In a recent email, someone asked me the following four questions about starting group blogs around different real estate themes:
- Do you think it’s a good idea to charge authors a fee, even a nominal fee, to post articles on a blog?
- What are your thoughts about selling ads (e.g. banners), including Google ads, around a blog?
- I’m considering having blogs for several subject areas, do you thing it’s better to have only one blog, or multiple blogs on the site with a blog for each subject area?
- How do you keep spam from filling up your blog(s) with junk?
Here are my thoughts:
- You’ll get no traction if you think you can charge people a fee to post on your blog. If you really want people to post make sure they are the ones getting paid. Either pay them directly, or do what Greg and I do which is give them links, post their phone number, etc. to make sure that they get leads from the site. Good content is hard to come by so do everything you can to get the best content possible.
- Google ads are a waste for real estate websites IMHO because the most relevant ads are almost always for local competition. If you want good writers, then you’ll need to make sure they are getting the leads.
- I highly recommend one blog at a time. With each successful blog, you’ll get “permission” to start a new one. The more niche you can start your blog the more likely you’ll find early success. In other words, I wouldn’t start one blog with lots of themes or multiple blogs on different themes. I’d start with one blog on one theme. If you can get substantial traffic, then move on to starting new blogs!
- Akismet.
Hope that helps!
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