Congratulations to Krisstina Wise and the Goodlife Team for winning the Inman 2010 Most Innovative Brokerage award.

Krisstina runs a boutique real estate brokerage in Austin Texas and makes great use of video, neighborhood and market reports on the brokerage website.

The site has a simple, cool and clean design and immediately answers the main question on a homeowner’s mind (what’s my home worth) and addresses a buyer’s top priority (good, fast sticky search).

Take a look at the Goodlife Team website and stack it up against your site.

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After going through three developers I finally found a solution that delivers a quick, professional and free real estate blog – (see below).

It’s the perfect solution to the number one problem faced by most real estate professionals – lack of technical expertise.

So if you want a real estate blog, with a professional theme, social media icons and SEO ready with all the right plug-ins, you can get one at Free Realty Blog.

Note that hosting is not included but is available for as little as $5 a month.

Plus you also have the option of adding a Blog and Social Media Graphics package. I’m not sure if the package will be available when you order your blog but grab it if it is still under a hundred dollars.

Here’s the link again.

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I’m always amazed by how many real estate websites don’t do the one thing that they’re meant to do – convert visitors into clients.

Most real estate blogs and websites are nothing more than online brochures. They’re full of pretty images and links to local resources but they don’t have any compelling reason for a visitor to give up their contact details.

The only real exception to this is IDX or property search sites that promise instant access to listing inventory.

I’ve had this conversation with a number of internet marketers who shook their heads in disbelief when they viewed a number of real estate sites. Internet marketers understand that a visitor to your site is a complete waste if he or she moves on without contacting you.

But most real estate professionals don’t “get it” or are limited by the technical hurdles associated with publishing email capture forms, feeds and other interactive tools.

I’ve written a few articles on the subject but defer to Greg Clement, one of the best online real estate marketers, who wrote a great report on the subject.

You can download the report right here.

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I started to play around with PhotoFunia and and Animoto and created this cool video in around 30 minutes using one simple head shot.

Photofunia (free) provided the stock images like the billboards and Animoto ($30 a year) converted the images into a video.

The branding and marketing possibilities are endless. You can use images of your business and your products and quickly convert them into a cool marketing video.

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Here’s a fun tool to turn an ordinary head shot picture into a poster.

It’s by a company called PhotoFunia and it’s free.

You can use it as a cool way to spice up your regular profile photo and in your marketing material.

The best part for me was when I turned a number of images into a video using Animoto and showed the video to my children. They’re young enough to think that their ole dad is very cool and famous.

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Getting your Blog to Rank # 1 on Google

Session 3 by Bob Stewart at Rain Camp Denver #raincamp

Blog Title Rules

The Title is very important:

Geographically specific – use a geographically specific title. The more specific the better as it opens up long tail opportunities.

Short and concise – try to mimic what people will type in for search

Named after the phrase for which you wish to rank – use similar articles with different keyword phrases. Use Curtis Park Homes for Sale and the change it  “Homes for Sale in Denver’s Curtis Park

Body and Content Rules

Keyword density of 2 – 4% and okepyword per pagenly target one

300 – 500 WORDS

2- 4 OUTGOING LINKS – make sure you link the keyword and not the “click here”. Link from your blog to your main real estate website.

Make your link count – point the links deep into your website and try not to lionk everything to your home page.

Use Pictures

Tags

Table of conetents for your blog

Write multiple articles about the same keyword phrase

Be consistent with tags

What can you blog about?

Green homes, hiking trails, medical marijuana homes

4 Keys to Successful IDX

Sponsored by Market Leader

Unique URL for each Listing

Your IDX must have the ability to create unique URL’s so you can target traffic. Don’t drop them off on your home page. Send them to each listing with a unique URL.

Website and CRM must communicate

Get the crucial data from your IDX

Keep everyone accountable

Make sure everyone is following up and managing leads.

Automate Home Search

Need to manage hundreds of prospects. Use automation tools that keep you in front on the client.

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Marianna Wagner

Blogging Tips

Marianna is a very active Active Rain blogger and Realtor from Colorado Springs

1.            Blog about your Local Market

Marianna uses blogging about neighborhood communities to dominate her local market.

Use keywords used by consumers like “Homes for sale”, “neighborhood name” and supplies real estate information about the area.

2 – Position yourself as the expert

Supply local real estate information, news and statistics

Focus on keywords that people are interested in like “Bank Owned Homes” and “foreclosures”.

Go after new home communities – write about the communities – easy to become the lead information source for a community.

Write in the language of the consumer and avoid real estate industry terms.

3 – Market and Advertise your listings

Promote your listings through your blogs

4 – Generate traffic and Create Links

Uses Active Rain and popular sites for links back to her blogs.

5 – Blog for referrals

The more I blog the more business I get. Other Realtors see her blog and trust her with their referrals.

Write about stuff that you like, write often and write in the voice of your customer.

Marianna’s tips for things to blog about:

www.budurl.com/reblogideas1

www.budurl.com/reblogides2

www.budurl.com/reblogideas3

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I’m at Rain Camp #raincamp in Denver and thought I’d experiment with taking notes online and in real time.

I’ll update the notes after each session.

Notes from Rain Camp Denver:

Marketing has changed:

In the past the greatest # of billboards won – now it’s the person with greatest content

Some great real estate marketing  tools and resources from Ben Kinney - http://twitter.com/benkinney

www.klout.com – what’s your Social Media Klout?

www.photosynth.com – can create a free walking virtual tool

www.wiggio.com – free and like a project planner re basecamp

www.igetsales.net – blueprint is a db management system $20 – help you keep in contact with your sphere

www.archtelecom.com – contact management system

www.goprosystems.com – contact management system

www.xobni.com – stalking – like an online investigation – can add a person’s email etc and find out everything about that person – Ben saya  67% better increase in sales when we add a Facebook message

Probably the most important statement made all day – Your clients don’t care about you, they  want to know what their house is worth and where are the best deals!

www.Tr.im – URL shortener – I prefer www.bit.ly

www.Mailchimp.com – email manager – I prefer www.aweber.com backed up with www.constantcontact.com

www.Goldmail.com – can insert video into your email email – Ben saw a huge increase in response

www.Awayfind.com – sends an email auto message so you can control your inbox and not have it control you.

www.99designs.com – can get freelancers to bid for business.

www.Google.com/voice – u own the number – can route to multiple phones ie- to your  buyer agents

www.Slydial.com – goes straight to their voicemail – so you can call someone back but not speak to them!

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Publishing a real estate blog is a mixture of art and science.

The art is your content, how you phrase your sentences and pen your words.

The science is the systematic checklist you use to make sure your blog is fully optimized for the search engines so it can be seen by your real estate customers.

I going to leave the wordsmithing (I think I just inventicated this word) and poetic language about your recently rehabbed 3 bed 2 bath to you.

I’m only going to help you with the technical stuff so here’s the “10 Step Scientific Outline and Checklist for Publishing your First Blog Post”:

1. Select a topic for your post. Make sure the topic is relevant, interesting and valuable to your target audience.
2. Select the keywords and category for your post. Your keywords are critical as the search engines will index your post based on keywords and keyword relevance. It’s very important that you use your keywords in the page name, post name, post header and first few sentences of your post.
3. Write each page name to include your keywords and include the same words that will be in the heading of the post. You have the ability to name each page that you publish so make sure you include the keyword and title in the page name.
4. Write your heading to include the name of the page and include your keywords.
5. Write your sub-heading or tag line to reinforce the heading.
6. Write a description of the post. This is a hidden back end feature that you can use to basically stuff keywords into the post. Your reader won’t see the description but it will be indexed by the search engines.
7. Write meta tags that include your keywords. Meta tags are a way to strongly identify the keywords associated with a post. You’re basically tagging certain words and asking the search engines to pay attention to those words.
8. Write a category for the post. The search engines like  nice clearly defined structures. By categorizing the post under a niche group, you’re highlighting what you want the search engines to notice and index.
9. Write your first line to include your heading and create links to your site. An example of this would be a post with the header “Three Ways to use Creative Finance to Purchase Real Estate”. Your primary key word is creative finance because this is a post about using creative finance. The first sentence of your post should read something like ” I’m a big fan of using creative finance to purchase real estate”. You’ve basically regurgitated the post’s header in the first line. You also bolded the words “creative finance” and included a link from the words to the creative finance section of your blog. The search engines will notice the keywords, bold letters and hyperlink.
10. Include a footer with your details as the author and a link to your website. This way, if someone re-publishes your post you’ll have a back link to your site. I also like to publish my name as the author right under the heading as I’ve noticed a trend whereby a number of blog sites use an auto RSS feature to lift hundreds of blogs and aggregate them on a single site. They often cut off the author acknowledgment at the end of the article.

About Ross Hair

Ross Hair is the Real Estate Advocate and a huge fan of real estate social media marketing.

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