Pinterest and real estate seem to be a natural fit. Pinterest has proven to be a great resource for those looking to design their dream kitchen, find DIY home improvement projects and browse boards for other inspirational ideas for interior decorating. And because Pinterest visits increased 4,000% in just six months landing them in the top 10 most visited social sites in Nov. 2011, this is one site you need to get on board with (no pun intended).

The above image is an example of how one member is using this social platform to their advantage. For more info check out Reinhart Realtors on Pinterest! They’ve done a great job inspiring their followers with pins ranging from restaurants in their area to housewarming gifts to master bathroom ideas and more.

A  Few Benefits Pinterest Provides to Real Estate Professionals Include:

Social Engagement: This social site is gaining substantial momentum and gives you another great opportunity to connect with potential home buyers and sellers. Users are sharing their likes, styles and favorite items with one another, giving you the opportunity to stay up-to-date on the latest trends as they relate to your audience.

Become a Local Resource: Pinterest is a great way to provide helpful insight into the home buying process. If you’re a seller, what decorating tips or renovation projects will increase the value of your home? If you’ve recently purchased a home, how are you going to decorate your new master bedroom? Keep in mind; these are commonly-asked questions and interests of most homeowners. So even if they’re not in the market for a new home right now, you’re increasing the chances they’ll come to you when they’re ready to buy or sell a home in the future (it’s that whole top-of-mind awareness thing people are always talking about!)

SEO Link Building: We definitely cannot forget about the SEO love this site provides! Each pin links to a specific site where users can go for more information. If you’re linking to an Individual Property Website with an image of a new property for sale, every time that particular pin is “re-pinned”, the link will direct others back to your site as well.

These are all great reasons for real estate professionals to join Pinterest today. However, remember there is more to it than just sharing your listings. Be sure to provide value to your customers in addition to spotlighting featured homes on your site. Think about other factors that influence the buying or selling of a home. Buying a home is an emotional experience and often times lifestyle choices play an important role in the decision-making process. Include photos of the local community, things to do in the area, school information and more. Over time, you’ll have another factor helping you become the resource for your region. (Tweet this article!)

By Amanda Stephan

(Tweet this article!) Last week, we released our mobile Individual Property Websites (IPWs) and as a follow up, we want to discuss why we felt there was a need to release these mobile IPWs now.  As we all know, the usage of mobile is continuing to grow as more and more Americans are adopting Smartphones – which in turn is generating more mobile traffic to the internet and your website.

In a report released last October by comScore entitled Digital Omnivores: How Tablets, Smartphones and Connected Devices are Changing U.S. Digital Media Consumption Habits, they found that 6.8% of all internet traffic came from mobile.

After reading this, we wanted to see how this compared to mobile views across The Enterprise Network statistics. After reviewing our analytics, it turns out that as of December 2011, The Enterprise Network receives, on average, 14.42% of all traffic from mobile – double what the internet as a whole is experiencing.

With a large amount of mobile users coming to our sites, we wanted to dig further and see how they differed from our regular computer users. Surprisingly, they did not differ as much as we suspected. As a network, mobile users averaged 7.83 pages per visit compared to an only slightly higher 8.33 pages per visit from computer users. In fact, six network members average more pages per visit on mobile than computers.

When it came to average time on site we saw a similar trend. The Enterprise Network mobile users average 6:05 minutes on site compared to computer users that averaged 6:32. We even saw that three Network Members averaged more time on site with mobile than computers. These initial numbers gave us great insight into our mobile customers.

Additionally, we are up 170% in web visits from mobile devices compared to the previous year. 

This growth will only continue as more people adopt Smartphones, which further supports why we’ve dedicated much of our development hours to ensuring that our sites are mobile-enabled.

With the recent release of our mobile IPWs, we’ve again taken the necessary steps to ensure buyers have quick access to important property information on-the-go.  This will no doubt provide a more user-friendly and positive experience associated with your brand.

With mobile usage continuing to grow, what will your brokerage’s next step be?

(Tweet this article!)

By Dyana Gutierrez

Customers will be able to scan a QR code or enter the property’s URL on their mobile device to be directed to the mobile version. Once a customer lands on the IPW, they are given the option to request additional information about the property or click-through to the photo gallery, property details, map view, agent information and more.

Feature highlights include:

Photo Gallery
Because one of the biggest factors in determining your next home is the aesthetics of the property, providing customers with quicker access to property photos was an important factor in the development of this product. As a result, mobile IPWs give users the ability to view the full set of property images in an easy-to-view format.

Property Details
In order to provide customers the same detailed property information available online, mobile-enabled IPWs give customers access to a wealth of information including the number of beds and baths, price and square footage, as well as the unique interior and exterior characteristics of a particular home.

Location
When searching for your next home, it’s all about location, location, location – which is why our mobile-enabled IPW displays the property’s address along with a map or satellite view of the location (including street view where available).

Docs & Links
Through this feature, customers can easily download any document or view links relevant to that specific property including floorplans, neighborhood information and more.

Call-to-Action
With several call-to-action items accessible on mobile IPWs, customers can easily request additional information about the property or contact the listing agent to schedule a showing directly from their mobile device.

(Tweet this Article!)

By Amanda Stephan

(Tweet this article!) It’s resolution time! And despite the sudden irritation you feel from your gym being over crowded by all the “resolutioners,” there is something special about the idea of starting fresh. It’s empowering! This month SEO Juice will dive into 2012 SEO resolutions: Getting organized, getting fit and making new friends in order to improve your SEO.

After all, just as it is so with every holiday season, it’s far more important what you choose to do between New Years and Christmas than it is between Christmas and New Years. So let’s start the year off right!

Getting Organized:

It’s on just about every New Year resolution list. In 2012, with the mix of social media, content creation, content promotion, relationship building and staying on top of the changing industry, being organized can seem overwhelming. With search becoming more and more social, it’s no mystery that blogging and engaging in social media can be one of the most valuable tools to improve your SEO and develop a stronger brand.

So how do we make getting organized less overwhelming?

Create a Content Calendar – A content calendar can be created in an hour or two and can ease the stress in the long run. Make a plan for when you will post articles to your blog or have an article ready for a guest post. Take into account all the different holidays or events on the horizon and be thinking of how you will capitalize on them with your content.

Social Media Plan – Write down your social media goals, how you want to engage with your fans and what types of links/articles you want to share with them. Create guidelines for the types of statuses and links you want to post, keeping them in line with your goals. But remember, your social profiles need to be more than virtual paperweights. Give your fans a reason to come back to your fan page and click through to your website again and again. Be engaging! Ask their opinions and answer their questions. This is the key to building their trust, building links and becoming an authority online.

Contact List – Keep a running spreadsheet of your opportunities online and your contacts to get your content published. Jot down their information and the types of articles a particular website publishes. As this list builds up, you’ll be much more organized and ready when it comes time to guest post.

Getting Fit:

When it comes to content we’ve all heard the saying “content is king,” and likewise, “quality is better than quantity”. Strengthening your content and adding muscle to your pages is still going to be one of the best SEO resolutions you could make. But like all fitness regimes, it’s important to vary your strategies.

Lose the dead weight- Getting SEO fit in 2012 is going to take losing the dead weight content and/or pages and adding the muscle! Go over your old, outdated content or blog posts and revise (or do away with). If your blog tends to have recurring topics, be mindful of duplicate or repetitive content.

Go Fresh - Naturally, search engines won’t be able to keep their hands (crawlers) off you if you’re posting fresh content! Try something new this year. Get a team together and brainstorm some “fresh” ideas for a blog series.

Vary your routine – Your SEO fitness routine should be well-balanced and varied between strategies. Include everything from updating your websites old content, researching new keywords, guest posting, expanding social networks and link building. The mix of strategies will make the difference.

Making New Friends:

Building relationships online can be a very powerful New Year’s SEO resolution. When it comes to building your brand, networking within your industry can provide valuable links, opportunities and expand your knowledge base.

Guest Posting – I scratch your back, you scratch mine. Guest posting is a great way to expand your audience and influence online. Not only is the article a valuable link for you site, but by guest posting you are also establishing yourself as an authority for the topic. What are the benefits of allowing someone to guest post on your blog? Well, it’s free, fresh content for your site, which will only increase traffic coming to your site from search engines.

Get out there – If you want to make yourself known in your industry, you need to get out there! Whether you’re building relationships with potential clients on social networks or contributing to discussions on forums or blog posts with other professionals in your industry, branding yourself online starts online! So are you there?

Next Week on SEO Juice: Stay tuned next week for a deeper discussion on 2012 SEO Resolution #1: Getting Organized. (Tweet this article!)

By Katelyn Wheaton

The Vision 2030 Project was developed to answer this question by reaching out to sales partners at The Group Inc., local developers and other agents in the community. Based on his extensive research and feedback from innovative thinkers in the industry, Eric shared his findings with The Active Enterprise Network in order to set the stage for further growth among members.

But what does the future of real estate look like?

With more and more people beginning their home search online, the roles have changed – and will continue to evolve over the next few years.

In 2000, 48% of people found their home through a realtor and only 8% found their home online. Fast forward 10 years and we find that only 38% found their home through a realtor in 2010 while 37% found their home online. The percentage of homebuyers who find their home online will only increase by 2030. Why is this?

Agents are no longer the keepers of the information. With the rise of technology and the online world, customers have more information at their fingertips than ever before. Customers are doing their research and won’t contact an agent until they’re ready and prepared to continue down the path of home ownership.

It won’t be long before customers can access even more information pertaining to a home – whether that’s sales history, liens, how much is still owed on a home and much more. With the steady growth in mobile technology, users will be able to take their “virtual agent” out on the road with them.

Additionally, they’re going to be able to quickly find information about an agent’s track record including sales history, customer service ratings and their success rate for pricing homes. Agents will need to adjust their position and provide the expected high level of service, backed by a high level of understanding to be able to thrive.

If consumers can find the information without an agent, what will we bring to the table?

As our industry becomes more and more transparent, it’s up to us to adapt to meet the needs of this new age consumer. While we don’t believe the need for agents will decline, we do see a shift in the way they conduct business. Communication between an agent and consumer won’t change, but how we communicate with one another will.

Consumers will still rely on agents to help them find their next home as it is a big decision and a complex process. However, the agent’s role will be to help these consumers make sense of the data already available to them, and as such will require a high level of knowledge.

In addition to being well-informed on the Real Estate Industry, the new, younger wave of buyers will expect a certain level of tech-savvy-ness when working with an agent as well. By utilizing cutting-edge technology and personalizing the online experience that customers have come to expect, you will be better able to market your brand online.

What can we do today to prepare for tomorrow?

As we mentioned earlier, the need for professional guidance will increase over time, so having a trained, educated and knowledgeable agent will need to increase over time as well. Establishing a strong training program will help increase the adoption of new technologies so your agents don’t fall behind the curve.

Obviously being the first in your market to implement the latest functionality on your site will help you win business. However, with the gap between new advances in technology getting smaller, it now comes down to who implements it better and focuses more on usability and consumer engagement.

The sales process is becoming more about engaging and building relationships with the local community. Customers want to interact with your brand and will likely choose a company that shares similar values. By engaging with your customers and humanizing your brand, your brokerage will be associated with a positive experience and increase the chances a customer will continue the home buying process with you. (Tweet this article!)

We understand that agents lead very busy lives, so having a system that allows them to stay connected and organized is crucial to their success. Agent LifeCycle was developed to do just this through features like contact management, lead development, sales tracking and marketing that can be personalized to each agent and their individual needs.

It was key that this new product be beneficial to all agents regardless of their technology proficiency level, so when developing the interface we took both personalization and ease of use into account. For ease of access, the Agent LifeCycle program will be launched already fully integrated within the Enterprise Network Admin Dashboard.

Agent LifeCycle is currently in live beta testing and phased releases will start in early 2012. Additional features of this new product include:

Related Posts:

• Conference Highlight: Building Community Relationships
• Conference Highlight: Search, Mobile and Social Trends
• Conference Highlight: Your Brand is More Than Your Logo

Google+ pages are not that different from Facebook brand pages and have similar functionality (You can display information about your brand, contact information, upload photos and videos, start discussions, etc). The pages also look very similar to Google+ profiles and allow users to add the brand to their circles (increasing the brand’s follower count), share the brand’s page and +1 the brand. These features are pretty typical, but we have outlined some of the differentiators below.

Hangouts

Video Hangouts allow you to chat with users face-to-face. We see this feature as a huge opportunity for The Active Enterprise Network as it gives us the opportunity to engage with other brokerages in The Network, host live forums, discuss best practices, train members, etc.

Circles

The circles functionality lets your brand group followers of your page into smaller audiences. By placing your followers into specific circles, you’re able to choose what circles you want to share relevant information with so only those interested will receive it.

Google Search Integration

Google has taken a few steps towards integrating Google+ pages into their search. The first attempt is through the +1 button. By linking your site to your Google+ page, all of your +1s from your brand’s page, website and search results will be added together. This single total will then be shown to users on your page, website and search results.

With the launch of the Google+ pages, you will be able to add pages to circles directly from Google search as well. The first step includes showing Google+ pages in their search results.  Another feature, called Direct Connect, is scheduled to be released soon and will allow users to find a brand on Google+ by typing “+” in Google search, followed by the brand or business they want to follow. Google is currently testing this feature, but say it will roll out to brands in the near future.

Coming Soon: Google+ Badge

Of course this is not the end of the Google+ updates. In the next few days, they will be releasing Google+ badge that you can add to your website, allowing customers to add your Google+ page to their circles without leaving your site. Members, be sure to talk with your Project Manager about getting a Google+ badge incorporated on your site.

Get Started

Create your own Google+ Page at plus.google.com/pages/create and don’t forget to add The Active Enterprise Network to your circles. Let’s have fun and start hangouts with other members!

More on this topic:

• Grow your audience with Google+
• Google+ Pages: connect with all the things you care about
• Google Direct Connect Hooks Search and Google+ Pages Together

Before people started home searching online, they would first go to their realtor to help them find homes based on criteria other than the number of beds and baths, price range, etc. Customers would discuss what was important to their lifestyle and the realtor would then be able to help them find homes that matched all of their needs.

However, since more and more buyers are starting their search online before talking to an agent, we need to provide better tools that mimic the experience they would have with an agent. Through search, mobile and social networking, we can achieve this goal.

Search
Our latest search releases strive to bring the personalization that customers have come to expect online to the home search process. We have expanded the search parameters that customers can search by and built new technology that lets them find homes close to work or school. We also developed a lifestyle search engine that helps customers find communities that match their lifestyle. Our next step in search is natural language search which will allow customers to search for homes using natural language.

Mobile
The advent of SmartPhones has made the world more mobile. It has also given us greater opportunities to interact with customers who are on-the-go. We already offer members mobile-enabled sites and soon we will be adding a mobile app. The goal of this mobile app is to personalize the experience even further by giving our customers the opportunity to find homes based off of their current location through augmented reality and much more. Be sure to check back with us in a few weeks when we announce the launch of our new mobile app.

Social Networking
We have already taken the first step in integrating customers’ social networks into their home searching process. One Click Login was implemented earlier this year, allowing customers to sign-up for a home alert account using their existing Google or Facebook login information. As a result, we have been given access to more customer information that can help us further personalize the search process in the future.

Related Posts:

• Major Trends in the Real Estate Industry: Search, Mobile and Social

• Active Enterprise Network Hosts Annual Conference

Because Tom is one of our most forward-thinking members, we invited Tom to present at the conference on ways to bridge the gap between your brokerage’s brand and your customers through a usable website and superior customer service. In order to do this, it is important to understand that your brand consists of more than just your logo; your brand is everything, including your strategy, communication tools, agents and staff, website and more.

A main focus of Tom’s presentation was how usability is a crucial component to establishing a strong brand. Keeping usability at the forefront of design, The Active Enterprise Network understands that a website is more than just a conversion tool. While it’s important to drive traffic to your site, it’s also necessary to ensure your customers have a positive experience once they arrive. By doing this, your brand will be associated with quality and increase the chances that a user will return.

To reiterate the importance of establishing a strong brand, Tom ended his presentation with the following video that answers the question: What is branding?

For further reading, Tom recommends the following books:

• Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
• The Laws of Simplicity: Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life by John Maeda

At this year’s Active Enterprise Network Annual Conference, members had the opportunity to hear about the emerging trends in SEO from Rob Ousbey, VP of Operations at Distilled LLC. During his presentation, Rob discussed how to leverage our search rankings with Google’s recent authorship markup and how it can help your brokerage remain the authority of your content.

The Authorship Markup

The authorship markup links a picture of your face to your article. The image appears in the search results and creates a more personal experience for users. The emotional attachment can influence the amount of traffic that is being generated from that search as people love to associate what they are reading with a face, especially a face that has become well-known.

In all of search’s history, an author could write anything he or she wanted, whether it be factual or relevant. Now, if an author chooses to be a verified author with their image attached to their article, they have the opportunity to build a reputation by face. This change should only breed better content! The image will hold an author accountable for what he or she is writing, and place a personality behind each article.

During his presentation, Rob Ousbey talked about how the author attribute has the ability to direct more traffic to an article, even if that article is ranking #3 or #4 for that particular search. As you can see in the example above, Rand Fiskin’s face is attached to the article in the search. Rand Fishkin is well-known in the SEO world, and a user would be more inclined to click on an article written by him than an unverified author, despite the fact that the article is ranking #2 on the list. The trusted author’s image makes all the difference.

With the amount of duplicate content on the internet, the authorship attribute will offer a way to reach genuine, trustworthy content, written by reputable authors. It will also provide a way to find more articles written by an author you already like. Best of all, authors will have an opportunity to build a reputation and expand their influence in their industry.

What This Means for SEO

Much like creating a personal PageRank, as an author gains authority, you’ll see their articles begin to rank higher in the search results. Google can use the authorship metrics in their algorithm for rankings, interpreted by an AuthorRank. As reputable authors become known, Google plans to make attempts to factor their strength and authority into the results.

This has a powerful impact on evolving your brand awareness and growing your online presence. Your brand is much more than your logo – your brand is everything; from the way you communicate, your strategy, to the level of expertise you exhibit in your industry.  When your brand and face is associated as a trustworthy source, you will see your SEO grow.

Many have already added the authorship rich snippet code to their websites, and many have not seen their image in the search results yet (myself included). It is unknown how long the process takes, or why some websites are showing the author attribute and others not. Google provided the rich snippets testing tool to check that your markup was placed accurately. That being said, Google has already taken steps to add this markup to everything hosted by YouTube and Blogger, so in the future, both platforms will automatically included the authorship attribute when you publish.

The Future

In the real estate market where content is often duplicated, the authorship markup may be a determining factor as to where the content originated from. The impact of this on syndication is unknown, but hopefully this will help determine the REAL author of content.

There is one thing we do know: Google is God and Google blesses those who follow the published guidelines. It has always been the goal of Google to provide the best possible search results and promote websites with the most authority. While it’s too soon to know the exact effects, Active Website will continue to monitor the evolution of the authorship markup and other advances in SEO.

SEO Juice – Video Series

To ensure members stay up-to-date on the latest SEO trends, Active Website has created a new video series for The Active Enterprise Network entitled SEO Juice.  This series is designed to be very easy to understand and apply SEO strategies for the agents in our network. On a monthly basis, agents will be able to see a new video about a specific SEO topic, complete with supplemental reading material to dive deeper into each subject.

Topics will cover beginner to more advanced subjects, including: the importance of fresh content, the importance of unique content, link building, incorporating social media, etc.  The video series was created in part of our recent training initiatives and will continue throughout 2012 with the lasted trends in SEO. For members wanting more information on the SEO Juice video series, contact your project manager.

By Katelyn Wheaton