I ran across this website on Active Rain, a guy who calls himself the Real Estate Zebra, and he makes videos for real estate agents, among other things. I assume he offers something besides these videos or he wouldn't be in business. However, the videos are GREAT, and I wanted to share this one in particular.
To his credit, he might want to take into account that from glancing over his website, I don't have a clue what he DOES offer or sell. It brings to mind the advice I so often hear and repeat - don't forget to make your "Call To Action" plainly visible and the priority of the page.
However, he does make some great videos. See his website at http://www.realestatezebra.com/
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
SEO Rumors and Bad Information
Everytime I talk to a new client, I have to spend at least some amount of time dispelling things that they have read or been told that are either outdated, or just untrue. I recently ran into a blog post from a local realtor on Active Rain that, innocently enough, passed on some erroneous information that was said to have come from her "very competent" SEO advisor.
I got interested because I had not even heard about the tool in question, though I'm embarrassed to admit it. Google has come out with Google Suggest that is in beta and may eventually become a part of the Google Search itself. I assume they are testing it to get opinions from searchers as well as to fine-tune the tool.
There's an excellent write-up about Suggest HERE at GoogleTutor.com. I will borrow some of the article below:
I got interested because I had not even heard about the tool in question, though I'm embarrassed to admit it. Google has come out with Google Suggest that is in beta and may eventually become a part of the Google Search itself. I assume they are testing it to get opinions from searchers as well as to fine-tune the tool.
There's an excellent write-up about Suggest HERE at GoogleTutor.com. I will borrow some of the article below:
Google Suggest guesses what you’re typing as you type into the search box, and gives you suggestions in real time.
For example, if I key in the word “malibu” it tells me there are 4,110,000 results. But if I then key a space after the word, it provides a list that includes these choices:
malibu (782 results)
malibu boats (782 results)
malibu ca (31,100 results)
Seems pretty clear to me that the numbers that are given as suggestions are of the resulting PAGES in Google's index for each suggestion. Unfortunately, people are now spreading the rumor that it acts like Wordtracker's Keyword Tool. The various keyword tools give the number of SEARCHES on certain search engines per day or per month. This is not the same thing as the number of resulting webpages that are displayed with a search, obviously. The information is not telling you how many people are SEARCHING for those phrases, but how many pages there are in Google's index. Big difference!Either this realtor on Active Rain misunderstood her "SEO Guy" or he has misunderstood the new Suggest Tool. I posted several comments to the blog and clarified the issue, but I didn't question who the supposed SEO person was (the people are all local to Myrtle Beach) nor will I put any links or name names here.
At any rate, the Suggest Tool is kind of cool. It will add an extra element to searches, not for the webmasters or SEO people, as was wrongly stated, but for the end-user instead. If you are searching for Myrtle Beach real estate, and you only type in "Myrtle Beach", then the Suggest Tool will help you along to realize that it is better to be specific.
The SEO waters are getting murkier all the time. I fear eventually so many people will have been ripped off by the false claims of companies who don't know what they are doing that they will no longer have the faith to allow those of us who can help them to do so. Every web person who reads a few blogs or forums and learns how to link is suddenly an SEO expert.See Myrtle Beach Website Design for more information.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Real Estate Marketing in 2008
Well, after a dismal December in the real estate world, January 2nd rolled around, and as I have seen every year, bounced back with several weeks of buyers searching the internet for bargains and foreclosures. I know my brother-in-law, who considers himself a very savvy investor, waited out last year, insisting that prices would be lower in 2008.
As far as Myrtle Beach real estate, which I monitor constantly, I don't see a big difference. As any property does when it stays on the MLS several months, homes and condos that had been on the market a while during 2007 may have lowered their asking price. Overall, though, I think that most of the available inventory is about as low as it's going to go. Many of the developers around here are scrambling to sell some of the non-income producing investment property that they speculated with. But they can't sell it for less than what they owe on it, and in many cases they're already that low. The ones that are hurting are at a crossroads right now...whether to let the properties be foreclosed on, with the credit and possible legal repercussions that accompany the process, or continue to pay interest....which many of the banks are graciously allowing them to do. Either way, they can't sell it at a loss to the mortgage...so for most practical purposes, it's not going to go much lower than it is right now. Foreclosures buyers are rabid right now. As to whether that is a true way to get a deal, I don't know. My guys tell me no...that it's all an inside job, and banks will give the really good deals to the "good old boys" long before anyone in the general public will ever hear about it.
But, on to the subject of SEO...
The last few months have brought about the biggest changes in SEO that I've ever seen in the 6 years I've been in the business. Honestly, I think the general BUSINESS of SEO is about over with. It's become a 3- 4 part process that can't be completed by a company with a bunch of kids doing assembly-line linking or the outsourced link-spamming from India and Pakistan.
Reciprocal linking is for all practical purposes, worthless now. If you don't have one-way links coming in to your website, Google is ignoring it. There are alot of ways to get one-way links...although most of them either cost a good bit to produce (such as a press release) or are on such low page-ranked pages that it takes a hundred of them to do much good. Basically, you HAVE to have a blog. You have to know HOW to blog for SEO...it involves more than scribbling down some off-the-wall sales jargon once a day. You should be writing informational or insightful articles about your neighborhood...the communities in your area...the way mortgages and foreclosures are affecting your local area's real estate sales. If you can't write, or can't spell, or aren't interested in sharing your thoughts, then hire someone locally that is. This is NOT something you can outsource to the slave labor in India, no matter how much they swear they can do it. To do it correctly, you need someone who knows about your area. Try your secretary! See if she has a kid in college that can write. Find another local college kid to do it.
Maybe your own wife or girlfriend would like to make a little extra money.
I purposely aimed at women for this task, as I've only seen a handful of men out of thousands that can spell or use grammar correctly these days. Honestly, I don't know how most of these guys ever got out of high school...much less became college graduates. But maybe you are one of the exceptions, or know a "guy nerd" who is. Usually, it will be easier to find a woman to do your writing.
My advice is to use Google's Blogger for your blog, and adjust the publishing settings to make it a part of your website. Wordpress blogs are better looking, and seem to have a great system for categorizing your posts to be the most effective for SEO purposes...but they are difficult for anyone less than a programmer to set up, and most real estate agents are going to need simplicity. It doesn't get much easier than Blogger, and Google loves their own products.
One of the social sites, ActiveRain.com is a powerful tool for realtors, and the blogs there do very well to promote your website. If you have enough manpower or time to do it, I would suggest having a second blog on that site. Be sure and visit Feedburner and get your blog set up to ping them so your feed will be public. Also hook your blog up to Addthis.com and put a button in the template so your posts can go to Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and some of the other social sites.
Every post you make that has a link to your site in it will multiply those links through the social sites. Yes, even a blog can get complicated now, and is best left to be set up by an SEO person, at least in the beginning.
At this time, press releases are still the single most effective way to get links. PRWeb is still the best at this. It costs a minimum of $200 for the upgrade of their service that allows you to insert links in your document. If you don't know how to write one yourself, then find someone who does, or you can pay them several hundred dollars more and they will do it for you.
These press releases (here is one I just did for Myrtle Beach Real Estate ) go out to Yahoo News, Google News, MSN News, CNN, ABC, and all the media sites. It would have to be a very interesting article for CNN to pick up...but I personally know of a realtor friend who ended up being interviewed on tv from one she did...so you can't disclaim it. Other blogs pick up press releases, hopefully maintaining the links, and you can end up with some major incoming links from one press release.
There are some article sites that you can submit articles to, either free or some for a fee. But almost none of them allow links in the article...and even if they give you a signature box at the end, you can probably assume they've been marked so as to not pass on any page rank. This is done by inserting a "rel-'nofollow" tag, and Google has encouraged it to the point of being ridiculous. I, myself don't bother with article submission. With the exception of SiteProNews , whom I love, there aren't any that I can honestly recommend.
Yes, you need to join MySpace. Yes, join Facebook. Plaxo Pulse is a new social site that Plaxo has started, and it's rumored Google is going to purchase the company. Plaxo has been around for many years as a toolbar for Outlook, and they are reputable and useful. YouTube is now almost a social site, and videos are GREAT real estate tools! MSN has their own video service, and so does Yahoo and AOL. You could spend a week joining all the social sites. They are a pain in the butt for the most part...but many allow you to link to your website and your blog, so are worthwhile in the long run.
I personally think every realtor should have 2 websites. One to showcase property the best way, and the other one to drive traffic to it and provide links. It all amounts to alot of money, and way too much time involved for the average realtor. Only you can decide if you can make one or two sales from the site and pay for it all (Can we say DUH? )
Anyway, let's all hope the market comes back soon, and maybe we can use the slow times to work on websites and BLOG till our fingers bleed....:-)
##
My newest target is Pawleys Island Real Estate and Pawleys Plantation. If anyone wants to toss me a link to www.myrtlebeachcondos.net for either, it would be mighty nice! :-)
Oh, and this website was mentioned on The Ultimate SEO Resource for Real Estate Agents . I was a little hurt that they didn't care enough about my blog to list it in their list of blogs, but hey, a page on the site is better than nothing! LOL
As far as Myrtle Beach real estate, which I monitor constantly, I don't see a big difference. As any property does when it stays on the MLS several months, homes and condos that had been on the market a while during 2007 may have lowered their asking price. Overall, though, I think that most of the available inventory is about as low as it's going to go. Many of the developers around here are scrambling to sell some of the non-income producing investment property that they speculated with. But they can't sell it for less than what they owe on it, and in many cases they're already that low. The ones that are hurting are at a crossroads right now...whether to let the properties be foreclosed on, with the credit and possible legal repercussions that accompany the process, or continue to pay interest....which many of the banks are graciously allowing them to do. Either way, they can't sell it at a loss to the mortgage...so for most practical purposes, it's not going to go much lower than it is right now. Foreclosures buyers are rabid right now. As to whether that is a true way to get a deal, I don't know. My guys tell me no...that it's all an inside job, and banks will give the really good deals to the "good old boys" long before anyone in the general public will ever hear about it.
But, on to the subject of SEO...
The last few months have brought about the biggest changes in SEO that I've ever seen in the 6 years I've been in the business. Honestly, I think the general BUSINESS of SEO is about over with. It's become a 3- 4 part process that can't be completed by a company with a bunch of kids doing assembly-line linking or the outsourced link-spamming from India and Pakistan.
Reciprocal linking is for all practical purposes, worthless now. If you don't have one-way links coming in to your website, Google is ignoring it. There are alot of ways to get one-way links...although most of them either cost a good bit to produce (such as a press release) or are on such low page-ranked pages that it takes a hundred of them to do much good. Basically, you HAVE to have a blog. You have to know HOW to blog for SEO...it involves more than scribbling down some off-the-wall sales jargon once a day. You should be writing informational or insightful articles about your neighborhood...the communities in your area...the way mortgages and foreclosures are affecting your local area's real estate sales. If you can't write, or can't spell, or aren't interested in sharing your thoughts, then hire someone locally that is. This is NOT something you can outsource to the slave labor in India, no matter how much they swear they can do it. To do it correctly, you need someone who knows about your area. Try your secretary! See if she has a kid in college that can write. Find another local college kid to do it.
Maybe your own wife or girlfriend would like to make a little extra money.
I purposely aimed at women for this task, as I've only seen a handful of men out of thousands that can spell or use grammar correctly these days. Honestly, I don't know how most of these guys ever got out of high school...much less became college graduates. But maybe you are one of the exceptions, or know a "guy nerd" who is. Usually, it will be easier to find a woman to do your writing.
My advice is to use Google's Blogger for your blog, and adjust the publishing settings to make it a part of your website. Wordpress blogs are better looking, and seem to have a great system for categorizing your posts to be the most effective for SEO purposes...but they are difficult for anyone less than a programmer to set up, and most real estate agents are going to need simplicity. It doesn't get much easier than Blogger, and Google loves their own products.
One of the social sites, ActiveRain.com is a powerful tool for realtors, and the blogs there do very well to promote your website. If you have enough manpower or time to do it, I would suggest having a second blog on that site. Be sure and visit Feedburner and get your blog set up to ping them so your feed will be public. Also hook your blog up to Addthis.com and put a button in the template so your posts can go to Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and some of the other social sites.
Every post you make that has a link to your site in it will multiply those links through the social sites. Yes, even a blog can get complicated now, and is best left to be set up by an SEO person, at least in the beginning.
At this time, press releases are still the single most effective way to get links. PRWeb is still the best at this. It costs a minimum of $200 for the upgrade of their service that allows you to insert links in your document. If you don't know how to write one yourself, then find someone who does, or you can pay them several hundred dollars more and they will do it for you.
These press releases (here is one I just did for Myrtle Beach Real Estate ) go out to Yahoo News, Google News, MSN News, CNN, ABC, and all the media sites. It would have to be a very interesting article for CNN to pick up...but I personally know of a realtor friend who ended up being interviewed on tv from one she did...so you can't disclaim it. Other blogs pick up press releases, hopefully maintaining the links, and you can end up with some major incoming links from one press release.
There are some article sites that you can submit articles to, either free or some for a fee. But almost none of them allow links in the article...and even if they give you a signature box at the end, you can probably assume they've been marked so as to not pass on any page rank. This is done by inserting a "rel-'nofollow" tag, and Google has encouraged it to the point of being ridiculous. I, myself don't bother with article submission. With the exception of SiteProNews , whom I love, there aren't any that I can honestly recommend.
Yes, you need to join MySpace. Yes, join Facebook. Plaxo Pulse is a new social site that Plaxo has started, and it's rumored Google is going to purchase the company. Plaxo has been around for many years as a toolbar for Outlook, and they are reputable and useful. YouTube is now almost a social site, and videos are GREAT real estate tools! MSN has their own video service, and so does Yahoo and AOL. You could spend a week joining all the social sites. They are a pain in the butt for the most part...but many allow you to link to your website and your blog, so are worthwhile in the long run.
I personally think every realtor should have 2 websites. One to showcase property the best way, and the other one to drive traffic to it and provide links. It all amounts to alot of money, and way too much time involved for the average realtor. Only you can decide if you can make one or two sales from the site and pay for it all (Can we say DUH? )
Anyway, let's all hope the market comes back soon, and maybe we can use the slow times to work on websites and BLOG till our fingers bleed....:-)
##
My newest target is Pawleys Island Real Estate and Pawleys Plantation. If anyone wants to toss me a link to www.myrtlebeachcondos.net for either, it would be mighty nice! :-)
Oh, and this website was mentioned on The Ultimate SEO Resource for Real Estate Agents . I was a little hurt that they didn't care enough about my blog to list it in their list of blogs, but hey, a page on the site is better than nothing! LOL
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