Testing BlogJet
Posted on August 12, 2008
Filed Under Realtor Tools & Tips | Leave a Comment
I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It’s a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com
“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.” — Albert Einstein
Google AdWords Renewal Phishing Scam
Posted on July 23, 2008
Filed Under Realtor Tools & Tips | 1 Comment
Don’t fall for Phishing Scam emails. A reputable web site would not send you an unsolicited email message asking for your password, user ID, account number etc. through an email link. When you receive these scam mailings they may look quite convincing at first glance - remember it is very simple to copy a company logo & replicate a log-in page with a company “look”.
For tips to avoid phising and to report phishing: What do I do if I receive a suspicious email claiming to be from AdWords?
Screen capture of Google Adwords Renewal Scam
Labor & Employment Law Web Re-design
Posted on July 18, 2008
Filed Under SEO Search Optimization | Leave a Comment
Maya Murphy PC required a search engine friendly design and the ability to update their site with legal news and articles.
The original site’s unfortunate home page consisted of two graphics and a flash animated menu. No text other than the copyright notice and link to “enter site”.
Our new site uses search engine friendly Wordpress for content management. The blog platform is perfect for this law site as Maya Murphy has many attorneys, articles and law practice areas to categorize and organize. Though it always takes some time for a new domain to earn page rank this brand new site already shows above the original site in a Google search for “Maya Murphy Law”.
Yes! Email Marketing really is that simple.
Posted on June 10, 2008
Filed Under Realtor Tools & Tips, Web Design Business | Leave a Comment
During the past few months I have been inundated with “fancy” emails forwarded to me by my clients. Each with the same question: How do they do that? I want to do this!
Email Marketing is an easy, effective, and highly affordable way to get your message out, and build strong, successful, and lasting relationships. It is also a great way to reduce the cost of printing and mailing your monthly, quartery newsletter. I am not suggesting that you stop sending newsletters to your farm area but you could certainly invite people to subscribe to your email list the next time you send your mailing. This way you can start to reduce the amount of paper mail you send and build a targeted opt-in mail list.
I recommend Constant Contact to my clients as it is a very simple and affordable way to get started with your email marketing campaign. It helps you create professional-looking emails-fast and with no technical expertise-and build strong, successful, and lasting relationships with your customers, clients, or members. With more than 160 easily customized HTML email templates, a step-by-step Email Wizard, and point-and-click interface-you can create highly visual, compelling email newsletters and promotions in just minutes. Email Marketing makes it easy for you to manage your contact email lists…measure email campaign results from clicks to open rates…and review who joined your email list.
Sign-up for a FREE 60-Day Trial today.
Explore all the features. No risk. No obligation.
CMLS rDesk SearchPoint IDX
Posted on May 29, 2008
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I have been receiving many inquiries about rDesk IDX, the CMLS realtor IDX solution, which I’ve integrated in several realtor web sites since it became available in February 2008. If you are are having trouble finding this information on the CMLS web site, what you are looking for is here:
rDesk & rDesk SearchPoint IDX Quick Start Guide
The guide contains the order form which you will need to have signed by your broker. Fax your completed order form to: Greater fairfield County CMLS 203-840-6678
Once your CMLS rDesk IDX features have been activated you will log in and set up your preferences in accordance with the instructions. It is important to set-up the IDX area that asks for your web site URL and email address. The links from your website will not work unless this is done correctly.
Once you have completed your settings you will copy the URL’s provided and email them to your web developer to be integrated in your web site. You can have your navigation simply link to the search and listing displays or frame them into your site.
While this is not a search engine friendly “SEO” solution it is the only IDX solution available for Realtors who want to include a Greater Fairfield County CMLS IDX listing search on their web site. This is also a cost effective solution for displaying your own listings and your office real estate listings.
Keywords and SEO for Real Estate Simplified
Posted on May 8, 2008
Filed Under Realtor Tools & Tips, SEO Search Optimization | 3 Comments
Keyword phrases aren’t any kind of magic hidden tags. Search engines read your content and they are sophisticated enough to detect spam and other so called tricks of the trade. They are looking for sites whos content is relevant to what people are searching for. So just keep that in mind each time you add a new real estate listing or any content to your web site. Ask yourself, “Am I using regional real estate related words that people may be searching for?”
For example I live in Fairfield CT so I will use “Fairfield CT real estate” as the example search term. The typical headline for a home in my neighborhood might be: “Classic Colonial on Quiet Cul-de-Sac”. This is a nice headline for the real estate section of our local newspaper but for the world wide web we need to be more specific. “Real Estate in Fairfield CT Historic District”. or “Colonial in Fairfield CT Historic District” If we use the second headline we would still need to get the “real estate” term in there. So the first line of the property description could be something like: Fabulous real estate opportunity in Fairfield’s Historic District. Note how I have also worked in the market area search term “historic district”.
Other areas of your web site can be improved in the same way. I often see web sites that offer “personalized service” instead of “personalized real estate services”. Many real estate sites don’t use the phrase “real estate” at all.
There is more to SEO than this of course (META tags: title and desctiption) and what I call a “search engine friendly” web design. Link popularity and so forth but the single most important thing you can do and still need to do even if you have all the other stuff is to have great content that also happens to include the keywords people would use to find you.
Create Your Own Real Estate Listings RSS Feed
Posted on April 21, 2008
Filed Under Realtor Tools & Tips, Web Design Business | 1 Comment
RSS (really simple syndication) is a feed that allows your subscribers to receive your “feed” automatically through a feed reader or email. RSS feeds can also be displayed as dynamic content in web pages. A feed will generally consist of a short summary which when clicked will bring you to the full article or detail page.
You can use an RSS feed for any area of your web site that you would update frequently: new real estate listings, price changes, open house schedule, mortgage rates, community news, real estate market statistics and so forth. The feed will allow people to subscribe to your latest updates and can also keep your latest updates posted on your web site and perhaps even posted on other web sites and blogs.
To easily create and publish your RSS feed use a desktop application that provides a wizard to help guide you through the process. I recommend FeedForAll:
Now that you have your RSS feed published (uploaded to your web server) you will want to include links so visitors can subscribe to your feed. You may also want to display your feed content as HTML on a web page or blog and of course you will want to submit your feed to RSS directories and search engines.
A very simple way to get started with displaying, publishing and promoting your feed is to sign-up for a free FeedBurner account.
Free Virtual Tours
Posted on April 3, 2008
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Free do-it-yourself virtual tour. No third party ads and 100% branded to you. You can include your photo, name and logo. The beauty of this virtual tour in addition to the price (did I mention it’s free?!) is the built-in lead capture, activity tracking and lead management features.
Here’s how it works; Create an account by choosing a user name and password. Choose an attractive template. Upload your pictures and write your descriptions. You can use unlimited photos and create unlimited tours. The tours are hosted free for as long as you want.
You can track the activity for each tour and the tours have built-in forms for visitors who are interested in the property. All the contact information and tour leads are stored for you. What’s the catch? You pay $1.00 for each each lead that you generate through this service. $1.00 for a qualified lead. This is someone who has viewed your tour and is interested enough to fill in the form to ask you a question, send it to a friend or request an appointment. You only pay if they fill out the form.
Give it a try: flyinside.com
Are AOL Email Addresses for Losers?
Posted on April 2, 2008
Filed Under Realtor Tools & Tips | 1 Comment
Andy Wibbels thinks so and I bet many people would agree with him. I won’t be so rude here as to call some of the top producing Realtors in the country “losers” but I will say; Realtors using AOL, free mail accounts and email addresses with their ISP domain name are definitely “losing out”.
Let’s discuss some of the reasons you should not be using your AOL, Yahoo or other ISP email accounts. Yes, there is more than one reason, in fact there are many. The first and most obvious is that it is simply unprofessional. I know the dangers of “assuming” anything but let’s please just assume that we all know and agree that lulu69@hotmail.com is not an appropriate email address for your business image.
What else is wrong with this address? Well, it kind of looks like SPAM so there is a more than high possibility that this email would be deleted, blocked or even blacklisted. What else? As if your email not being received isn’t enough to deter you from this bad practice. Well then…
How about branding? You all know branding. You have spent money on logos, business cards, direct mail campaigns, just listed and sold cards. You have a website. You have a full page ad in a glossy magazine and listings in all the local newspapers. I don’t have to tell you about branding. Then why are you branding your ISP domain name every time you send an email?
Still, that email address seems like such a small thing compared to your other marketing efforts. And yet, think about it. How many emails will you send and reply to today? Compare that to how many other marketing/branding impressions you made today. How does it compare? How does the cost compare? Can you see how your biggest return on investment (ROI) could actually be coming from your own branded email?
CMS Pros, Cons and Reviews
Posted on April 1, 2008
Filed Under Web Design Business | Leave a Comment
The first and one of the best content management systems I’ve used for client web sites is Content Seed. The system is available in both ASP and PHP versions. The license is very reasonably priced at $149.00 Unlike most software, the license is for unlimited domains and updates are free for life. So if you are looking to add CMS to more than one site this is an excellent value.
Installing and “seeding” a page is a fairly simple operation which involves uploading your files, setting folder permissions and placing a bit of code “the seed” on your page to indicate where the editable text will appear. I should mention here that if you do have any difficulties or question about your installation you will be more than pleasantly surprised with the customer support. Chris Leeds, the developer and owner of Content Seed answers his emails and phone calls personally!
The pros are obvious. Your client can edit the content on the pages you set-up to work with Content Seed. The editor is easy to use, looks like MS Word, has all the editing and formatting features you would expect, including the ability to upload images and supporting files like PDF documents. This system even comes with comprehensive help videos so your clients can see a demonstration of the feature in question. Additioanl features include the ability for cliens to back-up their content and assign user log-ins to edit specific pages.
Really, I can’t say enough about this product - it pretty much has it all. And, there is where the Pro and the Con of CMS reside together; In the fact that your client now has a full text editor and the ability to upload images to their web pages.
Cons:
- Clients will overwrite CSS rules by changing fonts, text size, colors, alignment, case, underline & bold everything (because everything is that important!)
- Clients will upload enormous image files. This will result not only in page load time issues but also in page display by exceeding the container size in divs and tables.
- Clients that don’t update their site regularly will always forget how to do it and call you for instructions, passwords etc.
- Clients will copy and paste from other web sites and documents picking up code and formatting and inadvertantly drop it into their own site. There is a paste text only function but no matter how often you remind them to use it, they will not.
- You will be contacted to fix these issues on a regular basis.
It has been my experience that unless a client uses the tools regularly and correctly (rare) then I actually spend more time fixing and instructing then I would if I simply updated the site myself. In these cases the CMS is not as cost effective to clients as it could be.
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