What is the first thing you do when you want to find out more about somebody - professionally or otherwise? You Google them.
As a virtual assistant for Real Estate agents, we know how many times agents Google themselves. Ideally they want their website to show up at the top at the stroke of "search." Sometimes, however, that doesn't happen, or what does show up isn't ideal "top of the page" content.
Real Estate agents understand the importance of their prominence on Google. As a real estate agent, your personal life is your professional life. You are selling yourselves as well informed experts on your respective communities.
Wouldn't it be great if when a potential client "Googled" you, to have complete control over how you appear? With Google, just ask and you shall receive.
It's called a Google Profile
With Google Profile, you can create a personal page that links to your blog, online photos, and other profiles such as Facebook and LinkedIn. You have the option to allow people to enable your profile to be searched by your name so that people can easily find you at the top of the list by typing in your name in the Google Search box. Your profile will not contain any private information that you don't want it to have.
Other features include:
Messages - Allow potential clients to email you without giving away your personal email address.
Photos - Embed photos of your latest listings from Flickr or Picasa. This could be a whole new way to advertise your homes!
Biography - Here is where you can expand on the biography that you may have featured on your Real Estate website. Include your real estate background, but also let people know about your love for dogs or white water rafting.
Contact Information - Here is where you'll provide the contact information for your Real Estate company. Phone number. Fax number. Address. Website. You may also provide your personal contact information, but only make it available to certain people.
Links to Other Sites - This is one all encompassing place for all the other web content you host. From your Blogger blog to your Picasa Albums to your Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles.
Location, Location, Location - Advertise your current location and any other location that you'd like to consider your real estate domain.
Have your Real Estate Virtual Assistant create your Google Profile. Your VA can really take the time to make it thorough and complete. There is so much information that can be featured on your profile. Why not take advantage of this free service?
Creating a Google Profile is ideal for those of you who do not have a website, or have a sub-par site that you would like to expand on, but don't currently have the means to do so.
Google Profile is still very relevant if you do have a website where you may already feature a lot of the information mentioned above for two reasons. A, your Google Profile is more accessible for you to make changes as opposed to a website that you may pay a host every time you need to make a change. B, your Google profile is one more way to increase your Search Engine Optimization.
Go ahead, try it out and see what you think. Then next time you Google yourself, you may be pleasantly surprised by the results.
Stacey Clarke
Listing Coordinator
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