UPDATE: The list of top 100 real estate blogs is back – click here to see it.
I am aware that there are few real estate bloggers out there that are wondering what happened to “top 100 list” I have been toying around with few months back.

If you are not following me on Twitter, you have most likely missed the news that the list is up and running once again- redesigned and updated. The Top 100 Real Estate Blogs now updates ratings on daily basis (or just about daily basis) while the “recent links” are update every hour.

If this is the firs ever time you hear about this list feel free to submit your blog. You blog has to be related to real estate in order to be added to the list.

There is also new addition to the website – a blog. The experience in putting the list together have taught me a few things and showed me certain traits that successful loggers have in common. I plan to share what I have learned there.

Over the past few months I have been slowly falling in love with ActiveRain. The first time I have ever came across this real estate network, I did not know what to make of it. I did not join ActiveRain right away because I did not feel there was a place for me. I had no interest renewing my real estate license and was under impression the network is reserved to real estate professionals exclusively. I am not sure why I had this perception, but after joining ActiveRain I quickly realized that this community is very open minded and most importantly not limited to real estate agents exclusively.

However in this article I would like to point out that real estate professionals can probably benefit the most from ActiveRain. And here are just few points why.

• Blogging. Every member upon joining the community is given their own blog. If you were thinking to start blogging yet was not sure you were ready to invest resources and time into it, ActiveRain blogs is a place where you can try to “wet your feet” as far as blogging is concerned. While their blogs may not offer all the bells and whistles that you can normally get when hosting a blog on your own domain. It does offer the basics and can get you started.
• Instant Audience. One of the best part about blogging on ActiveRain is that you have an instant audience for your blog. Even a newbie to ActiveRain like myself can often get 10+ comments on their initial posts. To me the most rewarding part of blogging is an audience that is engaged.
• Networking. As I am writing this post there are 108,851 members on ActiveRain. My guess that majority of the members are real estate professionals or working in the field closely related to real estate. If you ask me that is an impressive number of members!
• ActiveRain’s Popularity. Before joining any online community or forum, I am always trying to look at the “popularity factor”. The more popular certain website is, the better chance to gain some extra visitors to my own websites. According to statistics from Alexa and Compete (see the charts below) ActiveRain is outranking Inman by quite a margin:
  
  Click on the image below to see detailed statistics on Alexa:
  
  
  Click on the image below to see detailed statistics on Compete:
  
• ActiveRain Referrals- a place to share and find referrals posted by other ActiveRain members. If you are on a “hunt” for leads, why not to browse referrals by other agents rater than spending money on lead generating schemes?

To conclude, I simply would like to repeat my earlier statement- I am slowly falling in love with ActiveRain. I am also confident you will appreciate ActiveRain as well. If you are already a member, visit my profile page and add me to your associates, I would love to connect with you on ActiveRain.

I have decided to make a major change on this blog. As you can see I am going about it in an usual manner, but I would also like the regular readers to help me out.

A little background….

I owned this domain from the time I have been active real estate agent. The headline “Real Estate Review Blog” sounded like a good idea at the time. However it does not reflect accurately what this blog is all about. There are plenty of outstanding real estate bloggers who at the same time are also great Realtors. I think it is not my place to even address this aspect on my blog, since I do not have hands on experience in the real estate industry.

It is also reflected in that 90% of what I have written here are only remotely related to real estate as my targeted audience is real estate agents.

The traffic to this website and keywords by which users find my blog speak laud and clear. Many of visitors have come to look for subject related to blogging, internet marketing and social media marketing. I am not sure I have ever planed for this, but I think I am ready to start making lemonade out of free lemons.

I have an idea as to what the new headline will read, however I would like to hear your suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks to an outstanding blogger and a super geek, Dane Morgan, I have discovered a new nifty website today called rssHugger.

Dane is one of those guys whose recommendations I tend to follow without scrutiny. So here I am rushing to review the website in order to have my blog approved.

RSSHugger claims to help you to promote your blog. As of registering my own blog there were 2538 other blogs in the system already. You can find my page here. Although my page is still empty, as soon as my blog is approved it should have the links to the latest posts from the RSS Feed of my blog.

Considering the fact that the rssHugger already enjoys a PR 5 and decent Alexa Rank I believe it can potentially bring extra visitors to my blog.

If you decide to join rssHugger you have an option to write a review of their website on your blog or pay $20 (approximately $2 per year) for your blog to be approved.

Once your blog is in the system it can be featured on Top 100 list. I will be sure to follow up with an update when my blog is approved and I collect more statistics.

If you are using FeedBurner to manage and promote your blog’s feed and allow e-mail subscriptions, chances are that you have number of “unverified” subscribers in your list. It is probably due to unfamiliarity with “signing up” process in place, or that those who have subscribed to your feed with e-mail have forgotten to confirm their subscription, a step required to activate their subscription.

Darren at Problogger wrote how to handle the unverified email subscribers- I used his tips on several occasions on few of my blogs, with one exception. I have never send more than one e-mails to advise unverified subscribers to complete the subscription process. If my first reminder went unanswered I would just delete the unverified e-mails from the list.

How do you handle the unverified e-mail subscriptions on FeedBurner?