The Real Estate Tomato

When I started the Real Estate Tomato, in June of 2006, I had one reader, me. Before the first month was over, I was averaging 30 unique visitors a day. Within 2 months it was 135 unique visitors a day. How did we get out of the gates so quickly? We did it in part, with an old friend: The Email Database. To make a business blog a successful marketing strategy, you need to have an audience of potential clients. Having been a consultant for online real estate marketing for 6 years before starting the Tomato, I had a mighty database of real estate agents, lenders, industry professionals and friends. If I was going to regularly write articles about leveraging the internet as a marketing tool for real estate, then this was the audience I would want to be paying attention. So I shoved it down their throat. Well, not...

Jim is not a fan of putting a lot of bling on the blog. I agree with him but would like to mention two widgets that I can't live without. One of them is the MyBlogLog widget. To get this widget sign up for an account, follow the instructions, grab the code and paste in in your sidebar. It is a bit more complicated if you have a self hosted word press blog but the MyBlogLog site has instructions for those too. Why do I like the MYBlogLog widget? Because it shows me the faces of my friends. I can see that they have stopped by. I know people read my blog I can tell by the number of visits it gets. Yet it makes me smile when I see a familiar face on the widget. Seeing those faces encourages me to do my best. When I see an avatar...