Of course it is harder to run and install blog on your own hosting. Many hosting providers has utility called Fantastico De Luxe which makes installation of wordpress easier. If you are quite tech and internet savvy you can try it yourself.

For everyone else you have to use web development agency. I am sure that agentpoint.com.au can help you with that.

Just thought I would let you know on bushby’s blog front page the link for http://www.bushbys.com .au is directed straight to nfn.com.au

From an SEO perspective on the home page you can get better consistency with having a fixed page however that being said most of the SEO traction you will get from a blog is the individual posts themselves. The home page for the blog is the best way to introduce people to your however many last articles so thats the way I would recommend.

With regard to the domain there are a few options to go for and each has advantages and disadvantages.

If your main website is xyzrealestate.com.au you could have your blog located at

blog.xyzrealestate.com.au
http://www.xyzrealestate.com.au/blog
or a full new domain say http://www.xyzrealestateblog.com.au

Which one you choose is a personal thing based upon and none of them is perfect solution.

A full new domain starts your SEO from scratch but when you build up some SEO value it will pass some of that “link juice” back to your main website helping to drive it a little better.

If you want to run your own domain the if its a .com (ie. xyzrealestateblog.com) domain you should be able to pay for it automatically through wordpress.com and everything will work automatically. It is currently $US14.97

http://support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/register-domain/

If you wanted a .com.au address then you will need to purchase this through and external registrar and point it back to wordpress. You need to pay for that domain seprately and the mapping at wordpress.com is $US9.97

http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-existing-domain/

Both a subdomain and a subfolder will both leverage the current SEO value of your website to give you a quicker growth. Most people are divided over which is better a subdomain (blog.xyzrealestate.com.au) or a subfolder (www.xyzrealestate.com.au/blog). You will see many discussions about it on the web.

My personal opinion is that a subfolder will give you slightly better use of your current SEO.. but only slightly. But since your probably using wordpress.com you are restricted to using a subdomain only. Subfolders are only applicable when you main website is run using the same wordpress installation (like ours is at http://www.nfn.com.au). This is a good thing because having the two separate you are less likely to botch a link from a subdomain than a subfolder.

To do this you need to change the domain settings for your primary domain and there is a domain mapping charge still applicable at wordpress.com for $9.97

http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/map-subdomain/

In summary.. if you have a website ranking well already and you want to to leverage that and not be as worried about SEO strategy then I would use a subdomain option. This is really the option applicable for most agents and probably you. If you wanted to create more a of a community based blog and/or really try and maximise your SEO (and all the work and research that entails) then I would recommend an independent domain and preferably a .com.au one.

Hope this helps

Also if you had a domain xyzrealestate.com.au as your web site what would you recommend as a wordpress domain ? xyzre.com.au as an example that is linked to your web site, do you register this domain name and then update it to WordPress for that fee of $10 a year or am i missing something.

Thanks in advance

Yeah.. thats what makes the content unique.. eventually you wont even feel the need to quote another’s article to bulk up your own article.. In the end you might just be linking to them. Certainly you can be influenced but other articles you read but just try and make as much as you can original content.

Initially though if you treat it like you are commenting and sharing stuff you find with your readers… maybe something along the likes of this below

Cheers

Glenn

***********************************************
Wayne over at XYZ realty has recently commented on some really good points about print advertising being ineffective for real estate around the country and how vendors can get better bang for their buck expanding their online marketing with additional features such as virtual tours, floor plans and professional photography rather than the traditional newspaper ad.

Here is an extract of the article

yada yada yada for a few paragraphs.. (you should be able to differentiate this text by using italics or quote)

and you can read it in full here (insert link).

Wayne makes some excellent points. In fact here at abc Realty we have found that online advertising is responsible for more than 80% of all enquiries etc etc etc etc..

****************************************************************

What you would not really need permission for and is a positive from an SEO perspective for everyone is to include an extract ( a paragraph or two) and then link to the original article combined with a small introduction and commentary from you. Both sites would have unique content and rank well.

I still have to integrate Zoo Property for the property database so that will take a little longer.

Another example using a professional design is of course Robert’s site which is http://www.rwm.com.au

He has the integration with the property database working really well.

Both sites use WordPress for the full site, not just the blog.

Completely separate from my day job, I’ve developed a custom CMS from scratch to serve a specific purpose and the difference is incredible.
It is being used by several rather large sites and it works better than any off the shelf product.

Mind you I’m a coder, so my perspective is slightly different from most people who want ease of setup. :)
Just dont rule out custom stuff so fast.