Archive for Content – Sites/Blogs
CyberHomesPro Rises Again!
· CommentsYou may recall that I wrote a couple posts about CyberHomesPro in the past. I was on RealTalk today and noticed that Reggie Nicolay from CyberHomes had resurrected one of my earlier posts on that forum to suggest that we take another look at the CyberHomesPro Smartframe.
So, I did. I found that the changes that have been made make the SmartFrame a good way for you to provide home evaluation information and neighborhood data on your website and/or blog. For an example, take a look at this test page.
I set up the test using “Atlanta” as the area of interest. You can also narrow things down by setting up the SmartFrame for a specific zip code.
When you first reach the page, you’ll see quite a few homes in the Atlanta area. If you want to test it out, try typing in the address: 356 King Rd NW, Atlanta, GA. I’m not sure that address even exists, but it will give you a chance to see how things work.
Once you type that address, and click Search, you will see some other homes on that street with descriptions. Using that function, you can get an idea of prices in an area, even if your specific address is not in the database. If you use one of the existing addresses that are shown, you’ll see a range for the estimated value. I think that makes much more sense than those sites that claim to have a valid estimate.
If you use that address and change the drop down to the left of the search box to Neighborhoods, you’ll find that CyberHomes has figured out the address is in the 30342 zip code, and it displays neighborhood information for that zip code.
There’s a lot of neighborhood information:
- 12-month change in home values
- median sales prices and volume
- sales tax
- cost of living index
- recent and projected job growth
- crime statistics
- climate averages
And, I could go on – but you should really take a look at it yourself.
I set the frame up to scroll, although that is not the default. I did that because some of the pages a visitor might end up on are longer than the norm, and without the scroll, they’d have no way to see all of the page. But, the most commonly used pages can be seen without an interior scroll bar, so I don’t mind the scrolling issue too much.
You do need to set the width of the frame at 1000px or the page will be cut off. For most sites with vertical navigation bars, that means you’ll need to eliminate the nav bar as I did on the test page.
I’ll update this post if I get an answer to the question I asked about what happens if someone creates an account on your SmartFrame. I’m not sure how the information will be used at this point. Update: See the Comments on this post to see the answer to this question from Reggie at Cyberhomes!
But, given the fact that the last time I looked at the SmartFrame it was unusable for most people, I’m very glad to see that this version provides a great deal of information in a very usable form!
Promote Your City’s “Walkability”
· CommentsWe all know that walking is good for us, but now you can promote your city’s walkability on your real estate website or blog. And, if you market in an area that is laid out well for walking to various locations, you can give your visitors an idea of what’s in the area.
In fact, if you visit this page on WalkScore.com, you’ll be able to get the script you need to put a WalkScore map on your real estate website or blog. Here’s an example from a Walker’s Paradise in Seattle, Washington.
It’s a pretty handy tool. And, if you’re in a good area for walking, the map would be especially interesting to people who want to move to a new part of town, or those who are relocating.
There are links back to the WalkScore site, but the WalkScore folks have made the map even more attractive to add to your site because the links open in a new window – that means you won’t lose your visitors because it will be easy for them to find your site still open in one of their browser windows.
There are also instructions on the page referenced earlier for customizing the map. But, if you’d rather not figure out how, the basic map you see above looks pretty good!
Enjoy!
As you may know, there are a number of foreclosure websites that charge a fee to provide information about foreclosure listings. Now, there’s a new kid on the block and they’re providing quite a bit of information for free, along with the opportunity to display listings on your website.
The website can be found at ForeclosurePoint.com, and you can get information about their service for real estate professionals called BrokerOffice. According to the website information, you can display the listings from ForeclosurePoint.com while preserving the look and feel of your site. The illustration looks like the listings are framed, but that is not stated specifically.
Visitors to your website need to register to view the foreclosure listings, and the site also states that:
- [You can] Provide extensive, real-time details of property addresses, property specifications, estimated bids, satellite photos and more.
- Potential clients are directed to you to learn more about specific properties.
It sounds interesting – if the list of foreclosures is accurate, and if there is a reasonable way to get the listings displayed on your site, and if the contacts really are directed to you exclusively.
You need to complete a contact form to get a company representative to contact you to learn more about the specifics.
If you decide to contact ForeclosurePoint.com, please let us know more about the details!
A Message from Kathleen: If you read Sam’s last post here about how he quadrupled his Internet leads, you’ll know about the changes he made to his website that had such amazing results. Now, he’s back to let us know how that increase in leads has translated into business. And, you’ll see some of my comments in italics.
I put a call to action on every page of my Austin real estate website in the top right corner. It contains a link to an MLS map search, my contact information, a link to email me, and a link to my blog.
I did that at the very end of November, and immediately started getting more calls, emails and registrations on my site than ever before. Since I started tracking on February 1, I have received 143 phone calls and emails, and have had over 800 registrations on my site. OK, but what about conversion?
We all know that most Internet leads don’t convert quickly. But, at this point, I have one listing, four homes under contract and one closing as a result of internet leads since February 1. I am also working with four buyers who should be under contract by the end of August, and I have two $1 million+ referrals out that should close this summer. Not bad!
For over a year, my site’s ranking on the search engines has fluctuated from #3 to #8 and everywhere in between for the term Austin real estate, #3 or #4 for Austin real estate blog, between #3 and #5 for Austin homes, #1 or #2 for Lake Travis real estate, and up there for a whole bunch of long tail results. My short tail makes up around 15% of results.
So part of getting the leads is a result of getting my site ranked well in the search engines, but before I made the call to action change, I wasn’t getting even 10% of what I am getting now.
- This is a great example of the power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You’ll notice that while Sam has evidently done a lot of work to rank for his main keywords, his long tail results (ranking for terms that are related to your main keywords) are also impressive. If the traffic from his short tail (main keywords) is only 15%, that means that 85% of his traffic comes from related keywords. This is a situation unique to doing SEO on a site – using pay per click, for example, will produce traffic as long as you’re paying for specific keyword placement, but you’ll never get traffic from related keywords!
- Another factor to keep in mind is the fact that Sam provides a map-based MLS search provided by WolfNet. While he had the Wolfnet search on his site long before his leads increased so dramatically, I believe that using a more sophisticated search may be contributing to his results.
- Sam is requiring registration after the visitor views three listings. The fact that 1) he has a map search tool, and 2) he can give his visitors some information before registration is required may have something to do with his visitors’ willingness to create an account. When I asked him about that, he described how he gets his search to work so well:
NOTE: As of 7-23-08, the CyberhomesPro smart frame is still not working as one would expect. I won’t track this product any further.
As of 6-30-08, CyberHomesPro is showing a listings search in the framed solution. CyberHomesPro has committed to eliminating this “bug”. In addition, CyberHomes announced that it would remove the school information provided by GreatSchools.net, while they “reevaluate” participating in a framed solution that includes their content. I hope CyberHomes can get these issues resolved quickly. This was such a great idea!
You may be familiar with the CyberHomes website. It is a public-facing website that provides searches for homes for sale, home valuations (like Zillow) and community and school information. Using CyberHomesPro, you can frame the same information onto your website.
I haven’t seen reviews of CyberHomes information. At least, there’s not the same level of buzz as there is about Zillow. CyberHomes gets its information for providing home pricing based on “property tax records and recent comparable sales”. I tried to look up reviews of CyberHomes, but I got bored trying to get past all the other products and services named cyberhome, so I gave up. If there was a lot of buzz about the site, I would think it would be more visible on the search engines.
I’d like to know what you think. To me, it looks like a nice package of information for real estate websites. Getting community information and school information can be difficult. If the information is anywhere near accurate, using the Cyberhomes search in a frame on your site could be a great addition for you and your visitors.
The only thing I would like to see done differently is the width of the site. If you plan to have the site framed into individual websites, it would be better if the width were more fluid. As you’ll see in the example in the link below, it was necessary to remove all other information to get the majority of the site to appear without scrolling.
To check it out, visit this example of a framed CyberHomes search. And, if you want to get some searches of your own, visit www.CyberHomesPro.com. You can use as many searches as you’d like, so it would be possible to have a different one for each of your key neighborhoods, for example.
I’d be interested to know if you like it, hate it, if you think it’s accurate, not accurate, etc. Don’t be shy!
PS – Don’t forget to take a few seconds to complete the Internet Marketing poll in the left column!!
