Burst Blog

Recently, our BlogBurst editors interviewed BlogBurst member, Tom Royce. You can find his blog at http://www.therealestatebloggers.com.

What motivated you to start your blog?

I had always had an interest in real estate and wanted to explore it a bit online. The Real Estate Bloggers gave me the opportunity to write about the industry trends and personalities. One of the cool things about real estate is that everyone uses it, either through buying or renting, so whenever something happens in the industry it affects us all.

You joined BlogBurst in January but you had been blogging for more than a year previously. Why did you decide to join BlogBurst?

I decided to join BlogBurst because of the exposure that it could offer The Real Estate Bloggers. Growing readership for a weblog is an important part and BlogBurst gets our stories out to a much broader audience.

Your recent post, “Top Ten Worst Hit Zip Codes by Foreclosure,” produced record traffic - more than 11,000 post views. What do you attribute that spike to?

Real estate is a very important part of the typical American’s life. Having the post appear on USA Today when the hot topic is foreclosures did not hurt. Also, the post’s title draws people in. You read it and wonder if your community is on the list, or even better, if the town you sold your house in last year is on it.

Writing an effective title is a very important part of getting click throughs to your story.

How has the current housing market affected your blog?

Traffic has increased; there is no doubt about it. However, people are always interested in real estate and what can affect their number one asset, or expense if they are renters. We are nearing our 2nd anniversary and in my experience that is when a blog really starts to take off.

What other blogs do you read?

I read a great deal of real estate blogs. My favorite real estate blog is a group blog called The Bloodhound Blog. Come on over to The Real Estate Bloggers and go through my blogroll for the rest. It is a great group of writers covering all aspects of the real estate blogging spectrum.

In your opinion, what makes a good blog?

A good blog talks in a human voice to the concerns of the day. For many writers, they have been trained to write in corporate speak or press release jargon. This will kill you if you are blogging, as people will interpret your work as pitches. Instead, a good to great blogger needs to write in a conversational tone and interject their personality into their posts.

The other part of blogging is to find stories that you are interested in and that your readers will find entertaining or enlightening. Too often, bloggers will either write for only their readers (who can tell the blogger does not care for the subject) or themselves (whose readers may not have any interest in whatsoever). I typically scan over 200 stories a day trying to find the 3 to 5 that I am interested in and my readers will enjoy also.

What’s your biggest challenge as a blogger?

Finding interesting things to write about. The Real Estate Bloggers has been going for almost 2 years now and over 1,500 posts. Trying to find a new twist or angle on the stories of the day is always work. Otherwise, blogging is always fun and a great way to meet interesting people.