Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog

As we’re always talking about how important a blog can be to the property
market, it’s only fair that we tell you about some of the options out there. Below are three systems we’ve reviewed that we can recommend.

TUMBLR

Tumblr.com is probably the Fisher-Price of blogging systems. You can be live with your thoughts in under 5 minutes with your own unique URL like londonagent.tumblr.com. It has some great features for making it easy to use and is a nice way to ease into the idea of blogs.

Pros -

1. So simple. If you can’t get this running then we will assume that email is also a new concept for you
2. Clean. With limited functionality, you have to try hard to not make it work but this means that the interface is a couple hours to get to mastery level.

Cons -

1. It is not as custom as you would like.
2. You lose the control of having your own system to manipulate.

WORDPRESS

Wordpress is one of the oldest and most used blog systems out there. The Zoomf blog is built on Wordpress and we’re very happy with it.

Pros -

1. you can install it yourself onto your current domain
2. the application is free
3. has all the bells and whistles you might want including an army of open-source programmers who are constantly creating more plug-ins and upgrades to the platform

Cons would be -

1. you have to install it yourself (you might need technology help)
2. you’ll have to invest some time in understanding the interface

TYPEPAD

Typepad is another older blogging system. The reason it is included here is because it has a hosted platform so all your install headaches go away.

Pros -

1. Credit card is all you need
2. Lots of templates for a custom look feel
3. Lots of online help resource

Cons -

1. Loss of control as you are using software as service model

Hope this helps.

In an amazing turn of events (that we hope we’re influenced), leading estate agent Chard is now blogging about the property market. According to our databases that makes two in the UK :

1. Brightsale
2. Chard

If you know of any other agents starting to embrace the blogosphere, we’d love to hear from you.

After all my whining that I wasn’t at Connect yesterday, I almost felt as though I was there thanks to the marvels of Twitter. Anyone that also wants to stay on top of the action should track the tag ‘#icsf‘ over at Summize, that way you won’t miss a tweet.

Zillow’s Drew Meyers has already written up a great post summarizing what went down at one of the morning panel sessions yesterday, the best gem to come from it seems to be from Linda Davis who (quite rightly) chimed…

“If you have a crappy business, a blog isn’t going to help.”

And whilst everyone is playing with real estate trading cards and getting excited about blogging at Connect, Trulia seem to be releasing their very own blogging platform. As reported by our gorgeous friends at AgentGenius, Trulia are (very quietly at this point) releasing their own blogging platform for agents that’s not a million miles away from what we’re used to seeing at ActiveRain. Is this going to crazily shake things up over in the US? We’ll have to wait and see. The usual concerns surrounding SEO and ownership of content are being aired in the comments sections of various posts covering the story but one thing is for sure, Trulia’s got consumer traffic…and tonnes of it.

Our friends at Starberry have just recently launched a ‘beta’ website for London agent Marsh & Parsons. It’s a great site with lots of features to be proud of. We know Rus and Ben over at Starberry are very tuned into online marketing for estate agents but one thing surprised us about the website; no blog.

Of course, I’m sure they ran into the typical rants of many agents…

1. What’s a blog?
2. Why is that useful?
3. We don’t have time to blog.

Fair enough. But here’s an idea. Every property details page has a nice handy little link called ‘Area Information.’ This links to a page that is describing to Chelsea. An excerpt of this is below:

Chris Lloyd the Sales Manager of Marsh & Parsons says that the popularity of Chelsea is because of its “wonderful choice of size, style and period properties”. The transport links are fantastic with access to both the M3 and M4 and a short taxi ride to the City.

What a great place to insert blog content powered by you know who… the agents who cover Chelsea. Chelsea is not a static place. Estate agents are experts on areas to live. Unlock that knowledge to your potential customers. Blogging on Chelsea (for example) is such an easy way to build content and don’t forget all the benefits that would be unleashed from having up to date user friendly information based on location. Things like:

• More traffic from Google to Marsh & Parsons (keywords like property Chelsea)
• A website that has up to date content (search engines love that)
• Transparency in your area expertise with vendors and applicants (consumers love that)

Half the battle of researching what agent to select is getting a feel for their local expertise. Why not blog about it?

Most estate agents need two pieces of IT in order to operate their business -

1. Agency software.
2. A website.

In order to have both pieces of the above IT puzzle, most agents turn to some of the leading providers out there. This includes great products like DezRez, Expert Agent, Property Owl, HomeFlow, Big Property Media, WebDadi and Vebra to name but a few. These are the all singing, all dancing applications to help you manage your business. These systems mostly charge on a licensing basis.

Is there another way ? Absolutely. One solution could be combining Highrise and Word Press.

Highrise is essentially a web based CRM system. It can manage all your contacts and tasks related to property management. Highrise’s basic package costs about £20 a month. You can sign-up online and be live in less than 5 minutes.

Word Press is one of the main blogging platforms on the internet. It costs nothing. Blog software can easily be adapted to running a basic website but also comes with the added power of letting you blog.

Once you get hosting sorted out, you’re all done. Additionally, you’ll need some part-time IT help to setup your website ‘design’ plus manage feed generation for portals like Rightmove and the like. You could get IT help from eLance, which is a kind of e-bay for developer/design projects.

Other than that, you’re all set. The internet is rife with software as service models including lots of ‘free’ applications that will save you time, money and resource. And if you really want to know more, Agent Genius has even more commentary on the template versus custom debate.

The world of blogging is all about reading other peoples opinions and musings, presenting your own information and expecting to see people rehash it and, of course, starting debates (sometimes full scale wars) in comment sections.

We love to see Zoomf data being used in the blogosphere, it promotes the fact that we can get some pretty cool stats out there thanks to our clever indexing and it can provide some lovely little incoming links back to our site. But what’s not nice is when people don’t attribute the source of their information. And what’s even worse is when authors present the information as their own.

In my last post I waxed lyrical about Zillow’s article on the right time and wrong time to buy and sell. But I shouldn’t have. Why? Because the author of the material I was presenting was not a Zillow employee, but Greg Swann of Bloodhoundrealty.com. Now Zillow deserve some credit, if it wasn’t for their wiki I wouldn’t have found Greg’s work, but it’s pretty mean that they didn’t credit the author. And as Greg mentioned in his blog, why would he want to continue contributing to their wiki if he doesn’t get a nice pat on the back?

Zillow have apologised, and the articles are now attributed to the rightful author. So hopefully we can all start being a little bit nicer.

To encourage blogging goodwill I will share with you all my favourite picture of the day. It would be more fitting to be a Bloodhound…but here’s a Newfoundland with his head caught in the catflap. Awwwwww.