Neighborhoods Undressed

Nothing To write About?

Writing a blog post every day is not always easy. On the other hand it is easier than most people realize. Last night I couldn’t think of a thing to write about so I wrote a post about not having anything to write about.

The post is getting a lot of traffic. Visits to my blog are up today by about 30% and the post they are clicking on is the post about not having anything to write.

Maybe people who are reading it can relate to writers block. There are some days when writing is a huge challenge. When I have days like that I just start typing and eventually something that looks like a blog post appears.

Photo Tip - Online Photo Editing

OK, I know it is black and white and there is nothing wrong with your monitor. The picture would have looked better in color but I had my camera in black and white mode, but that isn’t the point of this post. I discovered a web site a couple of weeks ago when I was trying to help my daughter.

I had been editing the photos that she is sending from Europe, so she can share them with family and friends through Flickr. The little girl really gets how to take a picture they are gorgeous and many of them don’t need any tweaking. She has no photo editing software or any way of getting a program or loading one on her computer and making it work.

I found a way for her to edit her photos online using: www.picnik.com. I like the site so much I started using it myself. It is free and the photo editing software is very easy to use. Pictures can be cropped, resized, lightened, darkened, and more. The site has the basic capabilities found in expensive photo editing software. I took a picture and edited it in photo shop elements and then took the same photo and used picnik to edit it, the end result was identical.

Picnik has a nice interface with Flickr . Pictures can be taken directly from Flickr, edited and put back in place or saved as a new photo.

Hope she doesn’t mind that I borrowed one of her photos of Sète, near Montpellier France. It did not need editing.

The black and white photo was edited with picnik, which was also used to add the frame and the signature. When I see the photos in this post I am reminded of what my daughter gets to look at and take pictures of and what I get to look at and take pictures of. Oh well at least one of us is having fun.

Dear T, My Page Rank is Oh so Low

“Dear T, my blog only has a page rank of 2 and it is keeping me up all night and giving me an inferiority complex. My neighbors site has a page rank 4 and her site is really rank. I just don’t know what to do. could you please help me?

signed.. real rank.”

Dear Real Rank,

I think you are looking for some advice on how to achieve page rank. What do I look like? (A question that you should not consider answering)

You are beyond help, but I like a challenge, heck for me everything is a challenge. Have you tried praying? Probably not, it sounds like you don’t have a prayer anyway. As for not sleeping, that sounds like a personal problem, I don’t do personal.

First of all, if you are a Realtor with a blog that is about your market area, and you have that blog so that you can meet the people who live inside your computer and maybe help them with their real estate needs, why do you care about your page rank? Why do you care about anyone else’s page rank? What exactly is the correlation between page rank and your ability to meet clients through your blog? Did you bother to read my posts 1 and 2 about SEO, and glean from them that content is the magic bullet, and the only thing that matters?

It isn’t about page rank or even about traffic. It is about who is reading your blog, and what you are writing for them. Are you writing posts for consumers who may be in need of your real estate skills, which I sincerely hope for their sake are better than your blogging skills?

I have looked at your blog and if you ask me Goggle is being generous with the 2, it could be zero. Have you considered posting more often? Have you thought about keeping your content focused? Have you ever tried actually writing about your neighborhood or about real estate, instead of American Idol, the Iphone, and what you ate for lunch.

Have you thought about starting a blogroll, or writing something that someone might want to link to? Have you ever left a comment on a related blog? Did you even know that getting links to your blog improves page rank? Why don’t you just go back to your blog and start writing some content that is of value to the buyers and sellers who are on the interent and stop looking at your page rank. Blogs are about content, just worry about that. Keep it real and keep it focused, and write to your intended audience, the rest will come.

Stop Googling yourself all the time, that isn’t helping either. My head hurts and I think my hair is falling out again. I have to go now, time to work on my people skills.

Next . . . .

If I can help, which I can, please leave a comment on this post or contact me at: Teresa(at)tboardman.com. Please keep your problems limited to 1000 words or less and they should be blog or at least real estate related. I hold real estate licenses in MN*, state law prevents me from giving legal or tax advice. In general I am not responsible if my advice causes you to make a career limiting move. If you take my advice and your wife leaves you keep in mind that she probably would have left you long ago and has just been waiting for an excuse.

Taking Pictures

Notice I didn’t put the word “photography” in the title, I find the word intimidating. I also find it fascinating that when I write a really great blog post, no one ever asks me what kind of a keyboard I have but when I take a great photo I get emails and comments asking me what kind of a camera a I used. The pictures I have on my blogs are the most popular feature, or at least what is commented on the most by other bloggers and by people who are looking for information about real estate or about my market area.

There is more to writing than keyboards, and more to photography than camera’s. I was asked to write a post for a social network that I belong to about photography. I started like I always do when someone brings up the topic: “I am not a photographer” I did mention the camera in my post and three people immediately went out and bought one. I recommended a book too and at least one person ordered it.

Camera

I have a couple of them, but the one I use the most is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX07, that I bought at best buy, an “open box” special. It has a wide angle lens and takes 7.1 Megapixel pictures. It also has extended optical zoom, which means I can take pictures from far away.

The camera is small so that I can have it with me at all times. I have actually read the manual and have learned how to use all the features, so I get more the most out of the little camera. It is very possible to have a great camera and take lousy pictures. There is more to pictures than cameras.

When I choose a camera I see five factors as being important:

1. A camera that I can figure out how to use.
2. A camera that is small enough so that I can have it with me at all times. A camera is useless sitting at home in a camera bag.
3. The camera has to have a rechargeable battery, mainly because they seem to have a much longer battery life.
4. It has to have a stabalizer, I shoot pictures from my car.
5. A wide angle lens, is a must have for interior shots. (Pictured below: Schurmeier Lofts - Unit #204)

Taking Pictures

Light is everything. I took the picture posted above because I saw it as I drove by. The light was perfect, and the clouds were perfect, stacking the odds in my favor that I would get a good shot. The photo was the first shot I took. I named it “lucky shot” because I used the extended zoom feature without a tri-pod, a big no no, if the goal is to get a sharp, clear picture.

1. Don’t try to take pictures into the sun, a well duh! but I see it all the time, or photos taken in such intense sun light that they have that washed out look.
2. It is possible to take a great picture on a dreary day or in a dark room but it isn’t easy.
3. When taking pictures of houses or people they seem to look best at a slight angel instead of head on.
4. Your tripod is your friend. I found one that folds up to less than a foot long. It is like my camera, always available. I keep it in my car with a small screw driver, a flash light and a magnifying glass for those photo emergencies. I can set it up in a minute or less.

What to take pictures of

I take pictures of anything that I see that I either want to show my blog readers or that I like looking at, or that might make an interesting post. For a real estate blog, pictures of real estate, like houses and buildings seem to work best. I take pictures of the Mississippi River because I see it every day and I walk along the walking paths.

Sometimes when I go out taking pictures every picture turns out. Sometimes none of my pictures turn out. I save the good photos on CD’s so if I need a photo for a blog post I can usually find one.

Digital Camera’s and PC’s

With my last two digital camera’s I never hooked them up to my PC to down load pictures. I have SD card readers built into my computer, and put the card in the reader to down load the pictures. I also have a separate card reader that plugs into a USB port. My daughter took her digital camera to France. She did not take the card reader I gave her. I asked her why she wasn’t uploading pictures, there has to be something to take a picture of in the south of France. She said she couldn’t get the pictures off of her camera and onto her computer. I mailed her my card reader, now she is uploading pictures a couple of times a week. Don’t mess around with hooking a camera up to a PC, use a card reader. She is my daughter, I thought I taught her to never leave home without her card reader or attempt to connect a digital camera to a computer, in the field.

How to get the pictures ready for the internet

I use photoshop elements 5.0., but there is a newer version, 6.0. It costs about $100 but is worth every penny of it. The features I use the most are the automatic fix, the cropping tool, and the re-sizing tool. Most photos need to be brightened before they are put on the Internet.

Raw photos from a digital camera are too large to put in a blog post. They need to be made much smaller. Often the software that comes with a camera can be used to make pictures smaller. If not photo shop elements, will do the job. Picasa and PhotoFiltre are free programs that will resize photos and much more.

Digital Photography

The best thing about digital photography is that I can take as many pictures as I want. If they don’t turn out I can delete them. Sometimes I just keep taking pictures until I get it right. I use a 2 gigabyte SD card, so I won’t run out of space. The more I practice the fewer shots I have to take before I get what I want.

A photographer recommended a book on photography that I really like, the author Scott Kelby, has a wonderful sense of humor and the book is just fun. I use it for reference and read his “recipes” which are how too guides for taking pictures. From the book I learned how to photograph landscapes, sunsets and how to take pictures at night.

The Digital Photography Book, by: Scott Kelby

Pictures are an essential ingredient on a real estate blog. Not pictures of me, but pictures of St. Paul and of houses. I also belong to a group on a photographers web site and have met some interesting people that way. I have a Flickr account, pro level, only $25 dollars a year and worth it. I have participated in some local groups and projects through Flickr and have met some neighbors. Take advantage of your flickr account, it is a great way to network.

** note - the pictures at the top of this blog were taken by Neighborhoods Undressed bloggers, we have some excellent photographers in the net work, visit their sites and check it out.

Commenting 101

In a previous post Kathleen Cragun pointed out that blogs are social. One of the most important ways that a blog differs from a web site is that they do promote social interaction through comments. Readers can comment, which allows both the readers and the writer to have a conversation. Blogs are a conversation and a way to meet people. Some of those people will become clients, and some will become friends.

Only a small percentage of readers comment on blog posts and blog writers are more likely to comment than non-blog writers are. Don’t gauge the quality of a blog post by the number of comments.

The easiest way to encourage commenting is by responding to comments with a comment. If you ignore commenters they will go away. They are social, just like you, and don’t like to be ignored. Does anyone like to be ignored?

A great way to meet others, create back links, get comments on your posts, and increase traffic to your blog is to leave comments on the blogs that you read. On most blogs the comment section allows the commenter to leave a link back to his or her own blog. These are called back links and they help build readership and blog authority.

Commenting on local blogs in your community or market area is best. Commenting on real estate and mortgage blogs is also a good idea. That is how I met the Cragun’s. My St. Paul Real Estate Blog has close to 2000 comments on it and the last time I checked there were over 4000 links to it. A percentage of those links come from comments that I made and the rest are from articles that I have written that were cited, or linked to by other bloggers.

It isn’t OK to stop by a blog and leave comment spam. Comment spam is when commenters say “nice post” and then write a short ad for their business and leave a link back to their blog or web site. I delete those comments on a daily basis. Only comment if you have something to say. It is alright to disagree with the blog writer but make sure that your comments are respectful. There are no do-overs on the internet and comments with your name on them can be found through Google, forever.

Perspective clients and other bloggers will judge you by your comments and by the way you handle comments. If someone leaves a comment on your post disagreeing with what you wrote, leave it alone, or respond to it with a comment. Resist the urge to attack commenters, respect their opinion and know that you wrote something that was read and that had an impact. Personally I would rather be argued with than ignored.

I have had a few hecklers on my blog. In most cases we either agree to disagree or we become friends. If someone leaves a comment that you don’t understand, send them an email and ask about it. I never attack and seldom delete.

Visiting blogs and leaving comments and responding to comments on your own posts are an essential part of writing a blog, and are the essence of what makes blogs a social web 2.0 media.