No place like home: Choosing a real estate weblog’s theme
By Teri Lussier, TheBrickRanch.com
I love to paint, but I work differently than many artisits. I work with 6 colors maximum: red, yellow, blue, black, white, and brown. From that limited palette, I can create any color I want. This means I create nearly every color that is put on the canvas as I rarely use paint straight from the tube. Much of my time is spent creating color and mixing paints, but I love the process and it gives my work color like no other artist. The only reason I bring this up is to confess that when I went searching for a real estate weblog theme, I kept finding the “feel” of computer generated color and art entirely too flat and cold and sterile and unnatural for my taste. Oh well, sorry about your luck, Lussier. It is 2007, so time to buck up and deal with it. There are thousands of themes available, and while I found them oddly similar due to the medium, I did find one that I could live with.
I had nothing whatsoever to do with the downloading and uploading and whatever else is involved in getting a theme up and running. I picked a theme, gave Greg the URL, and he took care of the rest. Why? Because he can do that stuff in 15 minutes and I cannot. Greg is a great coach and I’m not only learning about blogging, I’m also learning about real estate, and here’s what I’m learning: If your time is put to better use elsewhere, then farm out the stuff you can’t/won’t/don’t do and let yourself do the voodoo that you do so well. So, thanks to Greg the theme is up.
But the default banner wasn’t up to snuff. Hmm. I thought this was going to be even more difficult than finding a theme. I spent a good bit of time looking at other successful real estate blogs. There are skylines or archtecture or buildings or no pictures at all. My target market is a bedroom community of affordable entry level tract homes. We frequently deal with foreclosures and short sales. There is no glam spectacular skyline; no lovely historic district. So while I was pulling out my hair, stuck in architecture or generic theme mode, Greg was thinking about how to “represent homeownership” in my market. Once I got my brain wrapped around that brilliant idea, I could agree with the coach that what my blog really needs is a big ol’ Rover for a happy kid to snuggle with on a warm sunny day. We checked the royalty-free photo sites, Greg wrestled the photos into place and… Done.
I’m well pleased with the weblog so far but we are a long way from finished. For now let’s just say I’m putting one foot in front of the other, continuing to move forward.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
it is a nice looking blog though so no worries.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I am usually very attentive to details, so I understand your concern about the colors that you use in your blog. I also must say that your blog looks grat and that you made a very good job.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
I found the most difficult part of setting up my blog was selecting a theme. Not only a theme that represented myself but also one that others would find appealing. The more I searched the longer my theme list grew. Finally, after days of switching back and forth between themes, I realized I needed a weblog that was simple and easy to navigate. Although my blog is still trying to define itself, I feel it is only a matter of time before that happened. Thank you to those that make realestateweblogging101.com what it is. Your blog is straight forward, without the fluff which users can easily drowned in. Here is a link to my blog although it has a long road ahead. http://blog.milehighlistings.com Thanks for sharing Teri!
November 24th, 2008 at 12:31 am
One of the difficult work to choosing theme and color combination for our won blog, always confusing and takes a lot time to finalize, so i can understand, but you did a pleasant job.
November 29th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
@Real Estate Tampa
Thanks for your compliment. I have finally decided to move over to wordpress and will be rolling out a new theme. It will allow for more content and a more professional layout. I will keep you posted when it live.