Alright, folks - I'm in need of your help! I have been blessed with a ticket to the upcoming REBlogWorld event, September 19th in Las Vegas but as you all know, sometimes being an online Entrepreneur means you seldom have wiggle room in the budget for airfare and accomodations. That's where I hope all of you will come in.
I was going to raffle off big prizes for purchasing one hour of services, but realized that it would be very much against the law. So, instead I'm offering you three different options to help me get to RE Blog World:
It goes without saying that having top Google placement has its advantages. The great news for us this month is the fact that REALTOR Magazine featured our terrific drip email campaign service in their Buyers Guide for the September issue !
This post talks readers step by step through the process of installing Joomla to create a blog or website with excellent search engine optimization. I'm often asked for my opinion on the best open source platform for creating a well optimized blog. I've worked in WordPress, Movable Type, Typepad and many of the free blogging platforms and I feel that Joomla is the hands down winner. Of course, many great blogs built in WordPress and others rank well - I don't debate that at all. This post is for those folks who are leaning towards Joomla for their blog.
The amazing Moo.com has paired with Linkedin to offer 50 Free Moo cards to help you promote your Linkedin profile and your business! Plus, the shipping is totally FREE!
The process is extremely easy, I just did it! You can use their stock images or upload your own. The entire process only took 5 minutes and soon I'll have 50 terrific new cards. I've wanted to try Moo cards for some time but never had a need - until now!
Quick, head over to Moo.com and get your 50 Free cards today!
So, you've decided it's time to buy your very own domain name and now you need to know which registrar is the best and/or cheapest. Many "cheap" registrars online today give me the heebie jeebies, so my recommendation is pulled from my own experience and across only reputable registrars.
Our first post in a new Photoshop Video series, we'll help you fix color cast issues in your property photos.
This is a very large movie! Just right click the image or link below and choose "save as" or left click the image or link below to watch the movie right away.
Get Thee to a Nunnery... er, to YouTube, that is! The exciting news from Jeff Turner at Real Estate Shows is certainly worth cavorting over, Milords & Ladies! Jeff's RES Blog post states, "The simplest and most effective way to create real estate tours, is now the simplest and most effective way to get to video." If you've never heard of Real Estate Shows or for some crazy reason, you've hesitated in trying them out (FREE!) - then the time is NOW! You'll love how easy it is to create virtual tours and now with this exciting new feature, you can get your tours converted to video for easy upload to YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, PhotoBucket and more! What are you waiting for?
How healthy is your website's SEO? With the recent Google page rank update, many folks are wondering.
It pays to do your homework if you want to excel at optimization. Helpful resources abound, but a discerning approach is imperative - not all self-proclaimed "oracles" to SEO wisdom can back up their claims. Google's Webmaster Central is essential reading, and participation on forums such as High Rankings is a great way to learn from others in the search marketing community.
Whether you're a new or seasoned blogger, you may not have known about this excellent tip. Blog 'Slugs' are the default post URL strings or permalink settings. Andy explains it wonderfully and I picked up a new trick - while you may be crafting your blog posts to include keywords, Andy warns,
Greg Kime of GW Kime & Associates / Keller Williams just recently started working with VirtuAllin. We've had the priveledge of creating their entire marketing plan from logo concept/creation, business cards, technology recommendations, website and will soon assist them with creation of action plans and management of their listings.
I'm happy to welcome Greg to Real Tech for Real Estate and get his perspective on Virtual Assistance.
Chip Hughes of RE/MAX Hills & Valley in Branchburg, New Jersey and owner of BranchBlog, a blog dedicated to real estate trends, community events and other stuff happening in Branchburg NJ has been one of my clients for many years. Chip came on board with VirtuAllin in early 2003, back when nearly all of our clients were RE/MAX of New Jersey clients. VirtuAllin's second client ever was Mark Schilling, Information Technology Manager for the New Jersey Region of RE/MAX. He loved our work so much that he recommended us to all of their (then approximately 2500) agents.
I'm thrilled at the opportunity to interview Chip and get his perspective on Virtual Assistance.
Bob Carney of GotBob4Homes , FocusOnFrederick and Bob's Brain Dump knows internet marketing for real estate. I was fortunate enough to "meet" Bob via our shared social networking addiction, Twitter . We struck up a friendship... and then a partnership when we reworked his Advanced Access website and converted it to Joomla . It was Bob's first time working with a Virtual Assistant and he was kind enough to allow us to interview him about the process.
Since the wonderful Got Bob? Bob Carney was cool enough to post over at Active Rain and his 'Bob's Brain Dump ' blog about his recent experiences with the Joomla content management system, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to blog more about exactly what Joomla is and why you might find it beneficial in your real estate marketing plan.
Everyone is Twitterpated these days, right? Well, just what is Twitter , and why would it be useful for you as a Realtor to get in on the twit action?
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface. You sign up and you get a twitter page such as @virtuallin where you can make a post of up to 140 characters to update the world about what you're doing. If you have other twitter users who 'follow' you, they can see your posts live.
To me, twitter is more like a cross between instant chat and a forum - you can twitter via your mobile and connect with folks while you're at lunch, in the car, on the plane, or sitting at your desk.
Benefits of Twitter
So, you've got Twitter now and don't know why? Some of the benefits of twitter may not be apparent at first. I'll go into a few here and don't hesitate to twitter me if I leave anything out!
Freelance Switch has done it again - they've created yet another amazing article that makes it seem as if their writers are hovering over my shoulder watching me run my VA business! This wonderful post about balancing your work life with your personal life when you're an entrepreneur offers excellent advice on how to set boundaries and avoid burnout. I highly recommend you run over, read and bookmark this article!
Bleeecchhh! I've gone from a PR of 4/10 to a PR of 2/10 (insert expletive here) - boy, all from having a wee few paid links on my site? A gal just can't get ahead, LOL. While I'm not alone - the news about Google's Halloween page rank update is all over the web - it's a shame that my small site is lumped in with some of the bigger sites that sell text link ads such as The Washington Post , Forbes , Engadget , Search Engine Journal , etc.
Technorati Profile
They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, so {josquote}I must admit to being insanely flattered by the recent and huge influx of Virtual Assistants who have adopted Joomla{/josquote} as their content management system of choice. A content management system or CMS is a method of creating a website utilizing software to enable easy updating of files, images and documents. Rather than creating a website with pure HTML or be kept hostage by a template site provider, a good CMS can make it easy for non-coder's to add content to a website anytime they wish - as easy as working in a Word Document. Drupal and WordPress are famous CMS systems, as is Joomla.
It's Friday and as an interlude, I wanted to do some quantification. I've been reading "The E-Myth Revisited," by Michael E. Gerber which discusses taking your small business past the "Technician" stage, whereby there is no real business, only YOU - to a place where you have systems and processes in place to the point where someday if you stepped out, your business could go on without you.
Today, {josquote}I'd like to learn your thoughts about Virtual Assistant's and get your ideas on what makes a good Virtual Assistant{/josquote} and the experiences you've had (if any) working with a Virtual Assistant.
So, feel free to add your comments to this post below - include your website and you'll get a link back to your site for the effort!
At first, I just thought it was an issue with my browser or bandwidth - perhaps I needed a quick cache clear or reboot, but I realized quickly that ALL Advanced Access websites were totally offline today. After doing a quick search, I found news at Active Rain that indeed, AA were having some "power" issues and needed to relocate all of their servers to another location.
Of all the various scenarios I've heard over the years with multiple hosts, both big and small, this is a first for me. I've heard the "denial of service" attack, we're working on it. I've heard the "close your browser and reboot," it's all your own fault excuse. I've heard the "you're using unsupported xyz." IMHO, it just seems a little fishy.
There's an unsubstantiated rumor over at Active Rain that they're moving servers to obtain new IP's due to spam black listing. If all of their IP addresses are black listed from most servers due to spam, few of their subscribers would be able to get any email through to anywhere.
Follow up - May 24th: It's official - on behalf of a client who has an AA website and Comcast as her ISP, we contacted a rep at Comcast because she has had serious email trouble. It seems Comcast blacklisted the entire Advanced Access range of IP's due to spam issues. The rep at Comcast stated that the blacklisting of all AA sites wouldn't be listed unless the management at AA contacted them directly to work out the issues.
So, you can firmly bet that the "power outtage" is a cover story for AA moving their entire server base to new IP's - however, it may be a short-term solution if Comcast quickly detects this move and simply blocks the new set of IP's. Be warned!
I usually review my website statistics every morning to track who's coming to my website and where they're referred from. Statcounter.com offers a nice, easy interface and their free service keeps me informed. However, today I got a nasty surprise. I found a referrer link and after taking a closer look at the site that referred to mine, I noticed they had copied just about every page of my website and even foolishly linked to my own portfolio (very dumb). Normally, I try to track nasty plagiarists via CopyScape.com , but their dumb mistake led me right to them.
WannaGirlFriday.com is the site in question, and they've just been reported to Google for copy theft. Why should I bother? Because Google hates duplicate content - and while Google might realize that my content is the original, I'm not willing to take any chances on getting a ranking hit.
Just about every single page of this site is a carbon copy of mine - the owner even put a Meebo widget on her contact page! While this angers me, if I suddenly have less relevant content at Google because of it - I'd take an economic hit.
The lesson to everyone: Once you achieve high ranking, you absolutely need to take time to hunt down and deal with thieves.
It goes without saying that having top Google placement has its advantages. The great news for us this month is the fact that REALTOR Magazine featured our terrific drip email campaign service in their 
The amazing 
Get Thee to a Nunnery... er, to YouTube, that is! The 
How healthy is your website's SEO? With the recent Google page rank update, many folks are wondering.
Andy Beal over at Marketing Pilgrim has done it again! He Twittered a recent blog post, so I jumped over to check it out - 
Greg Kime of 
Chip Hughes of 
Bob Carney of 
Everyone is Twitterpated these days, right? Well, just what is 
