m not yet part of that group. Well, in my head at least.

Questions from the audience are coming now. It’s about to wrap up.

Technorati tag: connectsf

Inman Blogger’s Connect is kicking off this a.m. I’ll be live-blogging it on this blog. So, here goes…

Presently, while we’re waiting on everyone to show up, Brad Inman is keeping the crowd awake.

We’re about to start the first session. I’ll do updates per post relative to each session.

Technorati tag: connectsf