Real Estate Blogging: The 80/20 Rule Applied

Jonathan Greene is back with a very insightful look at defining the growing success he is experiencing with his Real Estate Blog: Real Opinionated.

Real Estate Blogging: The 80/20 Rule Applied
By Jonathan Green

You've probably heard of the 80/20 rule.  It's a contemporary theory related to management, economics, and many other applications that states "20 percent of actions/causes/inputs, etc. will lead to 80 percent of consequences/effects/outputs."  The idea is sometimes attributed to Italian economist Pareto who developed the theory in 1906 after observing the unequal wealth distribution is his country.  Here are some examples:

20% of Realtors make 80% of the sales.

20% of Families hold 80% of the nations wealth.

20% of your daily tasks net 80% of your best results.

You get the point.  The theory is surprisingly pervasive.  I wondered if the idea applied to blogging, so I set out to make some observations about the traffic that comes to my blog and how it gets there. I found that:

20% (more or less) of my articles result in 80% of my traffic from Google.

20% of my visitors account for 80% of my repeat traffic. 

20% of those repeat visitors eventually add me to their feed readers or blogroll.

About 1 out of every 5 visitors will leave a comment, or 20%.  80% do not.

From these discoveries, utilizing a simple chain of reasoning, I'm able to synthesize some basic ideas about the way that I spend my time (as it pertains to the blog):

1) Focusing on the types of articles that net 80% of my traffic should help to increase traffic to my site.  For me that means writing more neighborhood review articles, how to articles, and military relocation focused content.  Surprisingly enough, I write these articles for the express purpose of informing a certain demographic, and not solely to generate traffic or be "keyword rich."  Perhaps the articles just end up being more keyword rich because they are more focused and concise than some of the rambling opinion pieces that I put out.

2) Once I've discovered where my traffic comes from, it behooves me to write articles geared towards encouraging repeat visits.  Because I know that 20% of those who land on the blog will visit more than once, and that once they become repeat visitors 20 percent of them will link or subscribe to my blog, I have to offer content that will make them want to come back for more.  If I do this, I should generate more trackbacks and feed subscribers and build greater credibility with my peers and with Google. For the Real Opinionated blog, that means exploring issues exhaustively.  One neighborhood review is great, but an in-depth review of every builder contributing to a particular neighborhood (in separate articles) is better.

3) Accumulating comments should not be a goal since it is subjective to overall traffic.  Comments make me feel better about my content, but in the end they seem to be just a bi-product of the number of visitors that I receive.  True, replying to comments in a timely manner may encourage repeat visits and participation from consumers who will ultimately become paychecks, but that really has nothing to do with the 80/20 rule.

I've heard people say that traffic should not be a goal.  I can agree with that statement conditionally since traffic results from quality content.  Your "quality content" is that 20% of your writing which receives 80% of the Google juice, and focusing on producing more of the same should solve both problems, traffic and comments.  Still, I receive roughly one money-producing lead for every 1,000 visitors that come across my site, so traffic is important at the end of the day.

I freely admit that my analysis of this trend is amateur at best.  Therefore, I'd like to once again open a forum for those of you who are much smarter than me to help me understand how to best apply this principle in my blog and in life.

Related Must Reads:
Your Blog Is An Army
10 Misconceptions In Real Estate Blogging

Other Tomato Articles By Jonathan
Real Estate Blogging And The Art Of War
Will Blog For Food
Localism: Winning the Hearts and Minds

Thanks Jonathan!  As always, it’s great to have you on the Vine.

Jonathan Greene is President and CEO of Team Greene Realty.
His website: http://www.tampahomefinder.info
His blog: http://www.realopinionated.com

Tags: 80/20, Pareto, rule

Comments

[Daniel Bates]

Another great blogging theory by Jonathon, I'm beginning to think he may have a philosophy degree tucked away somewhere. I especially like the part about noting which articles are actually bringing in the customers (which should be the root of why we blog for business) and uncoincidentally also get the SEO 'points'.

[Mary Pope-Handy]

This is interesting. If I applied it to my Live in Los Gatos blog, I think all my posts would be on the history of the town and on its haunted spots - since that is what seems to get people very excited. But I'm not positive. Short of doing a "poll daddy" in the margin, how do you KNOW what is making people come back?

[Jonathan Greene]

I use Site Meter. It's easy to install in the sidebar and can give you some cool web statistics, including the referring domain. In most cases, the traffic comes from Google. When I click the google link, it tells me what keywords were entered to result in my traffic, and lists the article that I wrote that generated the results. Pretty simple actually.

[Jennifer Steck]

I've heard the 80/20 rule associated with lots of things over the years. Applying it to blogging is great. I'm still learning how to read and interpret Site Meter so I can look at traffic patterns. I'm looking forward to seeing where I'm hitting the mark and where I can improve.

[Derek Burress]

Mary Pope-Handy: A good percentage of my visitors came to my site due to an article I wrote about the history of the county in which I live and about a church ghost.

The rest seems to come from an article that I wrote about the Mi Lai Massacre (Vietnam) which got referenced on Wikipedia. About 10% are real estate visitors who types in phases like "Lenders suck, etc."

[Boston Condo Guy]

Your observations on developing content targeted to your repeat readers, thus driving subscribers, has spurred on some good ideas related to future content for our blog. Thank you for the article, keep it up.

[Deya Bautista]

Interesting concept. And the more I read it, the more it makes sense.
I have visited your site a few times now, and stumbled upon this very article for the 3rd time now...before deciding to make a comment. Maybe stage fright...or maybe it was that 20%? In any case, it's a very informative. Thanks for sharing it!

[Joan Snodgrass]

Great info. I see some changes coming in my future blog posts.

[Heidi Aspinwall]

Thanks Jonathan, this is a very interesting perspective. I have just started blogging and this is helpful to understand how to best center my efforts.