Archive for September, 2007
If you’ve never had the pleasure of living in the South, there are some things you’re missing.
The weather, for one thing - unless you live in San Diego. Being a native of Michigan, I can honestly say that I don’t miss driving in snow, shoveling snow, or knocking myself cold when my car slipped on the ice before I started wearing seatbelts religiously. Yes, it’s not just people who slip on the ice - cars do it, too.
One thing you’re not missing – unless you’re an entomologist – is the richness of the insect life you’ll find in the South.
Red ants are one example. If you’re allergic to red ants, one bite can kill you. And, that’s the reason that my sister carries an epinephrine “pen” around with her. (The dictionary is getting a real workout with this post!) The pen can save her life because she is allergic and can give herself a shot if bitten.
I couldn’t even begin to identify all the various insects that I’ve seen here around Atlanta that I’ve never seen before. But, the most annoying to me is the roach. These aren’t the kind of roaches you see in scummy, dirty apartments on TV. These are LARGE roaches that live outside. They only come to visit from time to time, but they’re the biggest reason that everyone in the South hires a pest control company to visit them, hopefully more often than the roaches do.
Now, I imagine that if you grew up in the South, and you discover a roach in the house, you simply kill it. If you’re anything like me, however, you keep the vacuum cleaner in a handy place to deal with the little darlings. To me, trying to kill a roach by swatting it with a newspaper is the equivalent of trying to kill an attacking mountain lion with a baseball bat. It is too messy, requires too much close contact, and it’s just not happening.
But, if you put all the tube-like attachments you own on your vacuum cleaner, you can approach the insect from a fairly safe distance and suck it up into the machine. The only other thing left to do is to stuff some newspaper or something into the end of the wand so that when the roach decides to leave, he doesn’t come strolling out and back into the home environment.
Never mind that the spray used by the pest control folks has possibly already killed the bug. They often play possum. And if you decide to get rid of one “later”, you may return to find it has removed itself to a safer place in the living room.
One thing people in the South have done to try to make things easier for us Yankees is rename this infamous insect. Many refer to them as water bugs. However, they’re really not fooling anyone. They’re giant cockroaches. I know because I looked it up, and thanks to the Wikipedia, you can see for yourself. Face it, folks – there are no water bugs floating around in my living room – let’s just call a roach a roach!
Are You Too Ashamed to Blog?
· CommentsHow to Conquer PersonalWriteaphobia
From what I’ve seen, the first reason people don’t blog is because they can’t think of anything to say. But, there are lots of ideas around describing what a real estate professional can blog about. One of the most valuable sources of blog topics are the questions clients ask you every day.
The second thing that holds people back is that they don’t like their writing. Many people are ashamed to admit it, but when they have identified a topic and sit down to write about it, they don’t like the results. Well, the good news is that there are a lot of ways to improve your writing style.
If you suffer from personalwriteaphobia, which is the fear of reading your own writing, don’t give up until you’ve spent some time on CopyBlogger.com. At that site, you’ll find all kinds of useful information that will help you blog with confidence!
I enjoyed reading about Magnetic Headlines. In fact, I used one of Brian’s tips in the title for this post. Then, there’s the post about grammatical errors that make you look stupid. Heaven knows, we all want to avoid those!
The other thing to keep in mind is that there is a spell-checker virtually wherever you go to write something. Use it. Religiously. Even if you’re sure everything is 100% perfect, run the spell check anyway. It’s always that time that you don’t where you will later find all kinds of mispelled words.
So, don’t worry if you don’t feel like Shakespeare when you sit down to write a blog post. I think you’ll find that the more writing you do, the easier it will become. And, with great blogs like CopyBlogger, you have a wealth of information to help boost your confidence and increase the readership of your blog!
Sticky Websites
In Internet jargon, a “sticky” website is one that succeeds in getting visitors to:
- stay on the site for an extended period of time to explore multiple pages
- return to the site to review valuable or updated information.
In the real estate industry, it’s very important to develop a sticky website so that it acts as an effective lead incubator. See Targeting Real Estate Website Embryos.
Quick Tip: Add a MeetUps RSS Feed
I learned about the site called MeetUps from a client. TIME magazine included the site in its list of 50 Coolest Websites. The site provides an online forum for getting people together (in person!), who live near one another and who share common interests.
You can add an RSS feed for the meetups in and around your target markets, and give your visitors another reason to stay on and return to your site. Here’s what one of the RSS feeds might look like on your website.
You’ll notice that the short intro includes a targeted keyword phrase. And, on your own site, you’d make sure that the page title and meta tags were set up effectively, of course. It was also made clear that the feed would be updated regularly, and visitors were encouraged to check back.
Here’s How It’s Done
- Go to the Cities page of the MeetUp website.
- Click on one of the listed cities if that is your target market -OR- Enter a Zip Code in the box if you’re targeting a smaller city and click the red GO button
- Once on the city page, click on the tab under the city name called This week
- Use the drop down menu to adjust the mile radius if desired
- Scroll to the bottom of the page where you’ll see RSS feed links – Right click on the link called RSS and select the Copy Shortcut option
- Paste the link (the shortcut you copied) into the RSS facility on your website
And, you’re done!
Another interesting thing to note about MeetUps is that there is a category called Real Estate Buying and Investing. It has 31,564 Members in 590 Meetup Groups, and 8,079 waiting for a Meetup Group.
You might want to check for a group in that category in your target market, or start one yourself!
Unbranded Real Estate Websites – Or Not?
· CommentsHave You Had a Good Experience with Unbranded Sites?
I was talking to a client who had heard a lot about unbranded websites at a gathering of folks from his national brokerage. He said that several extremely successful agents had been getting great results with unbranded websites.
Just to clarify, in his definition, an unbranded site is one where:
- The main purpose of the site is to provide access to a local MLS search with no registration required.
- The site owner is identified in readable type in the footer of the web pages.
- There is a Contact page for individuals who want assistance.
- There are no photos of the site owner, and no marketing message about the agent or team that sponsors the site.
The Difference Between Unbranded and Stealth
So, from that perspective, I wouldn’t call a site like this a “stealth” site. Usually when people talk about a stealth site, they’re referring to something that intentionally looks like a competitor to REALTOR.com or a similar site, where there really is no agent associated with the site.
The problem I have with stealth sites relates to how an agent can establish a relationship with a prospect who creates an account on the MLS search, thereby providing contact information to the site owner. I can’t figure out how that first contact would be explained.
Would it go something like: “You saved a home search on www.Nobody’sSite.com, and I just wanted to touch base to see if you found the information you were looking for”. Whereupon the prospect would respond asking how the agent got their name since they’d been using Nobody’sSite???? I’d hate to be the one trying to smooth that one over! And, if you can’t establish a relationship with the site visitors, what good is having the site?
How Unbranded Sites are Different
I think managing an unbranded site is different than a branded site in a number of ways:
- Typical unbranded sites are not full-blown sites with lots of content, blogs, etc. There may be a few pages on the site, but nothing the size of an agent’s main site.
- Therefore, getting an unbranded site ranked in search engines to drive traffic will be much more difficult, so
- It would make sense to have different plans for driving traffic – perhaps sending “almost unbranded” postcards advertising free, no obligation access to MLS searches, or using Pay Per Click advertising on the search engines.
- If most or all of the ways in which site visitors interact on the site is through the MLS search, their contact information will end up in the customer database on the MLS search back office.
- Therefore, having an effective system for following up with those leads would be critical. And, a decision would need to made as to whether to follow up via telephone, as would typically be done on a branded site, or strictly via drip e-mail to maintain the arms-length relationship the site visitor was looking for.
To Brand or Not To Brand?
I’m just not sure I’m comfortable with the entire concept of unbranded sites. Of course, the possibility exists that I’m looking at this wrong. I’m just very sensitive to what is often called a “bait and switch”; that situation where you advertise one thing and deliver something different.
If my client decides to establish an unbranded site, I’ll report back on his results. If you or someone you know has an unbranded site, or if you have an opinion about them, I’d be very interested to hear from you!
Targeting Real Estate Website Embryos
· CommentsYour Real Estate Website Must be an Effective Incubator
In order for your real estate website to produce revenue, it needs to be an effective incubator. You know what incubate means, right? According to the dictionary, incubate is defined as: To sit upon (eggs) for the purpose of hatching. OK, that’s not the definition we’re looking for. Here’s another one:
To maintain favorable conditions promoting development
That’s more like it. Your website needs to maintain favorable conditions to promote the development of relationships with your site visitors so that they end up becoming clients.
These are some of the things you can do to create “favorable conditions” that will make your real estate website an effective incubator:
- Set up processes to quickly get in touch with site visitors who provide contact information
- Set up drip e-mail campaigns offering useful information related to the visitor’s area(s) of interest
- Offer unique and useful content on your site so that your visitors will want to return to the site often
What (or Who) Should Your Website Incubate?
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