Tag archive for "property" | Blog.PropertiesOnline.com

Why a Real Estate Blog is a Good Idea

We all know by now that having a real estate site is an important part of any realtor’s marketing strategy. An agent website is at least as important as any other marketing material you may create. It enables you to showcase your knowledge and expertise and – with proper optimizing and social media marketing – to attract new clients.

But what about a blog? Should you write your own real estate blog?

We believe that you should. Read on for some reasons why a real estate blog is a good idea.

A blog serves two main purposes:

1. A real estate blog enhances your agent website and gives you an opportunity to further demonstrate your knowledge, in a fresh, real-time format. A blog is published chronologically, which enables you to publish your thoughts and observations on real estate topics as they become relevant. It is much easier to update a blog than it is to update a web site!

2. Adding a blog to your real estate website will make your site more search engine friendly, because the more text your site contains, the more search engines have to work with, and the higher are the chances that your site will rank well in the search engine result pages for your main keywords.

For most real estate professionals, the main issue with starting a blog is probably lack of time. But a blog doesn’t have to take too much of your time: after all, you are not a professional blogger and the blog is a nice addition rather than your livelihood. Try to commit to publishing a weekly blog post with your thoughts and with updates, but if time is an issue, a monthly blog post is fine.

How Single Property Websites Work in Your Favor

Real estate websites that focus on a single property offer huge benefits – both to the real estate agent and to the home seller. Understanding how single property websites work in your favor is important.

“One of the most useful features of individual listing websites is the ability to quickly and easily add listings to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,” says Amanda Cornelius, real estate web marketing expert, and co-founder/CEO of Properties Online.

“Social networking is a new and exciting form of online marketing. It utilizes viral methods of marketing to create a natural buzz around a property. Essentially, social media marketing is a lot like old-fashioned word-of-mouth marketing, but it is done on a much larger scale thanks to the wide reach of the Internet.

“For example, if an agent has been active on Facebook and has a couple hundred friends there, they can post each single property website to their Facebook profile to let people know about it. A percentage of these people will like what they see and spread the word, either in person to their friends and family, or online, on their own social networks.”

With individual listing sites, the connection between the website and social media sites is easy and automatic. Simply adding listings through a Facebook app will ensure that Facebook dynamically updates the agent’s profile as properties and homes are added, edited or removed.

Using a comprehensive, leading single property website service like Listing Domains takes all the hassle out of linking across your important web locations. What’s more, it saves you time by automating what could otherwise be time intensive processes.

Marketing your listings online can truly be easy, if you have the right tools.

Is Your Real Estate Website Mobile?

Sometime in the next year, it has been predicted that mobile internet use and searches will surpass desktop computer use and internet searches. What’s more, 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal, whether it’s on smartphones, PCs, tablets or TV (Source: Think Insights). In a business as internet reliant as real estate, it is critical that your agent website and all property websites are fully enabled optimized for mobile use. Have you ever visited your websites from your own mobile phone? Is your real estate website mobile?

Mobile traffic to listings websites has increased 600% in the past 18 months (Source: Listing Domains). 600 per cent!!! If all of those users are getting a bad mobile experience, they won’t be coming back.

Did you know that using Listing Domains for your individual property websites means that you’ll get a mobile website free with every single listing? That means that no matter where a buyer views your property – from their home desktop computer or out on their smartphone – they will get a flawless experience.

Mobile websites increase speed; improve usability and convenience; can enable mobile-specific technology features, such as click-to-call, location-aware advertising and services, and mapping; can improve search and SEO performance; increase connectivity; promote a sense of professionalism; integrate with traditional advertising formats through use of QR codes; and meet current market expectation.

Properties Online Incorporates QR Codes into their Website Builder Software

As QR Codes become an integral part of real estate marketing, Properties Online enables real estate agents to quickly and easily generate QR Codes for each listing.

Properties Online Incorporates QR Codes into their Website Builder Software

January 20, 2011 — As QR Codes become an integral part of real estate marketing, Properties Online enables real estate agents to quickly and easily generate QR Codes for each listing.

QR Codes, short for Quick Response Codes, have been quite a hit overseas for some time now but are just starting to make some noise in the US real estate marketing arena. A recent study by Morgan Stanley’s analysts believe that, based on the current rate of change and adoption, the mobile web will be bigger than desktop Internet use by 2015. With mobile traffic on the rise and projected to surpass desktop browsing in less than 5 years, QR Codes are a quick & easy way for real estate professionals to drive mobile traffic to their website. Real estate professionals can take advantage of this free and innovative way to promote their listings by adding these codes to their business cards, flyers, newspaper ads and more. It takes only seconds for a smart phone to scan the code and redirect visitors to a website with additional details and photos of a property listed for sale.

“QR Codes are a great way to drive mobile traffic to our users’ websites.” says Amanda Cornelius, President and CEO of Properties Online, LLC. “With our new system we can save our users time by creating the QR Codes for them. All the agent has to do is save the QR Code and incorporate it into their print marketing efforts.”

The QR code creation process is very simple. When a Properties Online user creates a Listing Domain website or adds a listing to their agent website, a QR code is automatically created for that listing. Properties Online takes the QR code one step further with a built in tracking system that allows users to track and quantify the number of visitors each QR code has driven to their website.

Some companies are charging a monthly fee for this service but Properties Online has chosen to offer this as an added value service to their over 20,000 users. In February the company plans to print the QR Codes on their Domain Rider signs for a nominal fee. Also in February Properties Online will be releasing a new flyer builder program allowing real estate professionals to create print quality PDF brochures for each listing complete with QR code. Because not everyone has a smart phone, it is important for agents and brokers to include the direct URL of the property, i.e. 555MainStreet.com or 555Main.KimAgent.com. Properties Online includes Property Specific URLs with their Listing and Agent website products.

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About Properties Online:
Properties Online is dedicated to helping real estate professionals grow their business by offering innovative and invaluable technology tools with a smile. With a user base of over 20,000 real estate professionals, Properties Online products and services empower agents to efficiently expand their business while generating more traffic and leads. Their web-based software is extremely easy to use and makes creating a website, a flyer or a video simple and fun!

Internet Trends — Mobile on the Rise

In a recent study, Morgan Stanley suggested that smart phones will out sell desktop and laptop computers by 2012. Do you agree? I think anyone who has an iPhone or droid can certainly agree that this is going to happen – perhaps even in 2011. There is no denying that mobile Internet traffic is on the rise.

Now is a great time to develop your mobile marketing plan. Here are three mobile tips that you can incorporate to help make this happen!

Dose your website have a mobile version? If not, you might want to consider getting one. If you have a custom site, have your web developer design a second version specifically for mobile devices. Some companies such as RealEstateSites.com offers a free mobile version of their agent website product.

Do you use TEXT lead capture? If not, you might want to consider adding a text sign rider to your listings. Services such as SmarterAgent.com and KWKLY.com offer mobile and texting services to real estate professionals. ListingDomains.com offers a text rider upgrade to their listing website product for $10.00

Have you looked into QR codes? QR codes are still fairly new here in the states but they have taken some countries like Japan by storm. QR Codes storing URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or on just about any object that offers users information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR Code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone’s browser.

Google’s mobile Android operating system supports the use of QR codes by including the barcode scanner (ZXing) on some models.

Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research

View more presentations from CM Summit: Marketing in Real Time.

Look for some exciting new mobile innovations in 2011 from Properties Online!

Amanda Cornelius