Consumers looking here. Realtors advertising there?

77% of consumers searched the Internet for information regarding real estate. That is compared to 33% for print. Not surprising, right? What is surprising is that the biggest share of a Realtor’s advertising spend at 40% is print.

A titanic disconnect of where consumers look for real estate and where Realtors advertise.

Based upon a recent study by Yahoo! Inc., here are the results:

• Home buyers and sellers consider approximately two agents on average before making a final decision.
• The Internet impacts consumer trust. Forty percent of respondents credited a site in increasing their trust in the agent.
• 74 percent of people who accessed an agent Web site got there with the help of a search engine.
• The online research process is quick and intense: consumers spent an average of 12 hours online researching agents and 75 percent selected an agent within one week of starting their search.
• 45 percent of respondents used the Internet to learn about agents they didn’t know existed.
• 41 percent discovered special deals and promotions offered from an agent through the Internet.

What is clear is that home buyers, and consumers in general, are moving toward the Internet, not away from it. Shouldn't the savvy Realtor be moving their dollars there as well?

Posted in Marketing News Real Estate SEO Web 2.0 | 0 Comments » | Share This!

I want to thank the Future of Real Estate Marketing blog for giving us good info on these social networking sites.

Most know by now that Web 2.0 is not going away and it is here to stay. We humans are naturally social, and so even with the advent of theInternet where we can cloister ourselves away and order everything we need to live online, we still want that interaction with other humans. We want to feel the human touch.

Enter online communities.

According to Wikipedia, "a virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes."

Online communities have been around since the late 1980s (BBS anyone?), but they have proliferated in the last five years, and more continue to pop up on the horizon with the advent of the latest ideas and technologies.

Below are a few of the most popular communities online:

* Linkedin.com - This is a professional social networking site that is gaining ground fast. According to their website, "Linkedin is an online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries."
o How can I use this in my business? Contacts, baby!
* Ning.com - This is a do-it-yourself social networking site. According to their website, "Our passion is putting new social networks in the hands of anyone with a good idea. With Ning, your social network can be anything and for anyone."
o Again with the contacts, but you can also be known as that genius on the specific topic of townhouses in Hoboken, NJ. Or wherever else.
* Facebook.com - Facebook seems to be the slightly grown-up version of myspace.com. According to the Facebook website, "Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves."
o Making contacts is key to any business, isn't it? Just slap up your information, make some friends, and you just might sell property for someone you meet through the site.
* Squidoo.com - This is a bit different from the above three site. According to their website, Squidoo is a site "...designed to make it easy for anyone, for free, to set up a single page on a topic he or she knows or cares a lot about. Advertising revenue is shared with these content creators, and some of it is given to charity."
o Become the expert writer-slash-real estate guru when people begin to discover your squidoo page.

Why bother with online communities at all? We are all busy, so what is the importance of these sites? One word: eyeballs. Millions upon millions of people all over the world reside within these sites. They spend lots of time in them. If you had the chance to reach out and touch that many people, would you take the opportunity?

Posted in Marketing Real Estate SEM SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

You may rewrite the body of an email two or three times before sending, but how much time do you spend on your subject lines? Here are a few suggestions:

Keep your subject lines short and sweet. Many email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo!, AOL, Earthlink, etc.) will truncate long subject lines, so keep your subject lines under 50 characters including spaces. Be sure to indicate the most important information at the beginning.

Keep your subject lines professional. Avoid using "smileys" and punctuation marks. These will fall easily to spam filters.

Use capitalization sparingly! Typing in all caps can be construed as the equivalent of yelling at someone face-to-face. This also applies to the text in the body of your email. Using caps to draw attention to a single word is acceptable, but frequent use of all caps is likely to annoy the reader and will ultimately cause your emails to be deleted.

Do not use vague or general words alone. Using general words all alone trigger spam filters. Words like urgent, new, hi, etc are prime examples. Tip: look through your spam or junk folder for examples of what not to use. Use specific information, such as the property address and the consumer's name. "Jan here is the info for 123 Center Street". This validates the email as current, cites importance, and personalizes the message.
Always be sure to check your spelling and grammar!

Remember, the subject line is the first thing the consumer reads and in could determine whether the email is deleted or read based on those few words. Those first seconds are critical, you need to engage the consumer and let them know what you have to say is important.

Posted in Real Estate SEO Site Design Web 2.0 | 0 Comments » | Share This!

According to Wikipedia – “A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries.”

Ok, so now we’ve defined what a blog is, is it good for your website?

Short answer is ABSOLUTELY! And here is why.

A blog is a collection of posts that are generally updated on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. By updating your blog you’re increasing the possibility of having someone return to your blog because you’re creating something new to read.

Have you ever received an email or an IM from a friend saying, “HEY, read this”?

By that person sending you the link, and by you reading it, you’ve just increased the traffic for that site. Increased site traffic means more eyes looking at what you have to say, and by having it informative or entertaining increases the chances of a link to your blog being passed on or linked back to.

Just remember…

Write about what you know or about something you’re passionate about. This will ensure you take the time to keep it updated. If it is interesting to you, you’re more likely to take the time to write about it.

Update often. By keeping the blog updated often, not only are you giving your viewers something to read, the search engines see this as something more to index.

Search engines love fresh content. By having updated content, your site has a better chance of being indexed more often. Being indexed more frequently in turn allows your site to moves up in search engine rankings. Higher rankings on search engine leads to more traffic. Higher search engine placement brings more eyes to your blog. It’s all related.

And don’t forget:

Keep it informative
Keep it updated
Keep it fun

So, get out there and BLOG AWAY!

Posted in Real Estate SEM SEO | 1 Comments » | Share This!

The thought of search engine marketing can be rather mind-boggling, especially considering the staggering number of seemingly “secret” methods employed by the professional search gurus. There are, however, quite a few basic techniques that EVERYONE can use to boost your search engine results organically. Keep the following things in mind when trying to create effective organic search engine rankings:

1. META Tags
META tags are part of HTML but exist for the sole use of search engine spiders. These tags contain various information that the site owner wants to deliver to these spiders. Meta Tags include, but are not limited to:
a. Site Title
Title refers to the META/HTML tag that contains the page title, which SHOULD be determined by the contents of that page. Many designers pay little attention to the page content versus the title.
b. Keyword Tag
This tag generally refers to any word or phrase the user might search for in order to find a website or a page. Each variation of a keyword, such as the plural form of the word, is treated like a separate keyword. Phrases (i.e., a string of multiple keywords) are generally used interchangeably.
c. Description Tag
Refers to the information contained in one of the META tags that holds the description of the page and/or website. As the information contained in this tag is the information that is displayed immediately after the main link on many search engine results, it's a good idea to make this text “sell” the page or site content.

2. HTML Navigation
Most people like to use JavaScript or Flash for the main navigation on websites for the simple reason that you can include many links without taking up a lot of space on your page. While technically this method will work, JavaScript and Flash are not readable by the search engines. Create your navigation using HTML to ensure that the search engines can read your navigation and follow the links to your content pages.

3. Place Keywords in Your Page Content
Search engines scan your website for keywords. Including your keywords in your site content will help ensure that your site is “Content Rich” and more likely to be ranked higher in organic search engine rankings.

4. Use Flash Sparingly
Flash is very popular due to the visually appealing presentation one can achieve with its use. However, Flash cannot be read by search engines and, if used too frequently, can actually hurt your optimization efforts.

5. Submit Your Website to the Search Engines
After you have optimized your website, you need to let the World Wide Web know that it is up and running! Submit your website URL (address) to directories such as Google, Yahoo, MSN and DMOZ.

Posted in SEM SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

Anyone can get a website these days.
Blogs have proliferated and many are free, so getting a presence online is not an issue.
But getting traffic to your website, that is the key to this whole online thing.
Here are some of the basics every realtor needs to generate traffic on their website:

• Social Networking. This is as basic as it used to be back before the world was "online". Get yourself known out in the online world. Myspace, Facebook and Linkedin are just a few of the social networking sites. Get a presence on them and get known.


• Article Writing. Sites like ezinearticles.com are an excellent way of gaining credibility and interest. Choose your niche and go for it! Set up a calendar of topics on which to write, and you can gain a loyal readership that will spread the news that you are the authority in your area of expertise.

Next I will add to this list of things to do to generate traffic to your website.

Posted in Advertising Marketing SEM SEO | 1 Comments » | Share This!

Search Engine Optimization

Join Homes.com & AgentAdvantage.com November 8th for a FREE online training session on Search Engine Optimization. This class covers basic principles of search engine optimization, quick reference tips, examples of good website optimization and a few tricks of the trade. This class is for any agent looking to develop a solid foundation or wanting to maximize their current SEO efforts.

To register, Click Here. Hurry! Space is limited!

Posted in Advertising Marketing News Real Estate SEM SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

Join Homes.com & AgentAdvantage October 23rd for a FREE online training session on Search Engine Marketing & Optimization. This class will cover a basic overview of both SEO & SEM, common pay per click practices, examples of good website optimization and a few tricks of the trade.

This class is for any agent looking to maximize their current PPC or Search Engine Optimization efforts.

To register, Click Here. Hurry! Space is limited!

Posted in News Real Estate SEM SEO Technology Web 2.0 | 0 Comments » | Share This!

Social bookmarking websites let you save bookmarks online and tag and/or categorize them with keywords. The difference between local, or even remote, bookmarking (protopage Google, etc) is that with social bookmarking websites, it is a community of shared bookmarks within common categories or themes. These sites store and organize bookmarks and interesting articles and posts. The content is created by, and added to, by thousands of members; thus creating the community and changing the designation to social bookmarking.
A blog called Blog Marketing Tactics has provided a comprehensive list of social bookmarking websites. But beware. Not all are equal. Some stand above the crowd. A short list is Digg, Del.icio.us and Reddit.
They all do it just a bit differently, so choose which one works the best for you.
Next time I will go into more detail, using a few choice social bookmarking websites as well as how to use these to promote your business.

Posted in News SEM SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

Technorati is a search engine for blogs and it is chock full of good stuff, smart information and and all-around view of the blogosphere. Search on any topic under the sun and you will find something useful.
When I am doing my research each week, I head to technorati first. The beauty of a blog search engine is you know that when you type in a keyword or a key phrase, you won't have to sift much to find good blog information. When going to the major search engines, type in "search engine new" and see what you get. You'll get good sites with good information, but mixed in with those useful sites are the ones that are just link farms with not much help. They just send you somewhere else that may or may not be useful.
Technorati.com gathers most of the appropriate blogs for our perusal, based on the small couple sentence blurb we can choose to click further and we get to very informative blogs. Of course many of the blogs are moving to monetize themselves, but that doesn't bother me too much because blogs, by their nature, give away so much awesome information. One doesn't go away hungry.
Go to technorati.com and poke around. You'll find what you like and you'll enjoy your time along the way.

Posted in News SEM SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

If you want your website to gain more visitors, get organic.
If you want your website to become more visible, get organic.
If you want to invariably make more money through your website, get organic.

Your website should be highly searchable and here are some reasons why:

• If you rank higher in the organic search, it is typically higher for a longer lasting period of time. With paid search, if you quit paying the cost per click (CPC), you no longer rank at the top of the search.


• Organic ranking is dependent upon the education of your targeted clientele. If you want to target high schoolers, you might do better with paid search ranking. But some statistics show that the higher the education of the person searching, the more they migrate toward organic search.


• Organic search results tend to be considered more trustworthy. Why? Organic ranking is earned rather than bought. We often shy away from advertisements because we get bombarded with them. It seems that organic search results are more "honest." I'm not saying that is true, but that can be the perception

Get organic and get more traffic.

Posted in SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

The more I get into SEO and SEM (for those new to this blog and new to, well, the Internet, SEO is Search Engine Optimization and SEM is Search Engine Marketing), the more I recognize the importance of understanding how to utilize the search engines. The more we know, the better we can optimize our presence on the web.
Check out this piece on Google's landscape. This a wealth of information, people!

Posted in News SEM SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

What is the goal of every website on the web? We create a website to BE SEEN. We want as many people to see our website as possible. The more eyes looking at our site, the more chances they will respond to the information on the website.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? The concept is simple, but building a site that will get visited takes time.

How does anyone find your website? A searcher's first task when searching for new and interesting information is to open up google.com or yahoo.com or msn.com or ask.com or any of a host of other search engines. Type in key words or key phrases and hit the go button. Find a site worth keeping and bookmark it or link to it.

Why did that particular website get located? The most influential reason is through good SEO and SEM practices. It was high up in the search engine rankings and it had good content. No fluff. Fluff and garbage just don't fly online anymore and people will not hunt through it to find a diamond in a rough website.

So what is the goal for today? Revisit and review your website making sure that it is SEO and SEM optimized, even if you have to pay. Paying for an expert to optimize your website can be worth 5, 10, or a 100 times what you will pay. Is it worth paying a couple hundred per month in SEO and SEM spend to get back thousands per month in new leads and clients? The answer should be a resounding YES.

Posted in SEM SEO | 4 Comments » | Share This!

SEO means Search Engine Optimization, and it is the act of optimizing your website for natural or organic search engine results. The non-paid kind of results that we all love so much. SEO is actually a part of SEM.





SEM means Search Engine Marketing, and it encompasses a variety of things to include SEO.
Below is a list of some of the things that go into SEM:

• Search engine optimization


• Search engine and directory submission management


• Paid inclusion and trusted feed programs


• Pay-for-placement management (includes pay-per-click)


• Link popularity/reputation development


• ROI and performance monitoring and reporting.

SEO and SEM are constantly evolving, and staying on top of it can be daunting, but for a website, blog, forum or any other presence online to be effective, getting SEO and SEM right is crucial to the bottom line.

Posted in SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!

I recall being a bit confused over the whole keyword meaning when I got into the Search Engine game. Why do they call them keywords when they are mostly key phrases?I am not sure how the evolution happened, but my suspicion is that when meta tags were the way to optimize a website back in the late 1990s, mostly, single words were used. And lots of them.

And with so much content online now, how would we get anyone to come to our site with single words. If you are a realtor and as your keywords, you put in realtor, Idaho and home (this is an exaggeration, I know). Those are broad search terms.

Today, with the advent of Google's algorithm, key phrases are the new keywords. Key phrases narrow the searcher's searching.

Test this to see what I mean.

Better yet, I will test it now to give you an idea. I will type in "realtor". Hold please...(muzak playing).

Ok, when typing in "realtor" in Google, here is what I got:
Results 1 - 10 of about 32,600,000 for realtor

Over 32 million pages!

Now, I am going to narrow the search by typing in "homes in norfolk, va".

When I typed that "keyword" in, here is what I got:
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,170,000

Still a whole lot of pages, but cut down dramatically. And the searcher can narrow even further, but you get the point.

When adding in keywords to your site for better organic searchability, figure out sensible key phrases within your website and you will see a boost in your overall traffic and in your qualified traffic.

Posted in SEO | 0 Comments » | Share This!