Real Estate Blogging And Search Engines – The News Source Theory

I have a theory about the effectiveness of our blogging that is supported
as I look for its effect in the search engines (read: Google).

Regular Blogging + Core Focus + Ping
= News Source Recognition in Google.

I have to maintain that this is a theory, because I am not in anyway claiming to have inside knowledge on Google’s handling of blog content.  However, I can say that from personal experience, and from that of my clients, this theory consistently proves to be a convenient phenomenon.  So much so, that I know it can happen for you as well.
There is a dichotomy in the the world of real estate websites:
There are Real Estate websites that are generating natural traffic from the search engines and Real Estate websites that aren’t.
With blogging, there is an opportunity to be the former, if executed properly.
I refer to the successful reach of a real estate blog in the search engines as being recognized as a news source, as opposed to simply being a resource.
A news source is a blog that has achieved a level of authority in the search engines to the point where whatever is published is suddenly recognized as news, and therefor given preferential exposure in the search engines.
There are at least 2 opportunities to have this effect and reach in the search engines.
(You will find recent examples after the definitions)
1. Authority by Default
2. Authority by Focus

Authority by Default occurs when you publish an article on a particular topic where there is not enough competition online for the search engines to deem that others’ results are more authorative than your article.  If you are recognized as a sound, regular provider of content, and you post on something that is not already a popular topic, you can have surprisingly effective results.
Authority by Focus occurs when your site has reached the tipping point of recognition by the search engines as a competitive resource for the topics you cover most frequently.
The ‘authority’ where we have ‘tipped’ comes from the gross amount of content on topics such as: Blogging Advice, Real Estate Blogging Advice, Real Estate Blogging Topics, Real Estate Blogging Success, Real Estate Blogging 101 etc.
Whenever I publish articles that fall under the topics of authority I have established, they are sure to populate the search results, along with those articles I have written that are already there now.

Take these most recent examples as an illustration:

EX: Authority By Default

There is a newsworthy real estate event this August called Keller Williams Mega Camp.
I was asked by Gary Keller to guest speak and then I recently wrote a blog post about it. Before I wrote the post, I did some research to see what kind of exposure the event had already garnered in the search engines and blogosphere search engines (Technorati and Google Blog Search).  I found that there were a few articles and some chatter about past year’s events, but nothing too substantial with the exception of the Keller Williams Mega Camp website itself.
Within 12 hours of publishing, the article about about Keller Williams Mega Camp, the article already occupied the #2 result in Google for ‘Mega Camp 2007’.
I don’t know the exact moment that the article began to appear so competitively in the search results, but within 12 hours, is fair to say that this is the ability to ‘Break News’ on a topic.

EX: Authority By Focus

Teresa Boardman just recently posted an article to the Tomato called “The Real Estate Industry Does Not Understand Real Estate Blogs.”
Later that same day, the content of that article was being picked up by Google, and positioned incredibly favorably (front page) for the search phrases: real estate industry blogs and real estate industry blogging.  Even though these terms are incredibly competitive (nearly 12 million results), because of the authority established by the Real Estate Tomato for such terms, we were able to penetrate the top of the charts almost instantly.

I recognize these phenomena as the ability to ‘break news’.  Appearing in the search results so quickly and competitively for the above scenarios is the equivalent of CNN or Fox News breaking a story online, and it being posted favorably in the search engines.
How do I see this working?  The formula from above:
Regular Blogging + Core Focus + Ping = News Source Recognition in Google.

Regular Blogging

Regular blogging is a huge part of the formula’s success.  Search engines are hungry for new content, and by producing it uniquely and regularly you are essentially becoming a regular stop for the SE’s to consume your offerings.  The more produce, the more they spider and index, the more reach and more positive results you achieve.

Related Article: How Often Should I Blog?

Core Focus

Your core focus helps you develop your authority.  The density of your keywords depends on the amount of content that you have created based around not only the words themselves, but the topics as well.
Search engines aren’t just data collectors and organizers that don’t understand the relationship among words.  If you are blogging about real estate, search engines will recognize the relation of other common industry words such as listings, homes, agent, Realtor, house, property, mortgage, etc.  So by maintaining a core focus, and blogging about topics around and related to real estate, you are able to establish an authority on the general topic, hence giving you leverage with the related topics.

Why Am I Blogging?
6 Steps To Getting Started With A Business Blog
The Long Tail In Real Estate

Ping (XML Ping)

Pinging is the ability to notify subscribers, other blogs, news sources, directories, search engines, search bots and other services that there is data to be accepted and processed from your site.  Some blogs have pinging tools built in, others have the ability to add a list of services that you would like to have pinged, and there are services like Pingoat that allow you to ping dozens of services with the click of the mouse.
Again, the above is just a theory, based on personal and client results.  Such quick and favorable exposure in the search engines is the result of something we do here and something we train to do.