Morgan Carey's Blog: REW Blogs

I have wanted to set up this system for a while, and with the impending launch of REW Blogs V2 - I think it is a great time to start brainstorming and establish a dialogue with the member regarding the finer points of the system.

What is REW Dollars (Name may change)

Basically - it is a ratings / points system that actually rewards the members as opposed the Active Rain points system where they basically play upon the members competitive spirit and ego's to want to have the most points and bragging rights.

Now don't get me wrong - REW Dollars can be bragged about as well - but the major difference is that they can actually be used / redeemed for products and services that real estate agents / brokers etc require to run a successful  business.
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You have likely arrived at this page because you have a notice in your account that your REW Blog has been flagged for a violation of the REW Blogs terms of service. This blog post will inform you on how you have this flag removed so that you can get back to taking full advantage of all that REW Blogs have to offer.

Before getting into how to have the flag removed, let me first explain why we have a TOS and why it is important that every member abide by our rules and policies.

#1: User experience: It is very important to any serious blogging platform that we convey at all times a sense of professionalism and access to high quality information without all the spam or self promotion that tends to plague lower quality FFA blogging platforms. At REW… Read Full Post

And we are lucky to have him!

CK has graciously volunteered to sit on the judging panel with me to judge the SEO component of the REW Blogs contest.

For those of you who don't know him:

CK Chung, aka Kid Disco of SEOdisco.com, started optimizing websites before he even knew what SEO was. Utilizing his schooling, knowledge, logic, and instincts, he implemented what he later found out to be along the lines of the best practices for SEO.

Beginning his professional career by performing search marketing for over 100 real estate agents, CK quickly fell in love with SEO and conducted research and testing around the clock. As a result of his work ethic, enthusiasm, and proven experience, CK went on to become the lead SEO for a number of high-profile… Read Full Post

This is the first installment in a series of posts I have promised in order to help REW Bloggers create the best blogs possible and hopefully win some really great prizes in the REW Blogs Contest.

The topic of this blog post is how to properly use the "Relevant Reading" (Formerly named "links" ) section of your REW Blog.

I renamed this section in an attempt to further educate members in terms of the purpose of this section and to help them understand that it is not just about sending yourself backlinks, the true purpose of this section is to provide your readers with access to other great external websites that cover complimentary materials to those being posted at your REW Blog.

Now the most important first step to using this section of REW… Read Full Post

Blogging brings real traffic.

Earlier today, we were having a discussion on the forum about using tags in your blog and it was stated by one of the members that we should care more about the SEO benefits of our blogs VS the actual benefit to our readers because this Realtor (And I quote) was "not convinced the general public is reading these things"

Now I already knew better and have been teaching bloggers and webmasters for years to always write and construct your content first and foremost for the benefit of the reader. Only after you have made sure that your writing is as good as it can be, go back and adjust where you can (Without sacrificing quality) and tune for SEO - This btw mainly means massaging your title's and headings a bit to make sure…

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What took me so long? Oh I don't know, maybe it was the 50,000 other things I was working on - anyways who cares blog tags are now a reality at REW Blogs.

Now users can tag their blog posts with relevant labels that allow readers of REW Blogs to find other blog posts on the system that are related quickly and efficiently. The way we have set up these tags will also significantly improve the internal link architecture of REW Blogs which is a good thing for everyone!

So how does it work?

 

You post a new entry like usual - but now when you look underneath the wysiwyg editor you will see a text box titled "Blog Tags: Separate with commas" this is the Blog Tag box - here you will label your blog posts with a few relevant labels so that users can access…

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We have increase the number of characters shown as a summary on the default page of your blog, with longer descriptions (In combination with the new image hack) - this should help generate even more interest from your main blog page in each blog article you write. Read Full Post

This post is for those of you with multiple blogs

As many of us have found out, there are many great places to blog and increase our online exposure and solicit new business. Often times REW members will not only have an REW Blog here at Real Estate Webmasters, they will also have an Active Rain Blog and a blog on your personal or company website such as Jim Olenbush's Austin Real Estate Blog.

Now "hopefully" users are not posting duplicate content on each of these blogs as having unique content is a bonus from a search engine perspective, but also at each website you post, the readership will be slightly different.

Ok so I have 3 blogs and I want to make the most out of them by getting myself some link juice, but how can I link to my other blogs… Read Full Post