As we continue to grow our suite of online real estate marketing tools for just $10/mo., we’re currently developing a tool that will allow RealtyPlug members to create unlimited Single Property Websites, and we want to hear your suggestions on the kind of features we should include.

So far, we’ve really focused on making them fully-customizable, and easy to use.  They’ll also have several Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features, and social sharing links.

But, what else?  What’s important to you, and what would help you market your listings online?  We’d love to hear your ideas, and very likely implement them in our future release.

Please complete the form below, and let us know your thoughts.

*(denotes required field) Name: E-Mail Address: * Subject: Message: * CAPTCHA Code: *

We appreciate your input, and are working hard to deliver marketing the tools that will build your online presence, and sell more!Feel free to call me anytime.               Bryan Bowles, Founder 314.503.4900

We’ve just launched our latest version of Web Flyers that you can use to post your listings to Craigslist, Backpage, Kijiji, or any of your blogs.

We’ve improved the layout, and made all colors, backgrounds, and fonts fully customizable.

Once you’ve added a listing, simply click on the flyer icon located next to your listing, within the ‘My Listings’ Section.

You’ll then be presented with a pop-up, like you see below. Within it is a ‘Preview’ link to see what it looks like, and a text box with all the HTML for the flyer.

To have the Web Flyer displayed in Craigslist, you simply copy all the HTML in this text box and copy it into a Craiglist ad.

That ugly text will magically be presented as a pretty flyer for your listing.

Now, if you don’t like the standard gray, you can easily change all colors to match your branding, and spice it up.  From within the ‘My Listings’ section click on the ‘Customize Listing Web Flyers’ link.

From there, simply select the colors you’d like using the color swatches for each section of the listing.

You can always go to the ‘Preview’ link in the Listing Web Flyer pop-up before ever posting to Craigslist to see just how it will look. I’d recommend checking it before you ever do post, just to make sure there are no typos, and everything looks just as you’d like it.

That’s it.  Now, go log in, and give it a try for yourself.  And remember we’re available every day of the week to support you if you have any troubles using RealtyPlug – just reach out and let us know what we can do to help.

Based on feedback from one of our recent ActiveRain surveys, agents are looking for more ideas for marketing in Craigslist.  There are a lot of agents who are having success finding buyers, and listings there.  We’re currently building a database of articles and examples of what’s working and what’s not.

So, this video will be the first in our series of Craigslist real estate marketing.  Please let me know if there is anything in particular you’d like to learn about.

Want to add a property search to your website, but don’t want to use IDX because of the cost, or can’t use it because of certain restrictions?

Well, there are IDX alternatives out there available to all real estate professionals. One of those alternatives, of course is us, RealtyPlug. With RealtyPlug, you can easily add a full property search to any of your websites, blogs, and even your Facebook Pages without the requirements of IDX.

Also each property search will showcase your listings, and all inquires and showing request for people using your search will come directly to you.  Each property search is fully customizable, to match your area and niche, and branding.

Here are a few people using RealtyPlug, so that you can see it in action:

Facebook Page Example: The Dailey Group Facebook Page
Website Search Example: Galveston Homes for Sale

Here’s a video of how easily you can add a lead generating property search to your Facebook page, websites, and blogs:

Now, give a try for yourself…

-

You’ve heard the hype, start a blog, target your market, use keywords… and the leads will just roll in!

So, you’ve probably started a WordPress blog, and got off to a good start posting a couple times a week… then, that turned in to a couple of months… and now you just post your new listings.  No content whatsoever.

I see this mistake made by agents over and over, and I’m sorry, but that’s not going to cut it!  Blogging is hard work.  If you want to draw the kind of traffic needed for a successful online real estate marketing campaign, you’ll need to post AT LEAST a couple times of week of good content on your own blog – and not some platform hosted by another company.

Check out this interview between Neil Patel (founder of KISSMetrics) and John Chow, one of the internet’s most successful bloggers, and how his commitment to one post a day has earned him millions.  Granted his niche is a little different than real estate, but it’s still blogging.  He drops some very big tips on blogging and things you should be doing within your blog to get more leads.

http://www.quicksprout.com/trafficsystem/video/johnchow.mov

Yes, blogging is painful, but absolutely necessary.  I’ve noticed that periods between my blog posts, my website traffics drops.  And upon each post I make, it gets another little bump.  Be sure to tweet each post, and share it on Facebook to draw more traffic.  But, bottom line, you have to post often to be successful – consistency is key!

So, get back in that blog, and be consistently creative!  Show home buyers and sellers in your town you know your area, know your rules and regs, have an eye for staging, and have the experience needed.

 So, what the heck is real estate listing syndication?  It’s actually pretty simple, it is the distribution of real estate listings to other channels (such as website).  For example, RealtyPlug offers listing syndication.  Any listing you enter into RealtyPlug will automatically be syndicated to Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Yahoo.com, Oodle.com, and numerous other real estate websites.  So once your listing is entered in RealtyPlug, it’s automatically showing up in search results in those other websites.

Sounds like an awesome way to market your real estate listings, right?

I think so – it certainly allows your listings to be seen by many more people!  However, some brokers and agents are against it.  The arguments against it vary, but here are the three big ones I often hear:

1. One of the biggest topics brought up by those who don’t like it, complain Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com do show stale listings, and sometimes don’t update pictures and other information.  This often happens with a technical disconnect between the syndicator (such as your local MLS), but it can easily be remedied.  When an agent sells a home or cancels a listing it should automatically be removed from the real estate websites.  The reason it’s not removed varies greatly, and can be at the fault of the syndicator or the websites.  From my experience, the issue usually lies in the websites storing the old data (which they do to improve website performance).  However, it is usually very easily remedied with a simple email request to update the listing status.
2. I also hear complaints about the websites your listings are syndicated to charge you for advertising your own listings.  Well, this is partially true.  Yes, you do have to pay for your listings to be ‘enhanced’ once they’ve been syndicated to those websites, which simply highlights them and puts them to the top of the results for very generic search queries. But no matter what, these websites are required to have your contact information (including an email form) to you the listing agent – and that’s free of charge.
3. Another hot topic has been the fact that these websites allow other agents/brokers to advertise on the pages that contain your listings.  Other agents can appear as the agent to contact to schedule a showing. While I can see the legitimacy of this argument, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.  Other agents are allowed to email your listings from the MLS to the public, right?

In the grand scheme of things, I think syndication is a very good thing.  Marketing is a mainly a numbers game.  The more people that see your product will buy your product, and in this case your product is your listings.

Imagine if you didn’t have your listings syndicated…  On your next listing appointment, your potential client asks, “So, when you list my house it’s only going to show up on your website?  You mean to tell me, people searching in Realtor.com, Zillow.com, and Trulia.com, the most highly searched real estate websites won’t find it?”  Good luck with that one!

After all, if you don’t like it you can simply opt-out of it, just like Edina Realty did.  I’ll be very, very interested in seeing how this plays out for them.

So, here’s my Take on one the largest real estate brokerages in Minnesota’s decision to stop syndicating their listings to Realtor.com and Trulia.com…

 Just recently, Edina Realty recently stopped syndicating their listings to Trulia.com and Realtor.com, and in a nutshell, the reason is basically because they don’t like the fact they’re being solicited by those websites to pay to enhance their listings?

 In an article posted on Inman News, the president of Edina Realty is quoted as saying this move will also help their website’s SEO (search engine optimization), since it will draw more traffic to view listings there.  That might be true, but I think it presents them with some much bigger problems:

 1. I believe showings will likely take a hit. I think they might possibly see a jump in dual agency transactions, but that will be greatly trumped by the fact that their listings will receive much less exposure on the web – resulting in less showing requests.  

 2. MORE IMPORTANTLY – and this is only my opinion, this move represents putting the broker’s best interests before the clients’ best interest. It may help SEO, but SEO is really about search engine rankings.  How many buyers do you know that use google to search for homes?  They don’t.  They use Realtor.com (the real estate website with the highest traffic), Trulia.com, and other websites.  Not to mention, this is very much an act of retaliation.  Just because you don’t like the fact that someone wants to charge you to ‘enhance your listings’ on their website, should your clients’ listings not receive the significant exposure in those websites.  The newspapers have been doing this for decades – why is it such a big deal now?  It’s obvious that it’s more about the fact that someone’s upset that someone else is earning revenue from ”their data”.  Every grocery store, pharmacy, search engine, and website earns ad revenue from our data too.  I’m not justifying it, I’m just saying it’s business.

 Consider the next listing appointment, where going through the online marketing strategy…

 Your potential client might ask, “So when you list my house,  people searching in Realtor.com and Trulia.com, the most highly searched real estate websites won’t find it?  How does that help sell my home?”  That’ll be a tough one to explain!

  Brokers certainly are not required to pay for the enhanced listing services from Realtor.com and Trulia.com in order for their listings to appear there.  In fact, they don’t charge anything to display a broker’s syndicated listings, and are required to display the listing broker/agents contact information.  So, what can it hurt to be there for free? 

 I’m all about change and shaking up an industry in effort to improve things for the general public, but I don’t think this improves the chances of their listings selling.  And I also get annoyed when I’m solicited services, but unfortunately, I don’t think this is a smart move – with all due respect. For Edina Realty’s sake, I hope I’m wrong.

 This is obviously very opinionated, and I’ll admit some improvements and changes definitely needed to the general standards for syndication and it’s lack of infrastucture. 

I just don’t think a move like this helps the homeowners trying to sell… and that’s what this should really be about.

Your real estate marketing is only as good as your brand.  And in order to create a brand in Real Estate you’ll need to identify your target market and create a brand that embodies that specific market. Think about where you are now and where you would like to be in the future. For example, if the majority of your business comes from buyers your may want to target first time home buyers. You’ll need a slogan that first time home buyers can identify with like “Ready to Take the Plunge? XYZ Realty Has Helped Over 1000 People Find Their First Home”

However there is a lot more to branding than choosing a slogan. You have to build your reputation in the community as an expert in your field. One of the best ways to do this is through social media marketing like blogging and Facebook. Do you have a blog? Maybe you’re blogging through Facebook. Whether you are leveraging a blog, Facebook, Twitter or all three, creating relevant posts is a great way to build up your brand. Many Realtors make the common mistake of creating general content for their blogs and Facebook. This is a huge mistake. You’ll just be grouped with all the other Realtors in your town that offer the same old services. The key is to create content that represents your brand and engages your audience.

Becoming the local authority in your niche market will take some work. You have to create content that is specific to your target market. The best way to do this is by researching new developments in the industry and talking to people in your market. Find out what interests people in your niche market and write posts that cover these issues. Posts that cover tax credits, the benefits of owning as opposed to renting are great ideas if your niche market is first time home buyers.

Create a conversation. Encourage people to comment on your posts, ask questions and voice concerns. By responding to the comments on your posts you are further able to establish yourself as an expert in your area. This also allows people to see different perspectives on each topic which keeps your site fresh and interesting.

Building your brand takes time and consistent behavior. Updating your blog, Facebook and Twitter is essential if you want to achieve success. Take every opportunity to promote your brand and position yourself as the expert. Talk to people and stay on top of new developments.  The bottom line is finding a target market and learning what motivates that group is essential to effective brand promotion.

People choose to work with someone who represents a brand because it symbolizes trust. You need to make sure that you are living up to the brand you are promoting. Blogging and positioning yourself as an expert in your field is a fantastic way to do just that.

According to post on Mashable, Google has once again changes it’s algorithm.  It’s estimated that the algorithm changes several hundred times a year, but all small tweaks.  This one is more significant, estimated to affect roughly 35% of all searches performed on Google.

Google changed its search engine to now rank results from websites with more frequently updated information higher.   To me, this only reinforces the fact that you must be blogging regularly as part of your online real estate marketing campaign.

I highly recommend using WordPress installed on your own server, not hosted by WordPress or any other 3rd party host for the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and results.  This is simply the only way to host your real estate blog.

Get blogging!  But remember, keep your content unique, interesting and personable.

Here are a few arrows for your Twitter quiver.  Check out some of these websites and the tools they offer.  Many of them are free, and extremely useful!

http://www.Bit.ly.com - Use this website to shorten the URL for any links in your tweets.  It’s good if you URL is really long or you’re including multiple URLS in one tweet

http://www.Bit.ly – This service is free and keeps track of how many people clicked on your URL.  I’d recommend using this when sending any links out on your Twitter account.

http://www.Twellow.com - Basically a Twitter directory.  List yourself and use it to search for people to follow based on keywords or location.

http://search.twitter.com - This is a great way to find out what people are talking about on Twitter.  Also, a great way to drum up new business.  Here are a few examples “new listing, home for sale, just sold, buying a home, buying a house.

http://www.twitpic.com - TwitPic allows you to upload photos from your cell phone, or an app like TweetDeck.  A great way to get more people to see your open house notices.

http://www.twitterforbusypeople.com – With this you can receive an overview of all view of the people you follow to see what was their latest tweet.  It’s really a time saver; easier than scrolling through texts chronologically.

http://www.dynamictweets.com – Do you send regular tweets, like “Good morning, world”?  Or, maybe you tweet out your open house notices a couple times before the day of. Well, now you can schedule those tweets – just set it and forget it.

Http://www.tweetlater.com  – Very similar to DyanamicTweets, but many more features.  Despite how useful it is, it’s free.

Happy real estate marketing on Twitter!