This is our second in a series of online marketing tips for real estate.

While a free email service might seem like a bargain, do you really want to be promoting a free email service instead of reinforcing your own branding?

What do we mean by that?   You can get an email from brands like Yahoo, Google, MSN or AOL, for nothing, with instant access wherever you have a browser.  It is a very tempting offer, for sure.  Free is a great price, but not at the expense of your branding opportunities.   Who would you rather build your brand or a brand like Yahoo?

But think of your email address as an extension of your branding.  Every email you send is part of your online marketing strategy and should reflect you in the best possible light.  Not that a free email account brands you poorly, it just isn’t branding you as effectively as it could.  Which do you think makes a better impression?   Charlee78934@aol.com or Charlee@charleehomes.com?  Hosting your email on your own domain gives you a level of professionalism that can’t get with a free account.

Paying to have your email hosted in your own domain can cost as little as $10 year by using a company like GoDaddy.com.  There are other email hosting services online as well; choose the one that works for you.   Typically, these services will interface with Microsoft Outlook and other popular email clients.  Make sure to check ahead of time with your preferred hosting service.

As a small business, using email to market to your leads and prospects is a cost effective tool.  By having your email hosted on your own domain you add an additional level of professionalism and brand impression you don’t get with free email services.

One last thought: Another way to enhance your email brand is to use a branded stationery in addition to hosting your email on your domain.   Each message can carry your photo, logo, and contact information.  Which looks better to you?

Unbranded Stationery

Or

Custom Email Stationery

Posted by:  tara.sybrant@realprosystems.com,   NOT  tara.sybrant16547@hotmail.com

When it comes to technology, things are changing daily and keeping up can be difficult.  We have planned a series of posts to help you sift through the overabundance of technology available and find the right online marketing tools for you and your business.  We have designed each post to present a tip on different online marketing challenges and provide some insight on how to apply appropriate technology to address these challenges.

First up in our online marketing tips for real estate:  Search Engine Visibility

Do you know if the content on your website is visible to the search engines? And what does that even mean?  When you sit down at a computer and look something up on the Internet you are entering a search term into a search engine to get those pages of results.  The search engines use “spiders” or “robots” that are constantly searching the internet for content, which is how they determine where sites rank in those organic results.  Poor website architecture can prevent the search engines from seeing the content on your website, which means your website would not be properly indexed and would not appear in the search results.  There are many well-known real estate websites that essentially hide much of the agent’s content from the search engines.  This happens because they are built on older technology that  enabled them to build pages quickly, but in the process it obscured the page content.  This pretty much defeats the purpose of having website content in the first place.

Put your site to the test using a free tool available at www.SEO-Browser.com.  This website will allow you to see any webpage from the perspective of the search engines.  All of the images will be turned off and it will show the text and the links that are visible to the search engines.

There are a couple of key things you want to see, your website’s navigation, and all of the text on the page.  Each component of the navigation (menu choices and links) such as  home, listings, etc. should be displayed in blue, which indicates a link.  Some website menu selections are implemented in graphics and will not appear a severe limitation.  When a search engine lands on your home page, the only way it will go deeper into your site is if it can find links that take it to each of the pages.  One well known website vendor charges several hundred dollars per month but their menu navigation links are not visible, so a search engine can’t explore the pages the menu points to!

Next, you should see all of the text on this page.  Don’t just check the homepage either.  It is especially important to check the featured properties page to ensure that the description, the remarks and the address (if allowed) are showing.  If you can’t see it in SEO-Browser, the search engines can’t either!  Listing information is valuable content for search engine optimization.

From our Real Pro Silver to our Real Pro Gold and Real Pro Platinum products, our systems are built on the most search engine friendly, Web 2.0 architecture.  Would you like to see one of our real estate websites in action?  Try viewing http://www.RobLevy.com in SEO-Brower!

We offer free educational and product driven webinars that you may find interesting.  To see our upcoming schedule CLICK HERE.

Earlier this week I had the privilege of attending the CyberStars Summit in Scottsdale Arizona. Allen Hainge founded the organization a number of years ago and has continued to lead it up to this moment. CyberStars caters to real estate agents who are deep into technology and leveraging it for their businesses.

This year’s conference had over 160 agents there, the most ever. I was so impressed by the caliber of the people I met and of course it’s always wonderful to reconnect with old friends. Perhaps the most impressive thing was that this year’s new CyberStars members were a rather large contingency. The organization showed enormous energy and vibrancy and seems poised for growth.

It was fitting that Allen used this opportunity to introduce CyberStar Brad Korn of Kansas City as the group’s new president and leader. Brad brings tremendous vision to his new role, and seems to be the perfect fit.  As a long-time supporter of the CyberStars organization Real Pro Systems wishes Brad great success and we offer our help in his endeavors. And most importantly, we want to express our deep gratitude for all Allen Hainge has done for the industry and for us.

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Whether or not you are an experienced blogger there are some pitfalls that are easy to fall into when creating posts for your blog. Some of these are easy to avoid, such as duplicating content, not adding links and not allowing for comments.

Duplicate Content

When you are writing a blog on a consistent basis, the pressure to come up with unique content can be overwhelming at times and the temptation to copy an article from somewhere else can be tempting. You might be thinking, “It won’t hurt anyone, no one will know.” While this might actually be true for your human readers, search engines are very smart and are programmed to search for duplicate content. While your site will not technically be “penalized” for it, you will find that your site will be filtered from the search results. So instead of copying and pasting the article, take a few minutes to gather your thoughts and write a short summary with a link to the original article.

Little to No Links

In the same way the search engines use inbound links to determine the credibility of your website in the indexing process, your readers see the use of relevant links to additional information a way to determine how accurate or relevant your information is. Where did you get the idea for the post? Did you read an article about the extension of the First Time Home Buyer Credit on CNN that inspired your post on how that will affect buyers in your town? Add an link to it! If you are you introducing a concept that your readers may not be familiar with, linking to an eloquently written definition or explanation will not only provide you with the link but the credibility you are looking for.

Too Hard to Read

It is a known fact that the attention span of the average person is short and even shorter when it comes to reading online. Long paragraphs of text without visuals to engage readers can be paramount to torture! There is a great article online that asks “Is your website ready for the 5 second attention span challenge?” The fix to this one is easy; include pictures and keep your paragraphs short enough to keep your reader engaged.

What’s in it for the Reader?

We must never forget when writing every single blog post that readers will be asking themselves “What’s in it for me?”. Incorporating value to your reader comes in many forms including education (like this post), amusement or entertainment, or some sort of offer that has something in it for them.

Missing You

Think about the blogs that you like to read. What keeps you coming back? More than the information, there is a personality behind the words that speaks to you, that keeps you engaged. One of my favorite blogs is written for women geeks, www.GeekSugar.com and more than satisfying my addiction to the latest and greatest in technology, the writer(s) make you feel at ease with the information. That and I don’t feel so alone loving my gadgets!

No Comments No Go!

Blogs are an interactive medium by their nature, designed to create a dialog between author and audience.  To refuse to allow comments makes your blog a one-way communication medium where it feels more like you are on a soap box than being open to engagement with your readers. Most blog platforms have the ability to require that you approve or reject a comment before it goes live on the site. You can use this feature to weed out spam or otherwise harmful or irrelevant comments.

The Ultimate Sin – Not Blogging Frequently Enough

I am the first one to admit that I am guilty of this. I get caught up in all the things that I have to do and blogging goes to the back burner. I am going to work on writing more frequently in 2010. Effective blogging means that there needs to be a consistency to your posts. Not only is a regular posting schedule good for your SEO, it keeps your readership engaged. There is however a balance between writing so frequently that your readers can’t keep up, get frustrated and stop reading all together, and writing so infrequently that your readers lose interest all together. A couple of times a week would be ideal, but once a week also works.

One last thing to remember, there is no one perfect blog so don’t that you have to be perfect to blog. Keep writing.

As we near the end of 2009, we want to take a moment to thank you for your continued support and confidence in Real Pro Systems, and wish you the happiest of holiday seasons.

For us, 2009 was an amazing year! We grew the Real Pro Systems team substantially with new positions in development, client care and our sales department. We added to our offering of products and services with the introduction of Technical Services, Search Engine Optimization services, and the newest generation of agent systems, Real Pro Platinum.

We attribute our ongoing success to you, our clients! Your continued loyalty fuels the engine, and your honest feedback gives us direction. We are looking forward to 2010 and anticipate another record-breaking year!

Life is about much more than business, however. At this time of year we are reminded of those things that truly matter, including family and friends. From our family to yours we wish you a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season!