Real Estate Video Marketing is becoming increasingly a standard in online marketing for Real Estate Agents and Youtube has been the platform of choice from which to launch these videos. Visual marketing plays a huge role in advertising properties and not allowing subscribers to upload a custom thumbnail in Youtube was the only downside. Until now.

Customized Youtube Thumbnail Images

Using a customized thumbnail image you can now have greater control of how your video is presented in Youtube. Optimization can be achieved by using the “Hero” image of a property and including the listing title. The image can include your logo and corporate colours.

To add the custom thumbnail you need to log into your Youtube account and click on your video manager. From there you click on edit for the video you want to add the image to. Then browse to the destination folder on your computer and upload the image. Don’t forget to click save :).

Voila! All done. Have fun creating your own and feel free to comment with a link to your real estate video below.

When Facebook was launched in 2004 I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the amazing growth and world wide fame it has seen. In February 2012 Facebook reported that they had 845 Million active users. People all over the globe are connecting and sharing. Brands are building relationships with it’s customers and many real estate agents are still looking  for a way in which they can use Facebook to improve their own online profile.

Introducing the Facebook Timeline.

Until recently, all Facebook users could do was update their activity and share links they find interesting. It was all about what is happening now. That all changed when the Facebook Timeline was introduced where users could now also update their profiles with activities which happened in the past like child birth, weddings, divorces etc.

So how can we use this new feature to benefit our online presence in real estate? A few agents have jumped in and created a Facebook page for their Real Estate Office or even for their own profile but how will they use it to build trust and engage with a local community. Maybe they could consider using the Facebook Timeline Feature to create an archive of property prices in their community.

Your community Facebook Page should be just that, a page where people from the community can engage and interact with others in the community.

How to set up your Facebook Page Timeline?

1. Create your first Milestone – (Please note that you must be logged in to Facebook as your page, not your personal profile). Now that pages have switched over to the new timeline you will notice a new button on your status update field called Milestone (See image below)  The first time you click on this you will be prompted to add the date your page began.  The date to use here is when your community (not the community page) was founded.
   
2. Again, from the update field on your page click Milestone. This time you will be displayed a larger update box where you can add dated information.
   

So how far back do your Real Estate records go.  Date back as far as you can and start updating your timeline with properties sold and their price. Include significant landmark sales, land sales when the community was first developed. You can use specific properties but be sure to check any copyright on images you use.

Soon you will have developed a historic timeline of property prices in your community that members can interact with. It will also act as a tool for people interested in buying in the local community but most important of all. You are the authority for Real Estate in your local area and by using the Facebook Timeline to create an archive of property prices in your community who could doubt that.

Enjoy playing with this awesome new Facebook feature.

Relevant content on your real estate blog is essential for SEO. This is why comments to your articles are fantastic as they provide more content to the conversation. Blogging is essentially asking for interaction and Google definitely ranks pages higher in their index if they have created interaction and conversation.

These days it’s becoming more apparent that the consumers of content are more likely to comment on a facebook post than an article written on a blog so some clever people have built a wordpress plugin to import facebook comments to your blog.

How Does It Work?

1. Download or install via your WordPress admin page the Facebook Comments Importer plugin.
2. Activate the plugin and navigate to the FB Comments Importer Settings page
3. Enter your facebook page id number. If your not sure what this is or where to find it, just hover your mouse over your facebook pages profile picture and the id will appear on the URL at the bottom of your browsers page. You can also right click your profile picture and select properties.
4. Add a post to your facebook page and include the full link to your blog post. Now every time someone comments on that article it will also display as a comment on your blog. **BE PATIENT** it can take an hour or 2 for the comments to appear after it as added to facebook. but it does work.

Feel free to test the plug in out. Just go to my Online Agents Facebook Page and comment on any post which includes a link to an article on my blog.

A real estate website which is easy to navigate is not only more inviting for potential buyers to find their way around but also makes it easier for search engines to crawl through and index your content.

You can make your site easier to navigate for the likes of Google by generating a sitemap and loading it “Google Webmaster Tools“. Before you get started here there are a few things you will need first. These are:

1. An FTP application which is software to upload files to your website (Check out FireFox with the Fire-ftp add on, It’s free and very simple)
2. Your FTP (File Transfer Protocol) username and password – Ask you webdeveloper what this is. They will know
3. A Sitemap.xml – This is a simple file which will tell the search engines how your website is structured. (Check out xml-sitemaps.com, It’s free and easy)

Use the FTP application to upload the verification code for webmaster tools and also to upload the sitemap file you generated in step 3 above. You should upload the sitemap to the public folder of your website which is the highest level folder on your server.

Once the above is all in place and you have logged into your new webmaster tools account you can follow the next steps:

1. Click “Site Configuration”
2. Click “Sitemap”
3. Click “Submit Sitemap”
4. enter the URL address where you uploaded the sitemap you generated earlier.
5. Done

Google can now successfully navigate it’s way through your real estate web pages and index them accordingly.

Good luck.

Step 1 – Create a Google account.

1. Go to Blogger.com
2. Click on “Create a Blog”
3. Enter your email address, choose a password and enter your “Display Name”
4. complete the word verification request and accept terms of service.
5. Click “continue”
6. You will receive an email asking you to verify your request.

Step 2 – Creating a new blog

1. Create and enter a Blog title – Use your Keywords
2. Choose a blog url (address) – Once again, choose carefully and use keywords. e.g. joesmithrealestate.blogspot.com (you don’t need to enter the “blogspot.com) If the url you requested is not available then you will be asked to re-enter a different name.
3. complete the word verification request and click “continue”
4. Choose a template – Choose one of the displayed templates and click “continue”
5. Congratulations – Your blog has been created and you can now click on “start blogging”

Step 3 – Posting articles

1. Choose a title – Again, use your keywords and be descriptive
2. Write your content and be descriptive with your words. Keep your articles relevant and……..use your keywords.
3. Add images and videos by using the toolbar
4. to ad a link highlight the word that you want to appear as a link then select the “link” button in the toolbar. (it’s the little green globe with the chain link) enter the url address of the website where you want to link to.
5. Click “Publish Post” when your finished and it will be loaded to your blog.

Step 4 – Submitting Blog to search engines (Click the search engine and follow the prompts)

1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. Bing (MSN)
4. 50 Other Search Engines

Step 5 – Continue to update your blog regularly. Remember Search engines love content, they love keywords and links to your site from relevant websites.