Kim Hadley's Blog

Hosting a blog

Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:39:52 -0800

As a web designer for Real Estate Agents, on common question I'm asked when setting up a blog, is should the blog be placed in a sub directory of a domain... i.e. www.yourdomain.com/blog or should my blog have its own domain like www.realestateblog.com?

The answer depends on your particular web and marketing strategy, as there is a good argument for both options.

Option 1: A stand alone blog (one that's hosted seperatly to your domain)

If the intention is to post frequently, or if you plan on creating a blog as a separate entity from your real estate website, then it's better to give it it's own leg to stand on.

To be successful online, it takes more than just one single website, instead you need to build your total online marketing presence. This is where having a blog on a separate domain can be beneficial. It also means frequent frequent posting of relevant content.

Having multiple websites that can show up on page one for your desired keyword can help your presence. As your blog grows, your website's credibility also grows. This happens because your blog (which has authority in the eyes of search engines) will link to your website. The key here is credibility. If your blog with its own domain is not maintained, it will not grow in authority and become an island.

Do You Want to Attract the Media?

Blogs that have their own domain typically have their own identity. This is helpful when getting the attention of the media. News organizations and editors steer away from self promotion. Which means they would be more receptive of a standalone blog who's purpose is information and not the promotion of your real estate business.

Option B: Hosting a blog in a sub directory of your domain

One of the advantages of starting a real estate blog, is to give your real estate website a SEO boost. If that is the main goal then your real estate blog is best suited on your existing domain. That is because all that fresh content you are creating with each new post, gives more food to Google and other search engines.

This is another important factor when thinking about where your blog will call home. Google and other search engines value older domains as they are seen as more trust worthy. If your domain has been around for awhile, it could be beneficial to set up the blog on your domain, as it only ads to the content and trus worthy-ness.

If driving traffic to your real estate website (and getting leads from that traffic) is your goal, then host the blog on your real estate site domain.

Conclusion

Take a few minutes to think about your own strategy. What's the main goal of the blog? How much time do you have to focus on the blog. How does a blog work into your overall marketing presence? Hopefully now that you are armed with this information, you will have a clear direction on if you should place your blog on your existing website or on a separate domain.

by Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.)

Understanding SEO Terminology

Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:52:58 -0700

One of the first steps in SEO is to design your website to target a particular audience, in this case those who are interested in buying or selling real estate in your region. Search Engine Optimization employs three basic concepts, those being text, links and increasing the popularity of your web site, all of which will be discussed in much further detail other blog posts.

1) Text

When search engines look to retrieve information, their biggest consideration is the text on the web site. This includes text that is both visible and invisible.

Although your web site may be filled with text, if it is not properly instituted, the engines won't recognize it so your 10,000 word web site, might as well be virtually blank.

Even if you have a visually stunning site that includes audio, videos and cool graphics, the engines won't see all of your hard work and instead may skip your site and return with one of your competitor's sites to display at the top of the search results page.

Text in this sense means more than the letters used when designing your copy. In order for the search engines to see your site, it needs to be in HTML coding.

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and this is what the search engine spiders see when they crawl around the net, indexing pages.

Using HTML means adding tags to the title and body of your website so that the engines can find it. For example, if the title of your page is Any Realtor in Any State, in HTML the search engines would see, <title>Any Realtor in Any State<title>.

Without those tags, the page title is invisible to the search engines. This is why it's imperative that you include these tags so that the search engines will recognize the title of your page. The same holds true for the content.

You're competitor's site may seem plain compared to yours but if it has utilized the proper type of text, then in the virtual "eyes" of the search engines it is lit up in neon and chosen for the coveted first page of search results.

2) Links

Links to your web site are another important aspect of SEO. Links increase your exposure to the search engines, leading to them to your web site and also giving them more information about the type of business your web site reflects.

Because of that the inbound links to your site need to be related to real estate. For example, property appraisers who you do business with can add a link to your site on their web page.

Both categories have to do with real estate values and real estate in general. This adds another layer of exposure to your site and more visibility that the search engines will notice.

3) Popularity

The popularity of a website is a key focus of SEO. Naturally you want your web site to be a popular tool for your clients. While this is important to please the people who view your web site, it's more important to please the search engines that bring your site to the attention of the viewer.

Search engines use algorithms to rank pages. Those pages with the highest ranking appear at the top of the search result page, while those with the lowest end up at the back of the line.

The algorithms are based on a number of factors such as links, keywords, page titles and age of the website and its popularity, not necessarily in that order.

Each search engine has its own system of page rankings and the defining algorithms used are top secret. If you are not well versed in SEO, you are virtually just rolling the dice when it comes to getting exposure for your web site.

Taking the time to employ SEO can substantially increase your odds of better exposure, not just to your clients but to the search engines where it really counts.

posted by Kim Hadley

Avoid Over Emphasis on Positioning

Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:19:50 -0700

One of the main purposes of optimizing your website is to improve its position in the search engine rankings and thus on the search results page. While I encourage you to employ the various techniques to achieve this, it's important not to over emphasize your website's position.

It won't help you to have your site returned at the top of the search engine pages if your site is not attractive to viewer's, doesn't provide the information they need or is difficult to navigate. It is important to drive traffic to your site, to be sure, but it's only 10% of the battle. The biggest part of the battle is keeping them there, offering them the information they are looking for, and then encouraging them to communicate with you.

This is why before you start worrying about getting your site to the top of the search result page; you need to make sure its worthy of that position.

I had a client who had a template site, one of the advantages of these types of sites, is they are networked and so often come up high in the search engines. He was getting over 5,000 visitors a month. Yet despite all the traffic that was being driven to the site, he had never gotten a lead from the site. There was nothing on the site to keep visitors there, no reason to communicate with him, no sense of the type of business and service this client provided.

So though he had great success with search engine traffic, the site was a total failure for his business. At Imaginations Everything we focus on getting a site working on all aspects. Sites that draw the visitor in visually, then keep them there with good content and tools are our specialty. With these elements, and strong call to action, we create sites that drive leads your way.

Keeping users on your site

Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:55:24 -0700

One of the most effective way to keep people on your website, and gaining a trust in you is to make your site user focused. The best way to make your website user focused is to find out what your potential clients really want to know. You might think that as a professional, you already know this information but don't be so sure about that.

Times change and so do the questions that people have. Also, everyone is different so they have different real estate needs.

It might seem natural to assume that most families want the white house with the picket fence and a big back yard. This may not as true as it used to be. There are a lot of single parents out there, many holding more than one job and they don't want the hassle of having to take care of a big piece of property.

One of the best ways to determine how to make your site informative is to query your past clients. Send them a survey and ask them to list what their top ten considerations were when buying or selling their homes. This way you will start off with great ideas on how to build your user focused site.

Don't forget your friends and family. Even if they don't yet own a home, it's another way to get an objective point of view and they may give you fresh insight into what your site needs to make it more user focused.

You can also ask them to view your website and determine if it would hold their attention and give them the information they felt they needed if they were considering buying or selling a home.

Lead Generating web sites

Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:16:36 -0800

There was a great comment by Patricia Aulson on a previous post of mine about how her site works for her in generating leads. It lead me to want to write about my experience as a web designer, working with realtor clients.

My background is graphic artist. I'm very interested in sites that have huge visual impact. Not a big fan of the templated site, more a fan of a nicely designed site that draws a person in to stay awhile. Working for the past 9 years with real estate agents, i know just having a visually stunning site is not enough. There has to be content, and substance and value to invite leads.

The internet has been around now for enough time for us all to be wise consumers. Your website is often the first impression a potential client has of you. They don't get your voice, how you come across, a strong hand shake, they get your index page. That index page needs to do the talking for you. The rest of the site needs to engage and inform, as well as give people what they are looking for. If it does all that, you've got leads!

The reason I don't like templated sites, is they don't do that. They are generic, and in that don't "speak" to anyone. You need to take a good look at who you are trying to engage, and speak directly to them. Whether you are specializing in high end luxury homes, or first time buyers, your site has to make that person feel like you get them. You achieve this by good design, and strong content.

We work hard with our clients creating a site that is visually strong, has good content, valuable information, and lLOTS of call to action. Every market is different, every client base different. So once a site is launched, and getting traffic, we often re-visit, revise, and re-work. That's an important step in the success as well. You have to always keep your clients in mind, and always work to cater to what they need. You do this in business naturally, your site has to do this for you.

Search Engine Optimization for Real Estate Professionals

Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:04:31 -0800

Imaginations Everything, in collaboration with Stephen Lau of Salient Marketing present a new book called Search Engine Optimization for Real Estate Professionals.

We will be offering this book as an ebook in 2008, for now we are posting it over the next few months on the Imaginations Everything blog

Here's the introduction:

Once upon a time, long before the advent of the Internet, a person just like you had a great idea for a service to sell. It didn't matter that others had the same idea and had already begun to capitalize on it. This person just knew that he could do a much better job at it and success was in the bag.

The fledgling entrepreneur spent the requisite time to learn about the real estate industry and get the required licenses to begin.

A location for an office was chosen, a lease was signed and a shingle proclaiming the business for the world to see was proudly hung outside the office. All that was needed now was an advertising campaign designed to lure in prospective clients.

The entrepreneur drew on his savings and invested a lot of money in fancy brochures and mailing lists, to say nothing of the stationery imprinted with the company name.

Stamps were purchased, envelopes were stuffed, sealed and taken to the post office. Unfortunately, many of the addresses were wrong or the recipients pegged them as junk mail and didn't bother to open them. This meant that the return was minimal.

The entrepreneur also tried cold calling, playing the odds that at least a small percentage of those that were phoned could be converted to clients. This brought some rewards, but was hard work and rejection was the usual result. Eventually, with perseverance and a lot of investment in time and money, the gamble paid off and finally success was achieved.

Today's entrepreneur's have it much easier than those of the pre-Internet generation. The Internet puts literally millions of prospective clients at your feet and all you really need to know is how to work the system.

In the olden days when a person was looking for a product or service, they turned to the yellow pages. Now, most go online where they can easily search and compare prospective companies.

When you initiate a search on the Internet, typically multiple pages will turn up, listing millions of web sites designed around your particular keywords. The majority of those searching will rarely go past the first page of results.

This is why it's important to make sure that your website is on that first page and hopefully at the top of the list so that you can gain their attention and secure their business. That's where search engine optimization comes in.

By utilizing Search Engine Optimization, you will be able garner clients from those Internet users that are searching for the service that you are offering, in this case real estate. With so many people using the Internet to find what they need, this could equate to big profits for both you and your company.

A review will be given at the end of each chapter to go over what was learned. This will give you the opportunity to recognize if there is something that you need to go over again. If so, then you should read that section again before moving on to the next chapter.

Top Ten Reasons You Need a Website

Kim Hadley (Imaginations Everything Inc.) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:31:41 -0800

A well designed, professional and informative website is your front line in marketing. Your website is a vital connection between your business and future customers. Even if you're not selling goods online, a website can attract business from far away, promote your company, and save you time and trouble.

The internet today is the research center of choice for potential customers and decision makers due to the non threatening nature of the internet. Potential clients can check you and your business out just with a click here and a click there, and can still remain anonymous while reaching a decision to buy your goods or services.

Here are 10 top reasons to have a website for your business:

Establish a presence - more and more people are shopping on line
The Internet is changing the way people shop. More and more people are looking for services and products on-line than every before. Peoples' habits are changing. People move to a new area and very often rely solely on the Internet to learn about the new area, research and find out whom to go to for what. Many people research and find their homes and jobs over the Internet. Most people are coming to expect that any professionally run business will have a web site. With a well-designed site your small business becomes a real player both on and off the net.
Expansion into a global market
with a website you can reach a global market. It's an inexpensive way to reach out around the world. Many businesses feel that the internet has opened up new markets for their business, and a high percentage feel that it has lowered their cost of doing business.
To capture the local internet audience.
The internet has become more and more local. Today instead of looking something up in the yellow pages many people just "Google it". If you're not listed in that first page or two forget it.
Respect in the marketplace & distinguishing yourself from your competitors
Websites have become standard marketing tools. A website that you are proud of can convey your specialized knowledge, your personality, and your commitment to quality. To provide basic information that establishes credibility - just as a listing in the Yellow Pages shows you are serious about your business, having your own company domain reinforces your legitimacy as a serious business.
A website can help express or establish your company's personality. Design, information and graphics can get your message across in unique and memorable ways.
To let your customers communicate with you via the internet.
New and existingcustomers want to reach you via e-mail. Your website allows your clients even greater access to communicate with you, find out more about your company or get an answer to their question.
Centralized spot to provide company and service information - Limitless information
Keeping current with your products and or services and offering advice, tips, and your industry specific insight will bring your customers back to your website for more. Your website can keep your company constantly in the forefront of your customers mind.
A typical print ad is not going to convey all the nuances of your business due to their limited space and cost constraints. Your business website has much more flexibility in getting across the finer points of your company's product and/or services. By carefully making your web address accessible in your print advertisements, you have pointed your prospects to a plethora of information that will influence their decision.
Easy and fast updates - Customers getting information when they want it and feel informed when contacting you. Think of how much time and effort (and money!) you spend keeping your clients informed. Web pages are easily changeable and updated with new information. Now think how easy it would be to let people know about your latest updates by just emailing them the web address. Having a website means that all the information you have, downloads and company forms, can be easily accessed via your website - and that cuts down on printing costs!
24/7 visibility - The internet never sleeps and neither will your website
your website is a 24/7 tool to reach your customers. You can't say that about even your hardest working sales person. By having a website, you can offer your services 24 hours a day, seven days a week to your customers. A website provides your business the ability to be eternally available for frequently asked questions, to provide directions to your business, hours, anything any customer would ever need to know!
Because it saves you money!
Use your site to answer your most frequently asked questions. How much time do you spend answering the same questions? Post a Frequently asked questions portion to your site. And show your products over the web instead of printing brochures. Send out emails to let your clients know of your company news. Save money in printing & postage. Provide information that otherwise would have needed to be mailed out.
The Bottom Line
If you don't have a Web site, you're losing business to other businesses that do.