They’re Here! We’ve Launched BiggerPockets Blogs!

In last week’s newsletter, we told you some of the reasons to blog. Now that we’ve officially launched BiggerPockets Blogs, I’d like to share some of the great features of our blogging system, along with some great reasons to get blogging on BiggerPockets.

Some Reasons to Set Up a Blog with BiggerPockets Blogs Include:

1. It’s EASY - Setting up a blog takes less than a minute, and you never need to know any HTML or other code to use the blog. Easily upload images or YouTube videos, alter your fonts and post layouts, and more using our WYSIWYG (Whay You See is What You Get) blog creator!
2. Customizable Layouts - We’ve made customizing the layout of your blog, quick and easy. Choose your own colors, layout design (more layouts coming soon), sidebar additions and create a blog that fits your personality.
3. Widget Ready - Got a widget that you must have on your blog? Members can simply paste the widget code into our Blog customizer and viola!
4. SEO Ready - Our blogs are search engine optimized so inclusion in Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN, etc should be fast and effortless.
5. Instant Publicity - All Bloggers with a BiggerPockets Blog will have the opportunity to have their blog and profile promoted across our site. Those bloggers who are more active in their posts and comments will be promoted on our stats page and elsewhere. Additionally, members profiles are promoted to the search engines (unless you request profile privacy), and just having an account on our site allows you to be found by millions of people in the real estate world!
6. Communicate with other Bloggers with Trackbacks - With our trackback system, by simply linking to posts of other bloggers in your articles, both on BiggerPockets and off, our system will notify them, and you’ll instantly let them know that you find their article relevant. Its a great way to stay in touch with other bloggers and let them know that their content is important to you.
7. Build an Audience with Blog and Comment Subscriptions - both BiggerPockets members and visitors can subscribe to your blog or individual articles, either through RSS feeds or email subscriptions. Your audience can easily be automatically notified whenever you post new content, or whenever someone adds to a conversation in the comments of your blog.
8. Save Your Favorite Posts Across BiggerPockets Blogs - We’ve established a system for members to be able to save any post on the site that interests them. Once saved, you can easily find your favorite saved blog posts in your dashboard.
   Promote yourself, your real estate ideologies and thoughts
9. Ping the World - Automatically ping the world upon publication of a new post. Pinging notifies blog search engines and directories that you’ve got a new post, and helps them keep the most up to date records of your content.
10. Make Money - We saved the best for last! BiggerPockets members have the opportunity to make money with their blogs by adding advertising. BiggerPockets does not show any ads on member’s blogs. Instead, we’ve created specific ad slots where you can add advertisements from Google AdSense, Yahoo, MSN, or ANY OTHER AD NETWORK. Just set up an account, find the right ad size to match the specified slot, and paste the code your network provides you. All that’s left is to provide great content so your visitors keep coming back, and you’ll be on your way to make some real cash! (Launching this week!)

What Are You Waiting For?

NOTE: I’m going to be maintaining a blog to help our members use our Blogs and other site functions. Swing by and check out the BiggerPockets Founder’s Blog

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for our real estate social network. Thanks for visiting!

Tags: bigger pockets, biggerpockets, biggerpockets blogs, blog, blogger, blogging, marketing, publicity

As many of you have probably noticed, this blog has undergone a radical transformation. We’ve redesigned the blog to make it easier for our readers to navigate our content and find their way around.

We hope you like the new design and look forward to bringing you more great content in the future.

Thanks for your support!

Tags: biggerpockets, blog, design

Hi everyone and welcome to Volume 8 of the Carnival of Real Estate Investing. While there are many good submissions this week, only 2 are of any help to real estate investors (I’ve marked them with **). I hope upcoming editions of the carnival have more useful information to help the everyday investor out . . . that’s what this carnival is all about, right?

• Advice to Equity Office Bidders by Market Poetry
  While I can’t stand that people blog anonymously (no personal info can be found on their blog), I really did enjoy the creativity of this post. I’m not sure that I’ve read other poems about the business of investing. This is a great little piece to kick off the Carnival!
• ** One of My Favorite Landlord Tools by Anesia Springborn
  The winner of this weeks carnival (I just felt like announcing a winner), Anesia’s article tells us about an AMAZING tool that can really make life a little easier for landlords.

• ** Buyers lesson part 1 by Eric Medemar
  This is a detailed look at how to find buyers for wholesale deals - a well written article for anyone interested in wholesaling.
• The Big Picture About Cash Flow From Foreclosures by Steve Burns
  A nice article that explains how to get paid by helping people avoid foreclosure, and by saving their home.

• What Increases Your Home’s Value and By How Much by Steve Faber
  This article examines how different improvements can affect the value of your home.

• Real Estate Indicators - Nothing Decisive Yet by Nigel Swaby
  Using current economic news and data, this piece examines how the housing market will trend in the near term.
• Is Real Estate Calling You? by Katie
  While it concentrates on real estate investing, this article is a very broad piece that doesn’t really tell you much. I think it is intended to be a motivational piece, but never really does the job.

Tags: biggerpockets, blog, blog-carnival, blogger, blogging, carnival, carnival-of-real-estate, carnival-of-real-estate-investing, real estate, real estate investing

Pittsburgh Homes Daily put together a huge list of the 500 real estate blogs to watch. There are some great blogs on the list, most notably yours truly! It must have taken some time to compile . . . nice work!

Tags: 500, blog, bloggers, blogging, estate, real, top

The latest edition of the Investing Carnival took place today over at Investing World Today, and featured Real Estate Investing for Real. Our Pinnacle Development Partners Under Investigation article has now been mentioned in 3 blogging carnivals this week.

In addition, with over 11,000 views and over 100 replies, our Pinnacle Discussion forum thread has shown how important this discussion about the company really is.

Tags: blog, carnival, development, discussion, forum, partners, pinnacle, Real Estate Investing

In addition to the Carnival of Real Estate, we were also mentioned today in the HJL Money Blog for the Carnival of Business regarding our post investigating Pinnacle Development Partners.

Tags: blog, business, carnival, development, estate, for, of, partners, pinnacle, real, Real Estate Investing

Blogs can be very effective communication tools for people in all areas of real estate. Real Estate Agents, Lenders, Investors and other professionals in this field can all benefit from blogging. Here’s a few ways to add to your success by blogging.

First, I wanted to mention a few important keys:
- Focus on Your Niche and Your Area
- Be consistent
- Use your expertise to attract locals
- Keep your readers interested

I realize that much of this is obvious, but all 4 points are very important if your real estate blog is to lead you to success.

Real Estate Agents / Realtor Blogging

Why would someone want to read the blog of a real estate agent? Successful agents draw a good chunk of their business from referrals. These agents are out and about in the community, and are seen as experts in the community.

If agents can convey news, trends, demographics to their community or those interested in that community, they will enhance their presence. Their blog becomes a key information source which will become valuable — as a result, this agent will be seen as an expert in the community, whether or not they are the “Top Agent” for the area. One of the best blogs around that that can be emulated is Curbed. This site highlights New York City real estate, trends, news, etc. If there is a building for sale, Curbed will write about it. The site generates interest because it has become the pulse of New York City real estate. Do that in your town/city, and you’re sure to drive business to record levels.

Lender Blogging

Lenders can benefit for the same reasons as real estate agents. The key to blogging as a lender is not boring your audience. There is only so much financial information people can process. If you can filter the information and put it in easy to understand terms, you will benefit your market. Instead of only providing mortgage info, why not go the same route as the real estate agent — give the community focused news about the housing market in their community. You can also provide them with articles that will help them understand how mortgages work, what loans would be best for them, and so on.

Other Real Estate Professionals

What about the local interior designer or contractor? Do you think a blog would work for these guys? YES! These professionals can highlight recent work and projects they’ve worked on. People love to see before and after photos. Share with your market the great work you’ve done and continue to do, and they will call you. Would you rather work with a landscaper who’se work you can see online, and proves his expertise, or the guy in the local phonebook?

Real Estate Investor Blogging

From a business standpoint, I’m not sure how blogging would benefit the average real estate investor. By sharing your exploits, hardships, and successes with a blog, you will benefit other investors. You will give them access to invaluable information which will hopefully help them to avoid problems themselves, and to be more successful. However, how will it help you to find more deals? I think the answer to that is, by sharing your success with others, you draw their confidence. If people see that you do good work and make money, they will be more inclined to work with you.

As you can see, blogging can be beneficial to people in many areas of real estate. Share with us how your blog has helped your business.

Tags: blog, blogging, contractor, curbed, estate, lender, real, realestate, realestateblog, realtor, weblog