Archive for May, 2008
The problem with forum searches is that you can never find anything using them. Well, no, the real problem with forum searches are the people who answer your posts with, “Please search the forum before posting a new message…”
Those people are usually the ones who spend way too much time reading forum posts. Sure, if you read every post in the forum, you’d be able to find things using the search. Why? Because you’d know exactly what to search for!
I upgraded a piece of graphics software recently. The first time I cropped a photo, only half of the photo appeared. When I looked at it in the photo editor it looked fine. Going back to the main page, only half the photo appeared. So, I used a different piece of software and forgot about it.
The second time I cropped a photo, when I went back to the main page, the photo displayed only the portion I had saved with the crop, but it was the same size as the original photo. It should have been smaller, you see.
So, I went to the support forum. I thought about it for a while and couldn’t think of a way to search for this particular problem. From my perspective, the software was messing up - losing part of an image and resizing photos all by itself. How can you search for that??
I started a new thread and explained what was happening. The response? One of the dreaded “you should have done a search first”. Turns out that the photo editor doesn’t really work any more. So, one could ask, “Well, then, why is it still included in the software?” But, no one addressed that issue.
I was lucky this time, though. At least the person who responded included the URLs to the threads that addressed the issue.
So, the next time you read a forum post from some dummy who is asking a question that has been asked before, take pity. Maybe you would know to search for “What has happend to the image cropper” or “XPE cropping”, but for those of us who don’t even know what XPE means? Please just answer the question!
Up until now, social networking sites haven’t proven to be great places for real estate agents to promote their services. In addition, I haven’t spoken to anyone who thinks social networking sites have been good places to expand their networks in any meaningful way. If you’ve had a different experience, please speak up!
According to the 2007 NAR Profile on Buyers and Sellers, 68% of the buyers who participated in the survey have never used a social networking web site. But, I’m wondering if that situation is going to change.
Soon, Any Site Will Be Able to Turn Itself Into a Social Networking Website
Hot on the heels of the announcements by MySpace and Facebook, Google has announced the “preview release” of a product called Google Friend Connect. By the time you read this, you should be able to get more information at http://www.google.com/friendconnect. That site is supposed to be live after Google’s Campfire meeting the evening of May 12.
Preliminary Friend Connect Functionality
So, what is Friend Connect? Certainly, there will be much more information as time goes on. But, here’s a user-friendly description as I currently understand it.
Background:
- Right now, there are many social networks out there. Each network maintains its own data. If you’re on Facebook, you still need to create a new account if you want to be on MySpace.
- The long-term goal is to create an Internet world where you only have to join one social network site – from that point on, your network will “follow you” to any other sites with a social networking component. For example,
- If you have signed up at Facebook, when you go to MySpace you can login with your Facebook ID.
- It’s not clear to me exactly how the interface will work. Will all your friends on Facebook end up on MySpace if youjoin both networks? Or, will you be able to interact with only your friends who have also joined MySpace? Google has said that some type of permission will have to be given, but we’ll need more insight on how that will actually work.
Now, Enter Capabilities like Friend Connect:
- According to Google, Friend Connect is “a service that helps website owners grow traffic by enabling any site on the web to easily provide social features for its visitors.”
- Any website will be able to add social networking features that will reside on their site in an I-Frame.
- That should mean that if I added Friend Connect to this Blog, for example, I’d create a new Social Networking page and frame-in the code to provide the Friend Connect capability.
- At that point, visitors to the blog will be able to interact with existing friends and add new friends to their network from among the people who have signed in to the social networking capability on this blog.
Google describes the benefit this way:
Without requiring coding experience, Google Friend Connect gives site owners a way to attract and engage more people by giving visitors a way to connect with friends on their websites.
- Drive traffic: people who discover interesting sites can bring their friends with them, and can opt-in to publish their activities on those sites back into their social network, attracting even more visitors.
- Increase engagement:access to friends and OpenSocial applications provides more interesting content and richer social experiences.
- Less work: any site can have social components without hiring a programming team or becoming a social network.
The techies are having discussions about whether there is enough compatibility among the different information structures used by various networking sites, and whether the major players should be working together or working independently as they seem to be doing now, banking on open architecture to get all the various data bases to talk to each other to exchange information.
From what I can tell, it sounds like we’re still a ways away from total integration. But, I think the concept of providing social networking capability on any website is something worth watching very carefully.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but part of me does wonder if all this accessibility might get to be too much. If everyone you’re connected to on LinkedIn, for example, finds a great new website and either connects you to it, or sends you an invitation to connect to it… Will we have any time to do anything besides sit at our computers in a fog??
Any other reactions??
When you think about what it takes for a real estate agent to be successful on the Internet, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
Getting Traffic is Critical
For many people, the first thing they think about is driving traffic to their real estate web site. And, certainly that is critical. You can use Pay Per Click for some quick results and SEO (search engine optimization) to get your website ranked well on the SERPs (search engine result pages).
There is no chicken and egg issue here. Clearly, the entire process of marketing on the Internet starts with getting visitors to your website. But, once you’ve achieved a reasonable amount of traffic, your attention must quickly change to converting those visitors into leads, clients and closed transactions.
NOTHING Happens On Auto Pilot
I often see two types of assumptions about websites:
- If You Build It, They Will Come. Many agents and brokers I talk to have the mistaken idea that if you create a website, that site will automatically be found on the search engines and visitors will just naturally show up. When I first started working with agents, I got a few phone calls from panicked clients saying, “I just typed my domain name into Google and nothing came up!!!” Now, each project description I send out has the following disclaimer where we mention that we optimize the pages we write for SEO: “Please note: The SEO on the home page will set it up to be found by the search engines. There are other SEO tasks that must be undertaken before the site will rank well.”
- If They Come, They’ll Turn Into Clients. Getting traffic to your website is only the first challenge. After that, you need to focus on turning visitors into leads and clients. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a professional-looking website and good information will necessarily get that job done.
You Have to Work at Converting Visitors into Clients!
You may have seen the tips on conversion on this blog from one of my clients, Priscilla Allen. You’ll get even more of Priscilla’s tips from the article written by Mike Parker from Blackwater/Compass.
I think Priscilla has some great ideas. Quick response, establishing a dialogue, and having a clear marketing message are definitely some of the essentials.
Six Reasons Why Agents Fail on the Internet
Ah, if only ranking on search engines and converting visitors were the only issues!
My SEO partner, Mike Parker, recently wrote an article that appears on the Broker Agent Professional website (it used to be Broker Agent News, but I notice that the name seems to have changed). He did a fantastic job of summarizing six key factors that contribute to Internet failure among real estate professionals.
Take a few minutes to read this article! Avoiding these six mistakes will serve you well.
Software to Help You Build Links by Posting on Blogs
If you haven’t heard anything about software that helps you find blogs where you can leave a comment and get a one-way incoming link to your website, here’s some information you’ll find useful.
I looked at a software program called Comment Kahuna. I think that software and others like it are good tools to use if, like everything else related to SEO, you make a commitment to wear a White Hat when you use it.
Things to Keep in Mind
1. Leaving generic comments on a blog isn’t a White Hat strategy. If someone leaves a comment on this blog that is something like “I really love this blog. The information is very useful.”, I will delete it and I think anyone else would do the same. The purpose of commenting on a blog is to establish or continue a dialog on the topic of the blog post. Generic comments aren’t helpful.
- The commenting software allows you to store “profiles” that consist of an author name, email address, URL and comment. The software will automatically insert the information in the profile into a blog’s comment fields.
- But, if you aren’t going to actually read a post and come up with a valid comment, then you’re abusing the system. I’d suggest using the first three fields, but writing a valid original comment for each blog post.
2. Building backlinks by posting blog comments only works if the search engines put a value on the links. There are two places where the search engines could be instructed to ignore an outgoing link.
First, there could be a tag in the header on a blog page that looks something like this: rel=”nofollow”. Second, there could be an argument added to a specific link: rel=”external nofollow” or rel=”nofollow”. The bottom line is that if there is any type of a nofollow tag on a page, the odds are that outgoing links will not be acknowledged by the search engines.
- Comment software can be used to find sites that use the nofollow tag on their home page. But, you’ll really need to evaluate each website yourself to determine whether links are set up as nofollow. Here’s why:
- The software can spot a nofollow on the home page of the blog. However, most blogs don’t display comments on the home page. So, if there are no comments, the software can’t tell if the links are set up as nofollow or not.
- The best thing to do is to use the comment software to identify blogs on a specific topic. Then, for each blog that is identified as being nofollow-less, you will need to:
- Find a post that has comments.
- Go to the page with the comments on it.
- Look at the source code for that page (View-Source or RightClick-View Source)
- Do a search for the characters nofollow (Edit-Find in a notepad file)
- If nofollow is discovered on the page, mark the blog accordingly
What Comment Software Can Do
Commenting software can be helpful in finding blogs on related topics and automating some of the tasks required to submit comments. But, you can’t just use the software in the hopes that all the work will be done for you.
If you’re going to use blog comments as part of your link building strategy, make sure you select the right blogs and that you put the effort into writing useful comments. Part of the result from commenting on other blogs is that real people might visit your website, as well as the search engines.
Thoughtful or insightful comments will go a long way toward encouraging other blog visitors to visit your site, too!
Whimsical Wednesday: Paper Reproduction
· CommentsIt is a little known fact, but did you know that paper does actually go through a reproduction cycle while it sits on your desk?
I excavated my office over the weekend. What a production. Or, should I say reproduction? I haven’t figured out how to stop the paper in the office from multiplying, but I have perfected an excavation process that works pretty well.
My problem is two-fold. First, there is the problem of paper multiplying. I do believe that’s true. I think the guy who studied fruit flies to research genetics could have saved himself a lot of staring through a microscope at those tiny little bugs. He could have studied several generations of paper in just as short a period of time.
The second problem is that I am afflicted with more than a modest amount of pack ratness. Or, is that packratitis? In any event, between those two things, excavating the office is required on quite a regular basis.
Here’s how it works. First, take all the piles, notes and extra pieces of paper that have accumulated on all the horizontal surfaces in your office and put them into one large pile. Then, relocate yourself and the consolidated paper pile to a comfortable piece of floor somewhere. Then, go through the pile one piece of paper at a time and create new piles.
If you wait long enough, you’ll find that most things can go in the “to be thrown out” pile. It helps if you make that pile on the inside of a plastic trash bag so you aren’t tempted to retrieve anything that you screwed up the courage to deep six.
And, you’ll also find evidence of paper reproduction. One thing I like about email is that I always have access to the information I need. Which is why I’ve grown to hate faxes. If you lose a fax, you’re sunk. If you lose an email or email attachment, you can always get another copy. And, that’s what starts the paper’s reproductive cycle.
I am computer savvy, and I have no problem working with information in an electronic format. But, there are times when nothing but a hardcopy will do. And, since I know that I have backups of just about everything (very few people fax these days), if I can’t find something I need, I’ll just print it out again. Which is undoubtedly fueling the paper’s ability to reproduce.
So, now my office is very neat and tidy. I have thrown out all the things I don’t know what else to do with – like the expired coupons, newspapers with articles that I wanted to read when they first entered the office and were meaningful, etc.
My next trick will be to invent birth control for paper. In some areas, conservationists use a birth control loaded dart to shoot deer to keep populations down. I’m thinking there ought to be something along that line for paper.
Only problem is, I think I’m the one who is going to end up getting the shot.
