The next Real Estate Technology Meetup is scheduled and the speakers confirmed. We have Gillian Shaw and Kirk LaPointe from the Vancouver Sun coming to speak to our group. Here are the details:

Presentation: Newspapers, Social Media and the Future of Reporting
Speakers: Gillian Shaw, Technology Reporter @ Vancouver Sun and Kirk LaPointe Managing Editor of Vancouver Sun
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The Vancouver Sun’s Gillian Shaw (Technology Reporter) and Kirk LaPointe (Managing Editor) will be on hand to deliver a talk on a few topics that are of great interest to real estate professionals from all over North America. In this “fire side” chat, Gillian and Kirk will discuss:

* Getting on the Media’s radar
* How the Vancouver Sun uses social media and online tools
* The future of the news/reporting business

I look forward to seeing you all there. Meetup is open to real estate professionals from all over. Be sure to RSVP here so that we know how many people to expect.

Dave deBruyn of deBruynDesign was our guest speaker at the Vancouver Real Estate Technology Meetup the other night where he spoke on niche marketing for real estate agents. Here is the presentation for those that missed it.

See you next month at the Real Estate Tech Meetup

Reachd ran a contest at the Toronto Realtor Training session that we held this past week.  Attendees were instructed to create a video, post it to the internet and pass us the link.  One lucky winner would receive 2 years FREE on the Ubertor website platform.  We had lots of videos entered into the contest, actually more than we expected.  Some were submitted using the Flip video sharing platform, some on YouTube, some via Twitter and some in our email boxes.

The winner for the contest is Linda Chartier, from RE/MAX Real Estate Centre Inc. You can see her video below.  The location is a bit loud, but we like that she went off to a location that made sense to her market, that she posted the video to YouTube and got a few opening and closing screens into the video.  Nice work Linda and congrats on winning the contest!!

Today was a big day in Reachd history. We held our biggest training event ever!

The head office of Remax Ontario invited us in and filled their training room at the Remax office in Toronto with agents ready to learn about how to grow their business by using the web.

Each of the participants received a free Flip Video camera and an Ubertor website for 6 months.

In the course we talked about SEO, Social Media, and Online Video. Below is some of the feedback that we received via Twitter, and to the left is a picture of the class.

Next city on the Reachd Tour: Edmonton and then Calgary on Sept 17th

We were just teaching a 1 day web marketing in Toronto to a group of Realtors here. This question each time I teach always comes up “I already have a full-time job and you want me to add Facebook and Twitter and Online Video to the mix – there is no way.”

Many people would answer that question by saying you need a strategy or build some objectives, goals and then start working your social media plan.

I think before you do that you need to “believe” As a business owner there needs to be some buy in from you. You must start to see web marketing as a way to build your business. Honestly, I could give you all the stats in the world and you would still not be convinced. The truth is, you need to choose to make web marketing a part of your strategy.

Here is what you should do if you are brand new to web marketing.

1. Set aside 30 minutes a day for web marketing.

2. Start a blog. It is simple to setup and doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

Why start a blog? Blogging is great for SEO and also still important for social media.

Recently Reachd co-founder Steve Jagger sat down with the Real Estate channel in Vancouver BC to talk about the three companies that Steve has co-founded. Besides founding Reachd, Steve has also started, Ubertor (a website platform for hosting real estate websites) and Outsourcing Things Done (a brand new out sourcing company in Manila)

Watch the video below for more details about how these three business compliment one another.

We had someone come to our class that did not have a unique meta description on the pages of her website. It is important to have a unique meta description on every page of your website.

It is easy to forget about your meta description because it is not something that you see on your website, but it is something that the search engines index and it is also something that searchers may see on the search engine results page.

The video above talks about the importance of your meta description on your website. Take a minute to watch the video and see how searchers might interact with your meta description.

Your assignment:
1. Go to your website
2. Right click on the homepage
3. Look in the code for the word “meta description”
4. If you don’t have anything posted, figure out how to get something
5. If you have a meta description that is not descriptive, figure out how to change it.
6. If you do have a meta description go to another page on your site and check to see that the meta description is present and unique for that page.

Questions, Comments, drop a comment on this post.
Thanks!

Learn more about SEO in one of our upcoming classes

Last week was the SEO class in Wichita by Reachd. We had a great group of students that attended the class. Some were from non-profits, one politician’s assistant and a realtor was in the room. The training went great and we are excited to begin helping business and organizations learn to leverage the web to grow their businesses.

Find out more about internet marketing courses in Wichita

Below is a video with a few tips to help you improve the time on site on your website or blog

The three tips mentioned in the video are

1. Use online video to engage web visitors
2. Use a search box to help visitors find what they are looking for
3. Use related links or related articles to encourage people to dig deeper into your site.

Questions or comments – Leave a comment on this post.

Marketing on the internet can be frustrating. Sometimes you try everything and do exactly what you are “suppose” to do and you have zero to show for it.
Frustrating!! Below is a little video, my attempt to encourage you to keep at it with your web marketing efforts. If you’d like to chat about your frustrations, email me or drop me a message on twitter

I posted this video, because I met a guy this morning that was frustrated. He is paying $400 for an internet marketing program and said he is following all the steps but nothing is happening. I understand the frustration. It is annoying to be spending money with no results.

Here was my advice to him and my advice to you if you are trying to market your business online but not getting anywhere

1. Be patient – sometimes it just takes time. You never know which of those seeds that you planted will sprout and grow.
2. Narrow your focus. In the case of the guy I talked to he was doing everything (Twitter, Video, Facebook, SEO, Adwords, etc.. etc..) but none of his efforts seemed to be very focused. Remember you only have to do 2 things – Get TRAFFIC and CONVERT the traffic.
3. Get a diagnosis – It is likely with web marketing you have 1 of about three different problems.

• Not enough traffic
• The wrong kind of traffic
• The wrong message to convert traffic

Before you start messing with your system try and analyze where things might be broken.

If you’d like help with a diagnosis – drop me a line on Twitter and we can schedule a 15 minute web marketing audit. NO charge, just a fresh set of eyes looking at your website trying to help out. If you are not on Twitter you can schedule your audit via email

All the Best!
Rodney Bartlett