Archive for October, 2007
Whimsical Wednesday: Running on Autopilot
· CommentsDo 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.
Do More Business with Your Business Cards
· CommentsWhat 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:
|
Target Phrase |
Poor SEO | Good SEO |
| Smallville real estate | If you want a home in the Smallville area, you’ll find a lot to choose from. | If you are looking for Smallville real estate, you’ll find a lot to choose from. |
| relocating to Smallville | If your job is bringing you to Smallville, you’ll find a lot of information here to help make your move easier. | If you’re relocating to Smallville you’ll find a lot of information here to help make your move easier. |
| Smallville schools | All the public schools in Smallville are part of the Anderson County Board of Education. | The Anderson County Board of Education operates all the public Smallville schools. |
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!
How to Color Your Website
· CommentsTime 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.
Whimsical Wednesday: The Gift of Gab
· CommentsI 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.”
