Real Estate Blog Lab loses PR5 to PR4
Many Well Known Blogs Loose PR in this Update
It was April 28, 2008 when I last reported a PR update. That was when we gained our first PR5 ranking. It felt wonderful having that first PR5 and is hard to give up today. But Google giveth and Google Taketh away. I won’t say the rest of the quote. We appear to be in good company I see Bloodhound blog went from PR6 back to PR5 and they are as prolific as any blog at adding new content.
Another blog I follow closely and read everyday is Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider His site went from PR6 to PR5. I’ve not seen any site gain PR this update but many that gained a point in April have lost it in July.
I noticed in June there were a lot of changes going on with Google (more than usual) in search results and rankings in the organics.
For a few months the lab had been ranking for the term “real estate blog”
- it was in the middle of page 2
- then the top of page 2
- then the bottom of page 1
- then GONE.
No where to found for that term or real estate blogs. Now at the end of July it is back to the bottom of page 1.
But it meant a lot of lost traffic for the lab and several of our business blogs that experienced the same thing during June and most of July.
The result: One blog lost PR4 to PR3 on the home page. Two others stayed the same as it was PR4 and PR3.
A Point In Every Direction . . .
What this means is there appears to be a major change in the way PR is assigned and it hit sites across the board. So if everyone goes down, you stay the same, just not with the same PR you had before but in relation to others you held your own.
The Good News Internal Pages and Posts
As in previous updates I see more posts gaining PR on internal pages than were in the past. Most are PR2 but some are holding their PR3 rank. This means the main loss of PR was to home pages and not to internal pages/posts. It seems Google is doing a redistribution of PR to internal pages over the home page ranking high and internal pages having little or now PR at all.
The Long Tails of PR
This should mean Google is giving even more weight to the Long Tails effect of a site and content on that site than it has in the past. More juice, for content inside the blog/website and not all directed at the home page is a good thing for those that are continuing to add quality content.
It’s not about PR or the Large Toad in the Room
I don’t blog for Google (most of the time). Google is a part of our marketing strategy. It isn’t the reason we blog. Does a loss of PR hurt? Emotionally, sure it does. As a Geek, I loved it when I hit PR5. I loved opening the the lab to a half green bar and mouse over just to see the PR5.
Did it change anything? not really. Same with the business blogs. Consumers and potential clients keep finding our content and expressing a desire to work with us for both listing their home or buying one.
For some it is the photos. Honest, we get a lot of listings based on our listing photos and flyers in the box. We have had some clients say, “We drove around and gathered flyers from all the homes for sale, you had the best flyers and pictures so we called you.”
I’m saying this so you don’t get discouraged about blogging. Yeah, it hurts to lose PR on the home page, but I’d gladly give a point on the home page to gain 50 PR2 pages in the index. We blog on, keep adding content, every post is like another line in the water in the ocean of the Internet.
Have a great weekend. And if you didn’t loose PR in this update, GOOD FOR YOU : )
Do you have a philosophy for your blog? Have you ever thought about it. Are you trying to tell a story about your community? Are you drawing a word picture of life in your community?
The Lab is more oriented to be topic driven. RE Bloggers, specifically leaning toward self hosted Wordpress Bloggers, but with many topics that apply to blogging in general.
For the most part there is not an ongoing story here.
My Tucson Real Estate in The News is a blend of the two, at least it started out that way. It was started to provide analysis of all the Tucson Real Estate related articles appearing in local publications. Almost every article in the newspapers need to be analyzed to find out what is really in the content and not just the headlines and subtexts which often portrayed a completely different picture than the data itself. Along with that it centers on the Monthly Tucson MLS Statistical reports and breaking down those numbers with analysis and summaries.
Salted in with these two topics were posts on Tucson Subdivisions, Tucson Condo, Living in Tucson and Tucson events of interest.
On July 15, 2007 I started a new blog. This blog is more a serial novel of Life in Tucson Arizona, and real estate topics of interest included. It is designed more to establish a relationship with readers and bring them back, daily if possible, to see what is going on in Tucson.
A serial novel approach is one that is looking for regular readers. The reference Topic approach is looking more to snag a reader from a search engine search. Those readers may hit the blog, get the information they want, and never be back again. Some of those readers bookmark the site thinking they might be back to this reference site again.
For example if you are just looking for a way to clean and shine saltillo tile then it will probably be a one time “Hey, that’s great I know how to do this now”. If it is a search on Water in Tucson, or Cactus in Tucson, or Things to do in Tucson, they might find the site an ongoing resource they want to come back to again.
Is it possible to blend these two? YES, it is possible.
A couple of ways to make blending easier for your blog.
- Meaningful Categories to group posts
- A series of posts on specific topics broken into groups.
- The voice you use.
These are just a few things you can do to help create a blended blog approach attracting both those that are using a search engine to search for specific information, and those wanting to find a place to check in regularly and find out what is new.
The Voice You Use
I’m going to step completely outside the RE blogging community because I know we all have our favorite authors. I don’t want any of those biases to take your thoughts away from the point. Instead I’m going to use an example that is completely separate from the real estate community with the exception of the fact he has photographed some mighty pretty and majestic real estate.
Scott Kelby’s blog is a perfect example of Voice. Scott first got my attention with his book The Digital Photography Book. (This is a great book, but be warned, you might just end up spending a lot of money on photography equipment because he make you want to take good photos). The Digital Photography Book is written like a blog, with each page a post.
Scott has a wonderfully warped sense of humor and he speaks with the voice of friendship on every page and in every post on his blog. I read Scott’s blog everyday. I don’t own a copy of Lightroom, or Photoshop. I don’t do wedding photography or take picture of people very often. I don’t go to sporting events (though I enjoyed Scott’s images of the Bears and Browns game he recently attended.)
So why do I read his blog everyday? It is his Voice. He is down to earth, fun to read and makes everyone feel at home and at ease. He’s a teacher and he is always on. He’s the kind of teacher with understanding that gets a student excited about learning. If he has a ruler in his hand it is so he can show you something great, interesting or funny. Not so he can wrap your knuckles and tell you to pay attention and do better.
Find your voice and you will find your audience. I’ve always been interested in photography, but Scott is one of the people that’s helped re-ignite my passion for the camera and light.
There are lists of names I could give here, and someday might. Think about the blogs you read regularly and I’ll bet you have been attracted by the voice of the blog as much as the content. You might not even have been aware of it. That is how subtle and strong the voice of your blog can be in attracting regular readers.
What have you got?
- a serial novel
- a reference book
- both
What’s your voice? Do you know? Do you have one?
Find the answer to these questions and you will find coming up with something to write will often be much easier and attract more readers in the process.
I recently wrote about the Importance of Tagging your photos in a blog post in “Photos and overlooked part of your blog traffic.”
Now I want to talk about taking better digital photos and introduce you to a great book “The Digital Photography Book”.
But first a quick look at what is being said about photography, real estate and blogging in the RE Blog community.
Athol Kay probably has one of the largest collections of bad real estate photos in existence and it is growing every day. I love looking at them, but imagine what he has at the end of the day and megabytes of storage later, lots of bad and very bad photos. Athol is also doing his best to limit the number of submissions through a series of post on taking better photos in his Photos Category. There are other post under this category as well, but all of his stuff on photos is interesting and fun. I just linked to an entire category on a blog. I’ve never done that before.
Teresa Broadman (becoming even more famous after Blogger Connect in SF) has some wonderful photos as examples on her StPaulRealEstateBlog and she give some hints in her interview with Todd Carpenter at Remex. Kris Kraft in Denver has an interesting post also encouraging sellers to have a look at what the listing agent is using for photos to market their home in The Importance of Photos. Athol would have told Kris to make that “The Importance of Good Photos”.
I ran across a book a couple of weeks ago and I really want to recommend it to anyone that wants to take better digital photographs.
I’ve been taking photos since I was 5 years old. My first camera was a brownie box camera. My latest Purchase a Nikon D40.
The arrival of monsoon here in Tucson has already spurred some great sunsets and as I write this I’m reminded to save often as we can hear the thunder rolling outside with an occasional flash of bright light from the lightening.
I know from years of experience behind the camera that no one is ever happy with the results they get. We always want our photos to be better.
Scott Kelby’s “The Digital Photography Book” will help you take better photos.
First, Scott is truly a closet comedian. He is funny in a marvelously bent way. I’m glad he didn’t constrain his sense of humor when writing this book. The book is broken down into sections and each section has one page chapters if it is fair to call them chapters. They are gems of photographic insight into how to make your digital photos better.
Scott sets the book up as if we were invited along on photo shoots as one of his buddies. He provides us tips on the various situations and how to set them up. There is no needless filler. There is no dry explanations of shutter speed, ISO, Aperture Priority etc. It is simple down to earth ways to set up and take great shots.
I got mine from Amazon.com You can also get it from Scott’s site: http://www.scottkelbybooks.com/
This is a great handbook. Quick to read, easy to implement and you will take better photos using the information Scott provides in this book.
Once you go to Scott’s site you will quickly realize this guy knows what he is talking about.
He is somewhat of a Macgyver of photography, you don’t have to have an expensive gadget or filter for everything, sometimes a shower curtain from Wal-Mart or a shower cap from your hotel room will do. Once you read the book you will know what I’m talking about.
This is another reason why I like this book, he doesn’t tell you to go out and spend thousands of dollars on expensive camera equipment to get great photos. Apply what he says to the digital camera you have and you will get better results.
I shot this just a few minutes before writing this post as the storm was approaching using a tip from Scott’s book.
There is a post on Tucson Monsoon Season which has a video montage presentation of clouds and sunsets. What I learned from Scott’s book was invaluable when taking the photos used in the montage.
If you own a digital camera you won’t regret buying this book. Oh, I should probably mention you also have to read it to get better photos, just buying it won’t do the trick.
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Copyright
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.Yeah Right !
