Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! In a few short days, couples everywhere will pair off and exchange trinkets of red and pink cards, chocolates, flowers, and stuffed animals in order to express their undying love.

Please don’t think we’re coming on too strong, but would you, our customers, be our Valentine? You are our favorite people and we can’t think of anyone else we’d like to shower with affection!

If we had our way, we would give every single one of you a beautiful bouquet of flowers and some sort of stuffed creature with a box of your favorite Valentine’s Day candy, but alas, we cannot. To make up for it,  we’ve opted to write you a love poem! Forgive us — we’re not poets.

Roses are red. Violets are blue.
We at Advanced Access think the world of you!
Our customers are better than all others by far,
We simply adore you just as you are!

Okay, so it’s not the best. But in seriousness, thank you so much for supporting Advanced Access. You are the reason we are so successful. Thanks for believing in us! We couldn’t have chosen a better Valentine.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love,

Advanced Access

Did you know that through hosting your own real estate website, posting regular blog updates, and communicating with social media, you aren’t just slapping words on the Internet? It’s true! Each and every word you put out on the Web is gelling with the rest to create an online brand for you and your real estate business.

The content of your website and the phrases in your Facebook statuses aren’t just arbitrarily constructed works of text – together, they form the image of you that your clients and prospective clients see. You and you alone have the power to make that a positive or negative appearance.

Before you put something on the Internet, ask yourself these questions:

How will this be perceived by my clients?
How will this be perceived by my prospects?
How will this mold the image of my business?
How will this mold my image as a real estate agent?
How will this mold my image as a person?
How would I perceive someone else that would post this?
Will this effect my search engine optimization? If so, how?
Will this help me generate leads?

If you’ve been planning to post something that could possibly result in a negative reaction, do yourself and your business a favor and just let it go. Discerning your online posts may be daunting at first, but it will get easier as you do it more often.

What does your online reputation look like? Is it strong or could it use a little work?

Homes.com wants to hear from you!

Homes.com is dying to know what you think about is going on in the real estate industry with home values. Do you think home values will go up or down this year? What about your home’s value — will it change? Because you’re in the thick of the real estate industry, your opinion matters the most!

Just for taking the time to fill out this short survey about home values in 2012, you will entered for a chance to win $100! It will be the easiest hundred bucks you ever make.

Your input can help Homes.com have a better understanding of home values this year. The survey closes in a few days, so go ahead and take a few minutes to fill it out and register to win $100. Thanks in advance for adding your input!

Some real estate agents don’t give a lot of thought to their domain names. They just put their own name or broker name into a browser window and leave it at that. However, the truth is that your domain name could actually be hurting your business and/or your search engine optimization. Thankfully, the super-smart Geeks over at GeekEstate have put together a list of things to consider when deciding on a domain name.

1. Your name and then some. Since domains are pretty cheap these days, you should go ahead and reserve YourName.com. You can redirect that to your blog or your real estate business website if you’d like, so that existing clients can find you that way. However, think about your prospects: they’re more likely to find you by searching for terms related to the area in which they’d like to buy a home, so making your domain name something they’d be searching for will help tremendously (“Tallahassee Homes” or “San Diego Real Estate,” are some good examples.)

2. Stay local. It’s extremely important to keep your real estate website local, in the same way your business is. By putting your city name in your domain, it’s more likely to be found by potential home buyers that may not otherwise meet you. This also helps your domain describe to the world exactly what you and your website are all about. The more descriptive you are, the better.

3. Keep it short and sweet. When choosing a domain, keep in mind that less is more. The longer the domain name is, the more likely it is that your clients will either forget it or misspell it. Ignore this rule if the name of your town is really long. You can’t help that. However, if that’s not the case, shorten it.

4. On spelling. If you need to spell your domain name over and over to someone, chances are it’s too complicated to spell and should be changed.

5. Double letters are a no-no. If you have your heart set on a domain like, say, www.indianriverrealestateexperts.com, keep in mind that the double letter effect can be confusing to your visitors. Try to avoid this.

6. Don’t be dashing. Even though putting hyphens in your domain name may give you a marginal advantage concerning search engine optimization, they don’t really help your site visitors out. Hyphens aren’t very common, so it’s possible your customers would just completely forget to use them. Again, since domains are so cheap, you could purchase both domains so that you can get the benefit of both the SEO and helping your clients.

7. Dot-com rules. As much as we’d love to tell you that domains like dot-biz and dot-net are equals to dot-com, we can’t, because we’d be lying. However, there’s evidently a shortage of dot-com names, so snatch yours up quick.

If your domain name needs a change, don’t hesitate to contact us at (866) 518-1571 or support@advancedaccess.com.

Is your real estate marketing amazing? Well, if it is, perhaps you’re going in the wrong direction.

Lake Superior State University released a list of words that were used so habitually last year that they’ve been banned from use in 2012. Here’s a handful of the banned words you, as a real estate agent, should probably do your best to avoid according to LSSU.

Amazing. Honestly, I’m amazed (zing!) that this word hasn’t been listed before. It seems that recently, amazing is our default term of affirmation. I think we can do better this year. How about, instead of describing a listing as having an amazing view, you say it’s incredible or breathtaking?
Occupy. The Occupy Wall Street movement has exhausted the word occupy. So, if you’ve come up with any clever marketing plans using (Occupy Main Street?) move on.
Man Cave. Do any of the homes you’re selling come equipped with a Man Cave? It’s probably in your best interest to leave that part out of your listing information. Woman Cave, in case you’re concerned, is totally still fair game.
The New Normal. Despite the sad reality that a downturn economy and a struggling housing market is, in fact, The New Normal, let’s just not phrase it this way.
Ginormous. I know that it might seem that this is the only word to describe the huge mansion you’re selling, but separating ginormous into its roots – giant and enormous – will work just fine.

To get a list of all of the banished words for 2012, click here.

Photo credit: greeblie on Flickr

This weekend, we’ll not only be ending another week. We’ll also be bidding adieu to the year 2011. This past year held many important milestones: from riots around the world to occupying our own streets, natural disasters to naturally controversial birth certificates, the royal wedding to GOP debates, and so forth, this year has definitely been one we won’t forget.

As we take the time to look back on the incredible things that happened in 2011, it’s also crucial that we turn our gaze forward. What changes do we like to make? What improvements would we like to see? What are our goals? What are our fears? What do we want to accomplish?

No matter what your hopes and dreams are for 2012, we at Advanced Access look forward to partnering with ou.

Happy New Year from Advanced Access!