Archive for Insider Insight
Six Tips for Online Branding
· Comments
This guest post was written by Richard Soto, Broker – VIPRealty, marketing Houston real estate and recruiting experienced agents in Houston, San Antonio and Dallas
How do your clients and prospects choose you? Why should they call you over another agent? With hundreds of agents working in your same area why are you the most qualified?
Your brand as a real estate agent or broker is how prospective clients and buyers view you as a professional. Branding is not just a trade name or a logo, rather, it is the ability to recognize a name, and the reputation of quality behind it.
Tips For Online Real Estate Branding
Always use a professional portrait – Your photo is your business icon. Potential buyers and clients will call real estate professionals that they trust, and that trust starts with a likable photo. Be sure you get yours done in a professional studio, with hair and makeup styling if necessary. The face you present to the world should be the face of trust and confidence.
Highlight your differentiation – Like any business, you must emphasize what sets you apart from the competition, also known as the Unique Sales Proposition. What are your differential factors? Do you specialize in condos? High-end luxury homes? Does your record back a 90 day or less closing? Be sure your branding tells prospects why they should choose you.
Get a professionally designed website – The website you use to advertise your real estate services and listed properties must work on the highest levels. Easy navigation. Fast loading. Proper listing views, tours, and information. If you can’t do this yourself, hire a professional web designer.
Write articles – Part of good real estate agent branding is becoming known as an expert or specialist. Try publishing a blog with your website with helpful articles. It is also advisable to guest blog for other important websites.
Post online seminars – Another way to gain exposure as an expert is to produce informational seminars. YouTube is a great place to post your short informational video about special niche topics in real estate.
Social network standing – And finally, you must have a social network presence as part of your branding. At popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others, you get valuable exposure, gather contact lists, and have a place to gain valuable leads.
This guest post was written by Richard Soto, Broker – VIPRealty, marketing Houston real estate and recruiting experienced agents in Houston, San Antonio and Dallas
Developing Key Content for Your Real Estate Website
Content is king. The kings were once cash, and those who could afford advertising space. Now even the most humble of real estate marketing budgets can benefit from additional web traffic and more revenue through real estate search engine optimized (SEO) web content.
Writing and posting web content is a vital skill for real estate web owners and marketers who want to get their website noticed. Why would you, as a web marketer, want to get noticed? Here are a few good reasons:
- Increase your real estate web sales and revenue
- Improve branding
- Increase contact lists and customer base
- Become a recognized expert in your real estate community
These are just a few of the benefits of a successful content marketing campaign. And with the results of a content marketing study performed by Technorati, it is no wonder that more businesses will be expanding their content marketing efforts in 2010 and beyond.
- 71% of businesses say their blogging efforts have increased their visibility within their industry.
- 56% of respondents said that their blog has helped established a leadership position in their industry.
- 6 in 10 businesses plan to expand their efforts and increase spending on content marketing in 2010.
With so much to gain for your content marketing efforts, here are six tips that can help improve your content marketing success.
1. Create a Plan
It is useless to simply post articles or other web content without a sound plan. Develop a content marketing plan that you will use for your web marketing efforts.
2. Write Sticky Headlines
Your headline or title is probably the most important part of your content. If you can convince a web user to read the rest of your article or other content based on an interesting headline, you are 90% successful.
3. Research Hot Keywords
What is happening right now? Write content that is a hot topic for web users. Look to places like Google News, or even research trending topics on Twitter, to get the most used keywords you can use in your next post.
4. Write a Story
Your web content should be rich in keywords, but also be written in a style that captures a reader’s attention. Use story techniques like character development, conflict, and dramatic conclusion to get readers engaged with your content.
5. Make it Worthwhile to the Reader
The reader will ask him or herself, “so what?” Give the reader a benefit for reading your content. Can you provide new ways to style hair? Save money shopping for clothing? Easy home improvement tips? Let the reader take a nugget of valuable knowledge away.
6. Be Consistent
Writing a great real estate article or blog post is a great start in your SEO content marketing efforts. However, you must continue to provide great content again and again. Don’t stop with one or two good articles. Keep the flow going and be consistent in your content posting efforts
Insider Insight: Internet Safety Tips
· CommentsThis guest post was written by Sam Chapman, an Austin real estate agent,
who has lived in the Austin-Lake Travis area since 1987.
This post has nothing to do with Austin real estate, but it has everything to do with Internet use habits, safety and your future.
Facebook and other social networking sites can be awesome, but did you know you could be placing yourself at risk? If you are not careful with your privacy settings, with what you post or if you add people as friends without knowing them, you could be setting yourself up for trouble.
Imagine posting that you are about to spend 5 days in beautiful Hawaii. Cool. Your friends will be jealous and everyone will be looking forward to seeing photos that you will post when you get back. Imagine coming back from Hawaii and finding that your house had been burglarized. How could this happen? Someone shady was lurking on Facebook and saw your post. The crooks found out where you live and hit the house when you were gone.
Parents, you need to know what your kids are doing online on sites like Facebook. Make them add you as a friend so you can see what they are posting. Not that you are going to hang out and read everything they post, but an occasional check would be very wise.
Make sure you know who can see what. To check or change your Privacy Settings, log in to Facebook and look for the Account tab at the upper right part of the page. Click on Account and find Privacy Settings. Click that, then Profile Information and make whatever changes you need to make. Go back to Privacy Settings and click Contact Information. Again, make any changes you feel are necessary. Do the same for other Privacy Settings and you’re done.
Teenagers, college students and people new to the work force need to be careful about what they post. Believe it or not, employers visit sites like Facebook. Do you want a future employers seeing a post about what you did at a party or about skipping classes to go to the lake? Also be careful about photos you or your friends post. If you see one that is particularly unflattering, ask to have it removed.
Also, beware of any post or private message from a “friend” who is in distress. People can hack users identities and post about having been mugged while out of town and needing money. This is actually more common than you might think. How do hackers steal someone’s Facebook identity? Probably through a phishing email. This is a great reason not to have one password for multiple online accounts.
There are other Facebook threats as well. If you see something that looks suspicious, take a careful look at it.
From Kathleen: Interestingly enough, I just got this article in a newsletter from my Spam block vendor. Kinda scary.
If you work in any communities where there are many non-English speaking residents, you might be interested in the article on ActiveRain written by Steve Mun, a Keller Williams agent in California.
Steve’s recent experience is that there are many foreclosure scams being directed at ethnic communities. The “mortgage consultants” who contact people in trouble play on the feeling of community they create. These consultants look like real saviours. They speak the language of the person in trouble, and emphasize their goal to assist others in their community. I thought it was a good word of warning.
Steve also cited a new regulation in California requiring foreclosure consultants to register with the State Attorney General and post a $100,000 bond.
Is that happening in other states? What a concept! Could this perhaps help eliminate some of the abuse??
What Was Your Income Last Year?
· CommentsI hope you made some money last year. But, did you make any income?
That might sound like a silly question. But, following up on my conversation with James Smith, I find that question very relevant.
Like many real estate agents, James started in real estate treating his business like a hobby. That’s not to say that he wasn’t very professional and effective in providing real estate consulting services. But, from a business management perspective, he started out being caught up in the traditional real estate agent model. Even though he had years of business experience, he just never thought about the fact that since he was building a business, he should treat it like one from a management standpoint.
One of the best things he did for himself was to create a business entity for his consulting practice. Now, he knows for sure that he has income because his company pays him a salary. Why does that matter?
Think about going to get a loan, for example. What does a loan officer look at first thing? Your income. If you’re acting as a 1099 employee of your broker, you don’t really have any income. You might be making money, but from a loan officer’s perspective, that’s just not the same as income.
When you create a corporation of some type (Sub-S or LLC for example), you’re creating a business entity that pays you a salary, and pays for all of your other business expenses. Now you’re a company and you can do all the things a real business does. And, you can claim income just like back when you were working as a W-2 employee for somebody else’s company.
I’m running a small business, and from my perspective, it never occurred to me to do that without forming a corporation. That’s why the writing at the top of the blog says “Build Real Estate Results with Getting It Write, Inc“! And, that’s why I say that the most important thing I bring to the table is the ability to apply solid business and marketing principles to the real estate industry. I recognized early on that the industry needed all the fresh perspective it could get to stay viable.
If you haven’t investigated how forming a real company could benefit you in the long run, do it now!
