Building a Wordpress Blog From Scratch – Some Feedback?

Probably the most obvious item is Aaron's permalink structure. His recent post, http://aaronmoore3.com/?p=1, should have a permalink something like http://aaronmoore3.com/home-buyer-tax-credit-se... (or other localized city terms). Having permalinks set up that utilize keywords in addition to the title keywords is the number 1 seo todo when using WordPress.

First of all, congrats to Aaron for taking the first step. That alone puts you in an elite crowd of only about 5-10% of all Realtors.

I agree with Joe and Colleen 100% -- your permalink structure makes a huge difference in your SEO results.

Another couple tips I thought of after taking a quick glimpse of the site:
-- Be hyper-local. As any blogger knows who has been at it for awhile, the key to gaining AND maintaining readership is to write compelling content about "local" things that are important to them, not just re-publishing articles on real estate. As a plugged-in Realtor, you have more insight to local happenings than you probably realize -- share that info, and be a great source of local information! Dave Smith wrote an outstanding article on this topic on his equally outstanding RE Technology blog: http://www.realestatebloglab.com/real-estate-bl...

-- MLS Search: Zillow probably wouldn't be my first choice as my MLS search function on a blog (Sorry about that Drew, I know this is your site :-) but you wanted honest feedback.) But if you do decide to stick with it, you need to drastically improve your branding on the landing page. With the exception of a narrow band at the top, there's really no mention of you. In fact, your competitor's paid ads on the right sidebar are more prominent!

Blogging is a journey, not a destination. Ultimately, you will learn that what works for your market may not work for others. But the only way you'll find that out is to a) commit the time to work on it, and b) stick to it.

Good luck...

Chuck

http://WhiteOaksBlog.com

A big, fat call to action button for his real estate search. Right now it's getting lost among all the other menu options.

Hey Chuck-
Don't worry about it - I totally agree that Aaron should sign up with an IDX vendor for his listings search rather than sending that traffic to Zillow. The Zillow search box is a short term solution for him until he gets up and running with someone like Diverse, IDX Broker, Wolfnet, Real Geeks, etc.

To get his ratings up, Aaron needs to integrate his Blogwith he rest of the internet. The Blog will be his "hub", kind of like the center of his universe. The main thing for him to do is establish himself as an expert in his area/locality. To get people to return to his blog and to Opt-In, his posts need to offer VALUE to the readers (good content, as Chuck mentioned), so they keep returning over and over again. Here's what he needs to do to drive a lot of traffic to his website, and to become a top-ranked website:

1) 3 posts per day on Tweeter & one on Facebook
2) At least 10 videos on YouTube
3) Post his blog on the blogging sites: NetworkedBlogs, BlogCatalog, BlogLog, Hubpages, etc.
4) Integrate his blog with other RE Social Media Sites
5) Always use one main Keyword, and 3-4 subkeywords
6) Have a photo or two in every post,with keywords in the title
7) register on Social Bookmarking sites - Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon
8) Publish articles on EzineArticles.com and Squidoo
9) Join Forum and Blog discussions, and post 3 comments on someone else's website, for very post of his own.
10) Always, always have his website URL in his signature.

All of this is designed to drive traffic to his website, as well as establish him as an expert in his field of expertise.

Hope my comments help :-)

Angella @ http://AngellaRaisian.com

Here are my observations and suggestions:

* Create categories for posts. The first post is under "uncategorized".
* Use descriptive words for links, not the naked (and long) url. Same goes for the internal link structure for post permalinks. Even "click here for pdf" would be better than the long url.
* Verify that widgets like "Local Market Explorer" are working properly. Quite often they don't select the right region, or they select multiple regions.
* Get IDX that you have some control over, not a freebie. You want to keep leads to yourself, not send them back to another hungry agent.
* Remove the calendar and replace it with something useful.
* Use tags to define keywords for searches.
* Don't send visitors off site when it's not necessary. You could write a complete article on the homebuyer's tax credit yourself instead of sending them off to read about it elsewhere.
* Make sure that all links within posts open in a new window.
* Post more than once a week!

Great start, now it's time to tweak it and make it better!

Thanks for all the useful tips and tricks to get my blog up and running. Special thanks to Drew Meyers for getting me pumped about the social media scene.

Hopefully I will make some serious progress this week. Thats the plan and I am sticking to it.

Thanks again

Artisteer2 ($50 and a free demo version) will let you create a great looking theme, quickly and easily. I have an old godaddy blog I have been living with and I never liked the look. Artisteer2 has been fun to play with and produces dozens of great looking formats fast. I know $50 is high compared with free, but after hours of looking at free and not finding anything I really liked, $50 started to come into focus as reasonable.

I'm working on it now so this is a guarded recommendation. I'm new too...so my advice is based on limited experience.