real estate web design: Tech Support and FAQs for ActiveRain Customizer - 04/14/08 11:29 AM
As I look through ActiveRain, I am amazed at all the great looking blogs that have been created in such a short amount of time. The ActiveRainCustomizer.com website has only been live a few days and already, almost 500 people have successfully customized their ActiveRain blog. And while the overall feedback has been great, there are a few people that have had difficulty customizing their blog.
Technical Support Options Because this was simply a side project that I put together at no cost to the ActiveRain community, I am somewhat limited in the amount of time I can dedicate to … (61 comments)
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real estate web design: ActiveRain gives the "Green Light" on Customizing - ActiveRainCustomizer.com - 04/11/08 12:56 AM
ActiveRain Customizer UpdateFor the past week, I have been working with ActiveRain to move the ActiveRain Customizer from Dakno's servers to ActiveRain's servers. The ActiveRain Customizer website has been temporally disabled until the move is 100% complete. Rest assured that all blogs that have been "customized" will continue to maintain their design during this transition. Don't worry, the ActiveRain Customizer isn't going away. If anything, this move will allow us to offer even more tools to enhance your ActiveRain Blog (My Company is already cooking up a few new ideas). The AR gods tell me that they expect the Customizer to … (362 comments)
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real estate web design: Customized ActiveRain Blogs for Free – No HTML or CSS Knowledge Required. - 04/06/08 05:25 PM
I recently discovered a way to customize an ActiveRain blog. I then shared the idea on ActiveRain and even wrote a tutorial on how you can do it. The problem was that it required "coding" skills and had a potential problem with a few pages on ActiveRain. So I went back to the drawing board and figured out a way to easily create a customized Active Rain blog without any CSS/HTML knowledge and without interfering with AR's "Blog Roll" pages.
The Active Rain Custom Blog Generator I realize that for most of you, your job is to know about Real Estate, … (139 comments)
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real estate web design: Totally Redesign Your Active Rain Blog - This is Amazing! - 04/04/08 03:25 PM
Update: April 6th at 6:30pm - I just rolled out a new approach that makes it even easier to customize your ActiveRain blog - and it plays nice with all of AR's pages. Click here for details
Update: April 5th at 8:30am - As many of you may know, I recently discovered a way to totally redesign your ActiveRain blog. At 2:30AM I was contacted by Bob Stewart of ActiveRain asking me to remove this post. As a result, I have removed all of the styling that changed the look of this post (see screenshot below). In their defense, he … (92 comments)
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real estate web design: End of Year Website Checklist - 12/17/07 10:45 PM
As the end of the year quickly approaches, it’s a great time to tidy up and tie off any loose ends. While you are busy trying to finish up your end of the year todo list. Be sure to make time to give your site an annual checkup. Here are a few tips…
Contact Information Ensure that all of your contact information is still current on your website. Don’t just check the contact us page but all the other places your contact info may appear (including your footer).
Are You Still In Compliance? Has your company changed their required disclosures or … (47 comments)
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real estate web design: FSBO or Real Estate Agent… The Conclusion - 07/10/07 09:08 PM
Note: You can read the first post by clicking here.
As many of you may know. I recently wrote a post about whether to sell my house FSBO or use an agent. I must confess, although my wife and I have tossed around the idea, we are not selling our home. More importantly, we are not going to sell it FSBO. So why did I write such a controversial post? Why did I risk getting the very people who subscribe to my blog mad at me? There are actually a few reasons…
But before I jump too far into this post, … (123 comments)
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real estate web design: Is This the Next Trend With Real Estate Photos? - 06/23/07 10:59 PM
After playing around with Microsoft’s Surface, I couldn’t get their photo viewing application out of my head. I love the fact that you can move photos around as if they were on a table top. It got me thinking if this same concept could be delivered online. So last night I started playing around with a way to do something similar online.
The Concept is Still in Diapers Before I give you the link, let me first give you a few disclaimers… The demo page is not the final result but only a proof of concept. Obviously, it’s not quite … (46 comments)
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real estate web design: A New Wave of Reciprocal Links that Actually Works! - 06/15/07 11:43 AM
We all know that link exchanges are a thing of the past. Google sees right though all the proverbial “back scratching” links. The fact that they were so exploited lost almost all of their value. But with today’s Real Estate Agent using many different websites in their online presence, it just may be a good time to take another look at reciprocal links. But this time, from a totally unique approach!
Disclaimer Before we jump too far into this, it’s important to understand the different types of Search Optimization techniques. Black Hat techniques try to exploit search engines and find loopholes. … (63 comments)
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real estate web design: The Top Secret Project! …and other information you didn’t know about Google. - 06/12/07 01:41 AM
Think about this, Google accounts for over 1/2 of all searches conducted in the United States! Because of their huge market share, even small changes to Google’s ranking systems have put multi-million dollar companies, such as BMW, in Google's Blacklist (although to be fair, BMW was not playing by the rules) and have taken other companies from digital obscurity to overnight success stories. If most of your business comes from the web, it’s imperative to keep up with the latest changes with the World's Most Famous Brand.
I have talked in the past about Google’s willingness to give webmasters far more … (68 comments)
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real estate web design: The Ultimate Website Checklist - 32 Things to Evaluate in Your Website - 06/06/07 11:42 PM
Every now and then, real estate agents need to take a step back and objectively look at their website. One of the biggest challenges in doing so is knowing exactly what to look for. With this in mind, I have created a checklist that breaks down important components of your website. I suggest you go though each section and write down your answers. Remember it's important to be objective! It just may reveal some interesting information. Below is an overview of the checklist. My other blog contains the full Real Estate Website Checklist that goes into more detail about each of … (32 comments)
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real estate web design: Setting The Record Straight About Duplicate Content - 06/05/07 11:10 PM
It seems like every day you read a different opinion on Duplicate Content. "Don't do it! Your site will get banned!" some people say. I would always get hammered with criticism when I would chime in and tell them that it's simply not true and that most people don't need to worry about duplicate content penalties. After all, if this was Google's policy, then I could just make a copy of my competitor's site and watch them get kicked out of Google.
Syndicating Content Last week the Real Estate Institute of Queensland Australia contacted me asking permission to reprint one of … (51 comments)
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real estate web design: The Formula For a Successful Website - 05/30/07 05:17 AM
By now, you already know that SEO is not as hard as people make it out to be. You're getting alerts every time Google adds your pages to their search engine. More and more people are starting to come to your website because of your link building on Social Networks. You're watching your stats and paying attention to what's important. Everything is in place right? So why are you not getting that flood of new leads you were expecting? Because your website isn't converting those visitors into leads!
Sometimes we get so caught up in getting more traffic that we don't … (84 comments)
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real estate web design: What to Watch When Tracking Stats - 05/29/07 02:47 AM
Don't Get Caught Up In Information Overload The problem isn't information. It's usually too much information! With so much data, it's easy to get overwhelmed and not really know what to focus on. To avoid this, I approach Analytics the same way I approach SEO. Keep it simple and let the facts speak for themselves.
The Right Tools for The Right Job The best way to get an objective overview of your site is to use different tools. Below are a few of the more valuable tools that I recommend.
Webalizer Webalizer is a down and dirty stats program. It's great … (14 comments)
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real estate web design: Link Condoms on Active Rain - 05/28/07 07:05 PM
Don't worry. This is a G rated post :-)
In the few days that I have been on Active Rain, I have noticed a few people adding links in the signature of their comments. Obviously, these people understand the importance of backlinking and anchor text. Not only is adding keywords in comments a little spammy, it's also gives you no boost in search engines. Here's why.
NoFollow Means No Credit Active Rain adds a special tag to all links in comments. People in the SEO world commonly refer to this tag as a link condom. It's official name is the Nofollow … (18 comments)
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real estate web design: Stop Saying SEO is Difficult and Start Reading The Directions! - 05/28/07 03:48 AM
I hear people talking all the time about how mysterious Google’s algorithms are. “It’s like playing a game and not knowing the rules” they say. When I hear this, I think to myself, “No. It’s like playing a game without first reading the directions!”
Yes, that’s right. Google gives clear directions on how to win the Google game. The problem is, too many people start to immediately roll the dice - thinking the whole time they are playing the game. When in reality, they don’t even know how the game is played They simply make up their own rules and … (71 comments)
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real estate web design: Are You Getting SEO Reports Directly From Google? I Am! - 05/27/07 11:04 PM
Google has a great tool to alert you when they find a new backlink or see content written about you on the web. I was shocked when one of my clients said they didn’t even know this tool even existed. I figured if he didn’t know about the tool, others may be in the same boat. So I did the only logical next step. I jumped on Active Rain and his that magical new post button.
Google Alerts Notifications directly to your inbox. Google Alerts allows you to setup notification emails when Google picks up new content related to a specific … (39 comments)
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real estate web design: Link Building - Social Networking Sites - 05/26/07 12:41 AM
div.cpad {border: 1px solid #213755; background: #FBFAEA; padding: 10px; font-family:arial; font-size:13px; line-height: 2em;} h2 {border-bottom:1px solid #990000; color:#990000!important; font-family:Trebuchet MS,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:22px!important; font-size-adjust:none; font-stretch:normal; font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:0pt; line-height:24px; margin:0pt 0pt 2px; padding:6px 0pt 5px; } h3 { color:#DDA603; font-family:"Trebuchet MS",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:15px!important; font-size-adjust:none; font-stretch:normal; font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:normal; margin:0pt; padding:0pt; } .cpad h2 {border-bottom:1px solid #000000; color:#000000!important; font-family:Trebuchet MS,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:19px!important; font-size-adjust:none; font-stretch:normal; font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; letter-spacing:0pt; line-height:24px; margin:0pt 0pt 2px; padding:6px 0pt 5px; } a { color:#356D9E; text-decoration:underline; } a:hover { color:#ffffff; text-decoration:none; background:#356D9E; border 1px solid #DDA603 } div.logo {display:none;} I had a few people read my last post and ask … (9 comments)
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real estate web design: Next Time, Think About Your Username - 05/25/07 11:27 PM
Boost Your SEO with a Good Username No. Really. It's True. The next time you sign up for Squidoo, My Space, Active Rain, etc., think about your username. Here is the trick. Most sites use your username as the link to your profile. For example the link to my Active Rain Profile is www.activerain.com/realestatewebdesign. So why didn't I just sign up as BradCarroll or something unique? Three letters - SEO.
Keywords In Your Link With An Added Bonus Google pays attention to keywords in the address bar. When they see the keywords "real estate web design", they think, okay, this page/site … (30 comments)
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real estate web design: Revealing New Statistics Show that Internet Savvy Buyers Make the Best Real Estate Clients - 05/25/07 07:59 PM
I recently got my hands on survey results from the California Association of REALTORS. It has some pretty revealing stats on Internet Real Estate Buyers vs Traditional Real Estate Buyers. I decided to pull out the highlights and compiled the info into a Squidoo Lens (link bait) :-)
As a web developer, I sometimes hear that Internet leads take a longer time to turn into sales. Now I have some great ammo to come back with! Plus, automation allows you to cultivate the lead without a ton of hand-holding.
I have a Real Estate Client in Sunnyvale (www.sunnyvalerealestate.com ) He told me … (10 comments)
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