Search Tips for Real Estate Professionals

Roughly 30 minutes ago a thought occured to me and I had to put it to the test.  I quickly typed the following message on Twitter:

I wonder if a "Yaaawn" is Contagious via Twitter. If you read this and shortly thereafter yawn, just for fun RT this.

The results less than 30 minutes later are the following:

Click Image to see latest "Yaawn" update

So now I'll pose the same challenge to my fellow AR Members... IF shortly after reading this post you yawn, come back here and let us know via a comment or write your own "Yaawn" post to put your fellow readers up to the test.  If you use Twitter RT my original post and see how far this gets.

Today ActiveRain announced their new membership plan that has raised several questions, concerns and even all out applauding by long time members. You can read the, "ActiveRain's NEW Membership Plan" announcement directly by clicking on the link. At the time of me writing this there have been over 250 comments on that post and I'd imagine we will see the numbers double and maybe tripple by the time things calm down. Because of this I've created this special post before I finish my 10 day property marketing posts.

2009 ActiveRain Membership Plan FAQ

Q: What if I already have an account?

A: Active members who have posted at least one blog post before February 16th 2009 at 5am PST have been grandfathered in and are being called the "Founding Members" of ActiveRain. These people won't ever be asked to pay a monthly membership fee yet they will reap all the same advantages as a paying member.

Q: Oops, I've never posted my own blog on Active Rain! What happens to my account?

A: Technically nothing happens to your account. You are free to post and comment like everyone else. The one difference between the paid membership is that your posts will only be viewable to members which means consumers will not be able to read your posts unless they have an ActiveRain account and are logged in.

Q: Do I have to pay?

A: You'll never have to pay if you don't want to pay. You can use ActiveRain with very little limitations from paying or Founding Members.

Q: What are the limitations if I am not a Founding Member or a paid member of ActiveRain?

A: As mentioned above, anything you write will be for members only. The outside world, including search engines, won't be viewing your posts.

Q: What will change with Individual & Group Blogs?

A: For Founding Members and paying members of ActiveRain your Group Blogs will now only be $19 per month. If you are not a Founding Member then yes you must pay the new $29 a month membership fee and if you want a Group Blog at that point it'll be that extra $19 per month. Outside blogs will continue to be at no charge for paying members while free memberships will have the ability to post internally to members only. This is a huge benefit for Founding Members because they will no longer have to pay the $79 a month if they want the Group Blog.

Q: Wordpress, Blogger and plenty of other blogging platforms are free; why would I pay ActiveRain just to so consumers can see my blog posts?

A: From my own personal experience the biggest value I've received from ActiveRain aside from the SEO value is the instant traffic to each and every post. Starting with any blogging platform is fine if you are a seasoned blogger but for those who want to get their feet wet and not worry about then having to seriously promote their blog all that much then ActiveRain's new $29 membership is far worthwhile.

I'll let my traffic statistics on ActiveRain do the talking for me:

When it comes to ActiveRain members, I count myself as one of the 'small fry users'. Many other members can show you their traffic stats that would blow mine right out of the water but regardless, I could never get this kind of traffic off of a brand new Wordpress or Blogger based blog without time & effort promoting the blog itself. ActiveRain comes with 2 million visitors each and every month and that isn't likely to be beaten by an individual Realtor starting their own blog using Wordpress.

Q: If I don't want to pay?

A: Don't, contribute anyways because the connections you'll make by being an active member of ActiveRain can ultimately be priceless. Write posts on ActiveRain that would benefit its members such as Lenders, Brokers, Staging Specialists and so on. Start your own Wordpress blog and use that to promote to consumers instead of using ActiveRain. If you need help setting up a Wordpress blog almost anyone who has one can give you pointers and many people can set one up for you at rock bottom prices if not for free including myself.

Day Eight: Virtual Tours

So many free and fee based tools / services that allow you to create virtual tours of a property that there really is no excuse NOT to create virtual tours.

So far if you've been following along with this series you've learned some tips on why to add properties to the MLS, to your build in property search tools that came with your website or that you've had built (if any), on page property marketing through out your website, 3rd party vendors like Trulia, e-mail broadcasts to Realtors and past leads / clients, and press releases.

At the same time you may have started towards implimenting these different property marketing efforts and are probably amonst the top 75% of Realtors while everyone else won't even bother with that much effort with marketing homes.

People search for homes expecting to find property photos and descriptive content.  Now why not provide them with yet another visually appealing way to discover properties?

VisualTour.com probably has one of the better technologies I've seen in a long while and I find them being used by many Realtors. Agents pay $199.95 setup fee and $29.95 a month thereafter for unlimitted tours with up to 50 photos per tour.  Broker prices vary by number of agents in the office but offer private label branding and even allows a broker to advertise their company on tours created by agents in their office using the Visual Tour platform.

RealTourVision.com and other companies like it can help get you started with making your own fully functional 360 degree virtual tours.  This would be ideal for an agent that wants to do virtual tour photo shoots themselves and need the software and equipment to accomplish the tasks.  Here is a 360 virtual tour example with this kind of setup.

Many Realtor based hosting companies will also have their own style of virtual tour tour tools.  You can almost always also look at what some of your competitors are doing and through that find the right virtual tour tools for your needs.

Tomorrow: Video Tours

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

My Previous Post In This Series: Day Seven - Online Property Marketing

Day Seven: Press Releases

I completely understand that not all homes are press release "Worthy".  However some are worthy of a press release such as a famous or semi famous person's home being put up on the market.  If you are a creative writer than even a simple shack could be put on the market.

A few years back I caught a press release about a dumpy little shack that was on the market for over a million bucks.  The press release was creatively written and an appropriate disastrous image was used to make me say, "What the heck?" and proceed to click on the link to read more.  It turns out that dumpy little shack was in Las Vegas on a prime location which probably has a condo skyscraper on it now.

Are you selling the last lake front estate on Lake Norman in North Carolina?  Isn't that something to send out a press release about?

EXTRA EXTRA

Last Lakefront Property in Lake Norman Up for Sale!

Written by Estelle Brown, a Lake Norman Real Estate Agent - 2/10/2009

About two weeks ago I caught via Twitter that a Realtor was doing a 70 hour straight open house event.  While I didn't look too much into the details, this SCREAMS Press Release!

Did you just merge with another office in the area?  Press Release!

Did you change companies? Press Release!

New Developement of Homes?  Press Release!

Twice as many homes sold in 2009 than 2008?  Press Release!

Besides the fact that people read these things, the other advantage would be several new links to your website.  If your press release content has links within it and the receiving news source publishes as is then you've just picked up a link. Additionally, a press release can be used as a selling point to attract sellers.

Go to Google and type in, "Online Press Release".  You'll come up with a ton of places where you can submit press releases. Many distribution websites have some kind of free submission and others charge a fee.  If you have a luxury property and are an extremely tallented creative writer than I'd suggest investing in PRWeb.com every now and then for maximum exposure & distribution.

Tomorrow: 

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

My Previous Post In This Series: Day Six - Online Property Marketing

Day Six: E-Mail Broadcast Marketing - Past Leads

If you've read my previous Day Five post Titled, "E-Mail Broadcast Marketing - Realtors" then you can suspect that you have some marketing options for anyone that has contacted you in the past for real estate needs.

Buyers, Sellers and those that are just curious on lookers; if they have contacted you before then they are potential clients today.  Even if these people have used your services to buy or sell in the past, there may be a need for your services once again OR they may have a friend or family member in need of buying or selling.

Like with marketing to local Realtors, be it that they are colleagues or competitors, you can't simply solicit old leads out of the blue.  You must maintain and build upon a relationship so that they won't simply delete your e-mail communication to them.

For those that you've done business with in the past and from here on out, get into the habit of sending them some kind of gift basket each and every year.  Ideally you should send them something on the day they closed on their new home or sold their previous home.  You could take it a step further and send them a Christmas basket as well.  You might end up spending $20 - $40 per basket each year but the gesture won't go un-noticed by past clients.

For those that have only inquired about a property or contacted you regarding some questions they had about the local real estate market, it might be best that you keep a cheat sheet containing what they were interested in.  When anything changes on that topic or if another property matching the one they were asking about comes on the market again you can easily contact them with the information and a small call to action.

I work with MANY Realtors and I often find that my clients talk about how a large part of their client base is based off of referrals.  Other Realtors often include something like, "Referrals are the best compliment you can give me..." or the likes.

Having a successful transaction with a buyer or seller doesn't always mean that you'll be remembered time and time again or referred to when your past client has a friend or family member looking to buy a home.  You often have to take that extra step and remain in contact with them in such a way that they don't forget you.

Be generous by the way.  Everyone receives birthday and Christmas cards from their dentist, doctors and mechanics these days.  These are discarded most of the time because there is always a hint of, "Come back and see us soon!".  Be generous in what you give and be genuine.  Count the years of communication and gift giving as part of your marketing expenses and stick to it!

Here are just a few ideas of what to pass along to your past clients:

• Gift Baskets - Hand delivered is best but you can mail them as well.
• Gift Cards - Typically you can send a gift card within a card but spend the time on a nice card as well.
• Carpet Cleaning - Pay for a carpet cleaning and allow them to set up the date and time.
• Window Washing - Same concept, pay for this cleaning and allow them to set up the date and time.
• Newspaper Subscription - Cover their newspaper subscription from year to year if the price isn't too much.
• Lawn Care - Give your past buyers a break every now and then with a lawn care provider service.

Lastly, hold an annual BBQ during the summer at a local park.  Spare no expenses with the food and beverages and if you deal with a lot of families with children rent one of those jumpers as they go a very long way with children.

If you've done all or some of these things then it isn't likely that an e-mail broadcast will get deleted by past leads.  Funny how online marketing takes a little of social activity and offline marketing isn't it?

Tomorrow: Press Releases

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

My Previous Post In This Series: Day Five - Online Property Marketing

Day Five: E-Mail Broadcast Marketing - Realtors

As a Realtor you have every tool available to you to inform other Realtors in your office and out of your office of current properties you are marketing.  By educating them on what is available you are further improving your odds of selling a home even more quickly than other Realtors in your area.

You Can't Simply Blast an E-Mail to Every Realtor in a 50 Mile Radius

I'd say that in almost all of the United States there is easily enough property surplus that your competitors won't give a damn about your two bedroom one bathroom home.  Additionally your e-mail is most likely going to be considered spam and deleted. 

There are ways of getting your properties in front of other Realtors more often than others though via e-mail blasts.  You MUST build relationships with those in and out of your office in order to be able to have an in with them so that they won't be offended by your solicitations.  Here are a few pointers:

Realtors In Your Office

1. Brokers - Make it a point to send a weekly and monthly office property roster
2. Realtors - Send a weekly or monthly team property roster (For those that are teams)
3. Spend more time at the office which allows you to associate and be-friend more Realtors in the office.
4. Volunteer more at company events including meetings to be more visible and again befriend other Realtors in the office.
5. Purposefully make time to attend open houses from other agents in the office.  Show your support, familiarize yourself with the property that you might have a lead for yourself and build lasting friendships or acquaintance status.
6. Invite Realtors in the office to tour your own open houses.

Realtors Out of Your Office

1. Attend open houses as much as possible.
2. Attend Chamber Mixers or other local events; it is likely that other Realtors will be there and soon enough you'll get to know them.
3. Purposefully go out of your way to point out a flaw or two with a listing you find in the MLS that could be corrected.  The Realtor may not have realized and be appreciative.
4. During Christmas send a basket of goodies to select Realtors that you know are power house agents.

Building working relationships allows you to get away with an e-mail blast or two every now and then.  You might be able to get away with this once or twice a month but be careful not to abuse the relationship. 

One last thing...

Personalize each and every e-mail you send out.  Remind the Realtor of the great time you had discussing a flooded basement or something funny that happened back in college.  Get PERSONAL as this goes a long way towards your e-mail being spam or a warm and inviting e-mail from a friend.

Today is the half way point for this 10 day series.  If you've just started reading then I welcome and encourage you to take a quick glance at the past posts in this series.  Here are the topics:

Day One - Multiple Listing Service (MLS)
Day Two - Website Property Search Tools
Day Three - Website On Page Promotion
Day Four - 3rd Party Property Vendors

Tomorrow: E-Mail Broadcast Marketing - Past Leads

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

My Previous Post In This Series: Day Four - Online Property Marketing

Day Four:  3rd Party Property Vendors

Your MLS might technically be considered a property vendor type website but more specifically vendors are websites like Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo Real Estate and many others.

The more locations you are able to advertise a property the better the odds of picking up leads and an even better chance that many of your competitors aren't taking advantage of as much property promotion as you are.

The good news is that you don't have to take the time to submit to each and every vendor one at a time.  In many instances your MLS already exports properties to these vendors.  In other instances your Brokerage might export properties to these vendors and in some cases even the company hosting your website will have vendor relations.

What you should do is ask your MLS, Broker and web hosting company which websites, if any, they export to.  Once you have an idea of who they feed to and who they don't feed to you can at that point manually submit to the other vendor websites.

Here is a SMALL list of vendor websites you could possibly be marketing your properties on:

• Trulia
• Zillow
• Yahoo Real Estate
• Google Base
• Backpage
• FrontDoor
• Oodle
• Lycos (Syndicates from Oodle)
• Local.com (Syndicates from Oodle)
• Vast
• Craigslist (No Export, Manual Only)
• HotPads
• Facebook
• DotHomes
• Enormo (International + fee)
  
• HomeFinder

I'm only one marketing specialist.  You as Realtors can probably come up with twice as many places to advertise properties online at that I've possibly never heard of.  If you would be so kind and share others in the comments of this post I'll add the vendor website as well as a contribution link to your website or AR profile next to it.

Tomorrow: E-Mail Broadcast Marketing - Realtors

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

My Previous Post In This Series: Day Three - Online Property Marketing

Day Three: Website On Page Promotion

If you've been following along over the last two days you've read about promoting properties both through the MLS and the property search tools that are available with most template provider based websites and even custom websites.

Today I want to review a screenshot of a real estate website that I think promotes properties fairly well through out the actual pages of the website AND at the same time provides visitors to search the MLS or search properties via their own property search tools.

Main Property:  This home is the very first thing someone visually notices when they visit this website.  Nothing else stands out the most unless the visitor scrolls down the page in which case the next visual stand out are the additional three properties at the bottom.

This property could be the most expensive in your list of properties or it could be one that has been on the market for longer than you'd like.  It could also simply be that you randomly rotate all of your properties on a monthly basis so that all properties get equal attention.

Mini Featured:  The three properties at the bottom of the home page are also visually appealing and stand out the most on the website.  In fact if you've noticed, nothing else is standing out visually and this is done on purpose.

The properties on the home page include the following:

• Best Possible Exterior Image
• Image Alt Text Using Property Addresses
• Unique Descriptions
• Property Address Displayed
• Link to More Info

Best Possible Exterior Image - Put your best foot forward when trying to attract potential buyers.  Using a picture of the bathroom with a normal tub and tiled windows isn't exactly that attractive to someone making one of the biggest decisions they will ever make in their lives.

Image Alt Text - For search engine optimization purposes and to help those that are visually challenged please use image alt text.  I tend to use the full property address (address, city, state, zip) since that is exactly what the image reflects.

Unique Description - No matter where you promote a single property, be it in five or ten different places, take the time to write unique content for the property.  Obviously you cant change how many bedrooms but you can change the way you write out the details.

Unique content helps improve your chances of ranking within search engines.  More importantly a visitor might stumble across one description and later find the same property with much more information and that could repeat two or more times.

Property Address Displayed - Buyers are educated and have an arsenal of tools at their disposal.  They may want the address to check out location on Google Maps or maybe even do a drive by if they are local.  Additionally, there is a GOOD chance you could end up ranking in search engines for all or part of the property address.  While less traffic is likely to come of this long tail keyword term, I'd bet that anyone purposefully doing a Google search for the property address is going to be a much more qualified and interested buyer.

Link to More Info - So you've added a property photo & description but are you really going to leave your interested visitors hanging like that?  At the very least provide a link to the property details within the MLS or within whatever property search tools your website has built in.

Avoid sending them to a massive form where they then have to enter in criteria and search for the property.  Why would anyone want to spend time re-finding a property that you are promoting on the webpage itself.

Ideally what you'll want to do is create a custom page dedicated to the property itself with photos and yet another more detailed description.  This will improve ranking chances for the property address and also flesh out your website so that more pages are crawled by Google and counted towards your over all ranking goals.

Notice on the image that I also highlighted where this website is promoting an MLS search and a link to their property search tool that they use on their website?  Do you also notice that 11 out of the 13 possible links on the image are property related? This is purposefully done in order to navigate potential buyers straight to properties because in the end the properties are what visitors are going to want information on first.

Here are a few additional screenshots of internal pages of this website for your enjoyment.

Tomorrow: 3rd Party Property Vendors

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

My Previous Post In This Series: Day Two - Online Property Marketing

Day Two: Website Property Search Tools

Let's assume that at least 30% of Realtors nationwide have custom or template based websites.  That would mean that out of 1.2 million Realtors that 240,000 websites exist purely for real estate agents.

• Over 1.2 Million Realtors (1)
  
• Over 4.9 million homes on the market in 2008 (2)

Template based websites from companies like Advanced Access, Homes or Best Image all tend to have their own internal property search tools.  So not only can a Realtor take advantage of MLS property marketing but they can also have their own property search tools directly on their website.Custom websites may also use 3rd party applications or custom built programs to display properties in such a way that may be different than what the MLS may offer.

Depending on your MLS limitations and your property search tool capabilities you might find some added benefits in also using property marketing tools on your website in addition to your MLS.  They are:

1. Property data is on your website and not simply a link to your MLS.
2. Custom Search Options (Some MLS / IDX Solutions don't allow you to create custom searches that might meet your buyers criteria and then send them a link.)

Also I might add that it is of my opinion that many Realtors won't do much more property marketing outside of adding the listing to the MLS which is almost always required.  In the event that this is true in your market then you've now added one more way to promote your properties above and beyond what your competitors are willing to do.

Tomorrow: Website On Page Promotion

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

My Previous Post In This Series: Day One - Online Property Marketing

Online property marketing has grown and changed in such ways that should a Realtor close their eyes for just a minute there is a good chance that they've missed out on great opportunities, services or products that allow them to promote and market real estate online.

I've created a list of 10 ways that you can market individual properties online.  Some of these you probably already do but keep in mind that the more of these 10 items you can accomplish for every single property the more likely you are to be ahead of the competition.  Furthermore, the more of these that you can accomplish for your sellers properties the more likely it is that you'll get more interested leads regardless what the media has to say about the real estate industry.

Over the next 10 days I'll be introducing these ten strategies.  Some will be more detailed than others but each day will bring on a new perspective that you may not have considered in the past.

Day One:  Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

The MLS is pretty commonplace for Realtors when marketing properties online.  The MLS is often connected to through out agent websites that use the same MLS. Because of this someone could happen across one of your properties through dozens of other websites online simply because you've taken the time to add this property and property details to the Multiple Listing Service in your area.

This is step one and as mentioned, one of the most common tools used to promote properties.  There are a few additional advantages to most MLS services these days though that you should be aware of:

• Many MLS services will feed websites like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Google Base, Yahoo Real Estate and maybe a dozen other property portal websites (Discussed in detail on day four).
• Most offices utilize the MLS in office for when walk-ins happen.
• Agent websites often tie into the MLS giving you countless opportunities.

Note: This is the first step any Realtor with a property to market should take.  Interestingly enough it is probably often the only step a Realtor will take so if you simply take the time to add your clients listing to the MLS then you are as good as they are in regards to marketing.

Tomorrow: Website Property Search Tools

Sincerely,

John F. Jones III

Find me on: Twitter | LinkedIn | Trulia | Active Rain

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