Agents

Step 1: Own your domain Attachment 496

As a real estate agent, you are more than likely an independent contractor, and your career is built upon marketing and making a name for yourself. While it's great for you as a career agent to have the support of a company or franchise, most of your business and repeat business is because of you, and not the company.

The methods you employ and the work you do to make your name well-known in the community is known as branding. The same process is followed on the Internet, except you become known as "You.com."

Owning your own domain gives you the ability to maintain both a permanent e-mail address and a permanent Web site address. The money you spend to build that name and domain accumulates over the years, as your community brand becomes your Internet brand as well. It's your job to spread the word about your brand name.

Step 2: Make the most out of your Internet presence

Understand how and where your listings and services are currently being marketed on the Internet, and then decide what you can do to improve your current position.

For example, are you maximizing your current exposure? Do you have an e-newsletter that people can sign up for on your Web site?

Most properties offered for sale in the country are being marketed on Realtor.com. The first reason consumers go to real estate Web sites like Realtor.com is to view photos of properties. Realtor.com allows six pictures for each property, and yet, if you did some random searches on that site, you would find that very few real estate professionals take advantage of this opportunity.

Purchase a digital camera and take it to every listing appointment. If you use Realtor.com, submit the maximum number of pictures allowed. Virtual tours add an exciting new dimension to Web sites, as consumers are able to seemingly step into the picture and look around, which is the next best thing to being there. Also, as bandwidth expands, video Web tours are gaining popularity.

Create a single property website to promote each of your listings. A great provider offering single property websites is perfectpropertywebsites.com. Each property website is only $45 and no HTML is required. You can see on of their demo websites HERE.

Finally, using e-mail to drive visitors to your site is one of the most under-used tools available to the agent. Create an e-mail distribution list of your sphere of influence. Whenever you create a new feature to your Web site, such as an article about recent changes in the tax laws, send out an announcement by e-mail and include a direct link to the new page.

Step 3: Create a Web site that is a personal Web portal

See Full Article in the Forum

Submit Your Blog to Search Engines

Get on the radar screen for the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! by submitting your blog's URL to them. Most search engines provide a 'Submit' link (or something similar) to notify the search engine of your new blog, so those search engines will crawl it and include your pages in their results.

It's important to understand that simply submitting your blog to search engines doesn't mean your pages will appear at the top of a Google search results screen, but at least your blog will be included and will have the chance of being picked up by a search engine.

3. Use and Update Your Blogroll

By adding links to sites you like in your blogroll, the owners of those blogs will find your blog and will be likely to add a reciprocal link in their blogrolls. It's an easy way to get the link to your blog in front of many readers on other blogs. The hope is that some of those readers will click on the link to your blog on the other blogs' blogrolls and find your content interesting and enjoyable turning them into loyal readers.

4. Harness the Power of Comments

Commenting is a simple and essential tool to increase your blog's traffic. First, respond to comments left on your blog to show your readers that you value their opinions and draw them into a two-way conversation. This will increase reader loyalty.

Second, leave comments on other blogs to drive new traffic. Make sure you leave your blog's URL in your comment, so you create a link back to your own blog. Many people will read the comments left on a blog post. If they read a particularly interesting comment, they are highly likely to click on the link to visit the commentor's website. It's important to make sure you leave meaningful comments that are likely to invite people to click on your link to read more.

5. Syndicate Your Blog's Content with an RSS Feed

Setting up an RSS feed button on your blog makes it easy for your loyal readers to not just read your blog but also know when you publish new content.

6. Use Links and Trackbacks

Links are one of the most powerful parts of your blog. Not only are links noticed by search engines, but they also act as a tap on the shoulder to other bloggers who can easily identify who is linking to their sites. Linking helps to get you noticed by other bloggers who are likely to investigate the sites that are linking to them. This may lead them to become new readers of your blog or to add links to your blog from theirs.

You can take links to other blogs a step further by leaving a trackback on the other blog to let them know you've linked to them. Blogs that allow trackbacks will include a link back to your blog in the comments section of the post that you originally linked to. People do click on trackback links!

7. Tag Your Posts

It takes a few extra seconds to add tags to each of your blog posts, but it's worth the time in terms of the additional traffic tags can drive to your blog. Tags (like links) are easily noticed by search engines. They're also key to helping readers find your blog when they perform searches on popular blog search engines such as Technorati.

8. Submit Your Posts to Social Bookmarking Sites

Taking the time to submit your best posts to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit and more can be a simple way to quickly boost traffic to your blog.
9. Remember Search Engine Optimization

When you write your blog posts and pages, remember to optimize your pages for search engines to find them. Include relevant keywords and links but don't overload your posts with too many relevant keywords or completely irrelevant keywords. Doing so can be considered spamming and could have negative results such as your blog being removed from Google's search entirely.

10. Don't Forget Images

Images don't just make your blog look pretty, they also help people find you in search engine listings. People often use the image search options offered by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines, and naming your images with search engine optimization in mind can easily boost your traffic.

SEO Tip #1: Find the Best Keywords

It would be a waste of your time to optimize your website for keywords that are not even being searched for. Therefore you should invest some energy into finding the best keywords. There are several SEO tools available on the Internet to help you find the best keywords. Tip: Don't be deceived by organizations that require you to register first. The two most popular resources are WordTracker and KeywordDiscovery.com.

SEO Tip #2: Discover Your Competitors

It's a fact and one of my top 10 SEO tips, that search engines analyze incoming links to your website as part of their ranking criteria. Knowing how many incoming links your competitors have will give you a fantastic edge. Of course, you still have to discover your competitors before you can analyze them.

My tool of choice is SEO Elite, which digs through the major search engines by keyword to not only tell you who your competitors are, but also provides you with an in-depth analysis of each competitor. The analysis includes these extremely important linking criteria (super SEO tips), such as:

* Competitor rank in the Search Engines
* Number of incoming links
* What keywords are in the title of linking page
* % of links containing keywords in the link text
* The PageRank of linking pages
* The Alexa traffic ranking information

SEO Tip #3: Optimize Your Title

The Title and META tags should be different on every page of your website if you wish for most search engines to store and list them in the search results. Us SEO Expert's have experimented with these two pieces of code to help us reach an accepted conclusion about how best to use them. Don't click off this site until you've read the top 10 SEO tips below to see what I've discovered works best for search engine optimization.

SEO Tip #4: Optimize Your META Tags

META tags are hidden code read only by search engine webcrawlers (also called spiders). They live within the HEAD section of a web page. There are actually 2 very important META tags you need to worry about: description and keywords. Meta tags summarize what the site is about, and despite some SEO controversy, they still play an instrumental role in meta-based search engines. The META tags you need to be the most concerned about are:

1. description
2. keywords

SEO Tip #5: Use Headings

In college and some high schools, essays are written using a standard guideline created by the Modern Language Association (MLA). These guidelines included how to write you cover page, title, paragraphs, how to cite references, etc. On the Web, we follow the W3C's guidelines as well as commonly accepted "best practices" for organizing a web page.

Headings play an important role in organizing information, so be sure to include at least H1-H3 when assembling your page. Using cascading style Sheets (CSS), I was able to make my h1 at the top of this page more appealing.

SEO Tip #6: Use Title and ALT Attributes

More often then not, web addresses (URL's) do not contain the topic of the page. For example, the URL MySpace says nothing about being a place to make friends. Where a site like placetomakefriends.com would tell Google right away that the site being pointed to is about making friends. So to be more specific about where we are pointing to in our links we add a title attribute and include our keywords.

SEO Tip #7: Nomenclatures

Whenever possible, you should save your images, media, and web pages with the keywords in the file names. For example, if your keyword phrase is "golf putters" you'll want to save the images used on that page as golf-putters-01.jpg or golf_putters_01.jpg (either will work). It's not confirmed, but many SEO's have experienced improvement in ranking by renaming images and media.

SEO Tip #8: Create a Site Map Page

PageRank is relative and shared throughout a website by a unique voting system created by Google. I could spend two days trying to explain how PageRank works, but what it comes down to is having efficient navigation throughout your site. That where a site map page comes in. Since every page on the website will be linked to the sitemap, it allows webcrawlers (and users) to quickly and easily find content. This SEO tip is one of my favorite of top 10 SEO tips.

SEO Tip #9: Include a robots.txt File

By far the easiest top 10 SEO tips you will ever do as it relates to search engine optimization is include a robots.txt file at the root of your website. Open up a text editor, such as Notepad and type "User-agent: *". Then save the file as robots.txt and upload it to your root directory on your domain. This one command will tell any spider that hits your website to "please feel free to crawl every page of my website".

Here's one of my best top 10 SEO tips: Because the search engine analyzes everything it indexes to determine what your website is all about, it might be a good idea to block folders and files that have nothing to do with the content we want to be analyzed. You can disallow unrelated files to be read by adding "Disallow: /folder_name/" or "Disallow: /filename.html".

SEO Tip #10: Install a sitemap.xml for Google

Though you may feel like it is impossible to get listed high in Google's search engine result page, believe it or not that isn't Google's intention. They simply want to insure that their viewers get the most relevant results possible. In fact, they've even created a program just for webmasters to help insure that your pages get cached in their index as quickly as possible. They call the program Google Sitemaps. In this tool, you'll also find a great new linking tool to help discover who is linking to your website.

Question
I am not an agent, but really work as a Gen. Contractor. I do the artwork for my wife who is the real agent and she needs help with designing a website. I have been searching the web and found tons of webmasters and software for websites. I have contacted IDX companies which are in the price range of $695 for semi custom and $2000 for custom, I have not gotten an answer as to what I really get for the money.

I would like to make my own website so I can understand how it works, make changes and also try to save some money. I understand the difficulty in making websites as I am confused already, but want to at least look at all options. I have seen software on Amazon,but would like to know from others what they have used and what they suggest. Also any web design companies that they used that were good for them. If I do make my own website, do I need to use an IDX company or can I have my wife call our MLS and deal directly with them. I know this is a lot, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer:
Unless somebody else here knows for certain, you might need to look into some legal issues regarding putting the MLS/IDX on your site. As I understand it, only brokerages are allowed to provide that information, so if you have a personal site you would have to discuss it with your broker. If you are on your own and acting as your own broker, then you probably can use it. ( Every Local Board has different restrictions; however most boards allows agents to have their own IDX on their websites.)

To give an example, I consult for some agents at RE/MAX, and we are not allowed to show MLS information on their personal website, but their generic website that all the RE/MAX franchises provide their agents with does have it.

As for the site itself, you have several options:

If you're going to buy one of the packages you mentioned, I would ask them for samples of websites they've made and take a look at what all is included. Also, take note of whether they all look like the exact same website, and if they do, then you'll also want to see if other agents in your area use that service because you don't want your website to be just like their websites.

I'm not sure what kind of software you're looking at, but it's probably what's called a WYSIWYG editor (what you see is what you get). Lots of people use those. I'm a programmer though and we tend to avoid anything with much of a user-interface. I think the problem with WYSIWYG can be summed up in three points: 1. You'll probably never understand the code it produces for as long as you keep using it, 2. These tend to produce inefficient (and often unreliable) code, and 3. If anything goes wrong you won't know how to fix it (and because the code they produce is so messy, other people won't want to fix it either unless the price is right).

Anyway, all that being said, I don't think you'd have the time to learn all that needs to be learned to do it completely without the help of some visual editor. So I'm going to suggest a compromise: Look into what's called a content management system (CMS). This is a program that will run on the webserver with your site and is designed to serve up the basic needs of a website (adding pages, displaying content, and such; some have more advanced features than others).

Check out joomla.org & drupal.org. (BTW the White House website was built on Drupal.)

The reason I call it a compromise is because you will still be able to edit content from a visual editor, but your site will have a framework that makes it easier to work with and these are so common that if you want to move to a custom system later on, you should be able to find a programmer who migrates people from these things on a regular basis. There is a CMS I stumbled across one day called Open Realty, which you may want to try out, but keep in mind that it's not as common as Joomla or Drupal, so getting help with it may not be so simple (on the other hand, it could work out just fine for you).

Try out the demos on their sites and see if that works for you.

When you've found one you like, you can install it on a shared hosting plan (that means you're renting part of a server that hosts other websites too, so the cost goes from a few hundred dollars a month down to $3-10/mo.). Even if you were going to use software off Amazon, you'd still have to get hosting so you can't cut this step out. I would recommend at least 5 GB disk space, but many hosts offer "unlimited" space so that shouldn't be an issue. You'll want a Linux server with Apache, PHP, and MySQL to ensure that those CMS systems I mentioned work on it--that's the most common setup on shared hosting anyway so it shouldn't be a problem.

If you need help finding a host, you'd have a much easier time getting people to tell you who not to host with than who to host with. Inevitably, no hosting company has a perfect record.

I bad mouthed Dream Host in another thread on this forum, but actually they have a "one-click" install for Joomla which would make that a lot easier, plus my complaint about them is that it's a little bit luck-of-the-draw whether you get on a good server or not, but they just bought part of a new data center and I suspect now would be a decent time to sign up.

Don't hold me responsible for your hosting choice because everybody has different experiences.

I would also recommend looking for a template (try template monster or something) and usually template sites have a category just for Joomla or other CMS systems, which I would presume are pretty easy to install. I've never bought a template before, so I don't actually know what that process would be like. If you want something more customized, you should easily be able to find designers to do layouts for your specific CMS.

So that's the simplest and most cost-effective way I can think of for going about this. I don't know if you're the type who would pick up on how to use the CMS systems pretty quickly or not, but it will save you having to buy software on Amazon, and it is likely to produce a much more functional site in the end.

*Whew* longest post ever.

I have an issue and I'm hoping I can get some feedback on how to handle it. I've joined the real estate business in October, and it has not gone well. Aside from being young (I'm 23), it is a difficult time to get into real estate. Since I've joined I haven't had any clients, but that is not the issue. I've been EXTREMELY dissatisfied with my company. I've tried talking to my broker, my manager, and others in the company, but no one has been able to help me.

I signed up to be on a broker's team and when I first met with him he promised me all sorts of things.. that he'd coach me, let me go with him to listings, do open houses, etc., but he hasn't followed through on any of that. He's a top broker in the area and I understand he's busy, but he just forgets about me and doesn't care about me. Whenever I go to him and tell him this, he just acts like he doesn't care. I mean I guess in his position, why would he want to help out a new agent.. but then why did I pay and he sign up to be my coach? Since I'm new, all I want is experience, and it's been hard to get that. Since I couldn't get anything from him, I sent out a mass email to my office to see if anyone could help me.. out of about 30 agents, not ONE responded. I did two open houses for a broker from another office, and when my broker found out he yelled at me for it.. and I didn't understand why. I then talked to my office manager about it, in which she told me they were a waste to do.. which made me a bit surprised. Even if they are a waste since I wouldn't get any commissions from them, it's experience right? I then told my manager my problems with the broker and she said he would talk to him. I then met with him and he offered me to be his assistant because he didn't like the lady who was currently doing it for him and he would pay me. This made me very excited because it's experience and I would be getting paid. Since I just graduated, money has been tight and I've held a part-time job along with real estate. I still put in 100% to real estate, but when I told my broker this he said that's exactly why I don't have clients. Many agents have part time jobs, and I didn't see why he had to criticize me.. sorry I'm not rich like him. I still commit and do all I can to get clients, and I don't appreciate someone putting me down for that. So I went back a week later to follow up with the assistant job with my broker only for him to tell he was just going to keep the lady he had. Way to get my hopes up!

Another issue I have. I know it's very important to be a Realtor member, but I expressed to my broker I wanted to wait a bit because money was tight and the Realtor fees were very expensive. Plus, since I had no clients, I didn't see what the big deal was waiting another month or two to join. The business cards I were handing out already didn't have that I was a member, so it's not like it would change that. My broker made such a big deal so I had to borrow money to join. All together that was like $700. He made me join his Realtor board because he just became the president. Looking back I don't see what the big deal was if I waited to join.

Throughout my time, I've met more supportive people on various social networking sites than in my own company. I posted on discussion boards about my issues and got many offers to join other companies that would be more supportive.. in which they said no company should act like mine does. I even got some people who wanted me to find them foreclosure houses in my area. I talked to them on the phone so I knew it was a legit process. I told my manager and she said she wouldn't help me and I shouldn't do it.. again no support. I asked people in my office for help.. nothing. It's not that I want help with every little thing, but I'm new.. obviously I'm not going to know everything up front. I'm paying all these fees for a coach and I get nothing, no support, no help. It just hurts so much and I feel like this whole thing has been a waste. Maybe I should have waited to join real estate since I didn't have the most money, but I was really dedicated and felt it was right, and now I'm in total regret. I've spent close to $1900 so far in various fees, which I find a bit ridiculous. I wasn't told about any of these fees up front, I was told I'd have to spend about $1000. I'm just sick of having no one support me, no one answers my emails back. I thought about switching offices, but I feel it will just be the same. I really just want to leave the company.

Now my question comes in. If I were to leave my current company and go to another, I'm sure there would be similar start up fees. Is there any way I could be refunded some of these fees? Also, can I get a refund on my Realtor membership? I'd like to join another because I currently belong to a local one. I have a feeling I wouldn't be able to, but I just spent so much money and to go to another company and have to pay that all over again would be too much.

I would like some advice before I speak to the president of my company. Thanks!