Organize and Optimize Your Email
Published February 2, 2012 | 
Let’s face it. You’re a busy person. You’ve got real estate clients to meet up with, homes to show, appointments to attend to and family matters to take care of. Who has time to filter through all the junk emails coming through their inbox every day? Technology is supposed to help make our lives easier. And, in many ways, it does. But it seems that, sometimes, technology can interfere with productivity. To stay focused, you need to organize and optimize your email, eliminating clutter and directing your attention to those things that matter.
Studies show that most people have an almost compulsive need to check and answer every single email that comes in at the moment it comes in. While you may think this shows that you’re on top of things, it actually can be counter-productive. It takes your attention away from the tasks in front of you. Once you return to finish the project you started, your mind can take several seconds to jump back on track. When you factor that in to every time you check your email, you could lose several hours of time over the course of a month. Instead of jumping on your email several times a day, schedule two or three times throughout the day to check and answer emails.
Use your email signature to relay important information, such as your name (obviously), your company’s name, your direct phone number, your website and links to your social media (such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook). WiseStamp is an email app generator that creates icons you can integrate right into your email signature. You can link the icons to your social media accounts so that anyone reading your email can access them directly with just one click.
The key to organizing your email is to reduce the amount you receive. I spoke about Unsubscribe.com, a free download that helps you reduce SPAM to your inbox, a few weeks ago. I use it and have already seen a huge reduction in my junk emails. Google Alerts are also a great way to keep track of who’s saying what about your business or name. You can set it to receive alerts once a day, once a week or as they happen. It’s up to you. Otherinbox allows you to set up incoming emails to be directed into specific folders, such as “shopping”, “business”, “clients”, “buyers”, “sellers”, “personal”, etc. That way you can tackle the most important emails now and save the rest for when you have more time.
Finally, use your email filters. Just about every email program offers some kind of filters. It may take a little time in the beginning. But, as you designate which emails are SPAM and which are actual emails you want to receive, the filters are programmed to recognize potential SPAM in future emails. This helps reduce the junk and keep the good stuff coming through.
I’m trying to reduce the clutter in my life so that I can stay focused on the important things: my family, my friends and my clients. Organizing and optimizing my email is one way to get rid of the junk. These free tools can help you as well. Please let me know if you need help organizing your real estate business so you can continue to be productive and prosperous in 2012.
Free Video Channel for Real Estate Listings
Published January 26, 2012 | 
We can all agree that videos make great advertisements. Whether it’s for a property, an event or even showcasing your real estate skills, videos have surpassed still pictures and even slideshows in helping market you and your listings online. YouTube has become the second most used search engine (behind Google and in front of Yahoo! and Bing) on the internet today. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place to upload the video of your client’s real estate listing without having it compete with cats playing the piano, stunts gone wrong and startled baby faces? Well, there is. It’s called Property Tube.
Property Tube was created exclusively for private sellers and renters as well as professional real estate agents and offices as a marketing platform for their properties. They give exposure of your clients’ properties to a world-wide audience. All you have to do is take any video you’ve created or had created by a professional and upload it to your free Property Tube account like you would with a YouTube video. In just two easy steps, you can map the location of the property, upload the video, add a catchy headline and provide details of the property in question, including adding a link back to your website or blog right in the description.
Just like YouTube, you can even create your own real estate channel. Keep your data base updated on what’s happening with your office, what’s going on around your neighborhood, new listings that need to be seen to be believed and general real estate news that everyone can use with your own branded real estate channel. This is a great way to engage an audience and keep them asking for more. And all this is absolutely FREE!
If you don’t fancy yourself a cinematographer, don’t fret. Property Tube can help you find a videographer near you to shoot an amazing, professional quality video. However, anyone with a Flip camera and some imagination can put together something truly special on Property Tube.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is just about priceless. And, with Property Tube, your priceless video can be advertised to millions of potential buyers all across the world for FREE! Just think of Property Tube as the YouTube of real estate listings.
Stuffing’s for Turkeys, Not Websites!
Published January 20, 2012 | 
While content is critical to creating an amazing real estate website or blog that internet users will want to visit again and again, there is more work to be had behind the scenes…primarily keywords. Keywords are the specific words or phrases that internet users type into the search field when looking up information. Each search engine uses their own algorithm to determine what websites will provide the best information that the searcher is looking for based on these keywords. When it comes to keywords, though, stuffing’s for turkeys, not websites!
Search engines frown upon the practice of adding thousands of keywords to a website or blog (known as “keyword stuffing”). You can actually be penalized for this. Instead, it is recommended that you find a few key words or phrases that you want to focus on.
When narrowing your choices, think of how you typically search for things online. For example, let’s say you heard about a balloon festival in Sonoma and want to know more about it. You wouldn’t just type in “balloons” or even “balloon festival”, would you? That would give you tons of extra websites ranging from party balloons to the annual Albuquerque Balloon Festival, none of which is what you are actually looking for. You would instead type in something more specific like “Sonoma balloon festival” in your search engine’s search field and hit enter. Then, your search engine would look through all the sites it had in its database to list the best sites for you to visit to find the information you are seeking.
Most people get as specific as they can when typing in the search field. Searchers typically look for a specific thing (person, company, event…in this case, “balloon festival”) and then a specific location (in this case, “Sonoma”). Instead of focusing on a generic term for your site, such as “real estate”, you want to get specific so that you get those people really looking for your services in your particular area. These terms may be searched less, but they increase the likelihood of a cold prospect turning into a hot lead.
There are several tools available to help you create a list of keywords to focus on your real estate site or blog. One of my personal favorites is Soovle.com. Soovle allows you to compare top keyword searches on multiple search engines at one time. You can choose the search engines you want to compare (anywhere from 7 to 15 at one time). All you have to do is start typing in the keywords you would like to use and you will instantly see the most searched words/phrases on each search engine. You don’t even have to finish your word before Soovle begins offering suggestions. This can help you optimize the keywords on your site/blog so you can find your audience and they can find you.
Don’t fall for the “if one is good, more is better” way of thinking. Stuffing’s for turkeys, not websites…or blogs. Keep a few key words or phrases in mind when working on your real estate website or blog and you’ll find yourself at the top of the search engines soon enough. Best of all, potential clients will find their way to you, too.
SPAM is a Four Letter Word
Published January 6, 2012 | 
The internet has become a way of life for most people. You can go online to do just about anything: shop, socialize, pay your taxes, find real estate clients, look up how long George Jetson’s work week was (or is that just me?), etc. It’s very convenient to have the wealth of knowledge you used to have to go to the library to find now available at your fingertips. The downside of all this convenience, however, is SPAM…the other four letter word that sends shudders up your spine. It can clog up your inbox and take forever to clear up. I’ve found a solution to reduce SPAM as well as managing your own contact list absolutely FREE! Unsubscribe.com.
Unsubscribe.com is offered as a free download that integrates with most email programs, including Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. In essence, Unsubscribe.com becomes your SPAM blocker. All you need to do is click the “Unsubscribe” button next to an email you know is unsolicited and you will never receive emails from that source again. As you continue to “unsubscribe”, the program learns what to identify as SPAM so that future SPAM will never make it into your inbox ever again.
Another neat feature of this free program is the Social Monitor. With the simple click of a button, Unsubscribe.com is downloaded as an add-on to your toolbar. Social Monitor helps you find out who is accessing your information on any of your social networking sites, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Remove any connections you may have to applications you don’t use, applications you aren’t sure you can trust and applications you know to be unsafe. When you find unsafe applications, quickly and easily let your friends and followers know about them through Unsubscribe.com so that they can protect themselves as well. With the recent Ramnit worm that infected thousands of Facebook accounts overseas recently, stealing more than 45,000 login credentials from users in the UK and France, you can never be vigilant enough.
Real estate professionals can also use Unsubscribe.com to manage their contacts. When you download the Safe Send program, an extra button will be installed in your email program. With Safe Send, an “unsubscribe” link will automatically be added to the bottom of all of your emails. If someone receives an email from you, all they have to do is click the link and their email will automatically be removed from your contact list so they never receive an email from you again. That way, YOU don’t look like annoying SPAM to your contacts. All you have to do to activate the Safe Send is to click that button rather than your regular “send” button.
Unsubscribe.com has several other features, too. I encourage you to visit their website to see how amazing this program is. In my vocabulary, SPAM is a four letter word. Wash out your inbox’s mouth with Unsubscribe.com today. You’ll be so happy you did!
Using YouTube for Real Estate Promotion
Published December 29, 2011 | 
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 20 years, you have heard of, visited, searched and/or shared videos on YouTube. However, this hugely popular site is more than just videos of piano-playing cats, silly baby laughs and dumb stunts gone wrong. YouTube has, in fact, become a force to be reckoned with as a promotional device. Since it is the second most used search engine (right behind Google and a step ahead of Yahoo!), it’s time you started thinking about how you can use YouTube in your marketing efforts.
Creating a real estate website or blog used to be the first step in getting noticed on the web. Adding photos to said sites drew visitors’ attention by breaking up a page full of simple text. Now, video has replaced still images as the site enhancer needed to capture and maintain a potential real estate client’s attention. You should already be creating videos that promote your real estate clients’ listings. They don’t have to be big productions. A simple handheld Flip video camera is all the equipment you need to walk a viewer through the wonderful aspects of a listing, with you as their personal tour guide. These videos should then be uploaded to your YouTube channel.
The first thing you need to do is create your own YouTube channel. It’s free and simple. Then, create a few fun videos that showcase your skills, knowledge of the area, places to see, etc. that can be uploaded to your channel. This will provide people with a reason to want to visit your channel again and again. Shoot videos of each of your listings to add to your channel that include appropriate tags and a search-friendly description that relate directly to your video. I would also suggest including the complete address of the property being promoted in the title, at the beginning of the description and in the tags. In your description, you can also add a link to your website or a direct link to the listing itself. You can even add annotations (text) within your uploaded video to encourage the viewer to investigate the listing further on your website, creating a better opportunity to convert them into a client.
Get creative with your videos. After all, the point is to make an impression and keep a viewer’s attention for as long as possible. This doesn’t mean spending tons of money on a huge production. You do need to make sure that any audio is easy to hear and the video itself is steady, clear and conveys the message you want it to.
Like paid Google ads, YouTube Promoted Video Ads are a way to get your videos seen right away. If you have the budget to do so, consider bidding for keywords through the YouTube Promoted Video Ads. You will need to think about your budget, conversion rate and expected volume before you bid on any specific keywords, though, to make the most out of your time and money. One of the key advantages to a Promoted Video Ad on YouTube is that you can also create an overlay ad. This is a clickable link embedded into the bottom of the video that will send the visitor to another outside site (like your website or blog). This is a fantastic way to send more traffic your way.
As technology evolves, the uses for it evolve as well. With YouTube’s popularity steadily increasing, it’s time to consider adding it to your marketing arsenal by using YouTube for real estate promotion. Create a marketing strategy like you do for your website and blogs. If you need help promoting your YouTube videos, just contact us. We’re always ready to help you succeed.
Keep Track of Santa on Christmas Eve
Published December 22, 2011 | 
Did you know that NORAD has been tracking Santa’s progress every Christmas since 1955? It’s true! And now you can track Santa no matter where you may be: via website, Google Earth and social media. You can track him on your mobile phone with Google Maps for Mobile, too. Wouldn’t you know it? There’s even an app for that. Keeping trakc of Santa’s whereabouts on Christmas Eve is even easier than ever before.
Like all great inventions (potato chips, teflon, silly putty and penicillin..yes, I mentioned all of those in the same breath), tracking Santa began by accident. The local Colorado Springs paper ran its annual ad by Sears & Roebuck giving out a phone number for kids to call up and speak to Santa directly. Unfortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it), someone at the paper misprinted the number. Instead of the North Pole, callers actually were rung through to the hotline of the Commander-in-Chief of CONAD (the predecessor of NORAD). Not one to disappoint the children, Director of Operations Colonel Harry Shoup played along by ordering the staff to track Santa’s whereabouts via radar. Thus, a tradition was born and continues to this day.
Beginning Saturday, December 24, 2011, you can track Santa’s sleigh thanks to NORAD using any of these methods below:
- NORDAD Website
- Google Maps for Mobile (click to download to your mobile phone)
- App (for Apple-related products, click here…for Android, click here)
- Facebook, Google+ and Twitter
- Google Earth
I guess no one can be stealthy in today’s world if even Santa’s every move can be tracked. Hmm…I’m not sure how I feel about that. Maybe George Orwell was right, albeit a couple of decades short. Oh well. Forget Matt Lauer! I’ll be playing “Where in the World is Santa?” this Christmas Eve. Happy holidays, everyone!
Why You Need a Mobile Website
Published December 15, 2011 | 
Real estate sure has come a long way in the last couple of decades. No longer is paper the top choice for advertising (whether that be general mailers, postcards, flyers or print ads). Today’s buyer is typically pretty tech-savvy. In the hustle and bustle of today’s consumer, more and more people are even shying away from their computer screens to seek information on their smartphones. But not all smartphones are created equal. Your website may look fantastic on a regular laptop or desktop. But, view it on a smartphone and you could see a completely different picture. That’s why you need a mobile website now!
Websites use a certain amount of bandwidth to be viewed. On a mobile device, this could cause a problem with load time, missing information, etc. In fact, most cell phone companies will not allow websites that aren’t optimized for mobile use to be viewed in their entirety on a mobile device because the bandwidth can get too expensive to provide. Since most people accessing the internet via their smartphones are really looking for a few key pieces of information, a much simpler mobile-friendly site is recommended. That’s exactly what a mobi site does for you.
As a real estate professional, you want a potential client (buyer or seller) to be able to view information from anywhere at any time. Make it easy for them to view your listings on their smartphones with a mobile website. They aren’t expensive to create, they are easy to maintain and you will have taken the next evolutionary step in your real estate marketing. There are also a separate set of search engines specifically for mobile websites. So, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly as well as optimized for the mobile search engines, chances are your site will be relegated to the bottom of the mobile search engine rankings where no one will find you.
Second Self can create a mobile website for you quickly, easily and efficiently. All you have to do is contact us to tell us that you need a mobile website now. Click here for a free one-half hour consultation. We’d love to work with you!
Using Google Maps With Your Real Estate Listings
Published December 8, 2011 | The first step in selling your client’s home is through your real estate listing. You take time to describe all that the home has to offer, add a few photos, maybe even a virtual tour and then upload it to the MLS. From there, it gets circulated to millions of REALTORS® across the country. Smart agents will also post these listings on their websites and blogs as well as adding a link to their social media (Facebook Marketplace, Twitter, etc). Zillow and Trulia should also be on a real estate professional’s list of areas to post. To create a complete experience, you should also be using Google Maps with your real estate listings.
Google Maps is not just an internet mapping software. They also offer a “street view” on most addresses across the United States. Originally, street view was only available in a few of the major cities across the country. However, now you can find them in just about every town. All you have to do is go to Google Maps, search the address on your listing and click on the pin point that comes up indicating where the address is located. When you do that, a box will pop up. If it has a photo in it, there should be a link to the Street View just below it. If not, try clicking on the “More” link to find the street view.
While in street view, viewers can navigate their way around the streets of the property, including following the street or other pathway to other properties nearby. This allows the viewer to take a virtual tour of the property and the surrounding area without ever leaving the comfort of their home. If you want to add a link to the street view into your listing’s description, simply click the link icon in the upper left hand side of the page while in street view. Want to really make an impression? Embed the street view into your blog post to increase the time a potential buyer stays on the listing. Whatever you can do to make your client’s listing stand out is always good.
Use Google Maps to enhance your real estate listings. It’s just one more way to make buyers sit up and take notice. If you need help, just let me know.
Google Analytics – The Times They Are A’Changing
Published December 1, 2011 | 
Google Analytics helps you track how your real estate website is working on the internet, including advertising, social networking, video and other applications. Recently, Google Analytics announced some new and exciting changes to customer accounts that take your website tracking even further. In addition to the amount of visits, average time spent on your site and bounce rate, Google Analytics now offers real time tracking (much like the Google search engine itself), multi-channel funneling, mobile reporting and flow visualization.
Real-time tracking allows you to see what’s happening with your site at this very moment. Google Analytics updates your information continuously throughout the day so you get results almost instantly. And all traffic is broken down into visitors who have visited your site through direct contact, an organic search, a referral or a campaign. That way you can see which method is working and which may need a little tweaking.
With the multi-channel funnels, you can view the various ways website visitors are turned into actual clients. The Top Conversion Paths report will show exactly when a visitor first accessed your site (whether it be via a paid advertisement, organic search, an email campaign or other form), which pages were accessed, in which order they were accessed and when they initiated contact with you. This can help point out how your real estate clients are finding you and which campaigns are working the best. It may be that the paid search isn’t the best deal. Or, perhaps your SEO needs some improvement for those organic searches to come up.
Through the mobile reports, you can find out how your real estate mobi site is doing. With smartphones getting increasingly smarter and more accessible, many potential real estate clients are using their handheld devices to access the internet. Learn how your website visitors are finding you on their mobile devices as well as which devices are being used most often. This can help you optimize your mobi site for that particular device.
If you need to actually see the pathway to understand how this all works, Google Analytics has come up with something specifically for you. With the flow visualization chart, you will have a visual depiction of just how your real estate site is performing online. See how a potential real estate client finds, navigates and interacts with your site.
I’m really excited about these updates to Google Analytics. The times, they are a’changing. And Google Analytics is changing along with it. Let me know if you need any help with your Google Analytics account, website, mobi site or blog. We at Second Self are always here to help.
Google+ Business Pages
Published November 10, 2011 | By now, you should be well aware of how important a business page is on the internet. If you don’t have your real estate business listed on Google, Yahoo and/or Bing, you’re behind the times. Of course, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are also great places to create business listings as well as interact with your peers and potential clients. Google+ has now incorporated the best aspects of social media into an SEO-friendly business listing with their Google+ business pages.
Creating a Google+ business page is really quick and easy. First, you sign in to your personal Google+ account using your Google account info. Proceed to the Google+ Business page. You will have five choices for the kinds of business page you want to create: Local Business or Place, Product or Brand, Company/Institute/Organization, Arts/Entertainment/Sports or Other (for those that don’t fit into any of the other categories). Most likely, as real estate professionals, you will choose either the Local Business or Company categories. Choose the subcategory you want to be placed in, add a tagline (you only have 10 words to sell yourself here), choose your photo, share your link with your circles and you’re good to go. You can create a lengthier profile, share more photos and videos and add posts to your page. And you’re done.
You can create up to 10 business pages using your Google+ account. Create a separate page for buyers, sellers and foreclosure/short sales or show off your local smarts by creating a business pages for each community you serve. You can highlight specific events, showcase your favorite haunts and show off what makes each neighborhood so special. Then, share your pages with whomever you wish. This is marketing at its finest.
Google+ is quickly becoming an important tool in the business person’s arsenal. If you need help setting up your Google+ business page, feel free to contact me. Second Self Virtual Assistance is always on the lookout for the best ways to help our real estate clients stay on top of the latest marketing trends. That’s what makes for a great business partnership.
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