REBlogGirl: So, let's start this out with a little background on you and your blog. How long have you been in the real estate industry?

About 6 years total... I started in the mortgage business and moved into real estate sales as I enjoyed working with home buyers much more than just refinance customers. About 5 years now as a Realtor and just got my brokers license last year.

REBlogGirl: And when did you start blogging? Where are your various blogs?

Now I have the www.DiggingUpDayton.com RSS pieces blog as my my main blog, the AR blog, and a few other niche blogs on wordpress and Realtor.com that I am toying with...

REBlogGirl: We hear a lot about how important it is to stick to real estate topics when writing a blog. You do this very well and I can see from your search statistics you get plenty of short tail and real estate/mortgage related search traffic. How do you and Laura come up with all these great post ideas?

(#1 in Google for Dayton housing market (http://www.google.com/search?q=dayton+housing+market&hl=en&start=10&sa=N)

I started blogging at the end of 2006 on AR. Got a REAL slow start... Set up a profile and then kind of lurked for about 6 month... just could not really get the hang of blogging. John Novak in Vegas tried to push and pull me in the right direction but I was just kind of slow on the uptake... I have always been big on internet as the future but could not get my head around blogging. I finally saw the light, learned from those I could and read a LOT...

We watch the news (Bloomberg and Fox News in the morning) newspapers (local), everyday life stuff that comes up (questions we get or talk from other agents...) I do market updates that could be useful to buyers or sellers but are good search engine fodder... Also use NAR or other sources for stats. Anything that looks like it would have some good public interest but also always with an eye to SERP..

REBlogGirl: When it comes to an online marketing plan, I am not one to tell people that a blog is all they need - what else- outside of your blog are you doing to build your presence online and compete against the likes of Zillow, Trulia, HomeGain and Realtor.com in your market?

I agree that the blog cant be the only thing you do but it is the corner stone of our marketing going forward... We do a lot of other marketing online and to drive traffic online.

1. We own about 50 url's that we use for different marketing and to track results.
2. We have a "branded" site www.MarkRyanGroup.com that we put on everything... cards, brochures, flyer's, postcards, sign headers, etc...
3. We have an "unbranded" site www.DaytonHomeInfo.com that we use as a tool similar to homegain, etc...
4. We do PPC with both of the above sites on a somewhat limited and not as structured as we should... is effective however.
5. We do neighborhood farming of about 1000 homes each month to every other week with branded post cards and neighborhood updates that drive them back to our sites.
6. We have done print advertising off and on using different url's.
7. We syndicate our listings out to every place we can find...craigslist.com, trulia.com, etc...
8. I do enhanced listings on Realtor.com that while it is an ridiculous amount of money each year does generate leads for the team...
   
9. I have a Hummer that is wrapped to drive traffic to our site.
10. working with some niche sites like I talked about earlier but that is not big for us right now...
11. Trying to get my head around the whole social networking thing... I know I must be kind of dim :-) That is what I am working on now to help drive traffic...

REBlogGirl: Now, you have a fairly new blog, so what do you measure it's success on? Are you looking at search placement, traffic, leads, all of the above?

So, yes all three but leads are what pay the bills :-)

REBlogGirl: What is the number one thing you would suggest a Realtor just jumping on the blogging bandwagon do?

Right now I am looking for placement... and I must admit I am obsessed with it... I check several times a week and it is a roller coaster ride from day to day up and down the SERP... I can say that I have been extremely pleased with my results on short sale placement... Search any term with short sale and Dayton Ohio and I will almost own the first page with my RSS site, AR blog and my branded site... Do great for Ohio and even national terms... Now working on Dayton Ohio Real Estate, vary from page 2-3 on that one for now...

Second, is leads. If I get the placement I want that I believe the leads will come... but it is all about leads!

Third, traffic. I would like to see a lot of traffic as I think with traffic will come leads but I guess I don't really care... as long as the leads are there???

REBlogGirl: One of the things I have been really impressed with on your blog is how you build your content in a way that appeals to search engines but is still readable and interesting to humans. You also took great care in planning when you would post each type of content. I watched you build the foundation of your blog with search engine sticky community profiles and market reports and now I see you building in more human friendly pieces that will interest readers. Was there a reason you decided to focus on the search engine visitors first and how did you determine what order to post your pieces in?

I would suggest that they start with AR and get their feet wet, see if they like it and read/learn... Next, read your blog and take/listen to your training... free and great! (Unless they live in the Dayton Ohio area :-p) Then, once they have a feel for what this is all about... BUY your blog and listen to what you say... Send checks to our mailing address... (just kidding, I get nothing for this but love the product!)

Now I do the market updates and whatever interests me...

REBlogGirl: I know you get a lot of search traffic. What do you do to optimize your site and what can you attribute your success in climbing the engines to?

I focused on search engines first since if no one finds us then it does not matter how well we write... which is probably not all that well :-) So, we worked to get the SERP first and then get more interesting next. The reality to us is that it is really about getting buyers there to click on our search function, not really to read anything... Sellers may read more but we try to put lead generator in there for them too... We started with basic area info/market reports etc... and spent a good deal of time on the short sale area, we are experts in that area and there is a real need and I thought it would be easier to get good SERP more quickly than for the Dayton Ohio Real Estate term...

I watch my key words and follow your formula for writing a post with in and outbound links... I do my best to just follow direction and not reinvent the wheel... Now I am working on building back links and I have to tell you that I hate that but know it will help me to continue to move up...

REBlogGirl: What would be your advice for new bloggers?

Take it slow, I got too ambitious at first and kind of burned out for a short time... don't over think things... follow direction and if you can afford the investment get an RSS blog and LISTEN to Mary. Along with with you MUST have a good IDX feed set up to get buyer leads...

REBlogGirl: I know Laura, your lovely wife and lender also posts on the site- what are the strategic advantages of having a lender post on your site? (FYI: I see you have tons of searches for mortgage related information)

Yea, that was part of the design we really wanted... our clients love working with us as a team... This gives us twice the chance of getting the buyer lead. They may be looking to for a mortgage first or they may be searching homes first but this way we can get them either way... We need to do a better job of capturing loan info on line but we are getting the search results to some extent... We happen to be married but working with a trusted mortgage lender makes perfect sense to me.

REBlogGirl: I figured I'd wrap this interview up with a wacky question that might give people a little better look into the lives of Mark and Laura of the Ryan Group, so here goes: "what is the funniest thing you have ever encountered in the real estate industry?"

I know there are other stories of sex, sleeping bums, rats etc... I guess I lead a sheltered life???

REBlogGirl: Mark, thanks so much for giving me the time to interview you. Now, get back out there and sell some Real Estate!

I have heard more interesting and funny stories but I did have a interesting thing happen to me the other day... Went to a sellers home to talk with them and list the home as a short sale. Knocked on the door, she answered and invited me in... I did not notice that there was a screen door WITHOUT any glass in it... anyway, I TRIPPED into the home... once I regained my footing I was immediately greeted by her about 8-9 year old son who asked me what I was doing there... I said "I'm here to talk with your mom about selling the house"... we said "MOM, WE'RE SELLING THE HOUSE???"

So, here are a few tips for sellers... warn people when you have a 4 inch door frame when they come into your house... Second, free tip... warn me and/or their kid that they are going to sell the house...I mean when I left I put a FOR SALE sign in the yard and had taken pictures of the whole house...

Thanks, anytime! Tell your friends that if they need to buy or sell in Ohio to let me know :-)

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