GeekEstate Blog » Dennis McGuire

Blogging On Trends

Dennis McGuire — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:47:58 +0000

Real Estate blogging has many advantages for real estate professionals. Drew Meyers and Brian Rothenberg recently talked about tips for marketing your blog. In addition to those two great posts, bloggers need to be aware of what their users are looking for, then cater to their users. Pay careful attention to your site’s analytics. Google offers a great analytical tool that is free to everyone; however, a majority of the blogging platforms today have simple analytical tools built in. For example, WordPress has an area called “search engine terms”. Keep a daily eye on that to see what your users are searching for. Match the keyword terms to your new blog post exactly.

An example would be your analytics report is saying people are reaching your site by the terms – 3 bedroom house for sale in Philadelphia or homes for sale in Philadelphia. More than half of all the traffic to your blog has come from similar searches. If I’m a real estate agent in the Philadelphia area, I’ll be sure to blog about each and every house I have for sale in my inventory in Philadelphia. Be sure to be descriptive and match the exact key words users are searching for.

Finally, the biggest mistake a real estate agent can make is deleting a blog post after a listing has sold. Why lose the SEO the post has produced for your blog? Agents may think to themselves, “the house has sold, let me delete that one now.” Wrong! Simply go back to that post and write a simple: This home has been sold. Now you have a new user to your blog that could turn into a potential lead.

Create Real Estate Widgets

Dennis McGuire — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:15:36 +0000

Recently at the DEMO Conference (a conference for start-ups to showcase their new technologies), a company called Sprout launched a new application that allows anyone to create a professional Widget. Real Estate agents will like this new slick tool in that it is very easy to use. The interface is a Flash based WYSIWYG that allows for simple drag and drop creation. No coding is required.

The product is still in Beta and you can sign up to be added to their list. I had the opportunity to test the app and it is quite interesting. You can very easily add videos, pictures, a Yahoo map, as well as many other features. It also comes with detailed analytics to track your widgets across the web.

After completing your widget, you have the ability to add the code to social networks like MySpace, Facebook, etc, as well as blogs and web sites across the internet. This service is totally free for users to join. I look forward to seeing some cool real estate widgets.

Single Property Websites

Dennis McGuire — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:01:37 +0000

One question that I receive from realtors on a steady basis is “Do single property websites work? And if so, which company do I hire to provide this service?” In my opinion, “yes” single property websites do work and can be a very effective marketing tool. It is a chance for realtors to separate themselves from their competition. It is an easy way for people driving by the home to obtain quick information. Home sellers and realtors can easily pass along a URL to potential customers during a conversation.

After explaining the benefits of utilizing single property websites, I am asked which service to use for creating this? There are so many sites out there today that specialize in creating websites for single properties. My simple answer is “NONE”. Why should you pay $30, $50, or even hundreds of dollars to a company to create a single property site? I’ll explain simple and effective ways to do this and save some money.

Go to a domain name registration site (ie godaddy.com) and register the domain name with the address. A sample would be 2376 Fulmer Drive – register 2376fulmerdrive.com. My two recommendations here would be to register the .com and stay away from other extensions as they are not as popular and second, be sure to fully spell out names like street, lane, etc in the domain name.
If you do not already have the home listed on a broker’s site, please create the entry. If you do not utilize your broker’s site and maintain a personal site, be sure to create a new page on your site with the detailed home information.
When creating the new page for your listing, be sure to enter detailed meta data and keywords in the source code. Be sure to be as descriptive as possible on the home you are listing and be specific to this home only. Also be sure to update your page title to include the address of the property.
Once you have this saved on the web, go to your GoDaddy.com Domain Manager page. Click the domain name, then click “Forwarding” from the top menu.
Type in the full address to where the listing is located on the web.
On the masking tab (if your brokerage allows it) you can mask the URL. This means that instead of reading something like http://www.bigbrokerage.com/mylisting, after it is forwarded, it will read the domain name you purchased. Please be sure to check with you brokerage to see if domain masking is approved.
Also on the masking, you have the option to enter a Masked Title, Masked Description Meta Tag, and Masked Keyword Meta Tag. This should provide for added SEO. Be sure to click “OK” when completed.

Now you are all set to have your own single property website without spending additional funds. Granted, the cost for the domain name is $8.95/yr (discounts available on more registrations), but it is a lot cheaper than some of the costs companies are charging.

If you are a home seller trying to sell your home on your own, list your property on a real estate site such as zillow.com, then register your address as domain name, then forward it to the listing page on zillow.com. I’m sure Zillow would not allow the masking portion of the forward, but I’m sure they would welcome the additional web traffic.