Author Archives: Dustin Luther

About Dustin Luther

Founder and original blogger on Rain City Guide, Dustin has since started #InterestedIn Marketing where his team provides content and social media services that helps industry experts earn recognition as thought leaders. You can find me on Twitter (@tyr) and LinkedIn (/DustinLuther)

Rain City Guide Year In Review

Posted on by
10

The most popular articles on RCG from this past year as measured in total hits:

(I encourage all RCG contributors to do something similar):

  • 10 Great Conversations. This was the first of my “list” posts and was a lot of fun to put together…
  • The Best Online Real Estate Marketing Time Can Buy. Getting people to return to your site day in and day out is simple (but not easy)… Be interesting!
  • Improving Online Home Valuations? I like this article mainly because it jump-started a bunch of internal discussions at Move about real estate blogging.
  • Plus How to Link. I include this one because I’m often shocked at how many real estate agents think they can blog without linking…
  • Paying for the Privilege of Marginalization. I don’t think the real estate community at large has really come to grips with what it means to take part in some of these online classified sites and the tech-savvy agents seem to have given into their fatalistic instincts in terms of their industry as a whole. Fascinating stuff that borders on the “can’t tread there anymore” territory for me… 🙂

And finally, I found it particularly fun to read the slew of interviews I did at the beginning of last year. Lots of stuff has changed in a year in real estate blogging, but not as much as you might think!

An SEO Update…

Posted on by
6

My guess is that there is still a lot of interest from real estate professionals on how to use SEO (search engine optimization) to drive (free!) traffic to your site. With that in mind, I thought I’d keep people updated on the little SEO experiment I started a week ago. As you’ll likely see, the results so far have been somewhat mixed.

First the worst news: Google dropped RCG out of the simple search [Seattle Real Estate] (at least on the first few pages). RCG has been in the top 10 for at least a year, so this is quite surprising! (Over the past year, this term has driven about 3% of the new users to RCG, which might not seem like a lot, but it is the most dominant driver of traffic to the site. No other phrase even comes close.

Better news is that after eliminating some of the pages and focusing on only a few tabs on the top of the page, the results for searching like [agent recommendations] has been much better. (RCG is #1 on Google!)

Also of interest, it took less than a week for RCG to now appear on the front page of some obvious searches like [Seattle Real Estate blog] on both MSN and Yahoo. I think this bodes well for the future as these sites do a better job indexing RCG thanks to the keyword and title changes I made.

For comparison purposes, I’ve decided to see how the site has changed using these days:

  • Pre SEO changes: Nov 12th through the 16th
  • Post SEO changes: Dec 10th through the 14th

Considering the changes in the status on the big search engines on the big search terms, not much as changed in terms of overall traffic:

  • Google. Pre: 1738, Post: 1568
  • MSN. Pre: 41, Post: 42
  • Yahoo. Pre: 28, Post: 25
  • Ask. Pre: 22, Post: 15
  • Technorati. Pre: 21, Post: 34

The overall Google traffic decreased 10%, while there was virtually no change from the other search engines. I included Technorati thinking that would be the “control” that wouldn’t be affected by SEO, but of course, that is the ONLY site that increased substantially! Go Figure!

History of Realtor.com?

Posted on by
6

Since I know there is more than a little bit of interest among RCG readers with regard to Realtor.com, I thought I’d point people to this video interview I just posted with Phil Dawley (Move’s Chief Technical Officer) and also one of the first employees. (direct link to video)

BTW, I’m up for more of these interviews, so please feel free to suggest people/topics/questions…

Some SEO changes

Posted on by
22

Back at the Blog Business Summit, I asked Dave Taylor what I could do to improve my ranking in some of the “other” search engines… It seems that over 90% of RCG search engine traffic comes from Google and while I appreciate the traffic from Google, I would like a little love from the other search engines as well…

[photopress:seo.jpg,full,centered]

Dave’s advice was simple, and since the changes are not default in WordPress, I thought I’d pass them along to others…

1) I flipped the Blog Name and the Post Title around… The title (way up above the address bar!) for this post is “Some SEO changes by Seattle’s Rain City Real Estate Guide”. Before I made the change, the title would have been: “Seattle’s Rain City Real Estate Guide >> Some SEO changes.”

2) I added meta keywords and meta descriptions. To figure out good keywords, I did a few common real estate searches on Google AND Yahoo and then stole (borrowed heavily) from the sites that scored well… Here are the meta tags I ended up adding:

  • Keywords: Seattle Real Estate, real estate blog, real estate guide, Seattle real estate blog, Ballard, buying, selling, research, neighborhoods, Seattle neighborhoods
  • Description:Seattle Real Estate Blog, Seattle Washington’s complete website for real estate, homes for sale and virtual tours. Search for Seattle Real Estate neighborhood information.

(You can see the implementation by “right-clicking” on this page and selecting “view page source”… Also of note: all of these changes were made directly to the header.php file.)

I’ll give it a month and let you know if these simple changes have any affect on the other search engines!

Bloginar in Vancouver

Posted on by
13

Russ and I finished up another enjoyable Bloginar in Vancouver, WA today! I know that both Russ and I enjoy the opportunities to share our blogging passion with a larger audience!

If you attended, please feel free to use this post to give us some feedback.

BTW, I have an idea for a new set of seminars that has less to do with the practicalities of blogging and more to do with giving agents advice for remaining relevant on the internet (blogging being on of the many tools in the toolbox). I find that the most interesting questions at these blogging seminars have to do with understanding “how” the web works, and I think I could create an interesting presentation with this slant.

Would you attend a 2-hour seminar that dealt with the intersection of web2.0 and real estate?

Top Producer Revamps Home Insight

Posted on by
30

(Full disclosure: I work for Move, which owns Top Producer, so please put on your skepticism hat any time I talk about their products!)

About three months ago, I mentioned a soft-launch of a new product from the Top Producer team called Home Insight. Some of the comments were pretty tough on the product with Cheryl starting off the conversation saying that the product was just another “fancy front end for a lead-generator”. I can tell you from the many conversations I’ve had with the team at Top Producer that they took many of the comments on RCG seriously.

[photopress:Seattle_s_Rain_City_Real_Estate_Guide___Improving_Online_Home_Valuations____Mozilla_Firefox_11_15_2006_10_48_42_PM.jpg,thumb,alignright]The response is that they’ve retooled the product and announced a new element for agents called Top Marketer just in time for the NARdi Gras convention. While the product is still geared toward providing agents and consumers with the real-time analytical tools based on MLS data, the emphasis on lead generation has been stripped of the product. To give an example, the front door to home insight now only asks for the most basic information (address and home type). Although because some of the more detailed information (like pending sales) is required to be behind registration, users will still have to register if they want the full package of information available.

The new project also has a much bigger emphasis on educating the users with a lot more text on interpreting the data and integrating blog posts about local market conditions from agents who are using the Top Producer blogs.

Also, you might be interested in the recent interview with Matthew Moore I published on Move Home.

NARdi Gras Blogging

Posted on by
18

[photopress:nardi_gras_eventlogo.gif,full,alignright]The folks over at the Center for REALTOR Technology have made it a bit too tempting, so I’ve decided I’m going to blog the NARdi Gras!

Please join me over on the new blog platform on Move.com as I take over the site with a Mardi Gras theme for the next week. 🙂

By the way, if you are attending the convention and plan to blog, let me know! I plan to keep an extensive list of bloggers covering the event!

Also, I’d love to keep track of all the real estate technology products that are going to be announced at the event, so if you’re releasing something, let me know. I already mentioned my first product announcement yesterday (when I said that Top Producer recently unleashed a blogging tool available to any of their clients for FREE!!!), and I’m sure there will be many more to come over the next few days!

How to Get on the Ball with Your Blog

Posted on by
40

I got this email the other day, and with the authors permission, I thought other agents looking to start a blog might find my responses helpful.

I am an agent with Coldwell Banker in Los Angeles and I attended your bloginar in July. I have really been researching (reading The Corporate Blog Book by Debbie Weil, searching out other blogs, and reading your archived posts on the subject) since then and I am extremely interested in getting the ball rolling on my blog.

I have a few questions I hope you can help me with.

1. BRANDING: I already have a website (RobinForman.com). As I understand it, I establish a blog under a separate URL and then I can link it to my website (I see Jim Duncan does this). Is there an issue with having to give people 2 separate URL’s? Should I put both on my business card? Or is it better to just give everyone the RobinForman.com URL and have them access the blog through the website.

This one is personal… I realized early on in creating Rain City Guide that I didn’t want this blog to be all about Anna. (I started this blog to promote my wife’s real estate business). So I choose a name that represented the area that she was doing business. It is so much easier to draw people to raincityguide.com than www.annaluther.com.

2. HOST: I see you had a hacking problem with WordPress. Are you still recommending them?

I’m definitely still recommending WordPress… As I stated elsewhere, WordPress wasn’t really hacked, but rather I made the mistake of leaving one file open to be overwriten by the server. If you are planning to start your own blog but don’t have the technical knowledge to manage the files and upgrades, I’d highly recommend going with WordPress.com (or, better yet, if you’re a Top Producer client, go with their hosted version of WordPress). With the WordPress.com option, they will even let you host the blog under your own domain for a nominal fee.

3. TARGET AUDIENCE: I notice on your blog you and your contributors publish stories/info that might appeal to buyers and sellers as well as trade issues that appeal to Realtors. I assume you recommend publishing for both target audiences at the same time.

I’d flip the logic on you… Instead of focusing on an audience, think of building a community. At that point, the question because where is the community you want to enter.

The problem with focusing exclusively on buyers and sellers is that it is a transitional community. Even if they enter your community for a short-while by leaving comments, they are likely to move on to other topics before long. If you want a sustainable community, making friends with other real estate professionals is key!

4. LINKAGE: Although outgoing links are important it seems that the incoming links are the most productive. Am I correct that I should concentrate on linking to other blogs that are likely to link back to me?

Don’t worry too much about inbound links… As you note, they are extremely valuable, but the highest quality links come when you least expect it. Focus on being interesting and the links will come.

The Future of Blogging According to Matt

Posted on by
Reply

Matt’s up on stage with Liz Lawley of Microsoft Research talking about the future of blogging as the final session at the Blog Business Summit.

It has been a fun conversation with Liz and Matt taking different sides in terms of the importance of community vs. technology. Here are some of my favorite conversations (Some of these may only be paraphrasing).

Matt: “As technologies, we tell a Noble Lie.”

The idea is that the technologists are telling everyone the technology is going to rule the day, but in reality, the technology has been around for a while. What is new is that we have an audience to read the massive amount of content that has been created!

Matt: “When we look at the search engines like Google… and Yahoo and Microsoft… I feel bad like I have to do equal opportunity pimping when I’m on stage…”

Host: “What do you see as the future of the internet?”
Matt: “I don’t know… Don’t even want to guess at that. The reason I’m up here on stage is timing. WordPress is here because of timing.”

Host: “If you could buy any companies today, who would it be? Who is doing things right?