Give Me A Break!
Everyone wants a magic wand to get traffic to their website. And, wherever there are unfulfilled wishes, there are always lots of people who take advantage of that yearning by offering useless solutions. Drives me nuts.
The latest in this solution mill came and slapped me in the face the other day, and I can’t help but write about it. I was pleased to see that someone had left a comment on this blog, and reviewed it in order to respond. This is what it said:
The person who left the comment didn’t use the vendor’s website linked to their name, but their email address was located — guess where? Yup, the commenter was an employee of the vendor “recommended” in the post.
How stupid do they think we blog owners are? To me, this is right up there with the emails I get from people who want to give me a few million dollars if I help them transfer money out of some country I’ve never heard of.
Anyone who has a blog, do you look at the comments that are left on your blog? Do you catch comments like these that don’t make any sense?
The only reason I can think of for people to leave such stupid comments is that they get away with it a large percentage of the time. For the sake of the rest of us, if you don’t monitor your comments, please start!
Out of curiosity, I visited the website of this company with the great viral marketing service. Here’s a summary of how they explain their service:
And, evidently, this company thinks people are going to pay for this service.
The sad thing is that some people probably will.
If you haven’t seen the list of a year’s worth of blog ideas from the RSS Pieces site, now is the time to take a look.
The list is outstanding. Not just filler, but some really creative ideas.
Maybe it’s just me, but all the links on the RSS Pieces blog go directly to the comments, not the content. If that’s happening to you, too, persevere. It’s worth it.
Have a great weekend.
Here’s a tip about a quick way to get additions for your website, blog, or the handouts you leave with prospects or clients.
NAR has provided a set of 62 different handouts on a variety of topics for home buyers and home sellers.
The buyer handsouts cover topics on getting ready for homeownership, home financing, finding the right home and preparing for the close. The seller handouts include handouts on what to do before you sell, getting ready for showings and preparing for closing.
There are even several handouts that are geared toward helping you work with FSBOs to turn them into clients. One of those is titled “Forms You’ll Need to Sell Your Home” and another “17 Service Providers You’ll Need When You Sell”. If that doesn’t scare a FSBO, they’re just not paying attention.
These reports are especially handy because the write ups are downloadable in Word files. You can then easily add your logo and contact information and print them out. Naturally, if you’re going to use them as is on a website, you’d want to put a “no index” on the page they’re on to prevent the search engines from seeing them as duplicate content.
A better way to use them on a website would be to make an offer of buyers’ and sellers’ guides. Your visitors would then sign up to receive the guide as a Word or PDF document.
Subprime lending, predatory lenders, foreclosures, short sales – there’s a lot of concern about all of those issues. And, naturally, as much education as you can provide to your prospects and clients, the better off they’ll be.
NAR has a brochure available called Learn How to Avoid Foreclosure and Keep Your Home. The brochure was produced jointly by NAR, the Center for Responsible Lending, and NeighborWorks®, and it covers topics such as the types of loans that tend to get homeowners into trouble, and the steps their lenders may be willing to take to assist them in avoiding foreclosure.
Here’s another opportunity to position yourself as an expert, and to provide a professional handout to get people’s attention. People who may be susceptible to predatory lenders or who want to avoid foreclosure will be likely to keep this type of a handout – and remember the person who gave it to them.
The member cost is $20 for a pack of 50. For 40 cents a person, it might be an excellent investment. The brochure could also be a useful resource to help you quickly write a page on your website, or a post on your blog, to address the same issues.
If you’re not a blogging type, consider other ways to increase your visibility in your market area using established real estate social networking websites.
There are some issues with some social networking sites when it comes to real estate. If you haven’t heard about it yet, you can read the latest move from Facebook at Joel Burslem’s blog. The bottom line is that Facebook will suspend the account of anyone who is caught posting real estate listings in the marketplace rather than paying for a “Social Ad” to promote the listing.
There are other alternatives, though, that don’t cost money! One you might want to check out is the Trulia Voices website.
Everyone from consumers to real estate professionals can ask and answer questions. It’s a real opportunity to display your expertise to consumers in your market area. For more insight, check out this article on the Inman Blog.
The Inman post talks about active bloggers stepping outside of their blog to gain exposure in other places on the Internet. However, I think it’s also a great way for a non-blogger to get more involved online. Answering a consumer’s question is a lot easier than maintaining your own blog!
