Orlando Real Estate

Do not underestimate the power of the pen, or in this case the keyboard. I read for years that the internet was changing our business, and I knew that people were getting more information from the internet. I advertised my listings, and had a full featured website with all kinds of great real estate information. I did not see any more business coming from it. Two years ago that began to change when Risa Saltman from our Remax Town and Country office spoke at Remax 200 where I work. Risa is sort of a pioneer here in Orlando when it comes to using the internet in the real estate business. She came to speak to us about SEO and blogging. I had heard of blogging, and frankly it sounded like "dear diary" stuff to me. After that meeting, I checked out some of the blogsites like Active Rain, and found them to be pretty good.

My website www.davidwelch.com has a blog feature, so I started, and I signed up on Active Rain too. As I started posting my opinions and local real estate statistics, I noticed the activity on my web site began to pick up. I did not rank highly on the search engines, but I must have been improving. My page views grew from about 100 per day to more than 300 pretty quickly. The number 300 sticks in my head, because an internet guru from Advanced Access had spoken at our office. He had said that you needed to have at least 300 page views per day to see any kind of business from the internet. I was very excited when my site activity picked up to that level. I continued to blog, and found other venues where I could syndicate my posts. I found out that Realtor.com had a blogspot called Talk.Realtor.com, and I signed up there. I quickly became one of the most viewed blogs, and they now feature me right on the front page, as well as on Ask A Realtor.

Page views of my blogs alone are now in the 60,000 per month range, and if you google "Orlando Real Estate Blog" I hold the top four spots in the organic results. My blog is how Doug and Lisa found me, which landed me on the HGTV show House Hunters. I have found my blog quoted in the Orlando Sentinel and even the Colorado Springs Business Journal. My google page rank has risen from 0 to 4, and my primary website regularly gets close to 2,000 page views per day. Last year 72% of my business came from the internet. Write about what you know; your local real estate market. Happy blogging.

Orlando Real Estate, David Welch Real Estate Optimist