Real Estate 2.0

Start Blogging Today!
A hot technology and a vital tool to your real estate business. Develop your reputation as an authority on your market!

We can create your blog, host it, make your blog posts and work closely with you to get your blog noticed by all the right people! We offer both custom blog solutions such as Wordpress & Moveable type - or we can customize a blog from any of the free/paid blogging sites. We do recommend a hosted blog for search engine optimization (the content lives on your domain) but it's your choice! We will help you take advantage of this staggeringly effective marketing tool.

What's included in this package:

• Initial creation of your blog
• Target market research
• Keyword research
• Blog name brainstorming
• Customized set of graphics and logo
• Post Category research & brainstorming
• Customize blog with RSS feeds
• Trackbacks & Pings
• Aggressive campaign to comment, trackback and ping to other industry related blogs
• Creation of weekly blog posts based on your input, Google news alerts on your area
• Intensive submission to blog directories (Technorati, etc.)
• Social bookmarking tags
• Folksonomy tags and tag cloud

All of the elements above are required if you truly want to maximize the effectiveness of your blog. However, if you'd prefer a more basic version of our blog service, we would be happy to work with you to make it a reality. Want to know more? Give me a call anytime! (253) 565-3015

Powerful Drip Campaigns
Our system is the best you'll find, custom and powerful and in your control. Keep top of mind with your farm!

When you get a new lead off of your website or from your MLS, do you find yourself putting that data into your contact manager (Outlook, Top Producer, Agent Office) then sending them an email message? Do you find yourself sending several messages over the course of a few days such as a marketing evaluation, new listings? Why not automate this process as much as possible so you don't find yourself at your PC at 11:00 at night trying to keep up?

The purpose of a drip email campaign is to allow you to stay in touch with your prospects or clients in an automated fashion. This ensures you're developing them without having the "hands-on" time of scheduling messages and sending them out on an individual basis. You may already have drip services through a vendor such as House Values or through your own MLS service. However, the best way to automate the process is to have forms directly on your website that will populate the drip system.

What exactly should you send these contacts? Well, drip email is about marketing, so you should have compelling copy that will explain the benefits of using your services along with a strong call-to-action that will encourage these prospects to call you. These drip emails shouldn't be recognized as automated. It should "appear" like you wrote it personally, just for that individual person.

How is our Drip Email system better than any other?

• Directly integrated into your website with custom forms that automatically notify you and populate the drip database
• Custom auto responders for each campaign
• Multi-part MIME messages - text and HTML email in the same email with file attachments.
• Unlimited custom fields for your forms that can be used in all outgoing emails
• Unlimited campaigns and unlimited follow-up emails
• Link Tracking - see who hits what links and when!
• Confirmation (double opt-in) and referral URL and IP address tracking to prevent spam complaints
• Direct importing of your current lead database
• Also capable of one-time email blasts such as listing updates, market updates and Realtor to Realtor marketing
• Easily add "unsubscribe links" to your messages, insertable with a simple click
• Scheduling system to queue your messages days, months, or even years in advance
• When the campaign ends set to another campaign or start over
• Ability to add user to several campaigns upon signup - or move users if they submit another of your forms
• We will work closely with you to craft the most compelling campaign messages possible
• We will create a custom branded HTML stationery for your campaigns
• We will include the creation of a custom HTML listing flyer

All of the elements above are required if you truly want to maximize the effectiveness of your drip campaigns. However, if you'd prefer a more basic version of our drip service, we would be happy to work with you to make it a reality. Want to know more? Visit our sister website - Real Estate Drip Email Campaigns

Search Engine Optimization
Complex and proven strategies that work! Only white hat, we can get your site noticed! Just check our own ranking at Google!

Truly effective search engine placement is no easy task. The big search engines like Google have strict and unforgiving algorithms that are hard to maximize for, but it can be done. Search engines seek out websites that offer content targeted to a specific topic and they want TONS of it. They won't succeed if every web search turns up ugly, mis-managed and uninformative websites - thus we must optimize your site to become the authority on your given market.

We have developed cutting edge services to accomplish this that we've tested and honed on our own website! If you do a google search for:

• real estate virtual assistant
• real estate virtual assistants
• real estate virtual assistance
• website real estate virtual assistant
• virtual real estate assistants
• virtual real estate assistant

You will find us at #1 or #2 - Yeah Sure, but those aren't highly competitive keywords! Right? Wrong! Google pulls over 6 million websites on a search for 'real estate virtual assistant.' But, can we get results for real estate? The answer is yes! Take a look at our client, Eddy Kicker of South Carolina - Eddy wanted to rise from search engine obscurity and he hired us to help him accomplish his goals. We started at the end of August 2006 by creating several more targeted community pages, each adjusted carefully for keyword usage, alt tags, title tags, description and more. Take a look at this chart:

(Click the chart at the left to view the larger version.)

Back in August, Eddy's site ranked 169th for the phrase 'Greer SC Homes' - a very targeted keyword phrase likely to generate fantastic results if he could rank in the top ten. The page with the ranking was his broader 'Greenville' community page. Within just a few short days of initial tweaks to his website, his rank started to slowly creep up *and* his homepage started appearing right with it! His rank continued moving steadily up through to September 11th. Then, we completed a rich and detailed community page for Greer, to maximize this growth. What happened? Within two short weeks, that new page jumped to number 10 in the rankings!

While many feel good search engine optimiztion is tricky and not worth working at, we find that with some basic core principals - it's not very hard at all! Simply give the search engines what they want - thereby giving your potential customers what they want (or what they didn't realize they desperately needed!) and you will find success.

Our methods are simple:

• Targeted keyword research to determine the most optimal phrases
• Custom title, description, H1, alt and URL strings for each page
• Develop highly targeted community pages with demographics, history, schools and attractions
• Extensive web rank tracking with weekly reports by email
• Use of new technologies such as folksonomy tags to increase use of links/anchor text
• Submission to high page rank paid/free real estate directories
• Search engine copywriting to ensure optimal keyword usage without jarring the user
• Link exchange campaign with exacting partner rank requirements

Like anything in life, the amount of success you'll achieve and the time it takes to achieve it is directly proportional to the priority and dedication you bring to it. With the package below, your website ranking will become a high priority project for us to generate maximum results in as little time as possible. However, if you'd prefer a more basic version of our search engine optimization service, we would be happy to work with you to make it a reality. Want to know more? Give me a call anytime! (253) 565-3015

Social Networking
Folksonomy tags, wikipedia, Digg, Facebook, Linkedin, Technorati and more! The best pro's are doing it, don't get left behind!

With all the talk about "Real Estate 2.0," Zillow, Google Base and other hot industry news - have you considered that where there's smoke, there's fire? The most technically savvy (or simply the brave souls who hired the right people) are creating tons of buzz online - and generating massive business by becoming an early adopter of the latest real estate marketing methods. Do you want to be left behind? What exactly is Real Estate 2.0 or Social Bookmarking, for that matter?

Real Estate 2.0 is a phrase coined as a take on Web 2.0 - or those agents who are using the newest technologies for their online marketing such as Google maps mashups (where you can click on your listing and view it on Google maps), Zillow "zestimates" links on listing pages, Ajax coding, lightboxes, Ruby on rails, use of Digg.com and tons of other techie "early adopter" strategies. Why it's important to you is the fact that these brave agents are having a significant impact on the industry - and on their own businesses.

At the very least, these new technologies will give your website better ranking via new one-way inbound links to your website and alternate methods to attract new prospects. At the very most, you could become a loud online voice for your industry with a powerful following and a network of fellow "Real Estate 2.0" agents ready to refer their clients to you. Social bookmarking sites are an increasingly popular way to locate, classify, rank, and share Internet resources. Before, if a prospect found you site and enjoyed it - they simply bookmarked it in their browser (and most likely forgot about it). With social bookmarking, someone (or your VA) bookmarks your website using a descriptive keyword phrase to one of the many aggregators, and suddenly the entire member community of that site has access to your website and starts visiting! It's like a 'techie' word of mouth campaign. It only takes one user (or VA) to "vote" for your website - a real human being! Some consider social bookmarking as the 'SEO killer' since search engine spiders and algorithms lack the human touch necessary to truly understand the topic of your website and its' value.

Let's break it down:

• Aggressive campaign to submit your website pages to the many social bookmarking websites (Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Furl, Simpy, Spurl)
• Inclusion of social bookmarking submission icons to your website

Keeping pace with current technologies is vital for your success as a real estate agent. So much information is online for home buyers and home sellers that you'll have to work considerably harder to earn their trust. By utilizing all of the above services to help you keep your marketing edge, your perception and brand in the marketplace will be assured. However, if you'd prefer a more basic version of our social bookmarkeing service, we would be happy to work with you to make it a reality. Want to know more? Give me a call anytime! (253) 565-3015

Market Your Listings
Are you getting them on Craigslist, Google Base, Trulia? If not, you may be missing a huge coup for your sellers!

Some of you agents may have already heard about Google Base. Google Base is a place where you can post all types of content and have it show up on Google (including real estate listings). If you have a Point2 site, you know that they’ve been feeding your listings to Google Base and Trulia since last March. Do a Google search for Real Estate - and you’ll see the Google Base functionality that allows users to bring up a map of all listings available in that area.

However, some of you may have never even heard of Google Base. You may have heard of (and have placed your listings on) Craigslist but that's only the beginning. There are a great many other valuable online classified sites that your listings could be added to.

What can we do to help:

• Submission of your website photos to social photo sites like Flickr
• Submission of your listings to Google Base, Trulia, Oodles, etc.

What better way to impress that seller at your next listing presentation but to give him or her a lengthy list of all the places you'll be advertising their home! It could just make the difference between a signed contract. However, if you'd prefer a more basic version of our listing marketing service, we would be happy to work with you to make it a reality. Want to know more? Give me a call anytime! (253) 565-3015

Directory Linking
Link Exchange barely works! Now is the time to get you site listed with powerful directories and blogs!

You know the power of content. Perhaps you've already invested great time and effort building out your website to become an authority on your market, but you're not seeing the results you expected. The other half of the search engine optimization coin is generating inbound links to your website. You may also be one of the vicims of the recent reciprocal link scandals that affected real estate website template providers like Advanced Access and Homes.com. So, how do you get more inbound links to your site without focusing on reciprocal links? The answer is targeted submission of your website to well ranked directories.

What we'll achieve:

• Aggressive campaign to submit your site to multiple directories
• Only submit to directories with a Google PR of 3 or above
• Only submit to directories who have Google PR of 1 or above on the page where you link resides
• Only submit to directories whose pages can be spidered by the search engines (not dynamic)
• Suggest key paid directories where you can submit your website
• Initial setup includes anchor text research for building your link submissions
• Initial submissions to be placed at 20 - 30 directories
• Ongoing service to locate 3 - 6 additional good directories
• Weekly search engine placement reports submitted

A few more powerful inbound links from some relevant real estate directories may be the final link in the chain to your achieving your best ranking. However, if you'd prefer a more basic version of our directory linking service, we would be happy to work with you to make it a reality. Want to know more? Give me a call anytime! (253) 565-3015