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Big question in the blogosphere…

Should blog comments be open or closed?

The argument for open comments is basically that it allows consumers (readers) to interact with you through your blog.  It is a very strong and compelling argument.  And while most blogs will NOT get an abundance of comments, tossing them without deep thought would likely be a mistake.

The argument for closed comments revolves around spam prevention and keeping undesirable commentors at bay.  And I have had my share of both…  In fact, on my Active Rain blog, Gwinnett Garage Guy, I have been closing comments for the last few weeks.  And I maintain a spam detection service for my WordPress blogs.  Active Rain has internal monitors to detect and kill spam.  There are also issues that can arise with negative comments.

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Personally, I fall on the open comments side of the debate.  I think it is very important to allow readers as many avenues as possible to interact.  However, I am beginning to close comments on old posts that get spam comments.  I have had negative comments, and find that transparency is the best option…

What do you think?

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Back in the mid 1990s, people started to say that you HAD to have a website.  So, you hired someone to code up a few pages and it was good…  You were done. 

Ten years later, those same people were telling you that you HAD to have a blog.  The cool thing was that you didn’t necessarily have to hire anyone, you could just toss one up.  So you did it… and then it kind of languished after the first couple of months because you didn’t get any direct business from it.  You were done.

A couple of years later, you finally started hearing from some of your peers that that blogging thing actually worked… so you dusted it off and started posting.  You were done. 

Seemingly, 30 minutes later, the consensus was that you needed a Twitter account.  But before you could call it done, you needed a FaceBook Fan Page… then you needed a YouTube Channel… and a Yelp presence…

Now, if you aren’t on Google+, you are just wasting time with the rest of your internet program… or so say “the people”.

When does it end?

Does it end?

Image by TheMBG via Flickr

Nope.  It doesn’t.  Technology and “what’s cool” keep marching on.  There is always a new site and there is always a new way to engage consumers.  There are always new channels and there always will be.

What’s worse… or better… is that they are unfolding faster than EVER before.  Newspaper dominated for centuries.  Radio dominated for generations.  TV dominated for decades.  Websites dominated for years.  Now we are down to weeks…  Maybe days.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to try to ride EVERY wave that breaks on the shore.  In fact, it means that you shouldn’t.  A hundred years ago, you couldn’t go big if you weren’t in the newspaper.  It would take a while before the next wave came in.  Now we have waves breaking constantly.

Pick your battles.  Figure out what you are going to be able to do… alone or with your team.  Learn ways to automate without destroying engagement.  Aggregation and Syndication can be your friends.  Link and leverage your networks.  Pick your battles. 

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You aren’t done.

But you never really were…

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• Social Media is a Waste of Time (e1evation.com)

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On Monday, September 26th, I am hosting a “Lunch & Learn” at the NAMAR (Northeast Atlanta Metro Association of REALTORS®) offices in Duluth.  We will be talking about blogging for real estate professionals.

As part of the discussion, we will be covering a variety of topics, time permitting.  Among them…

• Blog Platforms
• Active Rain
• WordPress.com (remote-hosted)
• WordPress.org (self-hosted)
• Posterous
• Other platforms
• Content Creation
• Coming up with Topics
• Video
• Focus
• Details
• Conversion
• Plug-ins
• Hosting Companies
• DiY?
• Social Media Outposts
• Analytics

With only about 60-75 minutes to get it all done, there are a LOT of things to talk about.  We also want the specifics of the session to be determined by the people that show up to ask questions.  There is a good chance that we aren’t going to hit all of the individual bullet points.  In effect, we are going to take enough information to fill a three hour CE class and condense it down to around an hour.  Not only that, but we are going to allow time for discussion.

In order to make sure that the information gets out, I will be posting up follow-up posts AND hopefully kick out a mini-eBook… for free.  If you aren’t able to attend the NAMAR Lunch & Learn, it should still be a good resource… but if you ARE able to attend, it will be a great extension of what we talked about.

One last thing…  We are calling this prebarcamp.  If you aren’t familiar with rebarcamp Atlanta, check it out here.

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WordPress is a great Content Management System (CMS).  It can be a blog, but it can also be so much more.  It can be a VERY easily updated website as well.  But in order to really get the most out of WordPress, you need to deploy a few plugins that aren’t included with the basic package.  Luckily, they are all free.  I have 40 active plugins on LaneBailey.com and 20 here.  And all of the plugins listed below are on both sites.

These aren’t limited to just real estate sites… they can be used by anyone, especially those utilizing WordPress as a business website.

Here they are in no particular order…

1. All in One SEO Pack*.  If you are blogging for business or to get noticed, you will need to be optimized for search engines.  This plugin, after it is set up, handles a lot of the drudgery of SEO.  You still need to provide the killer content, though…
2. FaceBook Share.  There are a variety of ways to do this, but the basic point is that FaceBook is second only to Google in importance for growing your site.  You NEED to have a way for readers to easily share your killer content with their friends.
3. 

   Image via Wikipedia

   MobilePress.  This is a plugin that builds a mobile version of your site.  You can tweak the mobile version so that it is faster and easier for mobile users.  And the growth in mobile web surfing is astounding.

4. TAC (Theme Authenticity Checker).  If you like to use free themes, this is a great plugin that will look through the theme for potentially malicious or junky scripts.  If it does catch something, it isn’t always completely bad code… but it is a good prompt to look into it further.
5. SoJ Tag Feed.  Turn any post tag into a RSS feed.  This is great for sending some of your content to your other sites.  It is also a great way to have a feed that is targeted for a specific audience (like maybe a different feed for buyer and sellers).
6. WordPress Editorial Calendar*.  I’m writing this post a few days before it is going live.  I usually try to have anywhere from 3 to 10 posts in queue at any given time.  This allows my blog to be more consistent.  With the WP Editorial Calendar, I can look and see at a glance when I have posts scheduled to run.  If I had other bloggers, I could also see who is posting what… and when.
7. 

   Image via Wikipedia

   WP-DBManager*.  This allows you to inspect, repair and optimize your databases from right within the WordPress admin panel.  But, it also allows you to get scheduled back-ups.  You HAVE to have back-ups coming in regularly in case there is a problem.

8. Zemanta*.  This is one of the plugins that I leverage more than any other.  It allows me to easily find and use images and related articles.  I can use just my own or I can use items from around the web.  One word of caution, though… KNOW if it is content you are allowed to use.  The articles are generally not a problem (they are just linked), but you CAN get into trouble with images.
9. Page Link To.  This allows you to build a “holder page” so that you can link in the menu to items outside of the WordPress installation.  If you have a squeeze page, sales page or other site that you want included in your menu, this is the way to do it.
10. Blog Copyright (by BTE).  If you don’t protect your content, nobody else will.  This doesn’t keep it from being stolen, but it keeps the reasonably honest people honest… and can make it easier to find the scrapers that steal it.

The plugins with a “*” after them are the ones that I think EVERYONE needs to have on their blog.  These are the ones to grab first.  I would have a hard time blogging without these…

Image via CrunchBase

What do you think?  What plugins do you find essential?

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WordPress is an amazingly cool and powerful tool for building a website.  It is one of my two favorite CMSs (Content Management Systems)… the other being Joomla.

What makes WordPress cool is that it doesn’t take a team of geeks to fire it up and make it run every day.  In fact, most people can launch and maintain a WordPress blog with just a little training…  In fact, on some webhosts, a WordPress blog can be launched in under five minutes.

I use BlueHost (affiliate link) for my webhosting, and they have a feature called Simple Scripts.  Using Simple Scripts, I can set up a new WordPress blog (as well as some other applications) with just a couple of clicks.  (BlueHost offers hosting from $6.95/mo.  I pay under $100/year for hosting of 20 sites).

To begin with, secure the domain name you want to use for the website.  I personally use GoDaddy for Domain Name hosting.  I own a few dozen domains and have paid between 99¢ and $9.99 per name.

After getting the name, go to your host’s control panel (CP) in another window or tab.  (It is helpful to have FireFox while building websites…).

Select Domain Manager from the CP.  You want to “Assign Domain to your CPanel Account”.  Go through the steps there.  The only tricky part is verifying the ownership of the domain name.  The option I use is to point the Domain Name Servers to the new host.  This is done through GoDaddy (or your Domain Host).  Through the Domain Manager where the names are hosted, select Advanced Details.  Then edit the name servers.  After a few minutes, the name will verify through the site host Domain Manager.

From the site host CP, select Simple Scripts.  Scroll down and you will see the “Blogs” section.  Select WordPress and follow the instructions.  I would recommend making the sub-directory fairly short.  It can reduce typing later.

After following the steps on Simple Scripts, you will have a functional WordPress site.  you will be emailed the username and password to access the backend of the site and it will be on the screen, too.

Later we will talk about adding new themes and plugins.

Most of us know what it is… but few are really leveraging it to help create business or simplify our lives…

For those that don’t know, RSS is a news feed.  Basically, by subscribing to a website’s RSS feed, each time the site is updated, we will get the new material either emailed to us or in a “Feed Reader”.

I guess the easiest place to start would be the “making our lives easier” aspect.

I don’t know how many different blogs and sites I read…  I admit that I don’t read all of them every day, but I generally read about 30-40 posts on about 100 sites almost every day.  Real estate, technology, politics, local events, cars and travel are all on my reading list. 

In order to scan each of these sites each day to see if there was a post or article that I was interested in would take at least an hour… probably closer to two.  Add in the time to actually READ the material…  I wouldn’t have time to do much else.

Frankly, I enjoy the reading.  I want to be informed and up to date on what is happening in the world… and around the corner.  In a way, it isn’t much different than those that liked to scan several newspapers each morning. Except it is WAY faster (only having to look at headlines or short intros) and WAY cheaper (since the sites are free to read, unlike having several newspaper subscriptions).

So, it is making my life easier… cheaper… greener… and more time efficient.  At the same time, I can be more up to date on world and local events, as well as other information that is interesting to me. (Personally, I use FeedDemon as my reader, but you can use Google’s reader, Mozilla or even Outlook)

But what if the goal is creating business?

OK, there is the obvious that if we are keeping up with industry news and trends, we should be better able to respond to the market…  But there is something deeper…

Local expertise!

Some of the sites that you might be able to get daily feeds from might include local newspapers, local chambers of commerce, local businesses, local groups that promote events… and if you are one of the first to know about all of these happenings that are around the corner, you can be the local expert. Starting the discussion about property tax increases, changes in garbage collection, zoning hearings, roadway improvements, new developments and business relocation means that you can rank for those terms… the terms that people in the area might use to search.  Being on top of the search engines for local terms means that locals will read your blog… and that YOUR RSS feed will be one that THEY should subscribe to.

So, you also need to make your RSS feed easy to find for site visitors.  You want to be part of THEIR regular routine. Of course there is real estate sprinkled in to your site, so your readers will see you as the expert… the “go to person” for local information.

And when someone asks them about real estate… you are already the expert.

But why worry about the RSS?

According to the stats on my site, I have approximately 8 times as many people reading me on a given day via RSS rather than directly on my site.  That is valuable traffic. The best traffic is local traffic…

Ok, so if you have been following along, you have seen that you really need both a self-hosted WordPress blog and an Active|Rain RainMaker blog.

You say, “OK there Skippy, now what?”

Well bunky, you need content… GREAT, compelling, addictive content.  And you need to present it in a great, compelling and addictive way.  Venture out from the wall of words and throw so fun at the wall and see if it sticks.

This post is actually what I call a second level post…  it is broken up into bite size chunks that are easier to chew than a straight up solid word wall, but it still lacks something.  Spice…

Where most people start is the first level post, a solid wall… not even a window.  No room for bites here, just a solid pile of words.  Now, if you happen to be Stephen King or Ayn Rand, that might be OK, but most of us aren’t.  And most of us aren’t packing 2000 pages of text into a package for our readers, either.  In fact, many readers will see the paragraph without end and they will click away so fast that they will barely make a dent on your Analytics Program (look for that tool coming up…).  They will see GIANT paragraphs of homogeneous type.  There won’t be any bold, and caps or anything else to break it up or draw interest.  And so there won’t be interest drawn.  Actually, after you write for a little while, this style starts to go away.  In fact, you might notice that it is hard for me to even write that way on purpose…  I write like I talk, and I get expressive… I take breaks (I have moments that are “aside” from the main theme of the conversation).  Writing like this is hard work.  And reading it is harder work.

Readers want…

• Bullet points…
• Lists
• Bold
• CAPS
• Variety

And there is something else they want…  They want RICH MEDIA CONTENT.  They want to see something more.  And sometimes the “something more” is graphics… or video… or photos… or even a presentation.  Embeddables.

The rest of the story is below…

Here is the After…

So, just a moment ago I posted the other half of this blog. I worked VERY hard to make it visually unappealing and kind of boring. I did that on purpose. For a purpose.

You see, there are SO many ways to add rich media to your WordPress and Active|Rain posts.

• YouTube (and dozens of other video sharing sites)
• SlideShare (and some other presentation sharing sites)
• Flickr (and the other photo sharing sites)
• MagToo (I don’t know of any other panorama sharing sites)
• Pictures
• Graphics

And most of them are free or nearly free. And they are easy to use.

you still need to have something compelling to say, but it is much more interesting (and WAY less pressure) if it is also presented in an interesting manner. Through the use of these cool tools, you will be able to better connect with your readers, and your readers will better connect with you.

Don’t let the little code snippets freak you out, they aren’t THAT hard to edit into a post. It needs to be done on the HTML side of both your WordPress and Active|Rain blogs. I would bet that there is already a tutorial on how to do this for A|R, and I know that there are scores of them for WordPress… But, one of the great things about blogging is playing and learning. And what better way to learn about code than to play in it a little…

Here is the WAY quick version (for A|R).

1. Write your blog without the embeddable media
2. Save it to draft
3. Open it back up and click on HTML
4. In another tab, open up the Embed code for the item you want to install
5. Copy the code
6. Paste it into your Active|Rain post where you want it to show up
7. Save it to Member’s Only or Public view
8. Make sure it works…

WordPress is pretty similar, except that you don’t have to save it in order to switch from WYSIWYG to HTML and back. Also, both tend to mess with the code if they are changed back and forth a few times… so, try to get the regular content right and then install the embeddable applications.

Enjoy…

• There is always a Traditional Blog…

We see them by the hundreds here on ActiveRain… these are what everyone thinks of when they think of a blog.  Take some text… maybe add a few pictures or a video.  Poof… you have a blog.

But some people are more tuned to doing something a little different…

• An Online Edited Newsletter…

Just think of all of the great blogs we see every day.  Not only on Active Rain, but on dozens of other portals.  There are GREAT posts that would be useful to our clients… and instead of working to re-create them, why not collect the best of the best and share them with your audience.

• How about a Vlog… Video Blog…

Video is one of the fastest growning things on the web.  people are serviing up millions of content items every single day… and writing isn’t for everyone.  Maybe a great way to contribute would be through a video blog.  Imagine posting up a 1-3 minute clip once or twice a week…  Easy, fast, cool.

• There are always Photo Blogs…

This might be tough to pull off for a general real estate blog… but I actually am running one for one of my listings.  I can type room descriptions, but what people want are the pictures…  So, I am serving those up instead of a bunch of text.

Wrap…

I’m sure there are more… in fact, I think there are almost as many ways to blog as there are bloggers.  Don’t worry if you don’t think you fit some sort of mold… rather, feel free to MAKE the mold.