Below is an introductory video that discusses the topics we will be covering over the next 5 weeks. The videos that follow this presentation will expand on search objectives and will go into detail on how to drive more traffic to your site.

To kick the series off, today we are presented a video tutorial that stresses the importance of content.  We talk about this a lot, but content is necessary for an effective SEO plan. As you’re watching this presentation, we really want you to pay attention to the ways the mentioned sites are developing unique content. After you watch this, it is our hope you’ll take a closer look at how you’re promoting not only your broker websites, but your properties as well.

This video will cover the following topics as they relate to content:

• Define Your Area of Expertise
• Crafting Your Message
• Developing a Voice
• Developing Value Through Unique Content
• Make Your Content Shareable

Websites mentioned in this presentation:

Chicago Relocation Blog

Reno Realty Blog

LandVest

Telling a Good Story on Zero Energy

Bill Tancer, General Manager at Hitwise, blog

By John Sable

blog.activewebsite.com

With the Enterprise Network, we’re really trying to instill the idea that unique and engaging content is the driving force behind generating traffic to their sites. We’ve discussed for quite some time the importance of content and using it to your advantage to increase SEO. This is a great tool to use for your company, but another aspect of our industry we should be focusing on is establishing a relationship with the community as well.

Along with quality content, we need to find other ways to provide services to our clients that will bring them to our websites. By becoming the voice of your community, not only are you an essential resource to new clients, but you’re also providing value to fellow community members.

Your company has the potential to be the go-to site for community information. More than likely, if you’re in the real estate industry, you have strong ties to the community. From school information to market statistics to cost of living reports, you are the experts when it comes to your region. So why not put your vast pool of knowledge to good use for your customers? On your websites’ community pages and blog, you should strive to become THE voice of your community. Your site should be a one-stop-shop for any questions future or current residents have about your city.

By creating a Current Events section on your website, you can attract residents to your site by providing them up-to-date information about your community (and provide quality content to your site as well!). Users don’t want to spend a lot of time searching dozens of sites in order to find what’s going on in your city that weekend. If  they can go to one site and find all the available information they will.  That could be you!

Below is a list of 10 resources you should be utilizing for finding content:

1. Local Chamber of Commerce
2. Local city and county website
3. Local school district website
4. Local newspapers
5. Local radio stations
6. Local TV stations
7. City Magazines
8. City Visitors Center
9. City Entertainment Venues
10. Citysearch.com

A great example of a brokerage that understands the need to create a connection with their users is Enterprise Network Member Milestone Realty Consultants. This Kentucky-based company is not only providing users with information pertaining to entertainment, recreation, schools, shopping, etc., but they’re taking it a step further. Having just launched their new website last month, Milestone offers users insight into their local regions by streaming community videos from their homepage. Below is an example of Kentucky’s Louisville  community video that does a really good job of captivating their audience and appealing to their needs.

Along with this video comes neighborhood statistics from demographics to libraries to parks in the area and a list of agents who serve that particular community. Not only is this a great resource, but it’s a fantastic call to action by providing a list of experts to help them find their next home.

When it comes to your own website, think about ways you can reach out and educate your local community. Take the burden off your clients and compile relevant information for them. The first step should be adding important community content, including links to other local vendors and current events that are happening in your area. Not only will it help increase traffic to your site, it keeps your name in front of these users for when they’re ready to purchase their next home.

Related Posts:

Milestone Realty Consultants Community Pages

Using Content to Increase SEO

6 Unique Content Ideas to Boost Your Website’s Value & Link-Worthiness

By Amanda Stephan

http://blog.activewebsite.com/

Youtube Video Link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGYZjJ0Js70

Websites for Realtors are not only an important marketing tool for the agent, but also a great feature and ROI tool in the Enterprise Platform. Rebrandable websites of the platform offer a professional and unified design that maintains continuity with the corporate site.

Features of a Rebrandable Agent/Team Website:

• Unique URL 

• Sizable Photo

• Customizable Color/ Themes

• Feature Homes

• Current Listings

• Same Corporate Technology

  • Local Community Content

  • Google Map Search

  • IDX Listings

• Website Leads

• And Much More…

Each Rebrandable Website offers the Brokerage and Agent alike, many SEO benefits. Because the sites are synchronized, traffic going to any of these sites will catch the attention of the search engines and boost your placement in the rankings. Not to mention all leads that are generated from the particular agent’s site are automatically entered into that agent’s own administrative area!

Take a look at Tonya Callies of Windermere Tri-Cities Rebrandable Website- tonyacallies.com

Take a look at The Culverhouse Group of Windermere Tri-Cities Team Rebrandable Website- theproperties.com

Name: Todd Fields
Title: Broker
Company: The Group, Inc. Real Estate
Personal Website: tfieldsweb.com

Q: How long have you been with the group?
A: 15 Years – before computers!

Q: You have long been a supporter of The Group Inc. website and Individual Agent Websites: What are your favorite features? What about them has worked for you?
A: I think we have one of the most comprehensive sites around. You can use my website or you can go to thegroupinc.com. I try to council people. I ask how did you find us? How are you looking at houses? And they usually tell me through our website. I do ask them to go and look at my personal site.

For relocation especially, we’ve got all your resources for any question you ever ask, including what is the population of every ethnicity you can name! We’ll have an answer for you somewhere on the website or a link that will take you to it. One of our best features that we have is that our listings are updated a lot quicker than everyone else on different real estate sites like realtor.com.

I also ask everyone, “Have you used our really cool “polygon tool?” And they’ll go “huh?” I ask them this because when I ask “what could we do better for you before you go onto the website?” they always tell me that they hate looking for properties and having to search through 40 of them to find two that they like! A lot of times they have a specific area in mind they want to look in and we have a solution for that. I walk people through it. I tell them to give it a try because it is based more about you the customer, not about us. And by then most people have tried it and said, hey this is pretty cool!

Q: Do you feel like generally people do well with the map search? Or do you think they are doing the normal search because they don’t know how to use the map search?
A: The map search sometimes just needs personal direction by an agent. I happen to really like it because if you like a specific school area, you know we can type that in for you. Or if you like a certain area of town, you take that grid and map it out. Some people get frustrated because they can’t drop the polygon tool in the right place but I ask people to take a deep breath and get your favorite glass of red wine or something like that in the evening and sit down and I’ll walk you through it because once you learn to use the polygon, you’ll find you get a real concise listing, the showings you want to see. It’ll show all the homes in there. All you have to do is click on there.

I’ll tell them, you told me churches were really important to you. I want you to type in churches and see what happens. And I will wait a minute, and hear them go. “Wow you’ve got to be kidding me” when all the churches pop up. Or where do you like to get your favorite coffee? It’s just that initial learning curve that takes some time to get over with some people but once I get people on it, they get the hang of it quickly and love it. So that’s what I do. I just try to educate them on it and they get it, but most agents just don’t want to take that kind of time.

Q: How long have you had your own Individual Website?
A: Since The Group first introduced them.

Q: How have you tried to promote your Individual Website?
A: It’s not that hard. I try to get them there from my bio basically because if I just met you over the phone, we’ve maybe talked for about 15 minutes now, I want to go into a relationship, a relationship of buying or selling a house. If we’re going to have a business relationship then why don’t you check me out at tfieldsweb.com? I’ll bring that up or say, “Shoot me an email and I will send you a link. I want you to take a look at us. Check out The Group, our history and my history, and make sure we can work together because I’ll bet you no matter how many times you’ve bought or sold a home you’ve never had an agent say check me out. Go on there take a look at the kids – it’s pretty cool.” I’m a soft sale. I’m not really directing people towards the blog or any kind of conversations because I’d much rather pick up the phone and talk to people.

Q: Do you follow the trends of social networking or is that something you stay away from?
A: I am a member of a few places but definitely Facebook. I’ve made money off of Facebook. In fact I should make a lot of money off of Facebook this year!

Q: So you have actually generated business off of Facebook?
A: My kids made me get on there and then for the heck of it, it was a Saturday night and my wife and I were just sitting around, and I said boy what happens if I click my reunion date? I said, “Look at these people I haven’t talked to in 30 years!” I got together with a few of them online, called them, did the texting thing and the blogging on there and you can get a good thread going with a few people and that’s cool. For instance one guys lives only about ten miles away from me up here in Fort Collins so we had a beer and we sat down and talked. I asked him what he’d been doing and he told me he sold some business…for $46 million dollars! So I of course asked where he was going to buy his 2nd and 3rd home and he said funny you should ask. So now I am getting together with him and another guy from my class who lives outside of Boulder to help them buy their next homes.

I was working with a doctor up here and his wife, at the closing table, mentioned something about her college daughter and Facebook. I said do you have an account? And her eyes lit up. You wouldn’t believe how much advertising I got off her account. She loved the marketing we did on their house because I do aerial videos. I like to get the toy helicopters that take the pictures, you know, the aerials, and I put them together. She said they put the pictured up on Facebook and her friends loved it! I said can I make you a friend? She said absolutely so now I’ve changed things. Instead of being the blogger saying I’m now getting up to go to the bathroom, and now I’m going to go get a water, I now say looking forward to yoga, sales meeting and writing a contract. And I get responses. People are calling back. So I am using Facebook more for business that way.

Q: You seem to have several success stories like that?
A: Yeah and I’ve got more. I graduated from Boulder High School back in the old days, and thirty years ago our team won state basketball championship. So on Facebook I heard from one of my friends that lives in Merin County (San Francisco). So I’m talking with Annie and she mentions one of her brothers is going to go to this thing at CU because the athletics director, an old buddy of mine at CU, is throwing a party for the team. So I went down there and I was talking to my buddies and it was good to see them. Facebook came up and a couple of the business guys asked how I am doing with it. I said go find me on it and one day, I got a call back from several of them looking to do business.

Still, I think if you’re going to train people on Facebook though, you have to tell people that the first two weeks is social and nothing but gossip. Watch yourself because it can become very addicting!  

Q: You mentioned you do all your own videos. Do you use a vendor that The Group, Inc. has arranged or your own vendor?
A: I hire out. Right now I use Defiant Productions. It’s a couple college kids that were written about in the paper so I thought I would give them a call and get them started. The video I did, the very latest one, we actually did a lot of the filming and most of the voice-over was done in studio.

I’ve got a personal vendetta against agents who don’t treat their listings like businesses, who put up three pictures that are blurry because they took them with their camera phone. I’ve got a real problem with some of these guys who say hey I do video and then they throw it on YouTube and get this little blurry picture. Am I going to look at a blurry picture and consider spending $500,000 on something? You can go to Vimeo and Vimeo is high class, definite quality. These guys have the nice camera, they have the microphone system set up so that your voice is clear. I’m getting good responses. I like the way we showcase the houses. Technically I think the last one was a little too long but for a beautiful house, the guys put together a pretty cool deal.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ONE OF TODD’S VIDEOS.

Q: You seem pretty tech savvy. What is your favorite feature that The Group, Inc. website has?
A: Our website is tremendous. I think it’s a great resource. We drive people to it and they call us. I love getting a call and they say can you show me a home? I pull up the home and it’s a RE/MAX listing. So I have to ask, “How’d you find us?” And it’s always because they were on our website. That’s great how did you find our site? They were just ‘Googling’ the area and ours looked pretty cool. Here I am showing RE/MAX homes and Coldwell Banker homes that they found on our site! These are people that obviously are just out there trying to get the best deal but I like that. I love our website for that.

Q: Is there anything you’ve come across or seen that you’re interested in right now?
A: I think the concept of live video is interesting. I know live chat is a big thin that people try to incorporate but live video would be really cool. I’m doing a lot of business from people International and out of state so I’ve gone to Skype for that. The bandwidths are getting good enough the computers are getting good enough now for most people to where video is becoming a must. A live video feed. Talk to somebody, not a realtor, because nobody wants to talk to a realtor but talk to a customer service/realtor rep – something like that would be really cool to play with. If you have someone who presents themselves well they could have the camera on them and respond anytime someone pops up wanting to talk over live video!
 
Q: What is your favorite thing about working at The Group, Inc.? What has kept you there for 15 years?
A: The people. We don’t sell, we council. And we’re all family here. You put all of this stuff together and you get a pretty good relationship here.

About People in the Network Making A Difference: We like to highlight staff and or agents around the Enterprise Network that are making a difference in their organization and the Network itself. We asked each of our Members to nominate people they think deserve recognition as things happen in their organization. We talk to these nominees and find out how and why they are making an impact and try to uncover some of the things they are doing that others in the Network could learn from. If you know of someone who should be nominated leave us a message. 

According to the National Real Estate Agents Study by The Real Estate Book:

“Over the next six months, the channels respondents expect to spend the most money on are: Internet marketing (40%) and the respondents’ own personal websites (32%).”

So think about this. As a brokerage, if 40% of your agents plan to spend money on Internet marketing, wouldn’t you like to benefit as well? Having a solution in which your agents have multiple ways of marketing online, branded and linked to your company website, not only makes your branding consistent but will improve your search engine rankings. If agents want to spend money on Internet marketing, why not have them spend it through you in a way that benefits not only them and their clients, but also the brokerage? 

There are several Internet marketing tools that brokerages should be offering their agents, one of them being Individual Property Websites. Individual Property Websites (IPW) give a property the chance to stand out with its own page, featuring more photos and more personalized information. As part of the Enterprise Platform we offer, your company has access to many templates for Individual Property Websites, which many of our brokerages choose to provide to their agents at a specified cost. Not only does this improve the overall consistency of your website but agents are more likely to take advantage of this marketing tool when they can do it directly through their brokerage; convenience is key. As a brokerage, providing these for a fee helps you offset the money you are spending on technology, a great ROI feature.

These company and Realtor branded IPW’s are not only an effective Internet selling tool for your seller, but also a great SEO tool, driving more traffic back to your brokerage site. One of our Enterprise Network Members are requiring IPW’s for all of their properties; check out Helen Adams Realty online.

What about the 32% of agents who plan to spend money on their own website? Another ROI tool offered by Active Website speaks directly to these agents; Agent Individual Websites. If an agent is going to spend money on their own personal promotion, don’t you want that to benefit your brokerage as well? Giving your agents the ability to set up individual website through you give you more control on how your brokerage is being represented. Your company branding will remain consistent and with each of these pages being set up as an extension to your main website, they can really help boost search engine rankings. Other features Active Website provides are Realtor Team Individual Websites and Individual Office Websites, providing effortless solutions for everyone in your brokerage. These sites are branded to your brokerage but can be customized by the agents, teams or offices with all of their contact information, pictures and properties, as well as links to their social networks and much more.

Lets do some hypothetical math:

Your brokerage consists of 100 agents and 32 of them want to create or maintain an Individual Website. If you charge $50/month for this feature, your ROI for 1 month of is $1,600.

The same brokerage of 100 agents has 40 of them that want IPW’s. If you charge $25 for the life of the listing, your ROI for 1 month of IPW’s is $1,000. That’s assuming each agent only wants one IPW each month – for any brokerage there are likely to be much more.

These are very safe assumptions and still, in just one month, your brokerage has made back $2,600 worth of your technology investment costs.

Regardless of whether your agents use these features through you or through a second party, it’s obvious that Realtors and agents want these features and are willing to pay for them. As a brokerage, it only makes sense to take control over the consistency and benefits of these features by using a technology partner that helps you provide these features to your agents in-house. 

I could go on all day about the many great features our Enterprise Platform has to offer but these are two great features to consider: take control and do it without breaking the bank. 

The original article was posted by MSNBC and you can read it here.

Your website’s search engine rankings are greatly affecting your number of visitors. In a report by Jupiter Research earlier this year, researchers found that “65% less people view second, third and fourth page results than view and use first page results.” That’s probably not surprising to most of us. How often do you click through to even page two when searching? Most likely, not often which means all those people out there searching for real estate in your area probably aren’t either. Being on the first page of results for any search engine should be the ultimate goal for your brokerage website.

Here are three easy solutions Active Website offers to increase your SEO standings:

• Realtor, Team & Office Individual Websites
• Individual Property Websites
• New Home Development Websites

All three of these features live on the brokerage site while featuring a unique URL. An Agent Individual Website is no longer its own entity from a third party website company - it is connected to the brokerage site without being just another link! This means a constant flow of visitors between the unique site and the brokerage site. Successful SEO in this system is two-fold.

Good SEO = More Visitors = More Leads

So for 2009 why not treat your website to an SEO Boost? You’ll increase your website’s transparency and increase your eBusiness.

The first part of the answer is “Local, Local, and Local.” All agents have one thing in common–they are knowledgeable in a specific local Real Estate market. Customers come to the agent for their local knowledge and expertise when they are considering what honestly could be one of their largest financial decisions.

So how does the agent get this knowledge and expertise out to the public and then engage potential clients and help them throughout their transaction? Here are the steps for utilizing some of the latest Web 2.0 technologies to promote the Agent Rebrandable Website.

1. Identify your local market: Where do most of your sales come from, and what areas do you specialize in? For example, maybe your focus is on condo sales in Lincoln Park, or after analyzing your sales, you notice that 70% of the sales came within a 5 mile radius. After further review, you realize that 60% of the sales were first time homebuyers. And you enjoy working with them. Build on this!

2. Develop a Brand: Come up with a very clear and concise message, kinda like a tag line, that flows well. So when people ask, “what do you do?” you can answer, “I am a Real Estate consultant and I specialize in working with first time home buyers in the Lincoln Park area.” Make it short, concise and clear!

3. Start a list of ways you can influence this local market. Here are some list ideas:

• Customers that you have helped in the last couple of years
• Colleges, Clubs and organizations in the area that your target market might be involved with
• Local websites that this market will be visiting (the key here is to think locally and then regionally & nationally)
• Keywords this group uses when searching your local market (i.e. Lincoln park homes)
• Local, regional and national blogs that are being written
• Local charity that you are passionate about
• What your target market group does for fun
• Places your target market group goes outside of work
• Companies in the area that hire a lot of young professionals coming out of college
• The Top 12 Things to Consider When Purchasing your First Home (why 12? we will explain this later!)
• Anyone that will give you a testimonial (we will put this to work later on!)
• Areas that are a good value for first time homebuyers and why
• All the sales in your area and market trends
• Any certain buildings that are your specialty

4. Establish your URL: You need a URL for your great website. Choose a URL that is concise and easy to remember. It is a good idea to purchase multiple URLs and publish them in different media and point them to your site. Here are some examples (which happen to be available):

• www.Lincolnparkexpert.com
• www.Lincolnparklifestyle.com
• www.lincolnparkfirsttimehomebuyer.com
• www.lparkliving.com
• www.lparklifestyle.com

5. Develop your Local Useful Links Section:This information will come from the lists above. Reach out to the organizations on your list and ask them if they would be willing to share content. Also ask them to link back to your website. Tell them how you can help their visitors, and how linking your sites together will boost Search Engine Optimization for both of you.

Also ask your contacts if there are any events you can attend. If you are talking to a local charity, you can post events for them on your blog. Local charities are always looking for help. Reach out to them!

6. Hire a local videographer to shoot a short video (30 seconds max) about your mission. Include the following points:

• What makes you an expert
• How you help first time homebuyers
• What makes you unique

7. Write a good Bio for your website. Make sure your Bio page includes the following content:

• Clear mission statement
• Link to your video
• Link to your useful links
• Blog address
• Phone numbers
• Testimonials

8. Organize your database: Make a list of Past customers and a list of Potential customers. These lists are the start of a successful e-mail campaign!

9. Put your keywords as Meta Tags on your site: If you are a member of the Active Enterprise Network, this is simple and we can help you with this. If you are not a member of the network, talk with your webmaster—this is important!

10. Go to WordPress.com and start your own blog: Write two articles a month. We will discuss later how to save time in generating content. Make sure to back-link to your website.

11. Use your Digital Camera: Start taking photos of the area in which you are an expert. It is a good idea to have a digital library of photos—and it is fun to create!

START THE CONTENT ENGINE

• The Top 12 Things to Consider When Purchasing your First Home: This topic is an easy one-a-month. Make the points short and concise. Publish one a month to your blog too.
• Track the sales in your area
  • Keep a record of each sale in your market area. Provide some interpretations of this data and send this information out monthly to your database. Post the information on your blog as well.
  • Send this information to any of the local sites or blogs you identified. Sold data is great content.

• The Local, regional and national blog list you identified:
  • Reach out to bloggers and post a simple comment on their blog. Don’t over-promote yourself, just comment and then provide your link back to your blog. You will start to develop a name for yourself as well as a back-linking strategy.
  • Trulia Voices–sign up and start answering questions
  • Active Rain–works well for content sharing
  • Go where the big portals are not. Look locally!

• Write about one neighborhood or area a month: Keep the content to short paragraphs or bullet points and add a couple graphs or photos.

• You’re Listings are content:
  • Use property comments and photos for content on your site and your blog too! It’s as simple as copy and paste.
  • Syndicating your listings. If you are with the Enterprise Network, we are already doing this for you. Check out our syndication list. We don’t post to Craig’s list, but recommend that you post your listings there as well.

• Places your target market group goes outside of work List: Write about one place a month. It might be a new restaurant in the area or a recreational event or some event that is coming up in the near future. The good thing about this content is it shows you know the area and it is fresh content for your site. Make sure you put a little spin on this content for Real Estate.

• Your video: get it posted!
  • On Your Blog
  • On Your website
  • On You Tube–it’s free. Make sure to back-link it to your blog and website
  • Write a short e-mail to your database with a link to your video. Include a “call-to-action” like “Here is why I can help you” Or “If you know someone that I could help pass this on.”

• The testimonials you gathered:Publish a testimonial once a month on your blog. Provide a short story about what the client was looking for and how you helped them. This will help position yourself in the eyes of potential clients. Mix up the content with a market update to engage your readers.

• The Local Charity: Start donating time and possibly a percentage of commissions. And write about it!

• Local Companies List: Reach out to the HR department or owners to see if you can set up link-sharing for SEO. Offer a package to help them with key employee relocation or be part of their benefits package. Give them a deal! Ask if you can post news about their company on your site. This content shows you are on top of the local market.

• This tip is a simple one but don’t forget it! Put your website and blog address on all your key information on your Business Cards and V-cards for Outlook.

The Engine is Running: Key Things to Remember so you Don’t Run Out of Gas!

• Keep the content flowing: You should be able to keep your writing and data gathering to 2 -4 hours a month. The key is to utilize other people’s content. If the writing gets to be too much, hire a local college student. Provide them with ideas and have them write 5 articles a month at $50 per article. Something to consider!

• Keep in-touch with your past, current and potential clients: Send out an email once a month to this network.

• Leverage your broker’s website: Make sure you are utilizing the tools they provide. If they are an Enterprise Network member, do the following:
  • Make sure you have Featured Homes
  • Make sure you have an Individual Property Website (IPW) for each listing
  • Video Listings–consider video over virtual tours. It’s a great way to establish yourself as an expert.
  • Syndicate your listings, don’t forget Craig’s list

• Develop content-sharing relationships: You don’t have to create all the content yourself! Get together with colleagues for coffee once a month to generate and share ideas. Then decide who will write what. It’s all about growing your network. You can take turns updating monthly.

• Follow up with your leads: Set a standard for your lead follow-up time—maybe it’s 30 minutes. This standard will help you position yourself as a full- time professional. Then identify, track and close!

• Track the results:
  • Track inquires and find out where they are coming from.
  • Use Google tools to track back-linking. You will be amazed at how Google views your site.
  • 1. Site: Indexed pages in your site site:www.yoursite.com
    2. Link: Pages that link to your site’s front page link:www.yoursite.com
    3. Cache: The current cache of your site cache:www.yoursite.com
    4. Info: Information about your site info:www.yoursite.com
    5. Related: Pages that are similar to your site related:www.yoursite.com

• Get started! You will be well on your way to making your Agent Website one of your greatest business assets!