I was perusing my email this morning and found this fabulous article from a SEO Expert that I subscribe to. Now I don't read every article he sends me but this one caught my eye because it is a question I get ALL of the time:
How Many links do I need to get to the first page of Google?
The answer is subjective and depends on your Site, your Competitors and the competiveness of your website.
You can read the full article here
So if you are looking into purchasing SEO this article might answer some of your questions.
Have a wonderful day!
Char
Real Estate Search Engine Optimization
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
10 Ways to use LinkedIn
I have had a lot of people ask me about social networking and how it can help them. LinkedIn is one of the better Professional Social Networks that every Realtor, Loan Officer, etc should join. I was reading an article today that gave 10 tips on how to use LinkedIn and thought to myself that - you - my readers - would benefit from reading this article - and joining LinkedIn if you haven't yet.
It has tips that show you how you can use LinkedIn to:
It has tips that show you how you can use LinkedIn to:
- Increase your visibility.
- Improve your Google PageRank
- Enhance your search engine results
- Perform blind, “reverse,” and company reference checks
And much more.
So check it out and let me know what you think. And OH for all of you that have a LinkedIn profile and you haven't completed it...there is no better time than today. =)
I hope you enjoy the article.
Thanks,
Char
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Mean Moms
I will greet this day with love in my heart. For this is the greatest secret of success in all ventures. Muscle can split a shield and even destroy life itself but only the unseen power of love can open the hearts of man and until I master this act I will remain no more than a peddler in the market place. I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend upon its force... my love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest day. - Og Mandino
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAYTO ALL THOSE WONDERFUL, CARING WOMEN WHO GIVE OF THEIR TIME, EFFORT AND LOVE!
My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.- George Washington - 1732-1799, First President of the USA
Mean Moms
Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me:
I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.
I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.
I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.
I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.
I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.
But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.
Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won, too.
And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.
Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the meanest mother in the whole world!
While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.
When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches.
And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.
Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison.
She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.
We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.
She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!
Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.
Because of our mother we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's property or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault.
Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was.
I think that is what's wrong with the world today. It just doesn't have enough mean moms!
- Author Unknown
If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. - Abigail Van Buren
Be a love pharmacist: dispense hugs like medicine - they are!- Terri Guillemets
Have a Fantastic Week and remember to make every hour in your life - HAPPY HOUR! - Mr. Positive
Thank you for this post to Jim Gentil Mr. Positive.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAYTO ALL THOSE WONDERFUL, CARING WOMEN WHO GIVE OF THEIR TIME, EFFORT AND LOVE!
My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.- George Washington - 1732-1799, First President of the USA
Mean Moms
Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me:
I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.
I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.
I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.
I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren't perfect.
I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.
But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.
Those were the most difficult battles of all. I'm glad I won them, because in the end you won, too.
And someday when your children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.
Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the meanest mother in the whole world!
While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.
When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches.
And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.
Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You'd think we were convicts in a prison.
She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.
We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labor Laws by making us work. We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.
She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!
Mother wouldn't let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.
Because of our mother we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other's property or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault.
Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults. We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom was.
I think that is what's wrong with the world today. It just doesn't have enough mean moms!
- Author Unknown
If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. - Abigail Van Buren
Be a love pharmacist: dispense hugs like medicine - they are!- Terri Guillemets
Have a Fantastic Week and remember to make every hour in your life - HAPPY HOUR! - Mr. Positive
Thank you for this post to Jim Gentil Mr. Positive.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Organic Search Engine Results Vs. Paid For Search Engine Placement
I read this great article today on why Organic Search Engine Placement is better than Paid for Placement. I am not saying that you SHOULDN'T do paid for placement - only that I think Organic search engine placement is more effective and gives you more visiblity.
The author of the article, Lee Odden, did some research and here is what he found:
The author of the article, Lee Odden, did some research and here is what he found:
- iProspect did a study (pdf) on this in 2004 (scroll to page 16 and 17) “Across the 4 search engines - Google, Yahoo! MSN and AOL — 60.5% clicked on a natural (or “organic” or “algorithmic”) search result, while 39.5% clicked on a paid search advertisement.”
- A recent study by iProspect and Jupiter Research shows that 2/3 of users click on the first page of results.
- The Enquiro eyetracking study is always useful.
A study by OneUpWeb (pdf): “…search users are up to 6X more likely to click on the first few organic results as they are to choose any of the paid (PPC) results.”
Jupiter: ” Algorithmic listings in search indexes generate an estimated six of seven commercially natured search referrals”
2007 Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Survey
Chris Dohman pointed out this post from SEO Book citing data from Jupiter (5 out of 6 commercial purchases which originate from search originate from the free (or organic) side) and from Atlas on PPC stats.
You can read the full article here: http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/09/organic-versus-paid-search-results/
I would love to hear what you have to say!
Thanks,
Char
Real Estate Website Design, Real Estate Search Engine Optimization
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Foreclosure Template for emails
I found a great article for you Realtors regarding prospecting for people who are in foreclosure:
http://activerain.com/blogsview/488178/Foreclosure-Template-for-emails
Check it out and let me know what you think!
http://activerain.com/blogsview/488178/Foreclosure-Template-for-emails
Check it out and let me know what you think!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
10 Ways to Crank out Killer Posts in 10 minutes or Less!
I have a lot of clients ask me how to write a blog post and I came across this great blog post today that has some great tips to get you started.
If you are looking to learn how to post blogs - read this post:
http://michaelmartine.com/2009/03/10/ten-topics-in-ten-mins/
Let me know how you do!
If you are looking to learn how to post blogs - read this post:
http://michaelmartine.com/2009/03/10/ten-topics-in-ten-mins/
Let me know how you do!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Are you Throwing Away Good Leads?
It came to my attention about an hour ago that not everyone looks at a lead the same way.
Let me tell you what brought me to this conclusion today.....
Many of my clients send me emails they receive soliciting them for different real estate products and ask me to check into them...knowing that I will do so and thoroughly. Today, one of my agents sent me a link to a company called RealtySoft.com that sells agents websites/design and offers a free IDX solution. He was interested in the FREE IDX they are offering since he is trying to cut costs - but was wary of the FREE offer. I went to the site and explored the idx solution looking into all of the features and what it involved. I liked what I saw and had more questions so i filled out a form to be contacted by someone in sales.
I received my call about an hour ago and the gentleman, Travis, introduced himself and I started asking him questions. I was mainly interested in if the FREE IDX allowed the agent to force a registration trigger after the visitor view a couple of homes. He explained his product briefly and I asked him for a sample site. At this point he started asking me if I was only interested in the Free IDX. I said yes and started telling him that I also had many other clients that might be interested as well since it was free and he immediately cut me off and told me that they only offered email support for the Free IDX. I understand that since its free and you cant really pay a tech person to talk to people all day on the phone to help them set up their IDX if it didn't bring in revenue to pay that tech person, but I went on asking him questions - not understanding for a moment that he meant that it also applied to the sales team. In other words - even people asking questions before they became clients had to do so via email. As I continued he quickly made it apparent to me that I needed to email my questions into support. I sputtered - "Are you telling me that I can't talk to you and ask you questions?" To which he said yes, we only offer email support. "Do you mean that even if I have other clients that might be interested - they can only email in?" "So you are unwilling to talk to me?" He sighed...and said ok that he would talk to me. I promptly said - "No thanks, I'm not interested anymore" and hung up. I will not be sending my good clients to them.
As someone who spent 7 years selling websites to Realtors, I was shocked. Even today - I have many people call me to talk about website design that never end up buying. I have many that call me and I will even help them make a few changes and I never charge them for the 30 minutes I spend talking to them or making a small adjustment that makes them OOHHH and AHHHH and solves a small problem that they have had trouble solving for some time. I establish my value in not only my willingness to help them upfront, but my willingness to spend time with them without charging them for just talking. I give to them, what I would give to a paying client. Do not mistake what I am saying - I am not devaluing my time by giving it away for free - rather I am showing them how important they are to me by letting them know that they are important enough to give them my time and sometimes a little skill. In doing so i am positioning myself as their go-to person. Their expert. Their designer. Because - as I have found out not to long ago - I am not doing them a favor by talking to them, but rather - they are doing me a favor by talking to me and possibly allowing me to build them a site. I value them for considering calling me to even ask about my services. They are in need of my expertise - my knowledge. I WANT to answer their questions and help them. Because of this attitude - many of the people I talk to come back for my services. I consider myself lucky. They could have chosen someone else.
Today's economy is tough people. You need to position yourself as the best by showing people - even the looky loos - that you are there to help them. You are going to listen with care and concern and do what you can to help. You value the fact that they came to you to get help. To buy a home - or to sell - or to get a mortgage - or whatever they are looking for when they call.
Ask yourself - when you get a lead and they are just calling you to ask a simple question - do you give it to them with a happy heart and are you excited to help them? Do you let them know before you hang up that they can call you for anything, anytime and that you are here for their needs? Do you make them feel as if their time is valuable and that they are valuable to you? When you are the customer - how do you want to feel and be treated when you are next in line? If you are next in line at the bank and the teller is blase and treats you as if you are nothing - just the NEXT person moving down the line...does it make you want to deposit your money in that bank?
Do you treat your customers the same way? Do you throw away a customer because they may be asking you a question that you consider wasting your time?
A lead is only as good as you make it. Everyone of them is valuable. It's all in how YOU handle it.
My suggestions:
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao
Read: http://www.smileandmove.com/
Let me tell you what brought me to this conclusion today.....
Many of my clients send me emails they receive soliciting them for different real estate products and ask me to check into them...knowing that I will do so and thoroughly. Today, one of my agents sent me a link to a company called RealtySoft.com that sells agents websites/design and offers a free IDX solution. He was interested in the FREE IDX they are offering since he is trying to cut costs - but was wary of the FREE offer. I went to the site and explored the idx solution looking into all of the features and what it involved. I liked what I saw and had more questions so i filled out a form to be contacted by someone in sales.
I received my call about an hour ago and the gentleman, Travis, introduced himself and I started asking him questions. I was mainly interested in if the FREE IDX allowed the agent to force a registration trigger after the visitor view a couple of homes. He explained his product briefly and I asked him for a sample site. At this point he started asking me if I was only interested in the Free IDX. I said yes and started telling him that I also had many other clients that might be interested as well since it was free and he immediately cut me off and told me that they only offered email support for the Free IDX. I understand that since its free and you cant really pay a tech person to talk to people all day on the phone to help them set up their IDX if it didn't bring in revenue to pay that tech person, but I went on asking him questions - not understanding for a moment that he meant that it also applied to the sales team. In other words - even people asking questions before they became clients had to do so via email. As I continued he quickly made it apparent to me that I needed to email my questions into support. I sputtered - "Are you telling me that I can't talk to you and ask you questions?" To which he said yes, we only offer email support. "Do you mean that even if I have other clients that might be interested - they can only email in?" "So you are unwilling to talk to me?" He sighed...and said ok that he would talk to me. I promptly said - "No thanks, I'm not interested anymore" and hung up. I will not be sending my good clients to them.
As someone who spent 7 years selling websites to Realtors, I was shocked. Even today - I have many people call me to talk about website design that never end up buying. I have many that call me and I will even help them make a few changes and I never charge them for the 30 minutes I spend talking to them or making a small adjustment that makes them OOHHH and AHHHH and solves a small problem that they have had trouble solving for some time. I establish my value in not only my willingness to help them upfront, but my willingness to spend time with them without charging them for just talking. I give to them, what I would give to a paying client. Do not mistake what I am saying - I am not devaluing my time by giving it away for free - rather I am showing them how important they are to me by letting them know that they are important enough to give them my time and sometimes a little skill. In doing so i am positioning myself as their go-to person. Their expert. Their designer. Because - as I have found out not to long ago - I am not doing them a favor by talking to them, but rather - they are doing me a favor by talking to me and possibly allowing me to build them a site. I value them for considering calling me to even ask about my services. They are in need of my expertise - my knowledge. I WANT to answer their questions and help them. Because of this attitude - many of the people I talk to come back for my services. I consider myself lucky. They could have chosen someone else.
Today's economy is tough people. You need to position yourself as the best by showing people - even the looky loos - that you are there to help them. You are going to listen with care and concern and do what you can to help. You value the fact that they came to you to get help. To buy a home - or to sell - or to get a mortgage - or whatever they are looking for when they call.
Ask yourself - when you get a lead and they are just calling you to ask a simple question - do you give it to them with a happy heart and are you excited to help them? Do you let them know before you hang up that they can call you for anything, anytime and that you are here for their needs? Do you make them feel as if their time is valuable and that they are valuable to you? When you are the customer - how do you want to feel and be treated when you are next in line? If you are next in line at the bank and the teller is blase and treats you as if you are nothing - just the NEXT person moving down the line...does it make you want to deposit your money in that bank?
Do you treat your customers the same way? Do you throw away a customer because they may be asking you a question that you consider wasting your time?
A lead is only as good as you make it. Everyone of them is valuable. It's all in how YOU handle it.
My suggestions:
Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao
Read: http://www.smileandmove.com/
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