Upcoming changes to the Wordpress core are at the heart of improvements you're going to be seeing over the next few month. The release of 3.0 brought a few major changes which made WP worthy of the dominate title gained over the years among bloggers but still left many issues and challenges dangling like a participle. In fact that was at the heart of the discussion for the Winter sequestration on Tybee Island in Georgia's Golden Isles.

2012's development cycle began officially yesterday (February 1st) with a communication to the development group from Andrew Nacin letting us know of some of the primary goals for the first segment of development effort. Included are some tasks that really won't mean much to you as an end user but are still crucial to the forward momentum of the overall project. 

Among the changes which will be highly visible to you being covered in the first part of the cycle is the way the rich text editor treats certain types of punctuation - primarily quotes. In times past you may have noticed if you cut and pasted certain text from say a Microsoft Word document the final output was munged beyond recognition. As a result of some localization process rethinking (and rebuilding) much if not all of this ill effect may be eliminated in the next minor update.

Header dimension, being fixed width and height, has long been an issue. Admittedly it has earned yours truly a fair penny over the years from being retained by a "Wordpress developer" or end user here and there to modify the the code or style to aloow the use of a different size header than out of the box. One of the primary goals is to introduce flexible header sizes thus allowing even a novice theme user to upload and utilize headers of various sizes rather than being required to use a single set of dimensions as required by the majority of themes. Currently a user or developer generally needs to know how to modify the header style and possibly other components either directly in the theme CSS or by creating a child theme. The latter is the appropriate method in most cases.

For those of you running sites getting thousands of hits per day (or more like per hour) you'll be happy to know, as Ryan Boren recapped recently to the development team, performance on busier sites is a target as is revisiting chron performance. Chron handles most of the automated "behind the scenes" work which fires on trigger events including the sever clock.

The Setup

Industry insiders, to any industry, know when their "competitors" are lying in their advertisement. Sometimes it's just a matter of "how can they do that?" Other times you, as a competing professional know there is no possible way! For example Countrywide used to advertise "no one can do what Countrywide can do". I knew they *would* but also knew they should not. I remember a cW rep coming into my office, picking up a file that hadn't even been to processing much less underwriting and get a clear to close on it from his underwriter. Of course we went ballistic on him because regardless of whether or not CW approved it we had liability in the application to make sure it wouldn't bite us.

A History

During the 2000's we had a local competitor who has since been shut down by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance and has re-opened under another name. The guy was/is notorious for talking about how all other lenders are scum then proceeds to lie directly to his audience about closing costs. When you spend upwards of $50k per month on radio ads that's a big audience and thousands of people bought it hook, line and ... you know the rest.

The Reason for This Post

A few months ago someone claiming to be a tech savvy agent joined a non-industry (not real estate related) SEO chat I have participated in for a while. In fact this TSA was the only real estate related person in the chat other than me. Now I had already countered something this person was spewing several times in real estate circles and the only reason I can think of that this person joined the chat was because they saw I was participating in it and decided they would try their line in this chat. This chat of about 20 very *very* knowledgeable SEO experts.

When joining the chat the first thing this person typed was, "SEO is dead". I enjoyed the next 3 minutes immensely. Now keep in mind the job of this particular TSA is to get subscribers for their employer, to use their "clout" to influence agents to attend their real estate events and even to lead discussions in the real estate industry about being tech savvy.

Why is This Scary?

Imagine you hear an advertisement, in your market, for a real estate broker who says something like, "Homes that use wood are no longer available in this market". You would know something was very wrong with that advertisement, right? So when you hear of someone actually accepting that information and making a buying decision based on it - because this other broker is well known and popular - how would you respond? 

What We Have Here is a Misplacement of Trust

Too many mouths with too little actual experience selling too many tickets to too many events. A couple of years ago I attended a real estate event where all of the speakers were venders. Each of them had their own wares to sell and each contradicted the others who also had their service to sell. Meanwhile I, and many others, recognized there were truths in what they each were saying but in the remainder of what they said, mostly the parts where they were contradicting one another, there was little more than a series of augmentations and fabrications. Your grandmother called them lies.

Who Can You Trust?

The collective seems to be the only answer. You get pieces of truth from everyone and where the truths are constants you can more safely reach the conclusion those are trustworthy facts. A Venn intersection of truths doesn't happen from just one source - it requires a multiplicity of sources to be worth of trust. Remember who said, "trust but validate"? Seems he had something to do with a monkey.

In Summary

I know as difficult as it is to believe I have, on occasion, been ... wrong. Sometimes my facts are just wrong. Sometimes I have a singular experience on which to base my opinion. Sometimes everyone thinks one other person is wrong and in the end that person, the object of speculation, turns out to be the only one right.

"I've been doing this for 25 years and I never ...", right, and you probably never will. 

The real estate industry has a segment that is absolutely leading edge for all businesses. There are daring souls who try the newest tools, toys and gadgets and do their best to see how they work into the everyday implementation of the long term strategy. Then there are those who still love their rolled paper fax machine, refuse to "get an Internet" and hate the intrusiveness of a pager. Hey, if it's working for you then rock on!

2012 will be vastly different in the social and tech realm for the greater business world than 2011. We have, in fact, already seen yet another sea change in the way social works and the way it engages with business. Oh you'll have tech savvy claimants spewing great sounding rhetoric and a few will buy it hook line and sinker. Some will write articles and make statements at break out sessions claiming "SEO is dead", "blogging is over", "Google is out, LinkedIn is in", and other such non-sense supported by nothing but the hot air it took to propel the words.

There are, however, some early certainties for 2012 that may or may not fit into your business strategy and long term goals.  These are not for everyone but the key is to be aware of them, have a precursory understanding of them and be prepared to make directional corrections to a new parallel in the event you feel the compulsion to capitalize. Let me also add there is a certain, je ne sais quoi, to "buzz". Like the hooligan running in the high tides so do prospects for business ride the buzz about technology and your industry. Moths go to lights and mosquitoes go to warm bodies for a reason.

What to watch for on 2012

Video - this should come as no surprise though I do know people who haven't quite grasped the adaptability of video. Key point about video is it is not restricted to laptops and desktops. Video plays on every mobile device and most gaming devices.

"Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in October with 161 million unique viewers and reached a record high of 20.9 billion videos viewed. Facebook.com ranked second with 59.8 million viewers, followed by VEVO with 57 million, Microsoft Sites with 49.1 million and Viacom Digital with 48.2 million. More than 42 billion videos were viewed during the month, with the average viewer watching a record 21.1 hours. Google Sites demonstrated the highest engagement with 7.1 hours per viewer." - Comscore

Videos can now be created by anyone with a half-decent mobile phone, tablet or iPad. Pocket digital video cameras like the Kodak PlayTouch can be had for pennies a day and uploading to YouTube or Facebook takes minutes not hours.

Audio - podcasting and web radio are growing at a significant rate. With individuals now able to create audio content which is syndicated through iTunes listeners are now able to grab their favorite updates about items of interest. Generally speaking these are not personal reality shows but rather reports and instructional segments applicable to the listener's business or lifestyle. 

From EdisonReseach.com:

• The percentage of Americans who have ever watched or listened to a podcast is 45%, up from 43% one year ago. This equates to approximately 70 million Americans 12+.
• The podcast audience has migrated from being predominantly “early adopters” to more closely resembling mainstream media consumers.
• Podcast consumers continue to prefer consuming content at their desktop, not on dedicated media players, but mobile phone media consumption is surging.
• Podcast consumers index very highly for social networking behaviors.
• Two-thirds of podcast consumers have listened to digital audio files in their vehicles by connecting an iPod or other MP3 player to their car audio system.

With services like SoundCloud and CinchCast podcasting or just sharing audio is easier than making a phone call.

Curating - in case you missed the revolution in 2011 the assembly and re-syndication of articles of interest exploded onto the scene and is slated to continue throughout the near future. I have had the opportunity to interview the creators of Storify, Twylah, Paper.li, and have spoken at length with the creators of Summify and they are all quite bright on the future of curation. Simply put you can run your own business by clicking from others.

My friend Pat Kitano has an amazing program in place, in fact we'll be doing a webinar together about it in the very near future, where anyone can control a market of curation and use it to penetrate the community in a way here-to-fore a very difficult challenge for one individual.

Now we have Scoop.it, Pinterest and others like it bursting on to the scene. If you have a Facebook page you have likely already engaged in curation simply by re-posting links to your Facebook stream or clicking like, share or comment. Now you just need to come along and learn with us how to capitalize on in for business and personal networking.

Old School is the New Cool

Well, not exactly. I continue to see small businesses capitalize on something that seems to be taboo in the "tech savvy" clique in the real estate industry and that is a solid traditional marketing and networking campaign. Fine. Less competition in that old steady, but agreeably diminishing pool, means better deals and easier saturation for my clients. Cable ads, radio, phone pages, direct mail ... the problem isn't the medium the problem is the message and the horrible follow up campaign.

Watch for buying opportunites as traditional marketing outlets struggle to cope with the continued loss to new media. Meanwhile I dare you to try and prove to the injury attorney, DUI attorney, plumber, heating and air company, taxi company, chiropractor, and local church that tradition marketing doesn't work. Yeah, go ahead, look at those numbers! It's not the medium, it's the message and the follow up. 

It's impossible in just a few words to share everything we learn and share every week on Social Media Edge Radio. If you don't know what that is it is a featured Blog Talk Radio show I founded in 2008 and have since been joined by Jason Crouch, Mike Mueller, Jeremy Blanton and Lisa Oden where our guests are people you can't get in to see for under $200. They know stuff, that's why people pay to hear them - and why we deliver them to you for free every Tuesday.

EDIT 12-Dec: We're talking about duplicate *content* in significant numbers. After reading the comments I want to clarify - reposting your AR article to your hometown blog is not duplicate content. Creating 10 blogs and posting the same articles to them every day, day in and day out is duplicate content.

Over the years I have addressed "duplicate content" at least 10 times here on this blog, another 5 or more times on Social Media Edge radio and no telling how many times at conventions and seminars where I have been speaking. 

It still comes up.

Here are the facts, Googlesque, about duplicate content:

• Chances are none of you are guilty of overloading the Google indexing engine with duplicate content.
• You can have a limited amount of duplicated content without penalty - for example you may have a "web presentable page", a "print formatted page", a "plain text page", and a "mobile optimized page" all with identical content on the same domain.
• If you use duplicate content for the reasons listed above use the canonical page tag to help Google's indexing engine. For example if you have two pages of identical information at say http://icobb.com/landings/index.php and http://ahkse.com/homeloans/index.php and you want the icobb URI to be the indexed version you would put the following in the head of http://ahkse.com/homeloans/index.php: 
  <link rel="canonical" href=" http://icobb.com/landings/index.php"/>
• Google *may* index only one of your pages with the duplicated content.
• Google will certainly only pick one of your duplicated pages to rank higher than the others.
• I have seen duplicate pages ranking in the top ten at least 6 times for the same content - this is claimed by Google to "not happen". The reason it does is because the other content on the pages is significantly different.
• Keeping the above in mind Google suggests you don't even use content filled headers, footers and sidebars. In reality I haven't seen that impact as duplicate data.
• If you publish 10 carbon copy blogs and you are ranking high on multiples your biggest risk is your competitor complaining to Google and having them de-index all of your sites without warning.

And directly from Google engineering:

Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don't follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.

What does this mean?

It means you're probably okay and no in any danger with Google unless you're posting every blog post 3, 5 or 10 times on the same sites. Even if you're doing it just two or three times only one is going to rank higher than the rest and if you get 3 or more in the top ten for the same content and same search terms Google may not catch you but your competitor just may complain!

Need me to look at your site and see if you have this and other necessary steps completed? Yes, even if you have WordPress you could still be non-compliant. Call me at 678-439-8683 or connect with me here.

Let's face it. There are those who can and do and those who can and don't. Internet leads are a true love em or hate em story. Me? I love them. Nearly $1 billion closed from my online leads in my office makes me a real believer in the power and cost of online leads. Now I will get divergent ...

Not everyone knows how to close Internet leads and not everyone knows how to generate good online leads

For 10 years I generated online leads that closed. For the last 2 years I generated online leads that mostly fell flat. The good news for you is you will get the bullet pointed lesson on the differences because the differences are in both the type of lead and the way it is handled when it comes in. 

The words used to entice the lead mean everything

When you see an ad on the side bar of any website that says something like "Free market analysis on your home" or "Get the value of your home" you know, as industry insiders, you're probably dealing with someone reasonable and have yet seen no reason to distrust them. When you see an ad that says, "Sell your home in 3 days, guaranteed!" or "Buy our home get a new Mercedes!" you probably have a little reason to be suspicious and you cannot figure out why anyone would fall for that ... but they do. In fact the click through rate from the first type of ad averages about .05% (depending on the content and topic of the page it's found on) and the click through rate for the second type can get up to 1.7% or even higher. If your math is slower that's over 30 times higher.

The questions on the form mean everything

Wait, didn't I just say the words in the ad mean everything? I did. So do the questions on the form. It's not guesswork - there is a science to the form fields and the words in the ad, on the form page and in the confirmation email. When you start asking questions like income range, cash on hand range and credit score range you already start filtering people out.

There are two schools of thought: (A) I only want people who will take the time to answer those questions because I don't want to deal with the riff-raff and (B) don't let my automation make decisions for me - I am highly capable of doing so. Just get me a phone number and I'll take it from there. Honestly I am in category B. I want phone time or face time regardless of how good I am at programming and content creation.

When you stop working the lead it's probably your fault

I listened to staffers making calls both in the mortgage and real estate industry. Those who started the call with "I got your information request from the Internet. What can I do for you?" or something similar converted the lowest number of leads. In fact these people are generally the lowest closers overall. Those who started the conversation by taking control fair the best, "My name is _______. I have your information request from the Internet so let me ask you a few questions to determine where we are..." always have a higher conversion rate.

Additionally those with higher closing rates use my full system so there is a drip to the prospect that not only keeps the agent top of mind but also continually asks for engagement to make sure the lead is still warm(ish). The first hour after that lead comes in is the most crucial. When I was salaried and working on overrides you can bet I sent my leads to people who would call the lead the second they opened the email. Leads are cold after one hour and frozen after 24. Even though my systems all email the lead as soon as they press "enter" it's the phone call that is most important.

A couple of things that will never change

People who fill out forms online have really short memories. I have literally phoned an Internet lead within 10 minutes of it being completed and had the person tell me they did not fill out the form or say they were no longer interested. It happened about a month ago when a lady completed a longer form (about 12 questions) and when the agent phoned her she said, "I have changed my mind". She was called within 20 minutes of completing the form! So I called her and asked her what happened. She would not tell me.

Some people who fill out forms online must have an addiction to filling out forms online. They are obviously in need of a friend to talk to and when you call them you get their full life story, never a good one, several pleas for help (knowing there is no chance you can), and if you don't control the conversation you'll get invited to "stop by for my famous chili-cheese soup".

Competitors will spam your forms. Oh yes they will. One reason I do some searches on the email addresses and phone numbers used before I send the lead (on premium clients) is to see if I can verify the lead is a legitimate customer. Rarely, but it happens, the email or phone comes back to another agent. Of course I call them and pitch the leads system to them!

Verified leads vs inbound Internet leads

The close ratio of verified leads is, as you can imagine, higher than "working the pool". If you are buying verified leads you're going to pay a premium because someone, maybe me, has taken the time to pick up the phone and call the prospect to ask a series of questions. They are still "just leads" but at least you can be relatively sure they are a viable candidate from the standpoint of knowing someone has already spoken with them. They still need to be treated just like pool leads when it comes to follow-up and pitching. They are all "just leads" until the become "closed deals".

Tips for closing more Internet pool leads

• Assume this person is already a closed deal - it may take 24 months but if you never give up you'll get more deals than the person who is timid and afraid to keep trying.
• Ask for their business on the first call - "Ms. Jones when I show you how to get what you're looking for are you going to commit to working with me?" Now real estate agents have a huge advantage over loan officers because you can get the prospect to sign a BBA. Loan officers can bust their hump all the way to the closing table and the prospect can leave them cold with no recourse. It's much more important for the LO to continue to embrace the relationship on every conversation.
• Make yourself available - in my initial email to them I give them my email address, fax number, work number, cell number and "home" number. Listen, it's all Google but they don't know that. Just give it to them. They want to know you're available. Tell them you are putting their name in your cell phone and to feel free to call you any time and if for any reason you cannot answer you will call them right back. My biggest peeve is when people wait a full day to call me back. I give you about 6 hours (unless it's night or weekend) then I start deducting points!
• LISTEN to the lead - if you're selling they're not buying. If you're talking (or thinking about the next great point you get to make while they are telling you something important) then you're not listening for important clues. Sum it up, "Before we go let me review what you have asked me to do ...", and give them the bullet points. 
• Tell them you are going to follow up - "Ms. Jones thank you so much for choosing me (assume it) and I am going to work for you right now. In fact within a few minutes I'll email you with a recap of our conversation and all of my contact information" - and you better have that template setup and ready to go! If you use an advanced lead system I'll (or they should) have that in there for you already.
• Ask for referrals on the first and every communication - "Before we go Ms. Jones who do you know who can also use my services?" Chances are they will say they cannot think of anyone so just remind them and this seems to work, "Not a problem. I'm sure when you hear someone talking about (a new home, real estate, a home loan) you'll think of me first and give them my number. Make sure they tell me they heard about me from you."
• Send a snail mail - no I'm not kidding. Do you know how many people do not send snail mail and think it's a waste of time and stupid? Ha! You'll stand out from the crowd. Just thank them for their time and drop a couple of cards in the envelope. You don't know what will have changed from the time you spoke with them so details are not important and could be counter-productive.

Work with a professional

This is not a shameless plug ... it's an offering. I am not a huge real estate lead generation company. I am an individual who really cares about results. I do not own a huge lead pool - I create individual lead generation systems for people who know how to make them work - for people who want ownership of the exclusive leads. After that you're either on your own or I drive clicks to your site and provide other services. Let's talk. Call me 678-439-8683 it rings in my office, my pocket, my car, and my home!

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In fact the people "most trusted" are often the ones I least trust. Unfortunately in really tight communities those people have a greater amount of influence over a smaller amount of people. So think about it:

Does the person you trust for advice in a topic have any successful experience in that topic or is it just their job?

When someone instructs you to do something that could as easily be theory as method have they done anything to actually demonstrate the possible outcome or did they just sell a lot of books so you trust them?

Did the person earn your trust because they were the keynote speaker at an event you paid to attend or have you actually seen evidence what they present works based on historical data?

I write this because there are people I trust who others barely know. They often know more than those who write the books or who give the keynote addresses on the same topic. At the same time it's a plea with those who do speak, write and earn trust to stop abusing it. Quit talking about things you are utterly clueless about.

My concern is when I see a group of folks for whom I truly care too often looking more like a flock of swallows blowing around in the wind with no obvious destination because they latch on to a few who are employed for just that purpose, who have little to no historical operations experience but who have great smiles and beautiful words.

Be careful my friends. do your own homework.

Trust but verify.

P.S. Those who can, do. Those who can't ... HOWEVER: teachers can learn to teach. Just make sure your teacher is worthy of your trust.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you ever written a post that simply didn't get any visits much less comments? Does it happen almost every time you write? You are not alone. In fact the reality of it is most blog postings go virtually unread for most people.

Writing a post here or there which receives little attention is okay - it happens to the best of the best (unless they have huge subscriber numbers). When one continually blogs, tweets or posts with absolutely no reaction we call this "black hole blogging" also known as wasted time. On the other hand you shouldn't fear this situation just learn how to control it and how to make the necessary adjustments, during flight so to speak, to change the course.

Discussion here could lead to the old "chicken and egg" topic where we ask, "which came first, the blog or the community"? In reality it's difficult to build a community around nothing so we're sticking with "the blog". Further we're going to look at how to change the approach, if your goal is to be read and engaged, using an existing blog which has had small numbers at best. We'll do this, not by guessing or making it up as we go, but by examining some tried and proven techniques to get your blog read and commented on which usually leads to the ultimate end result of generating a greater number of transactions by converting readers and commenters to decision makers.

1. Take small steps

Chances are you're not going from Sally on the Street to Seth Godin overnight. If you do and it is a result of this article please remember me in your tweets. Take a look at your number of subscribers on the particular blog that needs help. Is it 0? Great, you'll really notice when someone signs up! Make some small adjustments in the way you title, the topics you address and even the formatting of the content. Find a hero and imitate them!

2. Be relevant to your readers

If you blog about what you and your kids do and then all of a sudden blog about a type of rock only found in a certain geography chances are you will confuse people. You'll confuse the mommy bloggers and the rock hounds. Find out what your readers like and stick with it. Read about your topic. You can easily tell when some people didn't study for their quiz and their blog, too.

3. Invite the reader to participate

Go read a couple of your blogs and see how many times the reader may need to stop and take an action even if it is simply to reflect. When writing about home sales you may provide a link to a third party source giving a table or set of calculations - or you may link to the community events calendar for the area and mention a couple of the events there. Do you ever ask questions in your writing?

4. Be challenging and avoid confrontational (for our type blog)

Sentences like, "Most people believe ... but according to data ..." have a double edge to both challenge something and provide the answer. People want to possess information which others may not possess. If you can provide that for them they will return and they will thank you!

5. Invite people to comment and re-share

Using a simple tag-line like "Do you agree?" can quickly change the number of comments to a blog. Don't expect to go from 0 to 100 overnight but as your readership expands you will see an increase when asking people for their opinion.

6. Invite people to read

As much as some people loath the auto-posting of links to social networks it is very important to get your message out. After all, the big newspapers advertise on television, radio and the Internet. Why should you not do the same? Go look at my "Subscribe" link on one of my blogs. This thing works! Go ahead and give it a try and you'll see how to use it for yourself.

7. Use more than just words

Graphics, video, audio and simply formatting text to make it look more inviting have amazing effects on return readership. Imagine how you receive a plain text message and how much better you like to get a message that has some added visuals and audibles.

8. Use relevant and inviting words when titling posts

just like a book or a movie a blog post needs a good title to get the reader's attention. If I titled this "A recursive study on the psychological principles of blog authoring" you probably would not have been interested, much less compelled, to click on the link. People like "how to" and "3 tips for" and "OMG what a great idea!"

Yes, we could continue. I bet if you search online for "how to write a compelling blog post" or something similar you will find literally hundreds of awesome articles. When you do, please let us know about them. In fact, I just did so and found "41 Blog Success Tips" here.

So those are my 8 tips for today, what are yours?

When it comes to online business data is everything ...

It's great to be number one in any market for relevant keywords especially those that pay. It's even possible to get there by not having any idea how you did it. When it become impossible is when someone who knows what they are doing is hired to knock you out of that place and even push you down off the page. Think it doesn't happen? I have been hired several times to do that exact task.

Not only is it important to know why you are ranked where you are, how to keep or improve that ranking and who else is trying to beat you, but every unit of traffic is important. I would take it so far to say every unit of traffic is crucial and I will explain.

Some years ago I was analyzing some server data, long before there was any such tool as Google Analytics, and noticed a few "hits" coming from one particular URL which, upon examination, turned out to be a competitor's site. They had used an early "widget" (before we called them such) which contained a link to my webdev site. This was long before the days of complex algorithms used by today's search engine but it still had the desired effect in that more people were seeing my link and interested enough to click on it. This resulted in me creating several little widgets for different purposes and resulted in my getting the largest web development contract I have ever had - a very large one that employed my staff and I full time for nearly 4 years in fact.

Oddly enough I recently saw a young person who has a number one site in their market say they do not care anything about the data and in fact never look at it - in the same breath they indicated they had recently closed a 5.2 million dollar deal. Well, it won't be difficult for me to put a lead site up and take his traffic whenever someone decides they want it done.

How to get the data

To me Google Analytics (GA) is by far the best resource freely available. There are others which may be easier to learn to use when it gets into the details but I know of none which are any easier to use "out of the box" and also have the tools provided by GA to get amazingly specific about your inbound traffic. So, sign up for a GA account and plug the information into your header for at least the basic results.

If you are using WordPress ...

WP now comes with JetPack which uses the WordPress.com tools to do things like track visitors to the site. These data sets are general but still give enough information to know how many visitors you have had and what they clicked on or searched on to get there.

I prefer StatPress but use both (along with GA) on most WordPress sites. I also add a few custom tweaks to some sites to gather even more data for a quick glimpse from inside the WP dashboard.

Most hosting accounts ...

If you have a regular web hosting account it should come with a couple of pretty powerful tools like Webalizer and AWStats. Both have their own set of features but generally give a look at all of the server based information available to them. Unlike Google Analytics these tools all are limited to the information the script can gather from the visitor's browser and the server on which the script is hosted.

I am a strategist and developer as you probably know

While this isn't a 500 word spam post I would be remiss not to remind you I have nearly 23 years of small business, online experience and have actually written search engines and created algorithms for clients. When it comes to knowing what data is important to you the first key is knowing which questions to ask you and then knowing when an out of the box solution will work and when it will require something created/coded specifically for your needs.

If you're average you didn't read this article. If you're above average you read the title and got this far thinking, "I thought Twitter was all chat". Welcome, you're going to love this if you read this far.

Twitter, in case you do not know, is the wildly popular global, open stream, 140 character text chat system. If you have been around long enough to remember the AOL chat room with 25 guests maximum image that with thousands of guests but limited to 140 characters including spaces called "tweets". If you do not yet have a Twitter account here's what I suggest:

• Spend a minute thinking about your Twitter "handle" aka your nickname on Twitter. Mine is @thekencook because @kencook was take. The @ symbol is automatically pre-pended so you do not have to include it when registering for your handle. 
• It would be advisable, also, to keep SEO in mind and incorporate a keyword but that's less critical than actually *having* a Twitter account. As you tweet and converse you can use keywords, especially in links, to help boost your SEO. Google does index Twitter tweets.
• Personally, I would double check to see if there is a domain name to match your Twitter handle available. For example I have thekencook.com to go along with my Twitter handle. You may want yumacondos.com or sencondchancehomes.com if you catch my drift.
• Keep in mind the shorter your Twitter handle the less characters your name will take up when people ReTweet (forward) your messages. My friend Jeremy Blanton has JB140 so his only takes up 5 characters. Jeff Turner has respres. I do recommend the shorter names if you can get one that works.

There is more to it that just these but for starters you should be good to go with those. (You actually can change your Twitter handle later if for some reason it is necessary like when I was employed by AmericaHomeKey and ran their account and they terminated my division - I just kept it and changed the name to RefLeads http://twitter.com/refleads for example.)

Now that everyone has a Twitter account, ahem, let's look very briefly at how a "Twitter chat" is different from "chatting on Twitter" and a basic look at how to do one right.

When you chat to an individual on Twitter in the open stream, not in Direct (private) Message, you prefix their handle with the @ symbol like @thekencook would come to me. You will also see words that are prefixed with the # symbol like #smedge. Those are called hashtags and are used to set tweets apart to be followed by the #hashtag. #smedge is the hashtag for Social Media Edge.

To host a chat, let's say for example a chat about new homes you may want to create the hashtag #nhs (keeping it short so it does not consume much of your 140 character). Prior to just creating a hashtag, though, it is important to make sure it does not already exist or is not being actively used for another purpose. One way of doing so is simply to use the Twitter search function and searching for your hasthag like so: #nhs

That hashtag, #nhs, for example, is highly active because it has something to do with Nationalized Health Care in England evidently. 

Another way to check, which does essentially the same thing but includes a nice little activity chart, is by visiting hashtags.org and doing the search from there. For example doing the search there for #blogchat shows a fairly active hashtag. Pick a hashtag that has not been used for several days to help ensure you aren't stepping on anyone's toes.

Once you have your Twitter account and have found a hashtag that will work you need to start building community around it. Firstly let all of your friends know. Do a Plancast announcement as well if you have followers there. You should also create a Facebook page with the name of the Twitter chat and invite your friends from Facebook who would be interested. 

Some Twitter chats are outrageously active and it's very difficult, at best, to follow the entire conversation stream. There are tools to help but even then it can be difficult. One of my favorite tools for very busy chats is  TweetGrid which allows you to monitor multiple Twitter events simultaneously. I create a 1x3 grid, 1 row of 3 columns, and I follow the hashtag, the organizer and my own handle. There is nothing to download and it's not a tremendous drain on system resources like some of the thrid party solutions you have to download. You can also save your configuration so every time you join a chat you already have your columns set!

Mike Mueller is a big believe in Seesmic. Honestly I have never used it. I have tried TweetDeck and I can't stand it. Maybe it's because it is so resource hungry because of the number of connections I have on Twitter. Be that as it may I love TweetGrid.

If you are joining a smaller chat say with 20 participants or less, there is also TweetChat which simply monitors the hashtag and lets you interact from there. With both of my preferred solutions you do not need to type the #hashtag every time because it is included in your Tweets. On TweetGrid you will add it in the bar near the top. On TweetChat it is there by default on any hashtag you are monitoring.

Have your Twitter Chat at a regularly scheduled time. If it's every third Thursday at 9PM CST then make it know. This way people who enjoy it will make arrangements to join again. I have a few favorites I try and join regularly, too.

Have your questions prepared ahead of time. Have a guest to join you if you can. Heck, ask me or one of my co-hosts, we're usually interested. Six to eight questions is usually plenty for a one hour chat. Three or four can easily fill a 30 minute chat. Don't start with questions the very minute the chat starts allow people the opportunity to introduce themselves and say "hi".

Once you have a few people who have indicated their participation, say 4 to 5 minutes past the starting time let them know you're about to ask the first question then ask right after. It is recommended to number your questions and remember you need to leave room for your #hashtag, too. So let's use #hashtag as our tag and here is a sample question:

Q1 when calling expired listings how do you start the conversation with the property owner? #hashtag

When people answer they should answer with A1 I always blah de blah ...

Here are a few important points to help make your chats successful:

• Be consistent with the time you have the chat
• Make sure your chat is not a secret and empower people to help like having a chat co-host
• Keep your chat highly relevant to your audience and in a topic with which you are intimately familiar
• Have guests who will bring visitors with them

The goal of Twitter chats may vary buy host. For me it is to expand my network and to meet an ever increasing number of people. So far, so good!

Happy chatting! When you're ready to have some professional assistance with handling your online influence you know where to reach me! If you don't, try this link for amazing web solutions!

It's a rather emphatic statement, isn't it? You need them, I mean. And not just one but a few or several obviously. Okay, look, you've been told WordPress is the end all. Your other provider tells you all you need is the pages that come with their service because they "do everything for you".

Cool. I guess you're wealthy then so you may leave.

For the rest of us who realize battles are fought on many fronts and with many tools we'll stay here and learn about something that has helped Ken Cook, that's me by the way, and his companies, employees and associates do fairly well even through the "bad times". In fact, on average, per landing page I am able to generate, even in this economy, as many as 120 leads per month.

Here, try this snake oil

Actually it's not like that at all. Unlike some of my fatter friends for more southernly states I'm not talking about an auto-pilot to a 6 digit income that others are going to trip over themselves trying to figure out how it works. In fact I'm just showing you another weapon, another tool to put in your kit that we who use them know for a fact ... works. There's no magic here, no hocus-pocus. I'm sure we can get someone to install that as a module for, say, $199 a month? Nah ...

Clearing the nomencalature

A landing page is actually a specific tool. Most people automatically think it's just any page on your website where people "land". Well, sort of but not technically. Further most of those pages are ill equipped to do what a half-decent landing page can do. No, those pages are called "entry" pages. Your "main" page is actually called the "index" page which is the default page for your site.

Defining a landing page

By popular understanding and in the vernacular of the .com world a landing page generally does five (5) things:

• Tracks inbound traffic and some statistics about the visit
• Offers some sort of transactional opportunity to the visitor
• Accepts input from the visitor usually name, phone and email address
• Immediately notifies the page owner of the transaction
• Sends a communication to the  visitor who completed transaction

That transaction can be anything from signing up for a newsletter, joining a mailing list, downloading some kind of file or document, requesting access to a private site, or actually making a purchase. For the real estate and mortgage world it's generally going to be requesting more information about a particular transaction such as a home loan or a specific property or range of properties. It could also be downloading an ebook about buying a home or saving on your mortgage.

Opportunity specific landing pages outperform generic web pages or WordPress pages nearly 3 to 1 according to statistical surveys on client sites from January through June 2011 (see image). The image shows the average number of people who actually completed a form on a specific landing page compared to generic pages with forms not specifically designed as a landing page. Web pages without forms were not included in the statistical survey.

So how much will they cost me?

You can get a crappy one for free. Of course it's not actually going to do most of what you need done. You can also spend upward of $1000 or more depending on whether or not it is connected to a database, mail drip campaign, yadda yadda. Of course most people prefer to pay $59.95 per month like seems to be the average because $500 scares them. So they would prefer to spend $720 per year, ad infinitum.

You can always check current pricing from different resources. Of course I recommend this landing pages source. Then again you probably guessed that.