If you are new to the concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the article will provide you with an excellent foundation for a great way to drive traffic to your website.

One of the newest features in our SPS Real Estate Marketing system is our enhanced SEO features. You now have the ability to customize the main Meta Title and Meta Description tags for each of your sites.

This allows you to set custom meta tags which you can link up with your Google Webmaster account in order to track and analyze the keywords people are using to find your site!

It’s a great way to target the exact people you want to reach, and enables you to change the meta content and experiment with different variations until you find the winning combination for your site.

Click here to learn about all of our new features and see how you can bring your real estate marketing strategy to the next level.

It’s completely free to use, and all you need is a FREE SPS account (no credit card required). We even include a site builder wizard so that you don’t need to have any type of technical background in order to create a fantastic single property site.

After the listing site is created, simply use the FreeView™ icon and send your SELLER an email with a special Link that allows them to view the single property site you created!

The FreeView™ will last 7 days. You can constantly renew the FreeView™ as many times as you like.

FreeView™ is  designed to be your main weapon in your Listing Presentation arsenal. Not only is it entirely free – but its a great way for you to differentiate your services and to really impress sellers, to ensure that you never lose a listing.

Put your sellers Home front-and-center in your marketing plan and show sellers you are different!

Click here to learn more about FreeView, sign up for your free account, and begin winning listings today!

Whatever the reasons for lacking a blog, “content marketing” is essential to add to your site to set you apart from your competitors.

The following are 4 reasons you need to incorporate content marketing in your real estate marketing strategy:

1) It builds TRUST
It’s hard for potential home buyers to go an entire day without being bombarded with some type of advertisement to buy a new home. This has caused potential buyers to always have their guard up, wondering, “What’s the catch?” Providing consumers with helpful content shows that you are genuinely interested in helping them, and also allows them to find your content when THEY want it. If you write content based on what you know and what you are good at, the consumers will be able to see that you are a trusted resource instead of some greasy salesperson with malicious intentions.

2) Content Marketing is FREE
Not only is blogging a great real estate marketing technique, it also requires no monetary investment on your part. The only thing it will cost you is the time it takes you to research your desired topic and type it out. What’s better than effective marketing? FREE effective marketing.

3) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Blogging isn’t just a platform for you to get your opinions in front of potnetial buyers, it’s a way to boost your website’s search ranking as well. If you have already begun a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program, incorporate your target keywords into your blog posts at least a few times. Not only does this show the search engines what your article is about, it also helps you keep your content on-topic and relevant for your target market.

4) People like to share good content
By adding social media buttons to your blog posts, you allow people to share your content with their social networks as well. WordPress and many other blogging platforms automatically include these buttons in your blog posts in order to make it as easy as possible for others to share your quality content. A well written blog piece can take on a life of its own after people begin to share it!

When it all comes down to it, the best rule of thumb to remember in your new content marketing is to write about things that people want to hear, and stay focused on your target market. If you are a Real Estate Agent, writing articles on video games will likely fall on deaf ears. Keep the content interesting, unique, and beneficial, and you will see great results for your real estate marketing!

We have compiled the following list of 5 essential FREE apps that real estate professionals need to consider:

1) Zillow
Zillow is a leader in mobile real estate, providing data for all homes in the U.S. on the Zillow network. Making sure your listings are on Zillow will give you a huge advantage, making it easy for buyers to find your listings wherever they are. Buyers can look up rent estimates, home values, homes for sale/rent, and more.

2) Realtor.com Real Estate Search
Realtor.com has a huge amount of listings that are constantly being updated. It has a ton of great features including map search, saved searches and listings synchronized with the website, private ratings and notes, and the ability to share listings with your friends, agent and social network.

3) Trulia
This is another great app for potential buyers to find local homes and apartments for sale or rent. Buyers can also use the Trulia app to search for local real estate professionals and Agents in their area.

4) HotPads
This app is geared towards renters looking for information on apartments, houses for rent, real estate, vacation rentals and hotels.

5) Craigslist
It’s obvious that Craigslist plays a huge part in how people find home and apartments for sale or rent. The app let’s them see all your Craigslist property listings including all your beautiful property images and contact information directly on their mobile device.

What are some of your favorite real estate apps?

We also now offer a variety of new and improved property site templates, all of which include customizable call to action back links.

Our new Craigslist posting system also comes with a multi-posting status tracker. This shows you the status of all your Craigslist posts, including when you last made a post and when you should post another one.

This allows you to get maximum exposure for your Craigslist property listings at a much quicker rate, saving you time and effort.

Click here to see our full list of features.

A complete property website can be imported and set up as a showcase property website with an integrated slideshow virtual tour in about 40 seconds. Photos and data fields will be imported and correctly set up within the property website.

You can even choose the Listing Agent so that the property website is literally ready to go once the import is complete.

Your benefit:
This new feature allows for a very data setup time, which in turn means more properties can be set up with less effort. This means that you need less staff and admin hours to run the SPS listing marketing program.

To import a property site simply click the “Add New Listing Site” button (shown to the left) and choose the option to import. Your listing needs to have been submitted to your MLS for a couple of days so that our data partners have it indexed.

Whether you are looking to network with fellow Agents or are looking for potential buyers, follow these 5 simple steps to make your LinkedIn profile more marketable and help you to grow your business.

1) Determine your business goals.
This is the very first thing you should do before you fill out your LinkedIn profile. Are you a Real Estate Agent looking to network with other Agents, or are you using LinkedIn in your own real estate marketing strategy? Think about who you are trying to target on LinkedIn and do your best to make sure the content you include reflects that goal. Try not to make it sound TOO much like a resume (unless of course you are looking for work).

2) Optimize with keywords
After you determine your goals and define your target market, think about the types of keywords they are searching for. Insert these keywords throughout your profile. It is the same basic principle behind optimizing your website. Decide what your main keyword or phrase is going to be based upon the searches of your target market. The profile headline section plays a very big role in determining where you show up in search results, so make sure this contains your most important keyword(s). Then make sure you insert your keywords throughout the rest of your profile including your job descriptions and summaries.

3) Make it relevant
Chances are you’ve had jobs in the past that are totally unrelated to what you want to accomplish with your current goals (see tip #1 above). It might be better to simply take these off of your profile. If a potential buyer is searching LinkedIn for local Real Estate Agents, your previous job as a restaurateur likely won’t factor into their decision making process.

4) Word of mouth is huge
One of the great things about LinkedIn is the ability for your current and past colleagues to recommend your work. As a real estate professional, you undoubtedly know how useful testimonials and client recommendations can be in gaining new business. LinkedIn has a great feature that allows you to ask your current connections to help you out and post a recommendation on your page. A great way to receive recommendations is to give them to your connections first, and then ask them for one in return.

5) Show your best side
At the end of the day, one of the best aspects of any social profile is that it allows you to show who you are and allows you to set yourself apart from the many other real estate marketing professionals out there. So make sure your page shows some of your unique personality by adding a quality profile photo (try and keep it professional!) and write your content with words and phrases that you naturally use. You want potential customers to view you as not only approachable, but real as well.

Are you using LinkedIn in your real estate marketing strategy? Please comment with your own advice on how it has helped you succeed.

While the success of both depends on the keywords you choose, there are specific things to consider when conducting your research:

• Search Volume
  In your SEO research, you want to find the keywords with the highest search volume.  With PPC keywords, search volume is not as important.
• The reason:
  You don’t have to pay each time your website appears in search results via your SEO efforts. You DO have to pay each time someone clicks on your PPC ad.  Therefore it makes sense that you don’t want it to show up in 1,000,000 searches per month. So instead of choosing a broad keyword like “real estate” which has a very high search volume, you would be better off choosing a more targeted set of keywords that have maybe the second or third most traffic.
• Keyword Focus
  When researching keywords for your SEO campaign, you want to find those with a broad focus, while you want to find more narrow and specific keywords for your PPC campaign.
• The reason:
  With your SEO efforts, you want keywords that cover many different streams of incoming traffic.  You want your website to appear in front of as many people as possible.  With PPC, you want to target specific keywords that relate to exactly what type of customer you are targeting.  For example, if you specialize in selling condos in Denver and you choose “homes for sale” for your PPC campaign keyword, you will likely end up having to pay for people searching for other types of properties in other locations around the country. Those clicks will be irrelevant because that isn’t your target market. A much more targeted keyword like “townhomes for sale in Denver” will get your name in front of a group who IS looking for your type of properties. Again, cost per click is a huge determining factor.

• Motivations
  People conduct searches for a whole variety of different reasons.  Your job as a real estate professional is to discover these reasons, and how you can leverage them into maximum profit for your business.  Is someone simply browsing for more information on the mortgage process, or are they looking to refinance their home?  When deciding on PPC campaign keywords, you want to focus on those that will bring in buyers, not browsers.  For example, someone searching for “mortgage” is less likely to become a customer than someone who searches for “how can I refinance my home?”.

While there are certainly many more deciding factors when it comes to keyword research, the items mentioned above are a good starting point.  In the end, it’s NOT a matter of deciding whether to pursue SEO or PPC in your real estate marketing strategy, it’s a matter of effectively using them both in tandem, to maximize your search engine traffic.

Video is one of the fastest growing mediums from which people find their information online, and it is imperative for real estate professionals to hop on the bandwagon and get a leg up on their competition.

The 4 main takeaways of the article are:

1) Satisfy potential buyers’ love of visual aids via video property and neighborhood tours.
2) Word of mouth marketing is free. Build up trust within potential buyers with video testimonials.
3) Demonstrate your expertise through webinars and instructional videos.
4) Videos are great, but only if you get them in front of the right audience.

Click here to read the full article on using video in your real estate marketing strategy.

Scan the above QR code to test it out!

In a recent new feature update we announced the ability to market your property listings and capture leads with QR codes.

To further enhance our QR code feature, we updated the SPS system so that the QR code generator for a property can now create a reusable QR code if the property has an Enhanced Lead Capture extension assigned.

What this means is that SPS now not only generates QR codes for you, but it also now creates materials and signs that can be re-used with different properties. For example if you order sign riders, then all of them will have the same re-usable QR codes.

To learn more about our QR code feature, click here.