BRER Real Estate Marketing Blog

Do you ever run on autopilot?  I do.  Sometimes it really freaks me out.  For example, driving on autopilot.  There have been times when I’ve arrived somewhere and didn’t really remember the entire trip.  Or, times when I’ve ended up at the wrong intersection because I drove past a turn I needed to take.

I’ve never been in an accident, so it’s not that I drive recklessly.  But, I am always amazed at the ability of our brains to be doing two things simultaneously, especially when we’re not even aware of it.  Now, admit it, I’ll bet you’ve had the same experience.  How do we do it?

One time I was out of town on a consulting job.  I was driving a rental car back to the hotel after a very long day.  Going down the expressway, I was planning the next day’s tasks. 

Finally, it pierced my conciousness that several cars that had passed me had slowed down for a while next to my car.  It took me another few minutes to get curious about why.  As the car that had most recently been dogging me passed by, I noticed that they were turning their headlights on and off.  Was it possible??  Yes, the crazy foreign car I was driving had a weird control for the headlights.  So, while the lights were on in the dashboard, the actual headlights weren’t.

Then, there was the time I had a rental car because I had just dropped my car off for repair.  It was going to be a busy day, and I spent the drive to work thinking about the day’s activities.  I parked in my usual lot with the attendant who had become a friend.  It’s a good thing, too, because when I went out to head home, I discovered I had no idea what the rental car even looked like.  I had to ask the attendant which car I had arrived in.  Luckily, with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head, he pointed me in the right direction.

I figure next I’ll work on cloning myself.  Since my brain is already in two places at once, if I could just split the rest of me, I’d get a lot more done.

What Do People Do with Business Cards?

What do you do when someone hands you a business card?  Do you take a moment to read everything on the card?  I’ll bet you don’t, because you’re probably  talking to the person who handed it to you, and there’s no time to study it.

Do you read it over later?  I’ll bet you don’t - you might grab the name, email address and phone number from someone’s business card if you want to put it in your contact database, but other than that, I’ll wager you never look at it again.

What do you think someone does with your business card when you hand it to them?  Probably the same thing.  But, since you’re the one who’s offering real estate consulting services, unless that person is interested in buying or selling a home, I’m not sure they’d really pay too much attention to it.

How to Get More Mileage out of Your Business Cards

If you’re like most real estate professionals, you have your web address on your business card.  But, if you agree with the first part of this post, it’s fairly obvious that the person who receives your card won’t know about your website unless you invite them to visit when you hand them your card.

And, this is where having irrestible offers on your website comes in really handy.  When you hand someone your card, you could say something like:

“You’ll find my web address on the card.  You might be interested in visiting the site - you’ll find updates on what’s happening with real estate values in our area, you can search the homes for sale to see  what homes are going for in your neighborhood, and….  “

If you invite the people you meet to visit you online and give them a good reason to do that, your website just might end up in their favorites, or the person may end up giving your website address to a friend who is looking to buy or sell.

Eating Out Tonight?

Here’s another unique use for your business card that was posted on Active Rain by George Tallabas who markets Boise ID real estate.  Based on the 92 comments the post has received over the past week or so, it looks like a pretty good tip.

I won’t steal George’s thunder - but check it out.  You might find just one more way to use your business cards to do more business!

This is the third post in the series on website content mistakes you can avoid so that you don’t end up annoyed with your website like our friend here.  Use this link to see all the posts in this series:  Real Estate Website Content Mistakes.

The first two posts in this series covered issues related to how your website is set up, and some issues related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  Now, we’re up to mistake #8.

8.  Not Optimizing Your Pages for Your Chosen Keyword Phrases

This is a mistake I see a lot.  I am always amazed at the capabilities search engines have.  They send their spiders to crawl all over the Internet reading individual websites.  The magnitude of that task is almost beyond my ability to grasp the concept.  The fact that they keep all that information straight is truly incredible.  However, search engines are just machines and haven’t gotten to the point of reading our minds.  Yet.

But, it often seems like we do expect the engines to read our minds.  A typical situation is when I’m talking to a prospective client about doing some customization for their site.  While we talk, I usually take a quick trip to their site to see what is already in place.  I might find a community page, let’s say it’s about the town of Smallville.  I look at the page title and meta tags, and they focus on Smallville real estate.  So far, so good.

Then, I do a quick scan of the page content and discover that the words Smallville real estate do not appear anywhere on the page.  It’s true that content for your website should be written for human beings, not search engines.  But, you shouldn’t ignore the engines altogether.  Just make sure to keep your keyword phrases in mind as you write. 

Here are some examples:

It’s a good idea to have your target phrase appear at least at the top of the page, and at the bottom.  If you can easily include it another time or two, that’s even better.  And, putting the phrase in bold type will help your visitors scan the page, and the search engines will notice that, too.

One easy way to make sure your target phrase appears at the bottom of the page is to add a summary paragraph.  It could be something as simple as “If you have any questions about Smallville real estate…”  or  “If I can help make relocating to Smallville a pleasant experience for you and your family….”  or  “If you have school age children, you’ll be pleased with the outstanding educational opportunities you’ll find in the Smallville schools.”

9.  Leaving Your Internet Visitors Out in the Cold

This is an easy one to miss.  You know that you need to tell your Internet visitors what you can do for them.  But, the “point of view” you use in the writing is important.  It’s the difference between drawing your visitors into your world, and keeping them as distant observers.

You undoubtedly learned this in school sometime, but here’s a brief review of Point of View in writing:

• First Person – From the point of view of the writer(s), using pronouns like I, my, us, we
• Second Person – From the point of view of the reader, using pronouns like you and your
• Third Person – From an outside point of view, using pronouns like they, theirs

Wherever possible, writing from the point of view of the reader draws them into what is being said and helps to establish a personal relationship between you and your Internet visitors.  It’s easy, though to fall into writing in first person. 

When you write for the web, you might want to write a first draft just to get the information down in a logical way.  Then, go back over the content to make sure that it’s written in second person.  Here’s an example of how that might go:

• First draft:  We provide all the tools that are required to research a home purchase in Smallville.  The mortage calculator can be used to determine the affordability of a home.  We make sure that all the necessary financial information is available to make an informed decision.
• Revision:  You’ll find all the tools you need to research your next home purchase in Smallville right on this website!  You can use the mortgage calculator to determine how much home you can afford.  We know how important it is for you to protect your financial future, so we make sure you have all the financial information you need to make an informed decision.

If you want to check your web pages, there’s a handy free online tool called the Customer Focus Calculator.  Test some of your pages with the calculator.  It will tell you exactly how customer-focused the content of the page is, and whether you need to go back and do some revising!

Time for a Facelift?

If you’re thinking of creating a new real estate website, or if you’re planning a facelift for your existing site, one of the first decisions you have to make is about color.

The colors you choose for your website will have a big impact on the feeling your visitors get when they arrive, so you should put some thought into choosing colors that will produce a good reaction.

Where to Start

If you’re curious about where to start in choosing colors, you might find this information about the meaning of colors interesting.  I’m not sure I agree with everything said in that article.  For example, it says that dark purple is gloomy, but it also represents royalty and richness to me.

The article also says that you shouldn’t use yellow to sell to men.  One of our clients who sells San Antonio real estate wanted a festival look to their site.  The logo we designed highlights the San Antonio riverwalk.  The photos used in the header, taken by a local professional, are very colorful and emphasize the character of San Antonio.  The yellow background on the site isn’t causing any issues with their male clients.

So, I don’t think color meanings are always black and white. . .  excuse the pun.

Useful Internet Color Tools

Once you have an idea of the colors you want to use, you next have to select specific color combinations.  There are a number of tools on the Internet that can help you do that.

Assuming that you don’t want to become an expert in interpreting color modes, one of the easiest sites to use is the ColorCombo site.

On the right side of the home page, you’ll see a list of color tags.  Click on the color of your choice, then scroll down the page to see a variety of color combinations using that color tag as the starting point.  Click on a combination you like, and you’ll see larger color samples - the HEX equivalents for the colors (which is the color identifier used on the Internet) are shown for each combination.

Another site with some great combinations is the Adobe site.  I think this one is a little less user-friendly, but here are the things to look for.  The color combinations are shown at the top of the screen, under the color samples you’ll find a number of controls:

• At the left, there’s a search box.  You can search for a particular color, and combinations that use that color will be displayed.
• Under the search box, you can select Create if you want to try your hand at creating a new color scheme, or view Popular, Highest Rated or Newest color combinations.
• The list of color combinations has very small arrows at the bottom of the list.  You can use those controls to scroll forward or backward through the color schemes, or switch to a 3-column view.
• Click on one of the color schemes, and the colors will appear in the larger version at the top of the screen.
• There is no identifer for the exact colors, but you can give your web designer a screen shot or the name of the color combinations you like, and they can figure out how to reproduce the colors.

Keep in mind that just because a color scheme has five colors in it, you rarely will be able to use all of them at once.  You’ll need to choose which ones you want as the dominant colors, then the others might be used as accent colors.

While there are a lot of other things you need to do to make your website work hard for you, starting with a welcoming design and color scheme is certainly the first step.

I have always been amazed at people who have the gift of gab.  Actually I have always been amazed at where we come up with silly expressions like “the gift of gab”, too. 

In this instance, gab is really a word.  The dictionary defines it as:

• a verb:  to talk or chat idly; chatter
• a noun:  idle talk; chatter

And, that surprises me.  I have heard people say that they are gabbing - using gab as a verb.  But, I can’t remember anyone ever using the word as a noun.  How would that go?  “I have some interesting gab to share with you”. . .??

But, I digress.  As I said, people who have the gift of gab really do amaze me.  I can carry on a lively discussion, but I’ve always been a fan of comfortable silence, too.  Although there are professions where the gift of gab comes in particularly handy.

Hairstylists for one.  I’ve known people who could talk about anything and everything through a complete hair cut.  And, after you’ve left the salon, either you really can’t remember a word they said, or you’re totally overwhelmed at having been subjected to their entire life story since the last time your hair was looking shaggy.

I have a friend who can talk on the phone for hours, and my only responsibility is to inject a “really”, “ummmm”, or “ah’ from time to time.  In fact, there have been times when I’ve put the phone down briefly and returned to the conversation with the other person being none the wiser.

Dentists and dental assistants also make good use of the gift of gab.  The only problem, of course, is if they happen to ask a question.  The orthodontist I went to when I was young had a habit of filling my mouth with all kinds of devices, plus several of his giant fingers, then asking brightly “So, how’s school?”  I always wondered if he did it on purpose, and if he got anything out of my garbled response.

Yes, I’m afraid I’m one of those folks who agree with George Bernard Shaw when he said:

“She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.” 

You Need Incoming Links

You really can’t have too many links pointing at your website, so I’m always on the lookout for new places to get good incoming links.

If you’ve been following SEO for a while, you’re probably aware that many search engines have downgraded the importance of reciprocal links (you link to my site and I link to yours).  When that happened, some webmasters stopped doing reciprocal links altogether, and as usual with the lack of consistency in SEO, some webmasters still swear by them.

But, in any event, you still need good one-way incoming links to your website.  The main reason you need those links is because search engines use them as a way to gauge the importance of your website for particular keyword phrases.  One way to look at it is that the search engines see links coming to your website as a “vote” for your site.

Basic Linking Rules

Of course, there are some rules - some that are even pretty widely-accepted:

• Your incoming links should be from related websites - strong real estate websites are ideal, but at a minimum, make sure that you’re not depending on links from your cousin’s personal blog to increase your authority on the web.
• The words that are used to link to your site are important.  Since the search engines use incoming links as a vote, make sure they know what people are voting for!  If someone is going to link to your website, make sure they use one of your targeted keywords, not something like “Click Here”.  Real keyword phrases help the search engines figure out that you are being referenced as an authority on “City Real Estate”, for example.
• Vary the keyword phrases that are used to link to your site.  If every link coming to your site uses exactly the same words (called anchor text), the search engines will figure out that something nefarious is afoot.   Try to obtain natural sounding links that use variations of your keyword phrases.
• Find ways to get links to all the key pages of your real estate website.  Don’t always link to your home page.  For example, make sure you have links to content pages that are optimized for specific city or neighborhood keyword phrases.
• If you have a blog or a second website, use the rules above when linking to your own site(s).
• Be careful about paying for links.  I haven’t seen this as a problem with the major directories that charge a fee for displaying a link.  But, there are a lot of websites out there who would be glad to take your money, and the odds are they aren’t very particular about the links they display.
• Don’t build links too quickly.  Search engines are looking for a natural progression in the build up of incoming links to your site.  So, even if you could take a week and concentrate on getting as many good incoming links as possible, don’t do it.

Finally, check out this article by Michael Russer - he lists a number of opportunities for obtaining incoming links from some unique sources.

Happy campaigning!

If you have a real estate website, there are a number of things you might want to track in order to make it the best it can be.

Analyze Your Site’s Traffic

One of the most important things to track is the traffic on the site.  Your web host should provide a way for you to do that.  Or, you can always use Google Analytics.  

The Google offering is free, and has fairly recently been updated.  You will need to add a bit of code to the header or footer of your website or blog in order for the Analytics to track your traffic.

Analyzing your traffic will tell you a lot about how people find your website, how long they stay, how often people return, and which pages are most popular and the type of monitor most of your users have, among other things. 

It gives you a great opportunity to fine-tune your content, design and navigation.  For example, if you’ve designed for a large-size monitor (high resolution), it will tell you how many of your visitors have to use the horizontal scroll bar to see your pages.  The vast majority of my visitors use a 1024×768 resolution screen, so I make sure there is no horizontal scroll needed at that size.

But Wait, There’s More!

After reviewing traffic, there are a number of things you might want to know about your website:

• Checking which search engines have indexed various pages on your website
• Checking on the incoming links (or backlinks) the search engines show for your site
• Checking where your site ranks in the search engines for the keywords you are targeting
• Checking what information a search engine can see on your website

And, there are all kinds of other types of information that may be helpful, or that you may just be curious about.

The best collection of tools I’ve seen all in one place reside at SEOmoz.   You’ll find a lot of free analysis tools on that site, although some are reserved for their Premium Members.  Don’t worry - you can create a free account at that site that will give you access to lots of information that you may not be able to easily get elsewhere.

Take some time to review the tools available at SEOmoz - you’ll undoubtedly find something you like.  And, if anyone knows how the site came to be called SEOmoz, please let me know!

Another SEO Myth

Recently I was talking to a real estate agent who was at a loss wondering how to drive traffic to his website.  He knew about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but he had heard or read that you can only get ranked for one or two terms.

In case anyone else has heard that, rest assured that it is not true.  There are a couple ways that I could understand that idea being passed along.

1. Each page on your website can only be effectively optimized for one or two, and maybe three related keyword phrases. 
   • So, for example, you might want to optimize a page for Atlanta real estate and Atlanta real estate listings.  But, you wouldn’t want to try to optimize it for Atlanta real estate, New York real estate, Chicago real estate and Boston real estate.  There are two many phrases in that second example, and they are too unrelated to one another.
2. Regardless of whether you are doing your own SEO or you’re hiring someone else to do it for you, limitations in time and budget often dictate that you would only try to rank for a couple keywords at one time.  That doesn’t mean you can’t, it just means it may not be feasible.

Remember the Long Tail

Either way, the important thing to keep in mind is the long-tail search result phenomenon.  There are a lot of definitions of the term long-tail, I’ve discovered.  It is actually a term defining a statistical distribution.  For example, Wikipedia defines it this way:  ”The long tail is the colloquial name for a long-known feature of some statistical distributions.  In these distributions a high-frequency or high-amplitude population is followed by a low-frequency or low-amplitude population which gradually ‘tails off’.”

In more simple terms, in relation to SEO, the long-tail refers to all the keyword phrases that you never optimized for, but that your site ranks for in the search engines.

For example, using the stats for our site, BuildRealEstateResults.com, for the month of September, 2007, the site was found in the search engines for 869 different keyword phrases.  We’ve only optimized and done SEO on a very, very small percentage of those phrases.

Some of those 869 phrases bring targeted traffic to our website.  Some of them are silly things, like ranking for roaches and water bugs after a Whimsical Wednesday post on that topic.  By the way, we’ve fallen off the charts for that term - it was just a fairly normal phenomenon where the search engines will rank a fairly strong site for a phrase, but then they figure out it’s rather silly, so the ranking disappears.

The bottom line is this:  don’t despair if you only have the time or budget to do active on-going SEO on a couple terms.  The long-tail phenomenon will ensure that you get ranked for a variety of other phrases once the search engines figure out what your site is all about!

NOTE:  Blog Action Day was a huge success.  See the wrap up information at www.BlogActionDay.com

As a follow up to Monday’s post on the environment, I thought I’d share some of the issues we’re dealing with here in Atlanta and Georgia as a whole.  Right now, the biggest problem we’ve got is a lack of water.

Lake Lanier, which is the source of much of the region’s water is at near record lows.  In some places, there are 18′ wide stretches between where boat docks end and the lake water begins.  Naturally, when we’re not in a severe drought, the water comes right up to the docks, which is really handy if you have a boat.

Is our drought due to global warming?  I doubt there’s any agreement on that score, but when you put this together with all the other weird weather phenomenon worldwide, one must wonder.

This drought is not just affecting recreational boaters.  We’re now in a Level 4 Drought, according to the EPA.  We’ve already got outdoor water bans.  The suggestions that are being made to keep outdoor plants alive are varied.  One is to use rinse water from the clothes washer to water plants.

I’m not quite sure how that is supposed to work.  You can’t just put the drain from the washer into a bucket because you can’t use water with detergent in it, just rinse water.  So, are we supposed to stop the washer after the rinse cycle and bail the water out?  Or, crawl behind the washer in the middle of each load to put the drain hose into a bucket?

And, there’s talk of putting limits on indoor water use.  What does that mean?  Go back to the concept of Saturday night baths?

As it turns out, one reason Lake Lanier is so low is that we’re sending water down to Florida to make sure endangered freshwater mussels in Florida have lots of water.  Really - can you imagine a world without fat threeridge and purple bankclimbers? 

But, I really don’t want to lose any endangered species, so I’ve got an idea.  Rather than making the people in Georgia do without water, why don’t we just relocate the mussels?

There must be other places with enough fresh water rivers for these critical little mussels to live.  And, I’d even volunteer to help.  I mean, how hard could it be?

I don’t anticipate the relocation project ending up on Animal Planet with the host peering around a bunch of reeds explaining that “Joe is set with the tranquilizer gun to subdue the animals in preparation for their move”.

I think it would probably just be a matter of bending over to pick up the mussels.  Although I must admit that I’ve never seen a purple bankclimber, so I’m not sure what kind of speed they can muster if they don’t want to be picked up.

In any event, before the state of Georgia is declared a disaster area due to the air being contaminated with excessive body odor, I think I’ll give the Governor a call and suggest that we organize a mussel round up.

Virtual Tours. . .

They’re great tools.  And, there are lots of ways you can create one. 

• You can use photos that you take yourself and create a tour that showcases each room of the house. 
• You can get a professional photographer, and your tour will take on a new dimension with professional lighting and photo composition.
• You can hire a company to make a 360 degree video of each room.
• And, then there are tours you host yourself.

Have you ever wished that you could actually show your listings to people who visit your website?  Who better to showcase the home than you as the listing agent?  If you’re not camera-shy, working with a videographer that is tuned into the real estate industry will allow you to make a video tour like this one done by Kevin Boer of a Potrero Hill loft in San Francisco.

If you’re interested in creating a video like Kevin’s you should check out WellcomeMat.com website.  WellcomeMat.com was one of the finalists for the Inman Most Innovative Web Service Award in 2007. 

The Virtual Tour Leading Edge:  Personally-Hosted Virtual Tours

WellcomeMat lets you host a video tour that you take yourself, or one that is made by a professional videographer.  The site is unique, however, in that it will also help you get acquainted with videographers in your area, one of whom might be just the person to help you make a video of a personal tour - and make it look great.

When you visit the WellcomeMat site,  take a look at the video in the left column of the home page.  It chronicles the making of one of the videos where the listing agent does a walk-through of the home.

There are a number of other very creative videos on the site.  One agent who is selling condominiums taped existing condo owners giving glowing testimonials about the building, the units and the neighborhood.  Other videos included shots of local shopping or recreational areas.

Right now, WellcomeMat is a free site, but that can’t go on indefinitely or they’d have to close down.  They will be monetizing the site, and they’ve written a blog post to explain what the current plans are.

Why Create a Personally-Hosted Virtual Tour?

• Visitors to your website get to know you on a much more personal basis than just gazing fondly at your photograph.
• You can showcase your marketing capabilities and give your visitors a feel for what it would be like having you represent their home as a listing agent.
• A personal tour will do a much better job of selling your listings.
• You can reinforce your credentials as a neighborhood expert.

So, what do you think?  Ready to become famous?