My Real Estate Techno-Blog

What 3 Questions Do You Have?

2008-08-18T16:27:32Z

So over the weekend, I was thinking about some new ideas that I think people in the real estate industry would be interested in and while I came up with a few, I would rather write about things that you would want.

After all, the best way to help others out is to figure out what their problems are :).

So that being said, I want all of your answers for this question:

If you had 3 questions about how to market yourself online better, what would they be?

I'm talking anything that could lead to better online marketing. Would you be interested in learning about how to properly utilize social networking sites? How about some sort of a top 10 resource list? What about how to build or monetize a website? Interested in implementing RSS or podcasting? Seriously... anything.

If you wanted to learn about how to do something online, this is your chance. If I find a lot of people are interested in the same thing, I will make a tutorial or tutorial series (step-by-step if applicable) about it and post it here and on my other personal blog. Like they say in Jerry McGuire: "Help me help you" ;-).

Then again, if someone just has a great idea, I will try to write about that too.

So please, if you have anything at all that you want to learn about online, add your comment to this blog post. I will check it occassionally.

Also, if you know people who may be interested in this that may not know about it, be sure to tell them about it!

Looking forward to all your comments and questions.

Humor: Craigslist Reply to a Post

2008-08-05T17:47:01Z

I actually had this passed on to me, and thought it was worth sharing for a little laugh. I hope this does not offend anyone and if it does, I apologize. Anyways, it has to do with a Craigslist post about a woman stating what she is looking for in a man and the reply she gets from it. It's about 6 months old, but if you haven't seen it, it is pretty humerous. Let me know what you think.

*** The Post: ***

What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy.
I’m not from New York . I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 - 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms

-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won’t hurt my feelings

-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I’m 25)?

- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I’ve seen really ‘plain jane’ boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I’ve seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What’s the story there?

- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows - lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults - I’m putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t able to match them - in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 432279810

*** The Response ***

Dear Pers-431649184:

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament.
Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here’s how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity…in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold…hence the rub…marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. In case you think I’m being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It’s as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as “articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful”
as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn’t found you, if not only for a tryout.

By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn’t need to have this difficult conversation.

With all that said, I must say you’re going about it the right way.
Classic “pump and dump.”
I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

How to Optimize Your Ads for Maximum Clicks

2008-07-21T10:42:36Z

If you have read the first two parts of this mini series, you will have a good understanding on what AdSense is, what it can do for your website and how to actually implement it. In this last part, you will learn some optimization tricks that will help you get more people to click the ads on your site, which will bring in more money for you.

Optimization Trick 1: Place ads in high-view and high-click areas

This is something that is pretty obvious, but the question is knowing where the high-click areas are on your site. Now, while this will probably vary from one site to the next, there are traditionally a few core spots on every webpage that get the most attention from visitors. These can be seen in the chart below:

This is actually a heat map provided by Google which graphically depicts where most people look on a web page. The darker the color, the more people look in that area. So knowing this, it would be best to place your AdSense ads in these dark areas. While this is not always doable, try to at least get your AdSense blocks/units in the orange areas.

Optimization Trick 2: Think Above the Fold

So what does it mean by “Above the Fold”? Above the Fold simply means the parts of your webpage that can be seen without people having to scroll down or sideways. It is the default information that can be seen when a visitor first loads your webpage.

By placing your AdSense blocks Above the Fold, you will be sure that everyone will be able to see the ads on your site. After all, not everyone will scroll down or sideways on your site, so by placing it above the fold, you will make sure the most amount of visitors will see them as possible.

Optimization Trick 3: Beware the 468 x 80 Banner

While there are a variety of advertising formats you can use with AdSense, try to stay away from the 468 x 80 banner when customizing your AdSense ads. Since the 468 x 80 banner was pretty much the first kind of advertisement on the Internet, they were… well, abused pretty badly. People would put numerous ads of this format on every page back in the day, which quickly led to people becoming naturally desensitized to these types of ads.

If you put one of these kinds of ads on your site, they will scream to the visitor “Hey, I’m an Advertisement!”, which will get people looking away from it immediately. So if you have the option, try to use the other forms of ad blocks that are available.

Optimization Trick 4: Make your Ads Blend in with your site

One of the greatest things you can do to increase clicks to your AdSense ads is to make them look like part of your website. When formatting your AdSense blocks, Google allows you to change the colors of the borer, title, background, text and URL. This allows you to completely customize your ads to make them look exactly like they were content on your page. And if people think the ads are part of your page, they will more than likely click on them.

So there you have it. While there are a variety of optimization tricks you can do to increase the clickability of AdSense ads on your site, these are some of the core optimization tricks that have been known time and time again to be successful.

One thing to keep in mind though is to read the AdSense Terms of Use agreement when thinking about trying out new optimization tricks. If you decide to do something that Google doesn’t like, then they will ban your account, which means you will no longer be able to use AdSense unless you have another bank account you can use.

Step-by-Step: How To Put AdSense On Your Site

2008-07-16T11:51:43Z

In the first part of this series, you learned about what AdSense is, how it can be used to monetize your site and some of the main positive and negative effects of implementing it. This second installment will tell you exactly how to set up AdSense on your site from the very beginning.

Step 1: Sign up for an account

The first thing you’ll need to do is sign up for an AdSense account. This can be done by going to the AdSense site and clicking on the Sign up now button.

When you are filling out the form, you’ll notice that it asks you for your website or blog. Before you complete the form, make sure your website has relevant and quality content with little to no advertisements on it or else your AdSense application may get declined.

Once you filled out the application form and followed the directions, you will (hopefully) be approved. When you get approved, you can now log into your account and configure your AdSense advertisements.

Step 2: Setting up your AdSense

Once you log in, click the AdSense Setup link in the navigation bar.

You will now be presented with all the different advertising options you can choose from. While you should experiment with all the different ad options, we’ll do a content advertisement here. So we will click the AdSense for Content link.

This next step asks you whether to use text ads or link ads. With link ads, people will have to click twice for you to get paid: one on the link and another on one of the ads that shows up on the new page. Text and image ads only need to be clicked once to get paid, so we’ll choose one of these or a combination of both.

The next phase allows you to choose the size, color scheme and style of your ads. To figure out what all the ad formats look like, click on the Ad Formats link to see all the different options you can choose from. When you find one that you like, select it from the dropdown box to the right.

Next comes the color scheme. This is important as it can really increase and decrease the rate people will click on the ads (this will be discussed in Part 3 of this series). Right now, just fiddle with all the different colors to see how they impact your ads, which can be previewed in real-time on the left hand side of all the color options.

Finally there is the corner style. These are pretty self-explanatory, so just select what kind of corners you want your ads to have.

You’ll notice the last option talks about Alternate ads or colors. These ads/colors will be used if the AdSense network can not find any relevant ads for your page as discussed in Part 1 of this mini-series. Public service ads will not pay you anything if they are clicked and well, a solid color is a solid color which won’t even do anything if its clicked on. That leaves the third option. While you won’t get paid if they are clicked, clicking the Show non-Google ads from another URL option will at least allow you to have people go to another one of your sites.

When you are done with all these options, click the Continue button.

Next comes the Ad Channel. An Ad Channel is really a way for you to track how individual AdSense blocks are performing. They are not required, but they are a good idea to have. To make an Ad Channel, click on the Add new channel link at the bottom and give it a name that will help you reference the specified AdSense block. Once you create your ad channel, click the add >> button next to it to add it to your AdSense block. Then click continue.

This is a pretty self-explanatory next step: just give your AdSense block a name and click the Submit and Get code button.

Step 3: Publishing the Code on your Site

This is the step where you actually put the code required to show ads on your site. This is obviously a more advanced step and if you do not know anything about HTML, then you should give this code to your webmaster to place on your site. If you have someone else do this step for you, make sure to tell them where you want the ads to show up, as that will determine where the code is to be placed on your website.

There you have it, the entire process from start to finish to placing advertisements on your website using AdSense. It really is a very simple process and after you do it a couple of times, it will become second nature.

Be sure to look out for the third and final installment of this little series, where I will discuss how to optimize your ads to get hte most amount of clicks you can get, which in turn leads to more money in your pocket.

Is It Worth Monetizing Your Site With AdSense?

2008-07-14T12:23:03Z

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I put a post up here on my blog. It’s amazing how fast time flies!

Anyways, I thought I would start a little (I’m thinkin’ it will consist of 3 parts) mini-blog series on the topic of AdSense. Within the past month, I have been encountered by some people about learning how to monetize their website and while there are numerous ways that this can be done, AdSense is one of the easiest methods to implement.

Not only that, but it is also one of the easiest ways to make money!

That being said, some of you may be interested in AdSense and what it will do for your website (providing you have one, of course). Here, I will discuss some of the benefits and downfalls of AdSense on your site. Hopefully it will provide some insight for you as to whether or not you think it is worth implementing. So let’s get started!

What the heck is AdSense anyways?

Simply put, AdSense is a marketing system developed by Google that allows people who own websites to generate an income off of them by displaying advertisements from Google’s advertising network. All you need to do is sign up for an account, do some various configuring for the type of ads you want, and paste some code on your website (all this will be discussed in the second part of this mini-series).

AdSense is categorized as a cost-per-click (CPC) monetization method, which means every time someone clicks on any of the AdSense ads on your page, you make money. It doesn’t matter what the user does once they click on the ad, just so long as they click on it, you get paid.

Believe it or not, it’s really that simple.

Even though AdSense may sound amazing, you should really think about if it is right for your website and the goals you are trying to accomplish. To figure that out, you really need to analyze the positive and negative effects of AdSense.

AdSense: The Positive Stuff

I have actually already discussed some of the benefits of AdSense already, but it never hurts to reiterate them.

The first and most obvious method is that it can be pretty darn easy to make money with it. Heck, all a user has to do is click on one of the ads on your website and you make money. It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Another nice benefit of AdSense is that the Google network will only serve relevant ads which relate to the webpages they are on. Granted, there is the occasional situation where if AdSense can’t find any relevant ads, it will display a public service ad (which won’t pay you if people click on them) but hey, you have the option of changing that. I’m getting too ahead of myself though, that’ll be discussed more in part 2 of this series...

Also, you actually get to choose not only where the ads should be placed on your site, but you can also choose what size, color, style and format they should be in. That being said, you can really customize your ads any way you want them. Some ways work better than others, which will probably be discussed in part 3 of this series.

The last main benefit of AdSense is you can literally be making money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (including holidays!). I don’t think anyone would have a problem with a little extra residual income in their lives, especially since it all automatic.

AdSense: The Negative Stuff

With all those benefits, it can be hard to think of any negative things, but there are.

First has to do with the payouts. A couple years back, Google implemented a new feature that seriously hindered the amount of money people could make off of AdSense (I won’t get into the details). This allows advertisers to directly state how much they will be willing to pay for AdSense advertisements, which is not nearly as much as it used to be back in the day (oh what beautiful days those were…).

Now while it is not certain of the breakdown (as it has never been disclosed), a lot of research has stated that Google pretty much splits the advertising revenue in half with you. That means if an advertiser was willing to pay $1.00 for each time someone clicked on an AdSense ad on your site, Google would get roughly $.50 and you would get roughly $.50 for each click.

Now that you know about the revenue breakdown of AdSense, it’s important to know how much and how little money people can spend for AdSense advertisements. When it comes to advertising via the AdSense network, advertisers can bid as low as $.01 for every click (they can bid as much money as they want though). Fortunately, due to the high demand of real estate-oriented advertising, you probably will not get any $.01 ads on your site.

Knowing how much (or, how little) people can pay for advertising via AdSense comes probably the largest negative aspect of AdSense: the opportunity cost of leads. By putting AdSense on your site, you are really enticing people who visit your site to actually leave it and go somewhere else. So, if advertisers are only willing to spend a couple of bucks, that means you are automatically turning away a potential lead for $1.00. Is it worth it?

Now that you know some of the positive and negative effects of placing AdSense ads on your website, it is up to you to choose whether or not you think it would be something worth implementing. For those of you who are interested in pursuing it farther, I’ll be writing the second installment of this series in the not-too-distant future, which will discuss how to put AdSense on your site.

Desparation: Buy One House, Get One Free and More

2008-06-04T22:17:18Z

Alright, I know that times are tough in the real estate industry, but never did I ever expect to see something like this before. In Escondido, California there is supposedly a development group called Michael Crews Development that took the controversial leap and offered to give a house valued at $400,000 to anyone who bought a house valued at $1.6 million or more in the area called the Royal View Community.

I actually came across this at the Luxist Blog, but I had troubles actually trying to find this deal on the Michael Crews Development site. There was also a post done on this blog where another property group is willing to give anyone a Maserati Quattroporte with the purchase of one of their $2.2-$3.6 million townhomes in Bellaire.

So, that being said, what do you think about this? Do you think it's over the top or appropriate for these kinds of high-end properties?

WSJ States Big Improvements Aren't Providing Returns

2008-05-16T10:25:22Z

I know this is a little outdated (well, it was in yesterday's Wall Street Journal), but I thought I would briefly talk about it here in case anyone missed it. The article talked about how big renovations (i.e. remodeling) are providing not only little to no returns, but they could actually be hurting your sale price.

The idea behind this was pretty simple: housing prices continue to rise and people don't want to spend additional money. Adding large-scale renovations is only going to increase the sale value of the house, which will turn off potential buyers.

The article also stated that smaller-scale improvements such as adding granite countertops are the best way to go in today's market.

Anyone have any experiences to back up what WSJ is saying?

Words that Sell and Words that Don't

2008-05-12T11:37:45Z

Extremedirectmarketing.com recently did a study on direct marketing that the results of using certain words in your advertisements. Their results were very surprising and I thought were worth sharing with everyone. Even though the results were based on Canadian homes, I am sure some elements would relate to the US market.

Here are some of the key points worth mentioning:

Listings where the seller was actually motivated took 15% longer to sell and sold for 4% less.
Houses listed as "handyman specials" sold in half the average time.
Words used to accentuate curb appeal helped sell houses faster than words more focused on value and price.
Homes described as "beautiful" not only moved 15% faster, but also sold 5% higher compared to average listings.
Homes described as "good value" sold for 5% less than average.
Instant action words like "must see!" had little to no effect on how quickly the house sold
Houses where an emphasis was placed on landscaping sold 20% faster
Houses labeled as ready to move in told 12% less time to sell, but had little to no effect on the price
Words the relate to desirable attirbutes (i.e. "granite", "gourmet", etc.) translated to higher sales prices
Words like "quiet" and "clean" had zero and negative effects on the sale price

I'm interested to hear what you think about these, so please share your thoughts!

AMAZING Business Cards Designs (You Gotta See These)!

2008-05-07T10:24:49Z

A while back, I was looking for some design ideas for my business card and couldn't believe some of the things I came across. They were incredible! Even though they are probably very expensive to produce, I thought they were definitely worth sharing.

I would love to hear your feedback on these as well. Which one(s) are your favorite and why? Heck, they may even give you some creative ideas for your business cards :).

(Somewhat) Advanced Blogging Publicity Tactics

2008-05-05T09:59:00Z

For a couple of posts now, I have been talking about some various ways to not only publicize your blog into the blogging world (a.k.a the “blogosphere”). Now I thought it would be good to give you some more advanced strategies to help promote your blog that a lot of people don’t know about (or have never thought of).

Advanced Tactic 1: BlogTipping

When I normally talk about this with people, the first thing that normally comes up is the idea of ‘cow tipping’. I’m not really sure why that is, since it has absolutely nothing to do with cows (or that kind of tipping), but you can think of it like more of the idea of tipping a waiter/waitress.

So here’s what the idea of blogtipping is about: You go to someone’s blog that is in the same industry as yours and you ‘tip’ them. Tipping can be monetary if you want it to (you’ll see many people have virtual tip jars on their blogs), but it usually has to do with publicly complementing them on the blogs and the quality of their content.

Here’s the effect: the author(s) are flattered that you took the time and energy (as little as it may be) to complement them on their post. By leaving a link to your blog with your tip, chances are they will have a look at your blog as well as interact with it (whether it be a simple ‘thank you’ or something better). If When they see you have some great content, chances are they will also start sending traffic your way. Whether it be from just talking about your blog in a post or creating a permanent link to it on their blog, you end up winning.

Think about it: If someone spent the time to publicly complement you on your work, wouldn’t you want to return the favor in some way?

This simple strategy has been around for some time and still seems to work wonders, yet people never really think about it.

Advanced Tactic 2: Establish the “You” Brand

Good blogs are those which people will occasionally go back to for new content. Great blogs are the ones that establish an identity that people remember.

You probably know from personal experience that it’s aggravating when you can’t find something you ran into a while ago that you really liked. This is where branding comes into play…

While it is important to use branding on your own blog, it is equally (well… probably more) important to brand yourself using external sources.

One of the more well-known places to implement personal branding is through Technorati. If you don’t know, Technorati is a tagging service so you can help people find your blog by associating it with ‘tags’, or keywords.

So, if you use a service like Technorati, use various tagging to explain the theme(s) of your blog, but don’t forget to use your own name as a tag as well. That way, when people type your name into an engine, they’ll be able to learn about everything you have written about.

Simple Way to Promote Your Blog and Lure in Others

2008-05-01T10:58:07Z

Throughout this little mini-series on the Blog portion of my Realtor Web Marketing installments (can be found on my personal blog), you have learned not only how to set up your blog, but also the things you can (and should) do to help get your sites noticed by both the search engines as well as other bloggers.

The question is, how can we make this process easier on ourselves.

In other words. how can we lure other people in to not only view your blog, but to possibly promote it as well?

Here’s a hint: It’s a numbers game.

It has been proven time and time again that people are attracted to numbers. Numbers usually help explain things easier (unless your talking about Calculus…). So how can we use this to our advantage?

The answer: make your blog posts and titles number-friendly.

Here’s an example: Say I am writing a post about how to make a good looking website that would attract visitors. Instead of just writing about the different characteristics of a good site, I could make a Top 10 list.

So if my old title would have been: “How to make a great looking website for your visitors”, I could make it more attractive by saying “Top 10 things to make a great looking website for your visitors”.

That way, people know exactly what they are getting: 10 things to make a great website.

Just remember this: for the most part, people like to read lists versus paragraphs (yeah, I know I am a hypocrite seeing how my blog is formatted, but I’m not really aiming for much popularity here). After all, most people skim versus read.

So here are some ideas you could do to use numbers to your advantage:

10 Easy Steps to…
Top 10 Myths of…
A 101 List of…
To 25 resources for…
etc. etc.

Really, you can pretty much turn anything you write about into a number-friendly format. Again, people like easy reads, so if you provide that for them, they’ll visit (and possibly promote) your blog.

Realtor Web Marketing: Basic Blog Publicity Tactics

2008-04-30T11:18:03Z

So last time, we talked about where to get content to write about and how you should make posts. Now is where the fun part comes in:

Publicizing Your Blog

Now you really shouldn’t be publicizing your blog until you have a decent amount of posts (like 15-20). If you try promoting your blog to other people and they see you only have 1-2 posts, they may think you are creating a spam blog (known as a “splog”). You need a decent amount of quality content before doing any promotions.

Here are a couple of great areas where you can start promoting your blog:

Blog Directories
Other People’s Blogs in your same industry/niche
Related Forums

Obviously, I can’t recommend any specific resources for the above since… well, everyone will have blogs with a different focus. But just go to your favorite search engine and search for these things in your related area.

Now a lot of people seem to screw this up because they don’t know how to properly promote their blog through the above channels. Here is what not to do:

Make a post with only your URL
Talk about things not related to the subject matter
Post about your blog being better than the place you are posting at

This may seem obvious to you, but I have seen people do this so many times it’s not even funny. Not only will people not go to your blog, but they will also tell other people not to go do your blog.

That being said, you can consider blogs and forums like little communities; they’re not fond of solicitors or people trying to ruin what they have.

Fortunately, the solution to this is very easy: post about things relevant to the topics at hand. It’s normally good to create a reputation before promoting your own blog, but if its relevant to what’s being talked about, let them know!

Now, the options I told you about for promoting your blog is only the tip of the iceberg, but it will act as a great foundation. Now go out there and let the world know about your blog!

Realtor Web Marketing: (Virtually) Unlimited Ideas to Blog About

2008-04-28T15:18:06Z

In the first installment of this series, we talked about setting up your blog. The last installment talked about things you need to consider when adding content to your blog. Now comes the all-important question that most bloggers encounter:

What the heck am I supposed to blog about?!

Granted, you should probably talk about stuff that is occurring in your local area, but what happens when that resource is tapped?

Here’s a two-sentence explanation on why this question is important: Everyone (both people and search engines) love new content on a regular (preferably daily) basis. If you don’t supply your audience with that new content, they will stop visiting your blog.

What Should You Write About?

So how can you avoid running into the dilemma of not having anything to write about? Well, here’s what I do: when I run out of ideas to blog about, I start blogging about things like:

Recent news stories in my industry/niche
Articles that are based in my industry/niche
Recent blog posts from people affiliated with my blog

99.9% of the time, there is always something to blog about in one of the above 3 categories.

With articles, their are special sites that you can go do for an unlimited supply (pretty much), but when it comes to recent news and blogs, there is only one tool I use: Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a pretty straightforward system: you enter some words/phrases you want info for and your email address. Once you great a Google Alert, it will then email on a daily basis with the most recent news stories and blog posts affiliated with those words/phrases in the last 24 hours.

Best of all, it’s free.

So no need to complain or worry about not having content to write about; you can now get new material to write about daily in your Inbox.

How Should I Write my Posts?

One thing you need to understand with the blogging world (a.k.a the “Blogosphere”) is that it is very down to earth. Everything Almost everything you learned in your High School English class can be tossed out the window, for blogs don’t take sentence structure or MLS format into consideration.

Bloggers write how they speak.

It’s much more personal and a lot less formal compared to writing a paper or an article. That’s what makes blogging so great; it’s much more real, so to speak. So put some enthusiasm in your posts and get your visitors excited to read what you are writing about!

Realtor Web Marketing - Start to Amplify the Power of Your Blog

2008-04-25T15:51:44Z

In my first installment of web marketing with blogs, I discussed the various things you need to consider when choosing a blogging platform and where to set it up. Now that your blog is set up, we can move on to the next steps…

Step 3: Use Effective Title’s

In the word of Search Engine Optimization (geek terminology, don’t worry about it), there is something called on-site optimization, which in short is what you can do on your site to make it show up higher in the search engines for people to find. While there are a lot of factors that go into this, your Blog’s title and the titles for each individual post are some of the more important factors for you to focus on.

So What Should You Put in Your Titles?

You obviously want titles that will catch your reader’s attention, but if you want to help your site rank higher in the search engines, ask yourself:

What words and phrases would people search for to find my site?

Make them specific. Trust me, unless you are willing to spend a lot of time and money, your answer should not be “real estate“, for that is a ridiculously competitive phrase that companies with the fat checkbooks fight over.

You need to think more specific. Adding such things as your city, state, and type of real estate will really help you out.

So, instead of “real estate”, how about “Jacksonville FL single family homes”? Now you obviously won’t be able to put “Jacksonville FL single family homes” in every title for every post… that would just irritate your visitors. But what you’ll want to do is use parts of this phrase as much as you can in your titles (providing it is relevant) as well as use the phrase in your post.

This is what we call “keyword density”, which is the percentage that your keyword shows up on a page. To be safe, search engines usually like it between 3-5%, but don’t freak out if you are not in between these percentages.

Step 4: Set Up Some Plugins to Help Spread The Word On Your Blog (Advanced)

In the world of WordPress, Plugins are considered little widgets that help increase the functionality of your site. Some of these plugins can also help spread the word about your site.

Here’s a nice list of WordPress Plugins that you may be interested in browsing: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

While there are a ton of plugins, there are a couple I would recommend for helping spread the word of your blog: Sociable (has to do with social bookmarking) and All in One SEO Pack (has to do with helping your blog get higher in the search engines). Once you download them, just take the folders in your archive and put them in your wp-content/plugins folder. This requires some technical experience, so you may want to ask your server’s customer support to help you.

Alright, that’s good for now. See you in the next installment.

Realtor Web Marketing - Starting With A Blog

2008-04-24T10:28:10Z

As I was pondering how to start this ongoing series to help realtors market themselves online, I thought to myself,

What better way to start this Web Marketing series than to discuss how realtors and agents can market themselves without having their own website?

The solution: create a website out of a blog.

That being said, the first part of this series will deal with effectively marketing a blog, starting from the beginning:

Step 1: Picking A Blog Solution That is Right For You

There are many blog solutions freely available that you can use to start your web presence. Probably the top 3 freely available blog solutions are (in no particular order):

Blogger: https://www.blogger.com/start
WordPress: http://www.wordpress.com/
MovableType: http://www.movabletype.org/

To figure out which solution is best for you, you will just have to go to each of these sites and figure out which features and options are most important to you.

My Personal Recommendation:

When it comes to choosing a blog solution, I recommend WordPress. I have been using their platform for years and it is backed by a great community with new gadgets and functions developed daily to make your site better for the end user. Ideally, you will download Wordpress and install it on your own hosting service for maximum customization and effectiveness.

Step 2: Set Up Your Blog On a Hosting Service

While you do have the option of setting up your blog right through WordPress or Blogger, you are really better off setting it up on your own hosing plan.

Why?

Well for starters, why have your website as http://www.wordpress.com/yourname when you can have it as http://www.yourname.com? It’s much more personalized and professional using the latter method (especially when you are going to market it). It also gives you the ability of more customization.

Where can I get one of these ‘Hosting Plans’?

If you don’t have your own hosting service, I would recommend 1and1. With domain names (ie: www.yourname.com) as low as $6.99 per year and hosting plans as low as $3.99 per month, you can have your personal site up and running for very little cost. I personally use them for some of my sites and have not had many problems with them whatsoever.

The Problem:

Installing your own blogging platform on your own server requires some technical experience. To help you out, here are some great tutorials on how to easily install WordPress on your own server.

Install and Download Video Tutorial
WordPress For Beginners Tutorial Series

Fortunately, there is also Customer Support. With 1and1, it may take them 24-48 hours to get back to you about setting up your own blog but hey, with any luck, you may actually be able to get them to set it up for you (I’m not making any promises, though).

In the next installment, I’ll start talking about the next steps you can take once your blog is up and running. If you ever want to see the next installments in advance, you can find them at my (other) blog: Codename: Real Estate.

Posting New Listings On ActiveRain - Does it Help?

2008-04-23T18:13:05Z

I am still pretty new to ActiveRain and even though I am not a real estate agent myself, I keep seeing people post on their blogs about their new listings.

So my question to you is this: have people who post new listings to their blogs seen direct results of this leading to new leads or offers?

I understand the idea that it's good to publish and advertise anywhere you can, but since this is a real estate industry-oriented community, do many people (outsiders, dare I say ;) ) who are looking for properties come here?

I would love to get your feedback on this, especially if you have posted listings on your activerain blog.

Realtor Web Marketing: Debuting My Ongoing Series

2008-04-23T13:52:48Z

I thought I would start an ongoing series of web marketing tips and tactics that I have been using for the past couple of years (and continue to use) to help promote my websites. While it would be way too overwhelming to put every single tip in one post, I plan to just break it up into little pieces and post them on a daily basis.

I will try to keep them categorized, but I’m not making any guarantees :). After all, I need to categorically brainstorm everything, which will take some time.

Having said that, the titles of each part this series will probably be dynamic, as I will be changing them to try and make it more organized for you to follow.

These marketing strategies will be taken from the assumption that readers will have no experience with online marketing, so I will first start out with the bare fundamentals (ie, learning how to set things up to promote in the first place).

I hope people will enjoy and learn from this series, and if you ever want to read them in advance, I will be posting all of them on my personal blog, Codename: Real Estate before they show up on my blog here at ActiveRain.

Keep a lookout for the first part and if you have any suggestions or things you want to learn about, please be sure to let me know!

Energy Investments... it's not something Starbucks can sell.

2008-04-22T10:17:17Z

In my last post which discussed the whole idea of having a sufficient amount of capacity, I stated that I would talk about some of the things I did to help invest and analyze my energy.

Analyzing your energy may seem difficult since you are trying to measure something intangible, but it really isn't as hard as one may think. Here's a couple of things I did to get started:

Go To Bed Earlier & Wake Up Earlier

I normally went to bed at 11:30 to midnight. I don't know, I just always seemed to be occupied with something (i.e. watching a show, surfing the web, etc.) until late at night. So, every Monday night I would go to bed at 9:00-9:30 and wake up at 5:00 (versus my usual routine which was going to bed at 11:30 and waking up at 6:30).

Quick Note: Start off with one day at a time; it really makes this work a lot easier if you take baby steps.

When I would get up at 5:00, I would surprisingly feel more awake compared to waking up at 6:30. Obviously, it ~~was~~ is difficult to get up when it's pitch black out, but once you get in and out of the shower, things seem to pick up.

And wouldn't you know it... I started to notice a difference in productivity on my Tuesday's versus the rest of the week. I felt more energetic and more focused on my work... something which no triple-shot-caffenatedchino has ever done for me. This led to me getting more things accomplished in my day.

Once you are able to successfully achieve this for about 3 weeks, add another day. Again, do this in steps or else it will really take out your motivation (this is coming from experience).

Intentionally Take Breaks

It may sound like an oxymoron to intentionally take breaks to be more productive, but it is surprisingly the opposite. Every day at 2:00-2:30pm, I stop everything I am doing and focus on something that relaxes my mind. For you, it could be reading a book, shutting your eyes for a bit, or taking a walk outside. No matter what it is, make sure you take a 15 minute break to do it.

During this process, try not to think of work either. If you do, it really eliminates the purposes. The goal of this is to come back rejuvenated so you can allocate more time and energy in your work, thus making you more productive.

I choose between 2:00-2:30 because that is normally when I need it the most. I always seem to be more productive before lunch, but it may be different for you.

Try working on these things as soon as possible. I can tell you from experience, working off of natural energy is a beautiful thing. It keeps you motivated and helps you be more productive. Plus as an added benefit, you feel better about yourself when you know you accomplished a lot in one day.

Not to mention that not having to rely on Starbucks every morning is financially satisfying as well :).

What is Your Capacity?

2008-04-21T16:24:41Z

I thought something good to get started here would be to talk about something that I have been working on for quite some time now: capacity. I’m not talking about physical capacity (well, maybe a little), but more about your mental capacity and how you can be ~~mis~~using it as a real estate agent.

One thing that I have learned over time is a pretty simple idea: If you don’t have capacity in yourself, you will never be able to bring out your talent.

It only took me years to figure this out, but this ideology really changed things around for me, and I bet it could do the same for you.

So What The Heck Is This ‘Capacity’ That I Am Talking About?!

The idea sounds easy enough (after all, it’s just a sentence), but the meaning behind it is where the true potential can be found. Let me know if this reminds you of anybody…

If a real estate agent has a very busy schedule (paperwork, errands, etc.), what is the first thing they think about doing? Well, to get it all done, you would have to work harder and longer that day, right? This seems to be the mantra of many people.

Having said that, one thing to keep in mind is this: time is a finite resource. Once you use it, there’s no getting it back. Knowing that, your goal should not be to manage your time, but your energy. When you have more energy, you have more capacity… and with more capacity, you have the capability of getting more done in less time.

If you don’t invest your energy in anything you do, you are really just wasting your time. This may sound easy enough to real estate agents out there, but energy is not a single entity: it is multidimensional. There are really 4 elements that make up your energy:

Physical Energy - The quantitative element: How much energy do you have?
Emotional Energy - The qualitative element: How good is it?
Your Energy’s Focus - This is the mental aspect of your energy. Are you using it on the things that need to get done or is it being wasted on less relevant things like constantly checking email and mindlessly surfing the web?
Purpose of Your Energy - This is the end result you wish to achieve and is non-denominational. It’s what you acquire from a clear sense of purpose and what makes you feel good about yourself.

These 4 elements to energy can be very tough to assess, especially if you have developed a habitual mindset over time. This may lead to you having to change some habits, for the only way to intentionally invest your energy is to know what it looks like. I will talk about some things I did to help me invest and analyze my energy in my next post.

To finish up here, I just want to ask you something that you should really take some time to think about. To what degree have you lost the connection to the cost of the choices you make on a daily basis? In other words, is the life you’re living now worth the price paying to live it?