Turning Your Clients into Celebrities

When a buyer purchases a new home, more often than not, they are ecstatic. The pride
of their new home and new neighborhood is oozing out of them. Why not bask in their
sunshine by featuring them on your blog? The basic points are as follows:

1. Write a post about the neighborhood the buyers chose as their home
2. Feature the buyers and the reasons they chose that neighborhood
3. Feature a few of their favorite “local spots”

For example, let’s look at first-time homebuyers, Steve and Laura. Steve and Laura
were buying in a Saint Louis neighborhood called Tower Grove South. They loved the
walkability and urban feel of the neighborhood. My blog post entitled “Take a Walk
in Tower Grove South” started with a short introduction about Steve and Laura and
the reasons they chose their neighborhood. I went on to mention a few great places
that they frequent, including a coffee shop, a farmers market, and a beautiful park. It
was an easy post to write as the buyers gave me the material, and it showcased a
neighborhood in its best light.

Why Take This Approach?

There are several reasons that this approach to blogging is beneficial to you, the Real
Estate agent.

1. Word of mouth: When buyers are featured online, they love to share with family and friends. Not only will they be sharing the link, but they will be increasing awareness of your name and your credibility.
2. Local establishments love to be featured: Not only do the buyers love to share good news, but when local establishments find out they have been featured, they love to share it as well. A local restaurant could tweet your blog post out to 1,000+ followers.
3. SEO: When someone is searching the internet about a certain neighborhood, restaurant, or other local place, your blog post is out there to find. This approach brings in searches about so many topics other than Real Estate.
4. You are building a collection of referrals for neighborhoods: Buyers ask you, “What is this neighborhood like?” Wouldn’t it be great to tell them to refer to your blog for a real example of why certain buyers chose to live there? I know that I would have loved a resource like that when deciding in which area to buy my home.
5. You increase your local expertise: When writing about all of these places, you will ultimately learn more about the neighborhoods, adding to your local expertise. Not only that, but it also might get you to try some new places you wouldn’t have otherwise found.

My current IDX provider up to this point has been IDX Broker which is a great platform and I have had a lot of fun customizing and tinkering with their settings, but I get bored easily and I started searching for something new. Since Diverse Solutions does not service my area, I was extremely limited in my options for upgrading my site and inevitably ended up choosing Real Estate Webmasters which I have mentioned on here before. I had to have an impressive IDX integration that was indexable but also flowed very well as I know how important it is in a user’s search experience. Their platform, along with Jim and Drew’s Virtual Results websites (which I hope to one day try as well!) are pretty much the best in the business and I am extremely excited to start measuring results.

Current Look Vs. New Look

 Now, getting to the point of all of this, I am going to be measuring my results on numerous metrics that I track when it comes to my website to properly gauge the overall lift created in making this change. I am not an SEO, but have studied and taught myself enough over time to know the basics of what I need to be looking for and tracking. I am not the type of person who studies analytic’s so doing this post is an excuse for me to actually come up with some measurements and benchmarks to properly measure my results. Hopefully this write-up and follow-up will be of help to other real estate professionals working on their online web presence.

Below are the stats from when I first started publishing content in May, so this is 5 months into a brand new website, content, and new domain name. One thing to note here is that my market is very small compared to many major websites. This is a small luxury ski town with a large amount of vacation homes and rental properties. Most peoples traffic will be significantly higher than mine.

Current Site Statistics:

Overall Increase of Traffic-

Search Engine Traffic:

SEO Stats:

Current SERP Results For Major Keywords:

Park City Real Estate- 29
Deer Valley Real Estate- 39

This is where I currently stand with the metrics that I do track on my site. One thing to note here is I jumped up to #2 on Bing for “Park City Real Estate” which is interesting. Hopefully Google willow follow suit! I’ll be doing updates after a few months into the new website to track improvements in SERPs, Traffic, Bounce Rates, Etc. If you have any questions about any of this I’d be glad to answer just send me an email.

MY WIFE WILL VIOLENTLY PROTEST, but is building and marketing a successful site not unlike half of the pain and time of a full term pregnancy?  It starts with euphoria (not always well thought out), it starts growing on you, it becomes a reality, you eagerly wait for any spark of life, you look at it every morning and evening, then… there it is…*gasps*..a very young offspring that needs further care, diaper-changing and baby talk. (I had client share her life story just before signing the buyer broker.)

One of the hardest things about building a site is around the sixth month, after investing low-to-mid four figures in coding and programming, investing six-full-season-DVD-set worth of reading and writing, after essentially talking to yourself (otherwise known as first few months of blogging), you would hear some agent in another city (hopefully not yours!) closing $000,000 deals from his online leads!

The truth is it takes approximately 18 months to really see the fruits of your labor.  Why does it take that long? Here’s a rough overview (if you’re targeting organic rankings):

• Researching domains and keywords (plotting your on page SEO through content positioning.)
• Looking at other sites for inspiration and ideas.
• Coding and programing — even if you hire someone, it still takes time explaining, planning and guiding.
• Content creation and writing filler content/introductions for every page.
• Fixing, tweaking, improving bugs and implementing new ideas
• If you have a blog, content creation on a consistent basis.
• Link Building
• Promotion
• Site aging
• Rankings
• Leads
• Closing

Not too mention when you acquire a good link, say you get accepted at BOTW directory, it still takes about 2-3 months to feel its pull on your rankings.

And yes, you can go the short route of Pay Per Click, which is a viable path especially if you have no time and could afford tens of $6 clicks — could go significantly higher if targeting competitive keywords.  (Actually now that I think of it, a mixture of both organic and PPC is ideal once you feel more confident with your site’s conversion capability )

It takes time...but here is the paradox:  It gets easier and easier.  WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! You get rewarded for what you put in.  And the earlier you start, the better.  The primary example is how major search engines treat an aged site with good content.  In other words, search engines don’t treat all sites equally.  The older you are, the more trusting they become.  (If only that could bleed to real life, I probably would be a Justin Timberlake.)

Search engines, at the end of the day, follow people.

But make no mistake about it, you will need laser-like focus on the first year. Building and promoting a successful real estate site requires vision, endurance and commitment to see it through.

When somebody asks me if they should start blogging or do online marketing, I tell them that if you are serious in producing results, you cannot treat it as another advertising tool.  Online marketing is not just another tool you use; either it is your primary tool (along with sphere of influence) or it is not.  I have seen too many colleagues start and wither away.  Truth is, not everyone is willing to put the time and effort to succeed online.

But it is worth it.  Last month I closed my first five figure commission.  My biggest (from an online lead) since I stared in 2007.  Without the reach of the internet, she is somebody, as my cousin Bob puts it, waaaaay out of my league.  But she bit.

I want to encourage you:  Keep. At. It.  Incremental improvement is key.  Check and balance regularly.  Because it will come.  Hopefully sooner than mine.

Click here to view the embedded video.

My personal real estate fan page has been around for about a year, and while engagement is still a little slow, my goal is to post frequently in an attempt to stay “top of mind” with those in my circles. The Roost app makes this simple. Their claim that you can spend only 20 minutes a week on social media really is true.

Yesterday (Monday), I received an email bright and early reminding me that last week’s Roost campaign is about to expire. So I head on over to Facebook where I search for the Roost App and click “go to app”.  This takes me to the Roost website where I’ve already created a profile. I click to create a new “campaign” and the Roost programs takes me step-by-step through my plan for the week.

The app suggests that I schedule 9 posts this week in varying formats. It recommends:

• 2 links
• 3 status updates
• 1 “quote”
• 2 questions
• 1 photo

You can follow this plan or you can create one of your own. I find that links, questions, and photos seem to get the most interaction. This week I opted to create four  links, one status update, and two questions. Through the Roost app, I opt to send my posts to Facebook as well as Twitter. Throughout the week I will also send posts from my own blog to the fan page.

My favorite feature of Roost by far is the link scheduler. Once you click it, it takes you to a series of articles from blogs in related industries. For real estate think: CNN Real Estate, Inman, Curbed, Zillow, Trulia, etc. From this page you can choose several articles to post automatically throughout the week. I always try to pick articles that have accompanying photos because they seem to get more attention. Roost also allows you to cite your own blog as a link source. However, I personally prefer to link blog posts manually right after publication.

I don’t do a lot of direct selling on my Facebook page though I do add a photo of each new listing into an “Our Home Listings” album with a link to the virtual tour in the description box. Once a listing sells I move it to a different album of “Our Sold Homes”.

The Roost features mentioned here are completely free however there are limits on the number of posts you can make per month. They also offer paid programs to feature listings and MLS search options.

How do you determine whether or not to target common search phrases vs uncommon search phrases? How do you find a happy medium?

As a general rule of thumb, specifically targeting uncommon search phrases is not a good use of time. It only makes sense to “target” and “optimize for” keywords with a decent amount of traffic since targeting and optimizing a website takes time. If ranking #1 instead of #5 or 6 for the keyword “ballard street fair dates and times 2012″ and the traffic potential is 3 additional visitors a month? It’s probably not worth your time. If you are an agent with unlimited time to spend on your computer, then chances are good you aren’t spending time with clients (and probably aren’t making any money). Remember, you have to factor in the opportunity cost of your time before tackling any task you choose to undertake.

If you consistently produce content about your local area, you’re going to start to attract organic long-tail SEO traffic (meaning from uncommon search phrases) without specifically targeting those terms. That said, one thing I would recommend related to long tail traffic is to pour through your Google Analytics once a month and figure out what 3 long tail keywords are driving the most traffic to your website. Check your Google rankings for those keywords and, if you are not in the top 3, then investigate whether there is significant enough traffic potential to warrant spending additional time by doing keyword research related to those terms. For each term that’s fairly non competitive with decent search volume, write more content over the next month or two about that same topic (making sure to link back to your original post that’s already ranking) in an effort to boost that post’s rankings in hopes of attracting additional traffic.

In short — don’t optimize for uncommon search phrases until you know there is traffic potential associated with those keywords worth chasing.

Your First At Bat – The Technology Pitches

In 2004 I found myself successfully working in the San Diego North County real estate market.  My clients, and my sales, were generated through referrals and mailings.  My initiation into utilizing the internet to get leads was just beginning.  As it turns out, my broker at the time had entered into an agreement with Yahoo to collect real estate leads and sell them to our broker.  I was in the first group of agents selected to work these leads.  (The pitch was coming in soft and straight…right into my wheelhouse).

And so I jumped on the first pitch, swinging hard, and swinging for the fence.

Strike one!! – And lesson number one

Technology, you see, is really like a soft curve ball.  It literally seems to “float” in at you.  You think you can see the seams, and you can predict exactly what you have to do to hit it.  But technology, especially technology for real estate agents, presents a target that’s not so easy to hit, even if it’s dished up on a platter for you.

There’s a lot of information out there….lot’s….

I don’t want to overdo the baseball analogy, but I’m going to use it throughout this post.  Don’t leave me.  When you first get introduced to real estate technology it’s a bit overwhelming, like seeing a new pitch.  You see the WONDER OF IT ALL.  There’s bloggers, WordPress, Social Media, widgets, plugins, HTML, media, green screens, IDX’s and so many interesting technology gizmos that you could take your eye of the ball.  And you do, believe me you do. 

Turns out that when it’s your turn to bat…well it’s fun, isn’t it?  And there is no end to the fun, interesting, challenging stuff that real estate technology can throw at you.  Think of it.  There’s a new language to learn.  You’re going to be exposed to HTML, the fuzzy world of widgets and plugins (Harry Potter look out!), videos, embedding, links, posts versus pages, SEO, and most importantly, you’re going into a place where you’re going to meet some of the brightest and most interesting people on the planet.  And these very interesting, very intelligent people are pitching you their technology at the very time you’re just learning how to hit that curve ball.

I mentioned that the purpose of my writing this was to help those of you who might be stepping up to either your first time at bat in the world of real estate technology, or maybe you’ve got some swings under you belt, but your average is not what you wanted.  So when I first started my WordPress blog, especially my own self-hosted blog, I was inundated with so much fun, excitement, learning, and experiencing that it wasn’t very hard to take my eye off the ball.

Strike Two – The Fans Like Me

After a while, for me that was about a year, the fans started to like me.  Particularly ONE FAN seemed to like me.  And that fan was Google.  I had discovered SEO, and although I still was batting in the low 200′s, my technology friends had opened up doors to Search Engine Optimization, long tail searches, and all the love that comes with that.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s not easy to win an Oscar.  Love um or hate um, movie stars are a peculiarly talented small group of individuals.  The screen loves them, even if you and I want to pan them, laugh them off, or simply hold a grudge about how much they make.  And some of the real estate technology people that come into your life once you decide to begin marketing yourself and your real estate business on the internet will be movie stars.  They shine and glow.  They talk with confidence.  They are “somebodies.”

I listened to a lot of these “somebodies” early in the day.  Loved them.  Fawned over them.  And I did in fact learn from them.  These IDX people, SEO experts, and web site gurus pitched me with enough information that the ultimate fan, Google, began to love me.  Want to be on page one for some search term?  Well, I had learned how to do it.  No black hat stuff.  Just fairly decent SEO practices, some skill with pen and paper, and a knack for making it happen.  So as the next year went by I satisfied myself with continuing to hit 200, take the same swings, and bask in the glow of some of the adoration I was getting from Google.

I could have stayed a 200 hitter for the rest of my career.  But during this time I met Greg Swann, a splendid, magnificent man who created and authored Bloodhound Blog.  Finding some reason to befriend me, he allowed me to come alongside himself and other more focused technology superstars that were not out to pitch me into mediocrity.  They were the beginning of my foray into real estate technology superstars who wanted to help, to coach, to help me understand why I was really up to bat.

Strike Three – Wait, The Ump Gives me a Checked Swing!

As I said, sometimes you have to catch a lucky call.  If not for a bit of great coaching, more of which I’ll describe in the final article in this series, I would clearly have struck out in my quest to make technology a pertinent, important, and productive part of my real estate business.

I’ll be back at the plate for another time at bat on this topic in a week.  Don’t miss this at bat.  I’m going to show you how to pick the coaches you really need, how to pick the pitches to swing at…and those to take, and how to become a 300 hitter.  Yes, I’ll name names, too.  First pitch 7:05 p.m.  Catch the Fun!

This is geared toward new agents who are just beginning, but maybe those that have been blogging awhile will gain a nugget or two as well.

Let’s get started (make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your blog before you start)..

Month 1

I’ve already written a 30 day strategy for those just starting their blog, so you should follow that for the first 30 days of your real estate blogging career.

Month 2

With month 2, the focus should be — surprise, surprise — more content. Additionally, start targeting a few local reporters to build relationships with.

Week 1: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], A must see, amazing listing in [city name], 5 Hole in the Walls You’ve Never Heard of in [city name]

Week 2: Spend two hours reading content written by local reporters. Leave at least 5 comments on articles they’ve written. Write a post on your own blog with your thoughts about a topic that one of the reporters you’ve targeted wrote about and link to their article in your post. Make sure to email the reporter a link to the post.

Week 3: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], Random article about whatever is on your mind, [business name] – Why it’s my choice for dry cleaning service in [city name].

Week 4: 5 most walkable homes in [city name], Listings between 300-500k in [city name], Random – pick any topic being discussed in the media and write a post with your opinion on the subject.

Month 3

Month 3′s focus is — more CONTENT. Try as you might, you can’t run away from this content thing.

Week 1: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], Try creating a video answering a question you have recently answered via email & upload the video to YouTube (& embed it into a blog post), My 3 favorite outdoor activities in [city name].

Week 2: 3 biggest price drops on listings in [city name], Current [city name] mortgage rates and what they mean to you

Week 3: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], [neighborhood name] – [city name] neighborhood of the week, 5 day care providers to interview in [city name]

Week 4: Most expensive listings in [city name], My 5 favorite coffee spots in [city name], Film another short video answering another question from your inbox and post it to YouTube & embed it into a blog post

Month 4

By now, you should have at least one decent relationship with a local journalist covering your market. And, oh yea, did I mention you’ve got to write more content this month?

Week 1: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], [store name] – the best hardware spot in [city name], The best 3 thai restaurants in [city name].

Week 2: Email your best media contact with three potential stories they may be interested in (hint, what are people in your area interested in?), Listings between 700-900k in [city name]

Week 3: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], [neighborhood name] – [city name] neighborhood of the week, Contact information and addresses of elementary schools in [city name]

Week 4: Spend 2-3 hours pouring through your Google Analytics data. Look at your most popular pages and what search terms visitors are finding those posts from and write another post about that topic (making sure to link back to your original post somewhere in your new article).

Month 5

You should start to see a decent amount of uptick in your traffic numbers if you’ve been blogging for 5 months.

Week 1: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], Current [city name] mortgage rates and what they mean to you.

Week 2: Spend 30 minutes a day each day this week and read other articles about your city. Make sure to leave comments on every article with an intelligent thought relating to the article (DON’T just say “Great post”).

Week 3: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], The 5 newest listings in [city name] for the week of [date range]

Week 4: [neighborhood name] – [city name] neighborhood of the week

Month 6

Week 1: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], The best outdoor festivals in [city name] for [year]

Week 2: [Restaurant name] – my favorite Sushi restaurant in [city name], [neighborhood name] – [city name] neighborhood of the week

Week 3: Real Estate Market Update for [city name], [restaurant name] – Why it’s the best Italian food in [city name].

Week 4: 5 most expensive listings in [city name], Random – write about whatever you want (does not have to be related to real estate), My favorite outdoor activities in [city name].

What are you waiting for? You’ve got a blogging marathon ahead of you. Get started.

And of course, it goes without saying that you should leave any ideas I missed in the comments here.

Note: There is a revised and updated 6 Month Blogging Strategy doc as part of Geek Estate Pro.

[photo via hubspot]

I know no one wants to spend the time to write content consistently. No one wants to produce videos (just ask Darin). No one wants to post photos. No one wants to research. No one wants to spend the time to build links. People just want their website/blog to work on its own, and produce leads for them without any effort. Unfortunately, the web doesn’t work that way; driving traffic is hard work — and it requires your time or your money. If you’re not willing to spend either, then online leads are going to be few and far between.

So, what is the “silver bullet” of blogging?

Goals and a strategy.

I’m a firm believer that if you know what your long term goals are (in business or life), you’ll somehow figure out a strategy to get there. That is, unless you are lazy and unmotivated entirely – then nothing can help you.

Back to your regular scheduled programming and off my soapbox.

“My content is unique” you say.

Wrong. The proper response in my book would be “Your content – with a strong flavor of YOU sprinkled throughout – is unique”.

When you really think about it, pretty much everything has already been written somewhere on the internet. A review of the local organic coffee shop? Events in the month of May? Details for the festival at the end of September? The best weekend trip from Charlotte? Done, done, done, and done.

Now, don’t go overboard countering my response just quite yet. I’m not saying sprinkling “you” means putting your profile photo in the header of your site works. It doesn’t. I’m not advocating making your whole home page about you. That doesn’t work either. But I am advocating that you sprinkle in your own personality throughout your website; every piece of content should have a tint of you in it. Content shouldn’t just be bland, lifeless keyword rich paragraphs that could just as easily be on a crappy SPAM site hacked together in a few hours (and it certainly shouldn’t just be copied from Wikipedia either). You content should demonstrate your local expertise and give your audience something to relate to; the fact that you’ve lived in the community for 20 years, sold real estate for 15, and know almost every last nook and cranny in the entire town should shine through loud and clear.

I think it’s safe to say most skilled markets will tell you that marketing success is largely about demonstrating what is unique about a particular product or service. Why should someone choose product/service A over product/service B? Why should someone hire YOU as opposed to any one of the other 20 local agents they’ve spoken with.

As an independent contractor in charge of your own marketing, that is your challenge.

While important, generic content is not a true differentiator.

But what DOES your website have that no one else has? What IS going to differentiate your content from the 1,000′s of other articles scattered across the web?

YOU.

If I look at the very top agents in the company most aren’t using WP for main site, why should I?

I received this question from John Ziemba on Twitter last week and wanted to address it here. It’s a question that I can’t answer in 140 characters on Twitter (yes, there are still some questions that Twitter can’t answer).

First, there are multiple ways to become a high producing agent. And you don’t NEED WordPress to do it. Traditional marketing and sphere building is obviously a proven strategy. Keep in mind that most high producing agents today have built their business prior to the internet becoming to go to source for real estate information.

For example, there is a RE/MAX team that dominates lakefront property on Lake Sammamish where I grew up. Judy Layton and her daughter Sundi Mathewson have built their business over the course of the last two decades via traditional marketing and word of mouth. Ever since I can remember, their team has sponsored a fireworks show on the lake on the 4th of July; each year’s investment probably north of $20,000 in fireworks. Everyone around the lake saw the show every year, and everyone knew that the real estate agent Judy Layton sponsored it. One of my neighbors just put their house on the market. And guess who the listing agents are? Yup, Judy and Sundi.

Their site is not on WordPress, but I would be willing to bet a pretty penny the only leads their site generates are from individuals who see their signs around the lake and Google their specific names. They have clearly not invested in their web presence.

But times are changing. The internet NOW IS the place where buyers go to find real estate information. They don’t immediately call an agent the first chance they get; they do months of research prior to that point. It’s my firm belief that to become a high producing agent for the next 5, 10, 15 years, you need an amazing web presence that can turn traffic into leads as the foundation of your marketing efforts.

So, why WordPress?

Here are a few reasons to start with. The primary reasons I usually give agents/brokers are SEO (WP gives you about 70% of what Google is looking for in onsite architecture out of the box with zero modifications), data portability, flexibility, ease of use, and support. There is simply no more cost effective way than WordPress to build your business online in today’s environment. Even though it’s still not dirt cheap for a high quality real estate WordPress website/blog, the cost of a WordPress site (here is more info about your WordPress setup options and costs) is lower than a proprietary platform simply because the maintenance of the core WordPress software is effectively outsourced to the WordPress community. Add the thousands of plugins, themes, and support — and you have a clear winner in terms of cost. Contrast that with a proprietary platform where every last piece of code has to be paid for by the website provider.

Blogging and online lead generation is a long term strategy. It’s not something that’s likely to prove immediate dividends in the first year. Somewhere between 2-3 years is the tipping point of blogging lead generation in my opinion. If you can stick it out that long (and not many people make it), you’ll be rewarded heavily with leads resulting from the 2-3 years of past content you’ve built up over time. The greatest website on the planet is worthless without traffic. And traffic is hard work regardless of what platform you are on, but I think blogging consistently on a WordPress platform is the best strategy to drive organic SEO traffic over time.

Lastly, remember there is NO silver bullet when it comes to building a business. WordPress by itself won’t do it for you (I know, bummer, huh?).