2007 October | Real Estate Blog Lab

Wordpress 2.3 and Askimet Approved Comments

By Dave Smith Wednesday October 31, 2007

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I have moderation turned on for comments on the blog lab. The setting is for approval of all first time comments and once approved the person making the comments can continue to make comments as long as there are not more than 3 links in a comment.

I’ve noticed lately, that all the people that have been approved before are no longer approved. This happened with the last WP update.

I have not added any additional spam filters to the lab or even updated any. If you don’t see a comment wait a little while. It might be stuck in the spam filter, because instead of them going to be approved with an email notification to me they are going directly to the spam filter.

This is appears to be an undocumented “feature” of the last upgrade. : )

Supreme Ruler Feasting & PR

By Dave Smith Monday October 29, 2007

Need I write or even say the Ruler associated with PR. No not the Price is Right. Some would think it Pretty Risky, or Purposely Ridiculous. It was waited for two month longer than some thought it due.

Take a little Bounce out of your Bounce Rate

By Dave Smith Saturday October 13, 2007

We all have high bounce rates. Even the people that say they don’t do. It is inevitable. We can’t control how or when the search engines will place us high on a page for a search. It might not be relevant to the search at all.

Write Relevant Posts

I once write about the start of the Oro Valley Real Estate site explaining how it was a blog with posts rather than a typical website with pages. I provided information on the location of our office in the sidebar. In less than a week my Hittail results were showing I was getting a lot of clicks for the search phrase “Oro Valley Post Office” There are a lot of people moving to Oro Valley some as winter visitors for part of the year and some as permanent residents.

Well you can imagine the bounce rate was really high, because I got the traffic but the content they were looking for wasn’t there. Until the next day when I wrote the post on “The Oro Valley Post Office” and put up a map, marking the location.

These are the ones you can track and realize “Hey, I should write a post about that”

How do you slow down the bounce rate when it isn’t that obvious.

Where is your Site Search

High placement on your blog of a search box saying, “DIDN’T FIND WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR” Search the site, it is probably here.

This grabs their attention and some will quickly enter their search and find what they are looking for “ON YOUR SITE”

Finally, Grab them with something they aren’t looking for. Huh?

This is the best reason for putting pictures on your blog post and doing so at the top not down in the context of the post. Why do you think so many sites have pictures in the sidebar, flickr photos flashing, or images in posts etc.

I try to have a photo that will catch the eye of the reader and keep them on the site longer even if this isn’t what they are looking for NOW. I want them to find the site interesting enough to tag it for future reading and investigation.

There you have it. A few simple ways to slow the bounce from your site when someone pops in for some information. After all that is why people search, they want to find information.

Don’t forget this simple equation. Search+Information=Results. Finding Results = Lower Bounce Rates.

Home Evaluation Sheets to Prevent Cerebral Jello

By Dave Smith Wednesday October 10, 2007

Tucson Listing Sheets I initially wrote this post for home buyers getting ready to move to Tucson. It’s not a real bells and whistles kind of tool but I think some of you might find a use for it with your buyers. Doug Trudeau at Tucson RE Blogs calls this process of all the listing getting mixed up in a buyer’s head Cerebral Jello. For Tucson I added it would be Stucco Flavor.

I purposely made the Home Evaluation Sheet generic so it could be adapted for any market.

I’m adding this post as an example of how any RE blogger can add something to their blog as a “take away” for the reader besides just good information. I’m sure if you think about it you can some up with similar ideas for useful forms to help buyers and sellers through the Real Estate Transaction Process.

There are so many homes to choose from and after looking at stacks of listing sheets and visiting 10 or 12 homes a day; they start to blend together and it is hard to remember what you saw or didn’t see and what you liked best of all the homes in the pile. The more you sort the more confused you can get. What do I want to see again, what do I want to eliminate. Top it all off you are scheduled to go to another bunch of homes tomorrow. It really can get confusing. Here is a little tool that might help.

Home Evaluation Sheet

Make a list of what you are looking for in a home. Divide the list into columns to make the process a little easier. What are the things you consider to be Must Have and what are the Wants. Here is an example:

Home Evaluation Sheet

How to use these sheets

Download the empty Evaluation Sheet
Make a list of Must Have
Make a list of Wants
Using Word or Wordpad fill in the form
Save and Print out one sheet for every house
Staple an Evaluation sheet to each listing sheet
Check mark each item on the list in the house
Total Must Haves and Wants
Add them together for Total Score
Check your notes and comments for additional thoughts
Eliminate all the sheets that get a low score
Assign numbers to those that remain #1, #2, etc.
Try and keep these to 4 or 5 top picks

Each day you add new homes to the list do the same thing. Add that days picks to the top picks and check your scores and again weed out the lowest ones. Keep just the top picks.

This will help keep the task of narrowing down your selection from becoming overwhelming.

There are two forms One a PDF which you can download and print out. This one you have to fill in by hand.

The other is a DOC file which you can open in Word or in Wordpad. All windows computers come with a copy of Wordpad in the Accessories directory.

Fill it out. Save it and print as many copies as you will need.

Blank Home Evaluation Sheet PDF

Blank Home Evaluation Sheet Doc

Add Photos to The Process

House Number If you are taking pictures of the homes you are visiting during the day; make it a habit to take the first picture of the homes address. At the end of the day you possibly will have more than 100 images. Taking a picture of the address makes it easier to associate pictures with listing sheets.