The Real Value of Blogs?

[japaul777]

Looking to incorporate a blog within our new site and I'm torn here... Is the real value of blogs due to all of the unique content added to them for SEO? While this is obviously important, is it more beneficial to have one skinned and incorporated within a website or seperate?

Are the value of blogs really because of all the unique content?

How many people out there have blogs skinned and added within your site and have you noticed a significant difference in your search engine rankings?

Thanks!

[drewnick]

I'm also curious as to which method I should use:

* A subdomain
* A subdirectory
* Integrate it right in.

Right now my blog is integrated but I'm still considering doing a blog.ourgreenville.com domain.

[judyo]

Here is a recent discussion based on your question:http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread13868.html
As I posted, I have several blogs (5), in-site and standalone.

In-site blogs offer a quick way to post and add content to your overall site. You can rank for some long-tails quickly with the blogs. If you effectively use your blog you want to make some posts that draw the reader into your site by using internal links.

A standalone blog hosted elsewhere gives you a chance to throw some links to your website. I was going to dump a standalone that I didn't think I needed anymore, even though it was aged and had PR. A member here told me to keep it to give out some links to my other sites. I also use it for 3-way link exchanges via blog posts.

[japaul777]

Thanks JudyO,

I saw that thread and the benefits. After some research and thinking of the important principles for SEO that I consider important no matter what changes are done in the future, I've come to the conclusion that incorporating a blog into the site will benefit the unique content of the site -- granted that it is truely unique. And, posting to a seperate blog hosted on a power domain such as REW will also benefit as long as it's not duplicate content.

As far as maintaining a seperate domain name specifically for a blog... (unless of course you already have one that has been up for awhile) ... starting a brand new one I'm going to assume would be much better incorporated in a site then starting a seperate one from scratch. Unfortunately there is only 24 hours in a day and we still have to sell real estate! Maintaining sites and multiple blogs may be spreading it a little thin.

The interactivity that a blog can add to a site is what can make it a site that users will come back over and over for and that is what it's all about in my opinion. It's also in my opinion what makes the good blogs popular -- the interactivity it can create between the owner and the users. Granted that it is done right in the first place. Worst case scenario it builds up the actual content of a site which can't be that bad either.

[gwen]

The interactivity that a blog can add to a site is what can make it a site that users will come back over and over for and that is what it's all about in my opinion. It's also in my opinion what makes the good blogs popular -- the interactivity it can create between the owner and the users. Granted that it is done right in the first place. Worst case scenario it builds up the actual content of a site which can't be that bad either.

I agree with this last one. You can drive traffic to your blog and ultimately to your sales if you can connect with your readers in an almost intimate fashion and vice versa, or if you can build a database of content (wiki-style) that lets them return to your site and over and over for reliable, unique content.

[dcsmith]

I'll speak from the personal experience of what has worked for us.

Our blog is hosted in a directory of the main website. It is not integrated into the site. This means it gets the benefit of the "juice" from the website that has been up for just over a year. It also has it's own look and feel with links back to the "mothership". The blog had revolutionized our marketing.

Where the web site is great, adding new content takes time to be indexed in google. As for the blog. I see a new subdivision going in, I take pictures, I write a blog post, and in two days people searching on google for that new subdivision are finding that blog post on page 1.

Every new post is like another net in the water of the web. New traffic and more leads everyday.

I like having the blog as it's own entity. I'm using Wordpress and can change things quickly and add plugins etc. For me that is the only way to go, I wouldn't incorporate the blog into the structure of the site.

I have about a dozen blogs out there bringing in traffic and sales almost daily.
Most of those blogs are Property Listing blogs, some are subdomains, most are folder based. From now on I'll be using folders, no subdomains. SEO reasons for that. Short and sweet, I found subdomains can fracture your google juice into two streams. since www. is considered a subdomain, when you do blog.mymainsite. You now have two. www. and mymainsite.
But this is the topic for another thread I suppose.

[japaul777]

DcSmith,

Now we are getting somewhere -- thanks for adding your experience for what you have done to this thread for I wanted to hear all sides.

I actually came across your real estate blog when I was doing some searching around and really liked the content on it.

Obviously a ton of work has gone into your blog and changing something that is working makes no sense to me and if it is generating leads, then we can't question that since that is what it is all about.

But.. looking at things through the eyes of a normal real estate buyer, I really dig the integration that drewnick has done here--> ourgreenville.com/The-News/Blog/

To me as a normal person, no matter where I am on that blog I can easily and simply get right back to business such as looking for homes with a simple click. (Off the subject, I also dig seeing the orange dot on the map where I am.. very cool.) So my question back to Drewnick is how is traffic going for your site since your blog is integrated? Is the integrated blog drawing success like Tucson real estate? This probably is not a fair question since you don't have as much content and tools on the blog as dcsmith... but honestly, If I was looking for real estate in Greenville, I'm calling Drewnick. I just love the insight being offered concerning Greenville within the site. (Of course, I have not checked to see if I could find it in the search engines to begin with which is equally important but looking at all of those orange dots on the map convinces me your site is working.)

I also think JudyO has good content on her blogs and I think I read somewhere that you get a lot of calls for information such as restaurants, etc.. I would think that actually skinning and integrating it into the site would better brand your name as a real estate agent... It's actually pretty cool to have people calling you for area information but I would want to make sure that the people know that you were the Area Real Estate specialist and not just the directory.

I don't know, for some reason in the back of my mind I have a feeling that something within the algorithms will change in the future and all of the linkbacks, tools, etc.. going on all over the place in the blogworld simply to increase website rankings will change. Changes in the past concerning manipulation were created for just that reason and sites with the original content continued to thrive. I've kept track of more then one site that has come and gone in the rankings in our area and I know the manipulators charged a ton of money to the owners for the short term results. Just my opinion.

I'm looking for an overall balance between results, usability, simplicity, interactivity and most importantly response generating that will last for the long term. Which is why I am on this forum since pretty much all of the members here have a good grasp of and not just seeking the best shortcuts.

Ok.. I'll stop... now I feel like one of the cheesy yellow book commercials searching for the meaning of life!

[drewnick]

Japaul777, thanks for the comments on my site. It's basically brand new so no time yet for it to be high up in the search engines. I do get over 100+ hits/day from the engines which is doubling every 2-3 weeks (two weeks ago it was 50).

I have yet to convert a blog visitor into a client - but I'm not holding my breath. I think it will take time and effort that will be rewarded long term.

[dcsmith]

Drew you are coming up #1 in google for "Many New Greenville Neighborhoods Added" and "Vacant Houses at Highest Level in History"

So that should tell you this, Choose your title very carefully. You will notice that almost all my blog post start with Tucson that's on purpose. Be specific. Many New Greenville Neighborhoods added is to general. We just had a new subdivision open call "Tangerine Crossing" I wrote a short blog post about it. You search Tucson Tangerine Crossing and I'm getting hits on it.

Drew there is no date on your posts. That is important. You should add that to each post. Each of the title I mentioned above don't have dates. I don't know when they were written. You know the blog is new but in a year from now I read those post are they now or three years ago?

The old a picture is worth a thousand words is true. And make sure you put a title tag on it. That is another keyword, we get a lot of search hits from our image title tags. They don't index as quickly in google but they do index and they provide a link back to your site.

Finally, make it easier to contact you. Sure it is in the top nav. But many will look in the sidebar nav. Put it both places. You want it so easy they don't have to hunt at all.

You are ranking #1 in google for search terms. That's great. Now hone those titles. Add hittail if you haven't. Put in an H2 tag when approriate. Be sure to ping blogsearch google and pingomatic or pinggoat. It usually takes two days for a post to start getting hits. Like I've said before. Every post is like a line in the water. The Title of that post determines if you are fishing in waters near you or far away. Fish for the greenville fish

[judyo]

japaul777, you gave me an idea. On my Cook County & Oak Lawn blogs that are WP blogs added to my sites, I will add the link for MLS Search and maybe my Homefinder Search. As it stands I only have a link to the home page of my site listed. Thanks for the idea. Sometimes I do try to separate the blogs as just a newsworthy source and even though I try to stay real estate related on these I should have it easier to get back into the real estate mode if someone somehow reached my blog before my site.

On my standalone area blog where I'm the local "directory", I do have it somewhat real estate oriented but not as much as my other sites. This is the site I was ready to give up on but I'm keeping it around as it keeps rising in the serps & I know people see it from the phone calls. So I add to it once in a while & use it to help my other sites. I wouldn't have built it for this purpose but it's just the way things turned out.

My Orland Park blog is a combination blog/site that I'm still experimenting with and I love the concept but I still need to get a better meta generator plug-in. The part I'm worried about with a blog/site is the fact that you don't have as unique a title tag per page as you do with a website & as Dave says you really have to come up with a great post title. Sometimes that takes longer to figure out than writing the darn post!