ActiveRain Outside Blogs offer members the opportunity to have a "stand alone" presence outside the network and they are included with the rainmaker memberships.  I still get many questions on how to set these up and the most common question is "How do you customize it so it's not like anyone elses blog?"

Here are my top 10 best practices and tips for those Rainer's wanting to maximize their outside blogs.

1. Select a theme that works best for you, your brand, your company and target audience. 

2. Utilize all the features and tools available form the dashboard toolbar.  (you must be logged in)

3. To customize the CSS formatting, colors, backgrounds etc. and if you're a techy, use the Chameleon theme.
I like it because I can make sure my blog won't ever look like anyone elses.

Maximize your SEO, analytics, and widgets by implementing the tools made available. 

4. I highly recommend the "Google Search" which magnetically draws the Google spiders to your site.  Since this is a Google product and tool, I can assure you that they follow its placement and use very diligently.  Make sure you have plenty of content on your site first, you don't want to draw Google attention to your site if you only have 3 or 4 posts there.

5. Adding the "Analytics" tool helps so you know what's working best, and tracking your visitors and target audience couldn't be made any easier. You can't add the Google analytics to your ActiveRain blogs, but you can add it to your outside blogs. 

6. Each of these tools available adds additional value to your outside blogs but it's your content that matters the most. Great content on ANY blog will garner traffic and create business opportunities.  Allow those that find you the chance to get notified  via email every time you post something by adding the "feedburner" widget. Let people subscribe to your blog.

Note: MyBlogLog and Retaggr are no longer services that are available on the web.

7. Give your outside blog a Kick-Arse custom domain name (it's included) making it easy to search for your site, find your site, and easy for you and clients/targets to remember.  What's in a name?  Everything, so try to incorporate the most important aspects of your blog in the title to get the most impact and results.  Including Hyper-local if you can is always a good thing.

Note: The "Internal" URL is your back-end dashboard, the "Custom Domain" is the public view.

8. Adding good "links" and using great anchor text for "calls to action" is a key traffic generator and lead capture opportunity that often times gets over-looked and most often under-utilized.  Think about what would make someone absolutely have to click on these links and trust me, they will.  I can prove this by just having you create a link similar to this one that says something like... "DON'T CLICK HERE!"  haha~

Adding links is easy: Just paste the URL in the Link box, and place the anchor text in the Title box.

BTW -  Did you click on the DON'T CLICK HERE link?  lol~ 

9. The last thing you should know is that the SEO (search engine optimization) on outside blogs carries a great deal of weight in the SERPS (search engine results page) which is great for your ROI (return on investment) since ultimately the people you are trying to reach and get in front of are the ones that will find you when searching the Internet.

Google search results DO matter, and where you land on the page makes all the difference in the world.

10. All of these tips and best practices are to help you do one thing: create content that cultivates traffic/visitors which allows you to capture contacts and convert them to clients right?  There are really ONLY two types of people out on the web and searching Google: Those that know you, and those that don't.  Which audience is your target?  Exactly! :-)

ActiveRain outside blogs are one of the best and most powerful tools that I think ActiveRain offers its members, but then on the other side of that coin, the greatest tools and power of ActiveRain IS IT's MEMBERS!!

 Stop by anytime and check out my ActiveRain Outside Blog at http://ActiveBradsBlog.com

How To Add & Understand Authors, Editors, and Contributors Roles on Outside Blogs

Any member of ActiveRain with an Outside Blog or "ActiveBlog" can invite others to contribute.  Whether you are a Broker inviting your Agents, an Agent inviting your TEAM and Affiliates, or just a member inviting another member, here's the differences between setting up an Author, an Editor, or a Contributor.  When you invite others to write and contribute to your Outside Blog, it's important to understand these three categories and the rights and privileges they offer.  There are different levels of privileges for each category.

Inviting Others To Contribute

To invite someone to contribute to your Outside Blog, go to your "My Home" page on ActiveRain.  On the left hand sidebar, you'll see the link to your outside Blog referred to commonly as your "ActiveBlog."  Click on the link and you'll be ready to invite others to contribute.  They'll need to be a RainMaker Member in order to contribute posts to your Outside Blogs.

On your Outside Blog you will see a Black toolbar located across the top of your Blog.  Select the "Members" link to invite and manage your contributors.  When inviting others, you only need to use their AR Profile user name. Example: activebrad or arbob.  Typing anything other than their correct user name will result in an error and no invitation will be sent.  Be sure to visit the members profile to make sure you have their correct user name.

Once you click on the members link, the menu option will open allowing you to "Invite" a contributor.  This is also where you can manage the "roles" of each contributor.  To change the role of any contributor, click on the "Down Arrow" and select Author, Editor, or Contributor for that member.  You can also delete a contributor from this screen by clicking on the red "delete" link located next to their name.

If you are invited to contribute to another members Outside Blog, you will have a link on your "My Home" page to either accept or decline their offer. Click on the link to "Accept" you can now add your posts to their Blog.

You will also be notified by email of their request, but you cannot "accept" or "decline" from the email.

To add your posts to an Outside Blog, put a check in the box(s) when creating your Blog posts on AR.

Outside Blog Contributor Roles

Author:  Selecting the "Author Role" allows the contributor full access and rights to post entries without your moderation or approval. They can also assist you with Moderating other contributors posts.  Author is the highest level role with the least amount of restriction.

Editor:  Selecting the "Editor Role" allows that contributor to create and add posts to your Blog without your moderation or approval.  They cannot assist you with the moderation process, they can only post to your Group or Team Outside Blog. Editor is the next level of role with the least amount of restriction.

Contributor:  Selecting the "Contributor Role" gives the contributor the authority to create and add posts to your Blog but you need to review or moderate them first, then either accept or decline their entry.  Contributor is a role with the least amount of priviledges and the most restriction.

Managing Posts from "Contributors"

If you select the "Contributor Role" for a member, be sure to check your "Review Pending Outside Blog Posts" link on your "My Home" page.  The link is located at the very bottom of the page on the left hand sidebar.  This is where you can accept or decline your contributors posts.  Don't do as I did and forget to check it once in a while, otherwise your entries will get backed up.

To accept a "Contributors" post, just click on the green check mark. To decline, click the red dash mark.

One of the great benefits of the Outside Blog is that each one allows members the ability to add multiple authors and contributors.  In my honest opinion, this brings a greater value to your Outside Blog. You can have multiple voices and opportunities to share and collaborate content which in turn results in more information, faster growth, and a variety of topics focused to your targeted readers.  Especially for the niche markets that many of you have, this is a great way to saturate them with hyper-local content quickly and efficiently.  I believe that one day very soon, every Brokerage, Real Estate Company and REALTOR team in the Country will have a Group, Team or Multi-Authored Blog.

Download this Post as a .PDF to Print

Here's 5 Really Important Tips for Outside Blogs

Now that many members have had the chance to setup their own Individual and Outside Group Blogs, and we've had the chance to work out the kinks, I've noticed some common issues that keep popping up as we're setting these up.  I wanted to share them in hopes it would save you some time and frustration.

ONE: 

You do NOT need to go elsewhere to purchase a domain name for your Outside Blogs on ActiveRain.  If you setup your Outside Blog and URL or Domain name through AR, it is a 3-step process and your domain will be up in most cases within minutes.  If you go outside AR to purchase a domain name, you can still use it, but you'll have to point the DNS nameservers and for some, it's a PITA!  (Pain In The @$$) See Jodi's Post

This is the best way right here!

see below: (and yes, you do own the domain name, AR is just hosting it)

Once you click check availability, You'll know if the domain is available or not by what's returned in the box.  If it has a red dash mark, then it's not available, if it has a green check mark, then you can claim it! 
Just click on the "Claim Domain" button and you're done.  Some new domains come up instantly.

  RED = NO  &  GREEN = GO 

TWO: 

Adding your Posts to your Individual and Group Blogs is easy.  You can either create new posts or move existing posts over to your new domain and outside Blog, but you'll need to be in the edit mode, then select the appropriate boxes by placing a check mark in the ones you want to push your post to.  It's Fast!!

SELECTING WHERE TO SEND YOUR BLOG POSTS:

THREE: 

Be sure that you are using the "Topic" feature in Channels when creating ALL Blog posts from now on, this will help index your posts for easy searching on your outside blogs.  Many other Blog formats have "Categories" or "Keywords" on the sidebar that can be searched and viewed by visitors, but your AR Outside Blogs will be searchable by "topics" and "local area posts".  (Raindexing) Make sure you are using "topics" to avoid having to go back and edit posts later. 

You may even want to go back and edit the ones you have.

FOUR: 

Keep ALL your Videos, Photos, and Images under 600W on EVERY POST.  (200-400 is optimal)  This will keep ALL your (AR Blogs, Outside Blogs, & Localism) formatted properly and looking consistent across all three platforms. This is one of the main issues we see repeatedly when setting up outside Blogs. Some members are using photos that are 1024x768 or 800x640 and they will not look right on Localism or Outside Blogs. 

You can see this post at ActiveRainGuide.com to confirm this format works.

FIVE: 

If you want readers to be able to see your FULL SIZE photos, upload them to Flickr.com first, then place the photo in your ActiveRain post at 200w (as shown above), with a link to the full sized photo in Flickr.  This will not only look better on your posts, if readers want to see the full image, they can, but let it be their choice.  An 800w photo or image is just too big, it'll overlap and look weird on Localism and Outside Blogs.

There's your High-Five for this week ~

I am very proud and excited of what our team behind the scenes at AR have produced.  I'm looking forward to showing off some of these Blogs by our members and groups this week, they really do look awesome. :-)