Renting Flats in London Blog

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Renting Flats in London – The Past

A friendly hi to my regular readers to assure you that I haven’t gone to sleep. I’ve now been blogging for over 2 years – yes it would have been smart to do a commemorative blog to recognise the 2nd anniversary, I’ll just have to remember to do a 3rd anniversary blog on 28th October 2011! My first ever blog was of course pretty cringe-making Pimlico Flats – are we I or am I we? and things went downhill whilst I felt my way, learned the trade, and experimented.

My starting point for the Blog was that it should be aimed at tenants, and about renting flats in London. The aim would be to make this blog a focal point for flat hunters in London, and give me an opportunity to advertise my vacancies via the blog.

I’ve had a very steep learning curve to climb over the last 2 years – I started off knowing nothing about blogging, or php scripts, and pulled myself up by my bootlaces. The journey involved the major decision to integrate the look and feel of the blog with the website. It’s not seamless, and I still don’t know if it was a good idea, but I am extremely grateful to Biddy who did a fantastic job of creating a Bespoke theme for me.

The other issue that I have struggled with is that of content. Every Blog should have a focus, Blogs are a niche product & if you blog outside your niche you dilute your authority. On that front I have avoided diluting my blog with my own interest in Social Media, and all other things Techie, by having some Forums – if I have something to publish which isn’t connected with Renting Flats in London then I put it there.

Two ideas that I have had to drop have been using the Blog for Advertising, and making it Tenant oriented.

• Advertising just isn’t interesting to anybody unless they go looking for it consequently I have put all the advertising on the blog on advertising panels to the left & right of the blog content. One of the advertising panels is my own vacancies (it’s actually the best panel, but do you blame me?), and I donate ALL the income from the advertising to charity – it’s actually no big deal being pence per day not pounds. I’m a great believer in direct charity, so if you have a project that you would like a donation for please feel free to contact me.
• Tenant Oriented is more difficult. Tenants are very passive, tending to read rather than write consequently I have been supported by some fantastic Landlord Guest Bloggers, but no tenants – & it’s not through lack of asking. The tenant type bloggers out there who I have contacted, take the view that Landlords are the spawn of the devil, and that the exercise is a commercial one that they wouldn’t want to taint their own blog with.

The one success that I can claim is to be Duke of Pimlico! There are a couple of very good community blogs with the backing of National Newspaper groups, and some genuine community blogs covering adjoining areas, but as such my Blog is the leading Pimlico Community Blog. If anyone is seeking to establish their own Pimlico Community Blog please contact me as I don’t see the situation as competitive, and I would be delighted to help the online Pimlico community in every way.

Renting Flats in London – The Future

Tomorrow I will write about the future plans for this blog.