This answer will haunt me – an RE client talked me into it. He also designed and built the site, got me pointed in a direction and said “there yah go – now start typing. Write a post a day – it’ll do you good” he said. Talk about blind faith. I have yet to figure out if anybody is hearing me splash and thrash.

What would I do different.

Like others, retrospectively I might have chosen a more area related blog name. It may have helped but I’m not certain if blog life is over without it. Certainly being first on the bus has it’s advantages if you are clairvoyant.

Contrary to many, something I’ve chosen not to do is have all the gadgets, widgets, counters, smileys and other toys I see on many blogs. To my eyes they distract from the essence, style of the site and the writer. I see each blogger’s visual voice clouded by all that stuff. It reminds me of web 1.0 junk. You get used to it, but it is I think, counter productive to the purity of the message. I live with the conviction that if the medium is the message – then why put junk in the message. Hell, my writing style by itself, is a sufficient distraction from the message.

I’m not very smart about the linking. Although for some reason others are linking to me. I don’t know why? I’m not that pretty! My town is not as intense about real estate blogging as say, Phoenix, so my excuse is that linking to others in the real estate community is more restricted.
Those few I do link to are non realtors who have something to say of value and for the most part live with a glass half full.

Something I hope proves valuable is to meet other bloggers who are not realtors. It’s my attempt at keeping perspective and making time for a beer.

whoops – the crooked cane is pulling so……………….

Disagree with Jay on reading more as not reading the rest helped me find a voice. But it’s almost a moot point as the options were pretty thin even just two years ago.

If I write about prospects, it’s almost always stripped down to be more generalized and it’s virtually always positive and/or instructive. Things that could help others down the line …

I would have linked OUT more frequently. This is a difficult concept for new bloggers to grasp. Your gut tells you, “If I link out to someone, my reader will leave and never come back”. Yes, that can happen, but the benefits of linking out to others FAR outweighs the few readers you may lose.

Trivial, but I would have picked a better name for my Feedburner feed. Rather than “JaysArizonaRealEstateBlog” it would have made far more sense to name the feed “PhoenixRealEstateGuy”. If I change it now, I risk losing some of the 350+ feed subscribers I have.

I would have posted more often in the beginning. 2 -3 times a month doesn’t cut it. Pre-writing several “date insensitive” posts for publishing later would have been prudent (still would be for that matter).

1. Don’t write about current situations unless you are REALLY cryptic. I share this early mistake with you. I learned, but as Maureen posted recently, it is difficult, because the best stories are the ones we can’t tell.

2. Should have paid more attention to the template. Now I need a facelift (so does my blog), and I am paralized with fear at the thought of migrating 2+ years of content to a new design.