Hyperlocal Blogging with Matt McGee

Matt McGee is a long time blogger and author of hyperlocalblogger.com where he shares ongoing knowledge and expertise on how to setup and maintain a hyperlocal blog. I wanted to get in touch with him to interview him about some of the experiences he has had both in the world of blogging and in the realm of the hyperlocal arena.

Matt, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you first got started in blogging?

I think it was around May, 2004, when I got started in blogging. It was a blog about pro and college sports here in the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t very good, and I also wasn’t real great at making connections with other bloggers — the stuff that helps your blog get noticed and grow. It was a good experience, though, and certainly set me up as someone who loves to blog.

I guess my first successful blog was career-related: Small Business Search Marketing. I started that in 2006 because it was obvious that having a blog was a key part of career advancement and recognition in online marketing circles, and it has served me well in that regard.

Beyond that, my background is about 7-8 years as a TV and radio sportscaster, followed by some web design work and now I’m an online marketing consultant who also writes for Search Engine Land , the premier industry site for search marketers.

What was some of the inspiration behind you and your wife deciding to start and launch hyperlocal real estate blog?

It was mainly to help grow her real estate business. It seemed that, done right, a local real estate blog would be a great way to educate people about the community and, in the process, introduce them to my wife as the local expert. She already had a blog on her web site, but we live in a strange area — it’s called “Tri-Cities”, but there are actually about 7-8 cities/towns in her main coverage area. It was difficult, from a marketing perspective, to target her existing blog to so many communities. So we decided to start four local blogs, one for each of the biggest cities in the area:

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• RichlandRealEstateBlog.com
• KennewickRealEstateBlog.com
• PascoRealEstateBlog.net
• WestRichlandRealEstateBlog.com

How are those blogs working out? Are they helping you guys to build and develop the relationships you are wanting with perspective clients?

I’d like to think so, but we haven’t done a great job on the follow-through. For starters, neither one of us writes as often as I think we should. We’re both so busy with other things, and Cari was especially busy the past couple years. (Our area hasn’t been hit by the real estate crash.) Beyond that, we haven’t spent enough time building conversion opportunities into the blogs. So that’s been frustrating.

On the bright side, Cari always asks clients how they found her; most times they don’t remember exactly how, but the most common response is something like, “You’re all over the Internet.” So that’s good. And all four blogs have done pretty well where SEO is concerned and we get a fair amount of traffic from Google and other search engines.

As the hyperlocal blog scene continues to grow what are some specific things you would like to see occur?

In general, I’d like to see more appreciation for the great things that a good hyperlocal blog can mean to a city, town, neighborhood. There seems to be a lot of distrust and ignorance about local blogging. Newspapers generally don’t like the competition, but there are some partnerships happening around the country that are good for the print folks and the bloggers. Local government seems to be afraid and uncertain in some areas about how to treat local bloggers; are they press/media? I think tourism bureaus and convention bureaus should be reaching out and working with local blogs — there should be some unique partnerships in that area. Just better understanding and appreciation overall.

Democracy, blogging and legal rights of bloggers, Thoughts or comments?

I guess I kinda touched on that a bit above. I think bloggers who wish to be considered “press” should have the opportunity to apply for credentials and prove themselves that way. All citizens have the right (the duty, even) to watch what their government is doing and, if they choose to, write about it, talk about it, tweet about it, etc. I don’t like to hear stories about local news bloggers being treated worse than traditional media reporters.

But it’s more than rights of bloggers — it’s also about the responsibilities, right? If someone’s going to run a local blog and cover the local city council, or write about fellow citizens, it’s the bloggers responsibility to know how to do that professionally, to know the laws related to speech, libel, slander, etc.

Do you think hyperlocal blogs need a social element built into them other than just having comment posts?

I think it depends on the community and the focus of the blog. I think there are some hyperlocal blogs out there that also have a message board, and that may make sense for certain blogs and communities. There are some hyperlocal blogs that aren’t really blogs — they’re Facebook groups. I don’t think there’s any reason to limit yourself to a traditional blog — if additional tools help you serve your readers, do it.

Your thoughts on how to best develop an audience for a hyperlocal blog?

Get out in the community and be as visible as you possibly can. Show up everywhere. Introduce yourself to everyone. Put your URL on your car, on t-shirts, on stickers, on message boards at the grocery store, you name it. I couldn’t imagine promoting a local blog only through online channels.

Importance of having a mailing list and then using it on a regular basis with your online readers?

I did a post on this late last year: Four Reasons Why Your Local Blog Needs A Mailing List and suggested that a mailing list is a must. Almost every commenter agreed. RSS just isn’t popular among regular folks, but everyone uses email. Ironically, this is one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made with our local blogs … no mailing list.

Do you think hyperlocal apps for could eventually outgrow hyperlocal blogs?

The question for me is, How can local bloggers get visibility and get involved in the communities that are forming via those location-based apps. I don’t know. They’re really new, so it’s probably too soon to talk about that. But I do think a great local blog will do well no matter what else is going on.

Biggest pitfall in starting a hyperlocal blog?

Hmmmm. Not recognizing the commitment involved in doing it right. If you’re starting a news blog, it’s a full-time, round-the-clock, 24/7 effort. News doesn’t take time off. Even for my wife and I — we’re not news bloggers at all, but just wanting to share community information, events, photos, etc., has been very challenging and requires more of a commitment than we can give sometimes.

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