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7 Signs You are Not a Good Blogger | Mt Kisco NY Realtor

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Let me start off this post with a little assumption … Every one of us wants to be a good blogger, right?7 Sign you are not a good blogger

But it’s not like we get a lot of direct opinions about how good we actually are… I mean, your friends and family will tell you that you’re great. A number of haters will tell you that you suck. But it’s not like these opinions reflect the actual situation.

The negative voices are always more vocal than the positive ones, and the things your friends say … well, they just don’t have the guts to say anything bad. So how you can find out for sure?

First of all, let’s explain what it means to actually be a good blogger.

Who’s a good blogger?

The most important distinction is that being a good blogger is not the same thing as being a good writer. Writing is a single activity – you take an idea, and write an article around it. Blogging involves a lot more elements. Apart from writing.

  • Bloggers have to network with other bloggers
  • Master the art of online promotion,marketing and social media
  • Do brand building
  • Attract new followers and subscribers
  • Have some business sense and be able to turn pro at some point
  • They need to learn how to make things happen
  • Manage their own work and time, and much much more

Taking all this into account, there are 7 signs that you’re NOT a good blogger.

1. You’re not publishing regularly

This is really basic, but some people still forget that publishing regularly is, essentially, your main task as a blogger. If you don’t publish regularly, people will lose track of what’s going on with your blog, or even forget about you completely, which is not good for business. If, at some point, you get distracted and don’t publish a post for a longer while, just return to your everyday blogging like nothing ever happened.

Whatever you do, don’t publish a “sorry I’ve been away post.” The reason is simple. Some people won’t even notice that you were gone, unless you tell them…

2. You’re not managing your time properly

Time management may sound like something only people loaded with extreme amount of work need, but it’s not the case. Whatever your career is, and whatever you’re doing, you can always use a time management system to make you more effective. Let’s face it, there are a lot of tasks a blogger needs to do on a daily basis, and if you try to keep it all in your head, you’ll inevitably forget some of it.

First of all, I encourage you to check out a methodology called Getting Things Done. Then try different online tools to make you more effective. Tools like: Remember The Milk, Teambox, Google Calendar, Dropbox, and others.

3. You have no blogging friends

Bloggers who try to make things happen on their own will have a lot harder time achieving success. Building a network of contacts and utilizing it for various purposes is a lot better approach. Here are some of the possible benefits:

  • you can email your blogging friends notifying them about a new post of yours,
  • you can take part in joint ventures,
  • you can promote each other on different occasions,
  • they can help you get guest posting spots on other blogs,
  • you can host guest posts from them,
  • you can promote each other’s products as affiliates, and much more.

Quite frankly, building a network of contacts is a great practice in any industry, blogging included. Don’t pretend that it doesn’t concern you.

4. No one contacts you with freelance writing opportunities

If you’re a good blogger, chances are that some people will notice and reach out to you with new opportunities. The most obvious opportunity for a blogger is a freelance writing project of some kind. If you’re inside a fairly popular niche, you should get offers like that every now and then. If there aren’t any then maybe you’re not as good as you think. But still, you can help the situation a little by providing an easy-to-use contact form or any other clear way of getting a hold of you.

It still amazes me that some bloggers have absolutely no contact information on their sites, or that the info is buried so deep that it’s like it wasn’t there at all.

5. You don’t know what SEO is

I’m sorry, but good blogging has a lot to do with SEO. Good bloggers accept this fact and try to make the most out of it. Bad bloggers think that SEO is not relevant and that content is the only king. From my perspective, there’s no point in providing great content if you’re going to do nothing to promote it in the search engines.

Every post you publish should include some form of SEO (optimization), even if it’s just some simple keyword research and good subheadings. Remember that Google is the biggest provider of traffic online. You can really earn a lot in terms of traffic and recognition if you decide to play their game.

6. You don’t know what your most popular articles are

This one is about knowing your audience and being aware what’s going on on your OWN blog. If you don’t know what your most popular content is then how are you going to create more of it? I mean, there’s really little point in publishing posts just for the sake of it.

Every blogger should aim at publishing only posts that have the biggest chance of going viral. To be up-to-date with your blog start by installing a plugin like WordPress Popular Postsand including a Google Analytics embed code in your blog. This will give you all the information you need.

What matters is ongoing work. Check your stats every week or every month and note which articles have become the most popular, then create your publishing schedule for the next months to include more articles similar to the popular ones in some way (topic, style, etc.).

7. You have no plan for your blog’s nearest future

Bad bloggers are always running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Remember that you’re a blogger long term (at least that’s my assumption). So you need to have a plan for your blog, or else your success will be a lot less predictable. Things worth including in your plan are:

  • Your publishing schedule.
  • New keywords to tackle.
  • A list of blogs where you want to guest post.
  • A list of products you want to create.
  • A list of products you want to promote as an affiliate.
  • A list of joint venture projects and their execution schedules.
  • The general goal your blog should achieve in one year’s time.

Of course, this is just an example, and you’re free to include whatever else you find suitable. That’s it for my list of 7 signs that you’re not a good blogger. Feel free to comment and share your own insights. Also, what would look good as the item #8 on this list?

About the author: Karol K. is a freelance writer and blogger. If you’re interested in learning how to start writing paid articles feel free to visit him at YoungPrePro.

 

Want to Learn More About How to Create Compelling Content that Your Audience Wants to Read, View and Share?

My book – Blogging the Smart Way “How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.

I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 130,000.

Download and read it now.

 

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via jeffbullas.com

Hubzu to open up auction marketplace to brokers and agents | Mt Kisco NY Real Estate

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Hubzu, the online marketplace and auction platform of real estate owned properties (REO), will open up its service for licensed brokers and agents and non-REO properties in early February, the company announced today.

Last fall, Hubzu completed its name change from “GoHoming.com” and announced that it would expand its user base and begin to deal with non-REO properties.

The 3-year-old site is operated by publicly traded Altisource Portfolio Solutions S.A., a provider of services to mortgage lenders, loan servicers, investors, mortgage bankers, credit unions, financial services companies and hedge funds.

Traditionally, all of the listings on Hubzu — about 4,000 active currently — are lender-owned. Most listings come from another Altisource-held company, Hubzu general manager Scott Wielar told Inman News last fall.

Hubzu’s new “Direct-to-Broker” channel will allow brokers and agents to list properties, both REO and traditional, on the site for a fee of 1.5 percent of the sales price, plus a tech fee of $299 per transaction.

The site will verify broker and agent licenses of potential users in a one- to two-day clearing process, said Eric Eckardt, vice president of Hubzu’s direct to broker program.

Article continues below

At the moment, the site features a variety of lender-owned properties, including single-family, one- to four-unit multifamily, townhomes and condominium units, and land parcels, which are sold by auction or traditionally.

Screen shot of Hubzu’s homepage.

“When we moved to Hubzu, we moved away from REO,” Wielar said of the changes announced today. Listings will be clearly delineated between REO-owned and traditional on the site, he said.

Hubzu also considered handling listings from property owners, but has decided to open up its platform only to real estate pros for right now, Wielar said.

Currently, 125,000 of the site’s 285,000 total registered users are licensed brokers and agents, Wielar said. They have not been able to list properties on the site, but that changes in February.

Each property on the site, which has facilitated the sale of 30,000 properties in the last 12 months, receives an average of nine bids, Wielar said. Properties can also sell without bidding. If they are listed with an “own it now” price, a buyer can move a sale forward if they like the price, short circuiting the bidding.

The auctions are timed. To prevent “auction sniping” — where a bidder waits to enter a bid just as the auction time runs out — 15 minutes are automatically added to the auction when the time is nearly up to maximize bidding.

Buyers traditionally have been the revenue engine of the site. No fees are charged to buyers until a sale. Buyers pay a flat technology fee of $299 and a “buyer’s premium” that ranges from $625 to 5 percent of the property’s value.

via inman.com

New Mortgage Rule Only a Start in Jump-starting Lending | Mt Kisco Realtor

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If the years leading up to the U.S. housing bust were rife with lax underwriting, the opposite problem has occurred in its aftermath: Excessively tight credit is making it impossible for many borrowers to obtain mortgages.

Enter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which this week unveiled a much-awaited rule intended to strengthen mortgage standards and provide more legal protection to lenders. In requiring that lenders verify the ability of borrowers to repay their loans, the CFPB aims to safeguard consumers against deceptive practices and provide legal protection to banks, which have been wary of lending, fearful that borrowers would eventually default and sue.

The CFPB’s qualified-mortgage rule, which goes into effect next year and was required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, gets many things right: It requires lenders to consider specific factors in determining whether a borrower can repay a loan, including income, overall debt, employment status and credit history. Borrowers’ total debt payments — including car loans, school loans and mortgages — can’t exceed 43 percent of their pretax income.

The rule prohibits many of the exotic loan features, such as interest-only payments, that fed the housing bubble. It also smartly avoids being overly prescriptive. It doesn’t, for example, require a certain level of down payment, which could wind up denying credit to otherwise-qualified borrowers.

Missing Pieces

Yet the CFPB’s rule alone won’t open the lending spigot. Other pieces must fall into place, including finalizing — and harmonizing — a rule detailing which types of mortgages will be exempt from a requirement that lenders retain a 5 percent financial stake in loans that are packaged into securities and sold.

Capital levels for banks must also be firmed up so companies can determine how much they can safely lend. Most important, the U.S. must outline its plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee about 84 percent of mortgages, including whether the U.S. will continue to offer a mortgage guarantee at all.

The latter question is crucial given the CFPB’s new rule, which will probably lead to fewer types of loans and a heavier reliance on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. That product, largely unique to the U.S., has traditionally come with a government guarantee.

The CFPB’s rule, intended to set the industry standard for mortgages, gives huge deference to Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac. For example, it grants legal protection to loans that don’t meet the 43 percent debt-to-income test if they satisfy the underwriting standards of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac (FMCC) and the Federal Housing Administration. The CFPB said this bypass, which could last as long as seven years, was necessary given the “fragile state of the mortgage market.”

As we’ve said, the time has come for a serious overhaul of housing finance, including limiting the government guarantee and adequately pricing it to reflect risk. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are profitable again and have stopped drawing on the Treasury. Housing prices are rising and foreclosures are beginning to stabilize.

If the roles of Fannie and Freddie aren’t soon clarified, the companies could become permanent wards of the state. Even Fannie Mae’s chief executive officer, Timothy Mayopoulos, said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast that the company’s mortgage dominance has reached an unhealthy and unsustainable level.

To bring back private capital, lenders need to know what constitutes a qualified residential mortgage and is thus free from risk-retention requirements, also known as the “skin in the game” rule. The rule, which six federal agencies are writing, is supposed to largely mirror the CFPB’s, yet a proposal last year differed in many ways, including imposing a 20 percent down- payment requirement.

The Federal Reserve and other agencies have rightly waited to finalize their rule until the CFPB completed its work, and they should now move quickly to synchronize.

Consumers deserve access to quality mortgages they can afford. The U.S. economy still suffers from the consequences of lax underwriting standards, yet the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

The CFPB’s rules strike the right balance between responsible lending and mortgage availability. Yet truly strengthening the housing market will require more effort by regulators and lawmakers.

To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.

via bloomberg.com