FeedBurner is a free product, now owned by Google, that allows you to achieve greater exposure for your BLOG. The tool has some extensive tools to analyze your BLOG data, but here I thought we would focus on the aspects of FeedBurner that allow you to promote your BLOG. These can be accessed from the "Publicize" tab.

1. Headline Animator - This allows you to create a banner ad that rotates the latest headlines that are on your BLOG. This is wonderful to put on your websites so you can get people to visit your BLOG as well.
   

   

   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator



2. E-mail Subscriptions - This tool will allow you to include a small form on your website or BLOG to allow people to subscribe to your new posts by just entering an e-mail address. As more people are more familiar with E-mail, than RSS readers, this can allow you to gain more subscribers quickly.


3. BuzzBoost - This tool allows to republish your feed as HTML. Again, you could put this on your website so visitors can take a look to see the latest activity on your BLOG.

FeedBurner has many different tools available for FREE, but even just using these 3 will help to gain more exposure for your BLOG.

Labels: real estate blog, real estate internet marketing

OK so you can't possible think of something to put on your real estate blog. How about statistics? There isn't a home owner or home buyer out there who doesn't want to know what the real estate market is doing yet statistics is one of the hardest things to find on the Internet. I know that some MLS systems even have built in reports and if you are allowed to use graphs or charts from them even better. Even if you can't use their charts you can quickly create your own using Microsoft Excel or another spreed sheet program. So we thought we would give you:

1. Statistics are hard to find - Try seeing what sold last month in an area without using the MLS. It is so difficult it is unfair. Think how home owners and home buyers would view your knowledge if you let them know about what is going on.
2. They are valuable - Everyone needs to know what is happening. Tired of losing a listing presentation because someone said the market is doing better than it is. What if you became the source?
3. Consumers want them - Home buyers and sellers need to know what is going on and they are searching for it. They are just having a hard time locating it.
4. Others aren't doing it - It is always better to be first rather than last. Just because everyone has access to the data(Realtors(R)) doesn't mean they are letting people know about it. Let consumers know.
5. They always change so it is always something new to write - One of the hardest things to do sometimes is come up with something new to write. Thankfully someone is always buying or selling so numbers will change. Even if no one is buying or selling you can still show that as well!
6. It makes for great charts & Graphs - Having visuals is great because it makes your blog different and more interesting to your readers. You can create charts in literally minutes with Microsoft Excel.

So go forth and add stats to your blog or website and become the source for information.

Labels: real estate agent website, real estate blog, real estate internet marketing, real estate marketing

So are you tired of just writing sentence after sentence in your blog? If you are your readers might be as well. After all we are in the new era of the web were bandwith is high and people have high speed access at home and at work so why would we only just write text? The answer is you probably shouldn't be just writing. So we thought we would give you 5 great resons to use multi media in your blog.

1. It adds a visual impact - nothing adds impact like a great picture. After all a picture is worth a 1,000 words right? So why not throw up a picture of what you are talking about. If you are talking about the benefits of improving a kitchen maybe a nice before and after picture.


2. Video says it for you - That's right a little video never hurt anyone. In fact you can upload your video to http://www.youtube.com/ and they will host it for you and give you the html to put in your page. We put up video on our Long Beach Home Blog so you can see a sample of what to do. That clip took about 40 seconds to record, 2 minutes to upload to youtube, and another 60 seconds to copy and paste the HTML they gave me into the blog. So for under 5 minutes I think it is worth it.


3. Sound is a great way to introduce your blog - we put sound on our blog as well using some easy to use software by in InstantAudio.Com. This software is great and is easy to use. By the way we use it to describe our properties on our regular websites as well.


4. Others aren't doing it - Want to be first? That's right many people aren't yet adding pictures, sound, and video to their blog. This makes you stand out among all of the other blogs that are available for a user to select. After all you are competing for readers and what better way to improve your blog by adding something that no one else will do.


5. Your readers want it - so if all of the other reasons don't convince you to do it your readers do want it. People want more out of websites and blogs than just plain text. They want entertainment with their information so give it to them!

In case you also are thinking we don't practice what we are asking you to do we have some video for you as well!

We hope that convinces you to add some multimedia to your blog. You can always check out ours for ideas at http://www.homeofthequeenmary.com/ and another great one we like is http://www.raincityguide.com/.

Labels: BLOG, internet marketing solutions for real estate agents, real estate agent website, real estate blog, real estate internet marketing, real estate internet marketing solution

As real estate agents and other professionals working on real estate internet marketing have been coming online, a major focus has been on keywords and concentrating on those most popular keywords that people are typing. What about the keywords and phrases that don't show up in many of the word research tools?

The theory of "Long Tail" search is the following. It states that "the sum of the searches on all the low volume terms = the sum of the traffic on all the high volume terms.". What does this mean?

• The lead keywords of the search curve are the most competitive (i.e. real estate, or real estate marketing"
• Keywords at the tail of the search curve are less competitive

If the keywords at the end of the tail are less competitive then it gives you an opportunity to take advantage of those keywords! In fact, in a post by Eric Enge at Search Engine Watch on May 21st, they stated: "At Google's Universal Search announcement, Udi Manber put up a slide that stated that 20% to 25% of the search queries Google sees every day are search queries it has never seen before." WOW. That means you don't have to compete on the largest terms if you don't want to, because you can take advantage of the less competitive unique queries!

If you want to do more research on the Long Tail, SEOmoz has some wonderful posts to read more. One of the posts,, written by Hamlet Batista, Uncovering the Invisble Tail, is really helpful to learning more. Look for more of our posts here at OnlineRealEstateSuccess on ways to take advantage of that invisble tail!

Labels: google search, long tail, real estate internet marketing, real estate marketing, search engine watch

Increasing the time that a visitor stays on your website, increases the likely hood that they will contact you! This metric has been focused on a great deal by companies that run e-commerce websites, but we should be focusing on it as well. Here are 5 tips on how you can increase the time a user spends on your website.

• Pay Per Click Campaigns - Ensure that when you a user visits the landing page, it is what was advertised in the advertisement. For example, if you are advertising "Get a Free Foreclosure List" in your ad, and then the ad takes them to your "Home Page", it is unlikely you will get that user sticking around on your website!
• Links on Every Page - The navigation menus that you have on your website should not be the only way to navigate through your website. Within every page of content you should be linking to other areas WITHIN your website that can provide additional value. This way a user can stay on your website to learn more and see that you are the expert!
• Quality Content - Getting content from your title officer or the library of sources from your template provider is nice, but it is not unique! Concentrate on writing up content about your area from the perspective that only you can provide. Help people learn about neighborhoods, condos, homes, and more through your eyes!
• Calls to Action - Providing great content is essential, but you must also give them a reason to contact you. Make appropriate calls to action like "If you like this neighborhood, get the FREE list of Homes available" or "With lovely tree lined streets here in Bixby Knolls, use our FREE Long Beach MLS to see what is available".
• Multi Media - Sounds obvious, but enrich your pages with pictures, videos, or sound. Great products, like Instant Audio, allow you to put sound on your website for Testimonials or just explaining about your area.

Concentrating on these aspects of your web presence will increase a visitors time on your website and get you more contacts out of the same number of visitors! Our websites have increased by over 1 minute per visitor in just the past month, just by updating some of our Pay Per Click campaigns! :)

Labels: anchor text links, landing page, marketing real estate web site, pay per click, PPC Campaigns, real estate internet marketing, real estate leads, real estate pay per click

Real estate Directories are a wonderful way to get inbound links pointing to your website to help you increase your visibility in organic searches. In order to maximize your real estate internet marketing you will want as many websites pointing to you as possible.

Now, you want to be careful that you don't accidentally join a link farm, which will actually hurt your results in the search engines. Quality real estate directories will have information that is of value to customers and may even be difficult to get accepted into! Some of the most powerful quality directories are as follows:

1. Yahoo! - Yahoo actually has one of the most powerful and influential directories online. It comes at a price of $299 a year.
2. DMOZ - This is the largest human edited directory. It can take many many weeks to get accepted into this directory, but it will be well worth the wait. Make sure you submit your site to the appropriate category and the best part it is totally FREE.
3. RealEstateABC - This dedicated real estate directory has a Google PageRank of 6. It provides excellent information to customers and is easily browsed. We get visitors from this site every month.
4. Real Estate Library - This educational site with tips, reports and articles has a Google PageRank of 5 and has wonderful directory to place your website in. There are two packages of annual listings from $59 /yr to $119 a year.
5. Strongest Links - This site is not a direcotry but has a wonderful section on directories that are high quality. They list many directories and their respective costs.

There are plenty of directories out there, so take time when choosing which ones to join. Optimally you will want directories that are human edited so you can ensure that your link is viewed by the search engines.

Labels: real estate directories, real estate internet marketing, real estate marketing, SEO

Succeeding in organic results in Google, may be time consuming but it doesn't have to be a total mystery! Google, has a wonderful webmaster center where you can learn many of the tips to succeed. Now...hold on....you are saying "I am not a webmaster, I am a real estate agent", that's ok! These tips can be passed on to your webmaster (because they don't always know what to do) and many of them you can do yourself!

• Submit your site to Google -sounds obvious, but I know many who forget or just don't know how. - http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
• Sitemap - Put a simple page on your website that points to places within your website that you would like people to know about.
• Quality Content - Make sure your content is original and is focused on a particular subject area. Remember these pages are for humans to read, not search engines :)

These are just 3 small tips to think about, but Google actually has put up an excellent page on webmaster guidelines that states what to do and definitely what not to do so you can be successful with your real estate internet marketing.

Labels: Google Webmaster Tools, real estate internet marketing, Sitemap, webmaster guidelines

It always amazes me that people don't have anything new to add to their websites. They wonder what they should do what marketing they should do for their real estate career. Often the easiest thing is right before their eyes or it is already in the mind. Real Estate Marketing online should focus on the content.

Now this may sound obvious but it isn't always the case. We speak literally hundreds of times a year before different groups of Realtors and most can tell us everything that is going on in their particular market but yet none of this is available on their websites. So we just wanted to cover a few tips on real estate marketing that works online that might not work easily in other mediums such as magazine ads, flyer's, or radio.

1. Neighborhood Information - This is one of the easiest things to put on your website because you already probably know a whole bunch of things about the neighborhood you farm in. Post this information to a neighborhood blog. You can get one for FREE at www.blogger.com. We recommend getting your own personal domain from a company like www.TopAgentDomains.com.
2. Statistics - Some MLS systems generate this in easy reports others you have to run reports manually. Customers want to know the average days on market, list to sales ratios, how many homes are available. You mine as well be the source!
3. Event notices or news - This is easiest to do with a blog. Post that there is going to be a work party cleaning up a park, that a street is being worked on, that a church is doing a fundraiser. You can literally become the source for information in your neighborhood.

The three tips above will help keep your website fresh and more importantly keeps your real estate marketing at the front edge of the Internet. If you can even do a post or two a week you will be ahead of 98% of all other real estate professionals who think they are doing real estate marketing better than you are! Good luck and we hope that this helps you succeed online.

Labels: internet marketing solutions for real estate agents, real estate internet marketing, real estate internet marketing solution, real estate marketing, real estate marketing online

It is often difficult to find out what keywords are being searched for on the internet. There are free tools out there so you can see what searches are being done, but they often rely with you guessing different combinations of words, which can be tiresome! We have put together a resource on our website so you can learn more Wordtracker with a FREE 3 page report.

If you are taking real estate search engine optimization seriously, then you will want to try a tool like, Wordtracker. They have memberships starting at just 1 week so you can develop a powerful word list! We have been using Wordtracker for quite awhile, and here are some of the highlights of how it works.

• Searches over 300 million searches to determine what searches are actually being made


• Visits 200 related websites based off of the term you type to find related terms


• Gives you the actual search volume of keywords for the last 90 days


• Allows you to save projects so you can keep track of your words while you are developing new content and PPC campaigns

Using a tool like Wordtracker can maximize your SEO efforts for your real estate website. The added benefit is you can use the same words for your BLOG postings and online ads. Give it a try for a week or try their FREE trial and see how many keywords you can discover!

Labels: BLOG, keywords, PPC Campaigns, real estate internet marketing, real estate search engine optimization, SEO

Often times we get people asking us about different Internet Marketing Solutions for Real Estate Agents. There are 100's if not thousands of choices out there. The hard part is determining which one is going to work for you. We can say with near 100% accuracy that every company, firm, or individual that approaches you about their solution will have a testimonial on how their package has worked for one of their clients. They key is will it work for you! So in order to determine what is the best real estate Internet marketing solution we thought we would give you the 5 things we recommend you look for in a solution so you can determine if it is going to be a good fit.

1. Will you use it - This is the biggest reason to reason not to purchase a tool. If you can't see yourself using it the way you are being told to you it is probably not the tool for you. Remember to ask questions about if the marketing solution can be used a different way in a successful manner. If you are told yes ask to speak to those agents who are using it.


2. What is the ROI (Return on Investment) - If this question cannot be answered or you get answers like "It is about branding" or "It all depends" then we would recommend shying away from it. Agents who have read our e-book (which is free) and is available at http://www.onlinerealestatesuccess.com/free_E-book.shtml see returns on investment from 8 to 17 times return. Most agents who take our recommendations in the FREE courses we provide average at least a 10 times return on money they spent.


3. Ability to cancel at any time - Any tool that you buy should allow you to cancel at any time. This means the person is confident in the product that they provide. They should provide you with a Guarantee on how it will work if they don't allow you to cancel.


4. The person selling it should have used it - It is always preferred if the person selling it to you has used it and successfully so that they can show you how to do it right.


5. They support it - If there is no support, either online, phone, or in person we would recommend not signing up for the product. If they just give you a box of software and tell you to go at it be wary. They should at least have a comprehensive online help to make sure you can get started.

While we didn't put it in our list we recommend speaking to other agents about how the real estate Internet marketing solution you are about to choose has worked out for them. Ask them to tell you what they don't like about it, what their problems have been, and if they are still a client and why. Remember it's your money and spend it wisely. You can often find many free sources of help or very inexpensive help. Also know that there are some great tools out there and if you use them as instructed, believe they will work, and do how you are recommend you can make it work if it fits your personality! Good luck and if you have questions don't hesitate to write them and we will see what we can do!

Labels: internet marketing solutions for real estate agents, marketing real estate web site, real estate internet marketing, real estate internet marketing solution, real estate marketing online

Often times we have people who get 30, 40, or 50 leads a month but they aren't getting any new appointments out of these leads. These agents are doing the necessary components of real estate Internet marketing to get the leads but failing to convert to appointments so they can producer more commission income.

Now first ignore anything you have heard about Internet buyers not being ready for 6 months, 9 months, or more. The reason we say that is there is today business in the leads that you are receiving. In fact the whole concept of your website and marketing your real estate business is to find clients who need help today, tomorrow, and 6 months from now. What some agents who respond to real estate Internet leads don't realize is that those people may be requesting on other agents websites as well. We hope that isn't a surprise to anyone. After all buyers or sellers just want information and they want it quickly. So how do you make sure you get to them before they leave and go to another agents website?

We have found there are 3 big tips that agents can follow to convert more real estate Internet leads.

1. Respond within 7 minutes - now the quicker the better. The Internet generation likes to get there information quickly and if they can't get it quick enough they will move on. It is all about the information that they want so give it to them.
2. Don't use auto responders - These are e-mails that are generated automatically when people sign up. People know what they look like. You are better off writing templates and then customizing them to people's requests. Our team gets over 250 leads a month and still people get a personal response.
3. Call them if they gave you a phone number - Now this may sound obvious but some agents don't. Call them and ask them about what they need. It's not about you so don't sell them just ask them questions. In fact ask them to come on in and meet with you. Trust us this works and they will come in!

We hope these 3 tips improves your real estate Internet marketing that you are doing and that it will help you convert more of your real estate leads that you get from your websites. Good luck and don't hesitate to visit the scripts section so you can get some ideas of what to ask or say to these prospective clients.

Labels: marketing real estate web site, real estate internet marketing, real estate internet marketing solution, real estate marketing online

Real Estate Internet marketing is much like other forms of marketing in the fact, that the entire goal is to generate leads and generate business! Having a successful online presence requires that you have some key aspects to your website. These 5 tips will help you to maximize your real estate marketing online.

1. Make it east for customers to search your MLS


2. Make it easy to contact you! - Sounds crazy, but your phone and e-mail should be easy to find


3. Powerful calls to action - give people a reason to sign up


4. Unique Content - stand out from the crowd by writing your own information


5. Provide a Home Value tool - you want to get the sellers who are searching online!

Following these 5 tips will help you to get contacts out of your website visitors. Your real estate internet marketing efforts will not get wasted if you practice these tips.

Labels: marketing real estate web site, real estate internet marketing, real estate internet marketing solution, real estate marketing, real estate marketing online