So you’ve been out all day taking photos of your real estate listings. After downloading them from your camera, you see that they’re good, but they’re just not perfect. You know that with just a few tweaks they’d be perfect. You're not the most tech-savvy and you don’t have the budget to purchase super fancy photo-editing software, so what do you do?

Don’t worry!

I found some web-based photo-editing tools that are not only easy to use, but FREE. Did I say FREE? Many of these tools will give you comparable results to brand-name software, but without the steep learning curve and hefty price tag!

One of my favorites is www.picnik.com. This site has all the basics you need to modify your photos. After registering for a free account, you can upload and modify photos in a flash.

The basic tool set allows you to:

· Rotate

· Crop

· Resize

· Fix exposure

· Change colors

· Sharpen

· Convert to new file type (png, gif, tif, bmp)

Should you feel a little adventuresome and want to test out the advanced tools, you can do the following:

· Convert to black and white or sepia

· Add borders

· Add drop shadow

· Add text

· Touch up

Picnik has all the editing tools that the professionals use, just without the high price tag. Best of all, this site is available to you from any computer connected to the internet—for FREE!

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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?

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Does it seem like sometimes there are just too many websites you need to access online throughout your day? Many of us need to visit a dozen or so different websites to make online payments, check email, receive critical updates, access social networking, all of which require entering their own login information. If this sounds like your daily schedule, remembering various domain names and the occasional “password amnesia” can cause serious frustration and overload.

Pageonce.com, marketed as your “personal internet assistant,” provides a free service to their users which allows them the ability to access all of their various online accounts through one central login screen. Their service allows you to integrate directly with top national banks, cellular companies, utility companies, various email accounts, eBay accounts, social networking sites and many others.

I know firsthand that accessing so many different sites daily can get overwhelming at times, so I decided to setup a Pageonce.com account myself. I was initially skeptical about the service though, heavily concerned about security issues and the possibility that my accounts might be hacked through Pageonce.com. As it turns out, Pageonce.com only has access to your information as part of a “read only” online feed, which can not update or change your accounts. The Pageonce.com service and security is considered to be on par with military level security, certified with Verisign, Truste, and deemed "hacker safe" by McAfee. Another benefit of using a Pageonce.com account is that one can reduce exposure to and eliminate the possibility of “phishing” fraud, a method used to obtain login information of victims online by creating bogus login screens of popular websites.

Though it did take about an hour to setup and store all my usernames and passwords, I believe my preliminary hard work paid off. I can now view from one consolidated login screen and see my credit card balance(s), utility bill balance and next payment, DirecTV balance and next payment, cell phone balance and minutes left, Marriott Rewards balance, LinkedIn messages, Hotmail emails read/unread, Starbuck’s card balance, and a number of others. And even though my local utility company was originally not listed as a partner, I submitted a request to add them as a new partner. About a week later, I received an email notice stating that my utility company was added to my websites, illustrating the adaptability of Pageonce.com. As part of their commitment to user security and communication, Pageonce.com also sends email notices when a significant change is made to one of my accounts through their site.

While still in beta testing, the consolidated website account access from Pageonce.com is a fantastic concept and definitely worth giving a try.

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

Is your email inbox more of a dumping ground for the long list of tasks that seem to continuously grow? Have you even tried to find that specific email regarding the issue you know was resolved, but seems to have popped up again? Are you constantly digging through emails from your colleagues to find a signature with their phone numbers on it? I have to share my favorite organizational tool with you, and it is FREE!

This savior of my Outlook Inbox is Xobni! Funny name for a great tool (it is inbox spelled backwards) but it truly works! Some of the features are:

--Easy to navigate, right side tool bar that instantly shows connections between you, the highlighted sender and the people you both communicate with
--Document/attachment history from each contact
--Email conversation “threads”
--Super fast email search through all of your Outlook
--Easy and quick appointment scheduling
--Automatic phone number extraction for each contact
--Editable contact profiles

One feature I love is that you can search by people—and it will search your entire Outlook, not just one folder! This free product has really made my email much easier to use. Honestly, after using Xobni for the last 3 weeks, I don’t think I can go back to not having it!

To download your own free Outlook inbox miracle, visit the Xobni website:

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I need reminders of appointments and tasks that need to be completed. Since I am rarely at my desk, I need these reminders to come to where I am. Since my phone is always with me this is the perfect tool. As a tech guy I would setup email reminders to my phone using some scripting language. This helped but it was not enough. Sometimes the email would be held up on some email server somewhere. The reminder would be late getting to my phone and I would be late to the appointment or the task would not be done in time.

I started using the Google calendar. The main reason I use it is for the SMS paging capabilities. SMS is text messaging. If I want to get paged I want it right away. The SMS paging does this without having to worry about whether my email server is slow. I can also use the Google Calendar to keep my schedule. I can share my calendar with other people. I have some security in it to prevent people from knowing my exact schedule but they can see when I am busy and when I am available. I can even have a separate calendar for my co-workers to see what my schedule is like that week or month.

Most of this can be done with competitors but what I appreciate most, no ads. I do not have an ad flashing at me. The layout is clean and simple. I can also see what my schedule is from my phone’s web browser. In all, Google calendar gives me a simple and easy interface to keep my schedule and sends me text messages on time when I have an appointment. Best of all it is free with no ads.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlecalendar/overview.html

Posted in Gadgets Real Estate Technology Web 2.0 | 10 Comments » | Share This!

If you are looking to design a new logo and you don’t have the benefit of a franchise brand, the prospect of coming up with your own identity can be challenging. Pricing for logo design varies greatly. The original “swoosh” for Nike was designed in 1971 by a college student named Carolyn Davidson for $35. The new London 2012 Olympics logo is rumored to have cost around $800,000. Setting aside these extremes, many small design studios are willing to create a custom logo for under $1,000. And if your budget is extremely tight, there are online tools that will help you get started for under $100.

Inexpensive Logo Tools & Services:
LogoMaker ($49) - http://www.logomaker.com/
LogoYes ($69) - http://www.logoyes.com/
MySiteLogo ($89) - http://www.mysitelogo.com/
Logo Loft ($99 starting) - http://www.thelogoloft.com/

Learn More About Logo Design:
Step-by-step Logo (Chuck Green)
Logo Design Basics: The Five Types of Marks

Posted in Real Estate Site Design Web 2.0 | 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!

A friend of mine is an agent with a site that needs a little TLC. He’s currently using a template-based site from a competitor, and in my attempt to help him “see the light,” I decided to give his site a relatively simple make-over. The results are shown below along with a step-by-step listing of my thought process as I moved from “before” to “after.”

Before:


After:


And the Changes:

1. 
   Fixed the odd vertical line alignment. Apparently the “Comfort Creek” logo is too wide for this template to handle. Consequently, it is pushing the content area to the right, and the thin, black, vertical lines no longer connect. Rather than try to reduce the size of the logo, I chose to remove the vertical lines altogether.
   


2. 
   Left some items as they were. Some elements of the design seemed to be working fine. I chose to leave the main beach photo, font for “Barry Bevis…” and the Featured Listings box alone.
   


3. 
   Strengthened the branding. The logo was tweaked a little and placed in the upper left area above the photo of the country road. Moving the logo into the header also gives the brand a small boost and helps the header area emphasize Barry Bevis. I also moved the top navigation bar down underneath the header section to added emphasis to the brand.
   


4. 
   Made the navigation links look more clickable. I’m a sucker for tabs. They are so helpful for organization. Adding a tab-based menu clarified which page is currently being viewed.
   


5. 
   Consolidated the redundant left-side links. After a quick review of the top navigation and the left-side navigation, there seemed to be unnecessary redundancy. By eliminating the duplicates (Home, My Listings, and Search MLS) and by consolidating the other links into one “Resources” page, the complexity of choices on the page was greatly simplified.
   


6. 
   Cleaned-up the left side a bit more. After moving the logo up into the header and removing or consolidating the side navigation links, there wasn’t much left inside the blue-gray side bar. I moved the “Tell a Friend” link over to the right side under the Featured Listings box because it seemed more likely that I’d be telling a friend about a particular listing that I saw. I then replaced the blue-gray background color with white and moved the “Bert Bevis Realty” text up under the “Barry Bevis” text in the header.
   


7. 
   Added some additional emphasis to contact. With the left bar now empty, I moved Barry’s photo over and added his phone number and an email link.
   


8. 
   Reduced the “visual density” of the content area. By changing the font color from black to olive and by adding some line spacing, the content area began to feel less heavy. I also removed the thick black outline on the “Comfort Creek” logo and changed the coloring to from black to olive for a better tie-in.
   


9. 
   Centered the design and softened the left and right edges. The center design helps the page fill the browser window more nicely. The gradient blend on the edges help the page feel more open and less boxed in by left and right margins. The color blend added the background of the content area is mostly just for kicks. It feels optional, but I decided to leave it.
   

Posted in Advertising Real Estate Site Design Technology Web 2.0 | 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!

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Is is a shameless marketing ploy? Is it the next generation on the web? Will web 2.0 work for the real estate industry?
The jury may still be out on whether or not web 2.0 O'Reilly is what the Internet is eventually and completely adopting.
Let's take a look at some of the various web sites out there that are considered web 1.0 vs those that are considered web 2.0:

According to Wikipedia, web 2.0 "aims to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users."
Being web 2.0, however, just for the sake of being web 2.0 is not the answer to our business. The answer is using the new web 2.0 ideas effectively with what already works in business.
After all, the business world has not flocked to the virtual because it is cool in and of itself. The business world runs to the internet because that is where the billions of people are. And one thing realtors will always need is people with whom they will work to buy and sell real estate.
It's all about communication. Online, web 2.0 or otherwise, it is all about communicating effectively online or offline.
It is in this way that realtors will gain clients and help them buy and sell properties.

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