...But what to call it?
 

Okay, so for the last few days or so, I've been mulling over something for my business. I'm thinking of starting a separate blog just to talk about real estate. Not my clients, of course, but, for example, of houses that I've seen, what prices are doing, the characteristics of neighborhoods I check out, perhaps a cool flyer that comes through my junk mail (we agents get spammed like crazy with each other's listings, lemme tell ya, but some of the homes are just gorgeous!). Anyway, I thought I'd start the blog as an enhancement to my online presence.

Now I have two dilemmas: where to do it, and what to call it. I considered getting a separate domain through godaddy and paying for their hosting and blog tools (they seem to have some sort of special going on right now, but heck if I can figure it out!), only, of course, it costs, and I still need a name. My other thought is to either use Google blogger, or livejournal. I combed through the user policy on LJ and can't find anything forbidding having more than one, and the policies against commercial activities seem to be mostly regarding banning you getting your own sponsors, as best I can tell. The advantage to google blogger may be the whole "two blogs" issue. However, I have friends on LJ, and maybe one or two of them would be interested enough to "friend" the second blog, which seems like a good idea.

And before anyone suggests it, I'm not using "realtorblog" because NAR already owns that as a domain, and since they have the copyright on "realtor" I'd rather not piss them off.

I'd like something clever, if possible, but not unprofessional, negative, or exceedingly lengthly. I've considered "HouseLady", but I'm not sure if that's too.... well, too close to housewife.

I could use some help here!

how about

"house it going?"
"shack yack"
"good fences"
"Yard Work"


/shrug

dont mind me, Ive been eating sweets all day (insert overfed bloated smilie here)

OMG, those are great! More! More! :snap:

That's what I wanted, was something with a little bit of humor that doesn't undermine my credibility. I totally love "Shack Yack", except for the implication of low-grade housing. But darnit, it's CUTE!

I was going to suggest "housetalk" but it already exists

Hosting it yourself will look more professional than using LJ or Google Blog. I don't know what GoDaddy's deal is, but it's relatively easy to find inexpensive hosting (e.g., the hosting account for LoT through lunarpages costs all of $7 per month). I use GoDaddy to register domain names because they're the cheapest, but do the hosting elsewhere.

Just my .02*

As for names suggestions:
* Blog around the Block
...

That's all I got.


*Full disclosure: The LoT gets a referral bonus for anyone signing up with Lunarpages through the link below. But my advice that it looks more professional stands whether you go with Lunarpages or not

I've seriously considered the custom domain thing, and not quite ruled it out yet, to be honest. Especially since some options come with the blogging software. I don't know if it'll be quite as easy an interface as the public blog sites though, has anyone used "other" blog software? Is it all web interface? I won't want to do it if it requires an ftp connection just to update.

If I do the custom site thing, then that means the "name" has to tie it with an overall branding of the site. To which I would eventually splash for the idx connection to the MLS (my current site has it, but it's a "template" offered by and hosted through my company, and the search function sucks, to be hones). I am in the process of teaching myself flash animation, so truly, I could eventually have some flashy professional looking stuff up there. But a lot of this is blue-sky "down the road" kind of stuff, so I'm trying not to let it have more than a reasonable influence on the decision of where to blog.

Wow, that's very similar to what I was thinking. But where he is almost 100% articles, mine might be 50% articles, 50% flow-of-thought blog posts about the area, or about real estate in general. His looks pretty sharp, doesn't it?

I'm also wondering if I should tie OC into the title somehow, or if that just gets cumbersome?

There are tons of blog software options and they are usually very straight forward to manage. WordPress is a popular one (I know mousepod uses it for his site). Everything is web-interface and the look and feel are customizable (either with a simple interface like livejournal has, or far more flexibly if you're willing to delve a little deeper).

is OCHouseTalk overdoing it?

I like housetalkOC better, but that seems more similar to houstalk than OChousetalk does.

My $.02

I like OCHouseTalk better than HouseTalkOC. It makes more sense to me grammatically.

In the Bloghouse
The Blogcabin

love it. :D you could even add the OC part to the front if you wanted

OC Blog Cabin or some such.

How about : CondosToCastles ?

Aw fudge, not only is the domain taken... it's by someone here in OC :(

condosandcastles? Then you could squeeze in a Disney plug?

Anything but "HouseLady"!

That was the thinking... but I'm not going to use something already used by another local agent team.

How about "A LoT On My Mind"? :D

- The Empty LoT
- The Annual Householder
- Casa de Culo (it'd definitely get you site traffic ;) )
- ComeHomeOC
- The Drawbridge - The gateway to your own castle!
- The OC Block Party

The Drawbridge.... hmm.... it doesn't scream "real estate", but it's not too shabby either...

(mulling it over)

OCOpenHouse

That sounds like a news paper. ;)

How about "Bob" - that's a good name.

How about something along the lines of "everything AND the kitchen sink"? Not quite sure where to take that idea, but I'm working on it.

Hmm...

Would you believe that thekitchensink.com, andthekitchensink.com and thekitchensinktoo.com are all taken? Grrr...

I don't thinnk I'm landing a custom site name to go with the blog title here... just gonna have to pair the blog up with my regular cindylambrealtor.com site. I mean, unless we suddenly come across an amazing name nobody else has thought of yet.

Jeebus... even shackyak.com and shackyack.com are taken! :(

Okay, "overthedrawbridge.com" IS available. Oy. It's long, isn't it?

I am late in coming here....

What about a link to what lead you to this profession or what it means to you?

Or, something to do with your marching band....

loveyourshack.com? {sorry, couldn't help myself with that one...}

settledown.com

LOL I know nothing about naming websites but I understand its' importance.

Laura Ingalls and her books come to mind for some reason...the whole starting out, then settling in, making your own history, etc....

I can't wait to see your site when you decide.

Here, you might need this. :cheers:

And these...:cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :D

How about O.C.Casa? Googled it and didn't come up with anything too conflicting...

AH! What about:

CasasAndCastles ? It's available! You guys like that?

Casabilities?

Whooo- that's good, GD!

Nobody likes my ideas :(

Seriously, there have been a lot of great ideas in this thread - I like most all of them!!!

Okay, I've been thinking about this for a couple days and my current frontrunner is CountyOfCastles. It's available, it ties into OC in a slightly obscure way, but one which would at least make sense to disney folks. What do you guys think?