About one year ago I heard Berniece Ross say at a conference that blogs would replace real estate websites. I've given it some thought especially lately after my site's global template was changed beyond my control. What do you think? Are there important reasons to offer the traditional site? Do you put your MLS property search on your blog? Are you getting prospect lead information from your blog or your site?

Julia - I think for now you need both. You certainly could incorporate all the elements you need into a blog, but for now I think a website is the better platform for looking at listings, etc. YMMV.

Tom is probably right. For my business, I use the website for more general information and a larger area, and I really focus in on my community with my blog.

I'm with my boy Tom and my girl mwoda on this one. I see em as two different tools. Think of a websites a depository, a wharehouse if ya will. It's kinda like a storefront. People can go, look around hassle free, the content is easily organized, it is "theirs" to play with. A blog on the other hand has life. It is the expression of you, the organization, and the site itself. It should be used to draw folks in, connect with em, deliver timely information and engage. It should be a LOT less formal, show ya insides, be expressive. A blog is a part of ya, it's the living, get out there and touch the world part of ya site. It's how you CONNECT to ya customers a website doesn't do that.

The best are the folks who learn to use em together, to intertwine their unique value to get the most out of em both.

you guys already know how I feel about this one! :-)

Thanks for your input--most people don't seem to think we should go it alone with a blog only which was kind of my feeling but it's good to hear what others think too. Thanks.

I am a fan of blogsites as the incorporate the same information as a website but with the marketing and reach potential of a blog. I have found that since rolling our site into a blogsite we have actually increase the conversion of our leads.

I was leaning towards the blog/ web-site idea. The hesitation I have is about 1.viewing some of the static info, like neighborhoods stats, 2. viewing properties (non-IDX), 3. not having a landing page. The consumer will land on my recent post, and quite frankly, they are all of different quality -what if that day it really sucks?

That's a good point too Faina. The problem I'm having right now is that people find my blog, but even tho my other site link is up at the top, they don't often go over to that. I've even been contacted by a high school student who was doing a project and had a question about my post, so of course I talked to her, future homeowner, right? I'm just not getting a conversion over to my other site as I once used to--so hearing other people's input is helpful about 2 combined sites.

If you are using Wordpress for your blog platform you can create a static landing page.

We have a website with static information on it, but we also have three local blogs either community or topic related.

The website being the oldest brought little traffic once the first blog was added the traffic and leads increased substantially. There are contact, CMA and Home finder forms on all.

The website was built on a personal name. The blogs all built on location. The location sites have value for potential sale in the future. The website does not being built on a personal name.

I view the website (being the oldest) as the mother ship. The blogs are the fishing boats and each post or page is a new line or net in the water.

Having multiple blogs is a little more work, but it allows us to target very specific keywords to each blog. The end result we land on page 1 for a lot of google searches which we wouldn't otherwise because of this targeting of the content.

If I were just starting, and didn't have a website, I could do everything a website does with a blog format. I would only have the one. But since I have an established site I saw no reason not to keep it.