Blog Commenting

I wrote a post a few weeks ago on why we should comment on blogs. The blog I maintain is very relevant to the Real Estate industry so the moral of the story was to take sometime and begin to comment. I even offered a reciprocal comment.

So now when we do comment, how should we go about doing it?

Here is my short “NOT” list..

• Don’t leave short comments like “Great post” or “I agree”, include a link and think you accomplished your job.
• Make sure your comments are of value.  Take some time to write a clear post that is grammatically correct.  Don’t leave unprofessional posts.  Remember this is a reflection of you.
• Don’t stuff keywords in your post.
• Don’t mass comment all at once across a single blog.
• Don’t use the same comment across multiple blogs to try to spam your way to success.
• Don’t advertise on your comments like “I have this great site where you can purchase…”.

Use commenting for what is was meant for, engaging the conversation.  Spend a bit of time and make a quality post, show the world you are a professional, gain some credibility and commenting will be a successful use of your time.

Should we comment on blogs?

I get asked all the time by my clients; “Why should I comment on other blogs”?  Well the answer is simple – Social Networking is built upon collaboration. The whole basis for Blogs and Social Networks is to build interactive conversation.   The whole dynamic of the blogging world is to have casual conversation on topics you have in common.  These conversations for some can lead to a business relationship later on.  Blogging does not necessarily lead to instant leads, but it builds credibility.  And the credibility you gain later leads to business.

Their is another plus side to commenting. Commenting on someones blog can also bring inbound links back to your blog. If you remember my post a previous post “Link Popularity” I spoke of the importance of good linking. 

So by commenting on other blogs you bring these inbound links back to your site.  Also by commenting on relevant blogs, your inbound links will be considered by most search engines more important in your link popularity.

So the next time you are on a blog, leave a comment.

Why not start here and leave me one.

Setting up Google Alerts

 

 

As promised here is the follow-up to my post on “Can Google Alerts Help The Agent?“

Now that we explored how you might be able to use Google Alerts let begin to talk about setting up your alerts.

In order to use Google Alerts you must have a gmail account.  If you do not have one please go to www.gmail.com and get one.

No that you have your gmail account you need to login to your alerts.  You can go here to directly login or if you have used any of the google tools you can login to your account directly as well.

To login directly to Google Alerts go to this page http://www.google.com/alerts.

(Note: If you have an existing Google account go to google.com and click on the “My Account” link at the top of the page.  Login to your account.  If you never used Google Alerts go to the section “Try Something New” and select it.

Once you login you’ll be at the manage your accounts page.  Click on the “New Alert” button to create a new alert.

1: Deceide on your Search Terms

The first thing you need to do is choose your search terms.  This is the word or words Google will search on.  For this example I will use; “Giants Football”

2: Choose the Type of Alert

Now you need to choose the type of alert.  Your choice are; News, Blogs, Web, Comprehensive, Video, and Groups.

Depending on what you are looking for here is an explanation of each type:

•  A ‘News’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest news articles that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google News search.
• A ‘Web’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest web pages that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top twenty results of your Google Web search.
• A ‘Blogs’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest blog posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Blog search.
• A ‘Comprehensive’ alert is an aggregate of the latest results from multiple sources (News, Web and Blogs) into a single email to provide maximum coverage on the topic of your choice.
• A ‘Video’ alert is an email aggregate of the latest videos that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top ten results of your Google Video search.
• A ‘Groups’ alert is an email aggregate of new posts that contain the search terms of your choice and appear in the top fifty results of your Google Groups search.

For now let’s choose “Comprehensive” which will yield results from Web, News, and Blogs.

3:  Select a Delivery Method

Now choose how you waned it delivered.  You can receive an email or it can be outputed to an RSS feed.

Next you need to choose how often you want results.  The frequency you select when you set up your alert determines how often Google checks for new results, not necessarily how often you’ll receive alerts. If you select “once a day,” Google will check for new results once a day, which means you’ll get a maximum of one email per day. If you choose the “as it happens,” Google will check for new results continuously and send you an alert whenever they find a new result.

4: Create Alert

Then simply click “Create Alert” and you are done.

Summing it up

So setting up alerts is fairly simple, the trick is using the correct search terms and type to yield results that are useful.  When thinking of what term you want to search on be specific.  For example Arizona would probably give you everything from Arizona news headlines to Arizona Iced Tea.  A better term would be Arizona Scottsdale travel or New Jersey wine tasting.

Also if you are looking for current events you might want to choose only the news alerts  instead of adding the web and blogs.  Also add a separate one for video if you want to see what is being posted for video.

The real trick is to play with the type of alerts and the search terms.  After a bit of practice you can really gain some insightful information out of these free alerts.