In putting together Rain City Guide with Anna, I think we’ve made every blogging mistake that is possible… [photopress:lots_of_banners.jpg,full,alignright]In the spirit of learning from our mistakes, here are the top 8 mistakes that are made by real estate bloggers:

• Mistake #1: Posting your listings. Treat your blog as a community resource and you will be rewarded. Treat it as an advertisement, and you will be unread.
• Mistake #2: Too much stuff on the front page (See photo on the right!). In a previous iteration of Rain City Guide I noticed that the site was slow because I was asking users to load too much stuff when all they really wanted was the content! I’ve cleaned up the interface and I feel much better about the site.
• Mistake #3: Create multiple blogs. Except for Jonathan Miller, I’ve never seen a good real estate blogger who could keep more than one blog interesting to read.
• Mistake #4: Using a generic theme. Take the time to personalize the theme of your blog. Simple steps like adding your photo, editing the header graphic and changing around the colors can make a huge difference.
• Mistake #5: Not reading other blogs. I built the original blog for Anna before I began reading other real estate blogs. No one ever linked to that site because I never linked to anyone else. Unless you were one of the originals, you won’t be able to get away with this and expect anyone to read your blog.
• Mistake #6: Too much self-promotion. I stop reading blogs that include a paragraph about the author’s exceptional services at the bottom of every post (especially if this paragraph is filled with links!). Again, unless you were one of the originals, you can’t get away with this and expect anyone to read your blog.
• Mistake #7: Expecting people to comment just because you asked a question. If you want a response out of your readers, you really have to make it interesting. Before asking a question, make sure you’re providing some content that is going to provoke them to respond!
• Mistake #8: Writing a post inspired by another blogger without linking to them. The temptation to keep readers on your site is great, but the benefits of being a good linker are even greater!

As always, I’m interested in your feedback 😉 , and would be interested to hear if people could add two more so that we could come with a even ten.