Episode 2 of Online Agents TV, a weekly real estate marketing video, covers tips to a strong online reputation, keyword research tools, a real estate market update video. Optimizing Youtube video titles and a tip for using Google Places.

Online Reputation

This article provides three excellent tips to help you manage you online reputation, how to create it, how to react to a crisis and how to monitor your brand.

Keyword Research

Great article from Searchengineland where they share some fantastic free tools to assist you in Keyword research. It’s not all about “real estate in your suburb” use these tools to find out what other relative search terms are being used by people on the net.

Real Estate Market Update Video

A market update video is a fantastic way to engage with your local community and done in a professional manner like this on from Ray White Oakleigh can really establish you as the go to person for real estate in your community.

Youtube Video Titles

Real Estate Video titles on Youtube have to be optimized for both social and search, meaning you must write a title that is compelling for people but also one that is compelling for search engines. The article suggests that you don’t have to do both at the same time. You can change your titles a couple of days after you have launched as well.

Google Places Tip

Link to a video that provides instructions on how to select a service area for your google places profile. A must for any one in real estate.

Episode 1 of Online Agents TV for Real Estate Marketing Tips covers new features coming soon to Youtube, an awesome real estate recruitment video, maximizing Facebook engagement, video testimonials and a checklist for creating a strong online presence.

Video Testimonials

The article from the onlinevideomarketer talks about the power of a video testimonial. Imagine presenting an offer to your seller that is $20,000 above their asking price. They will be ecstatic and there is no better time than right there to bring out the camera and ask for a testimonial.

Maximizing Engagement on Facebook

An article from Heidi Cohen where she give 11 detailed tips about getting the most out of your time spent on Facebook. I took special interest in the point she makes with regards to the time of day where people are most interactive. A great read.

Real Estate Video

A great video from HockingStuart Real Estate. the video is part of the Young Guns Coffee Chat series which highlights their star performers. It’s a great use of real estate video to assist in their recruitment of new people.

Youtube Features

A list of new features coming soon to Youtube. One that stands out for me is the views everywhere will be counted. Currently Youtube videos that are displayed through a Facebook page are not included in the view count. Certainly very keen to see this in action soon.

Checklist for a strong online presence

I look at 5 essential items you need to focus on for a strong online presence in real estate. We look at Google, Blogs, Social Media, Video and Web/Real Estate Portal.

Check out the Online Agents TV Channel on Youtube for more videos.

If you have used Google at all over the past 12 months, you will have noticed a new map appearing in the search results. The reason for this is that Google’s aim is to bring you the most relevant results for what you are searching for, right down to a local, geographic level.

The Google Map, or Google Places results, within Google Search Results are triggered when a user searches using a geographic identifier such as “Melbourne Real Estate Agent” or “Gold Coast Estate Agent”. Google takes that search, and scours it’s Google Places listings for the most relevant and geographically close result.

So now you know how and why it works, but how do you get your Real Estate company at the top of the list, and start getting more phone calls, enquiries and website traffic for these hyper-local consumers?

Now is the time to learn 7 quick tips on how you can use Google Places to attract new local clients to your business:

Use your REAL Business Name

It can be tempting to make strategic adjustments to your business name to include extra keywords. In recent months, Google has really clamped down on this, so ensure you list your real business name, with minimal additional keywords.

• Real business name – “Ray White Real Estate Adelaide”
• Google Places listing name – “Ray White Real Estate Adelaide”
• Don’t use “Ray White Home & Commercial Real Estate Adelaide, SA”

Ensure your business information is spot on

In it’s effort to present the most relevant information to users of it’s search engine, Google is obsessed with accuracy. Within your Google Places listing, ensure the following business information is filled out completely; business  address, Email, fax number, telephone number and website.

Some other things to note:

• Always use a local phone number, and never your 1300 or 1800 number

• Never use a PO Box address or you will have your listing removed

• For your website URL, point this to your contact page which already contains all of the corresponding details in your listing.

Get your business categories right

Google allows you to select up to 5 categories that your business falls under. You can either select the Google suggested categories, or if none are appropriate, you can list your own.

The best strategy here is to choose two of the Google suggested options, even if not exactly right, and then choose the remaining 3 of your own.

The most important thing is to ensure you list all 5.

Make your business description stand out form the crowd

Google gives you 200 characters to explain exactly what your business does. Make sure you include the top relevant keywords and business terms.

Highlighting achievements such as ‘Award Winning’, ‘Top Salesman’, ‘Best Clearance Rate 2010’, will work perfectly.

Use Photos and Videos

With your local listing, Google allows you to add photos and videos to your listing. Insert images such as your logo, a photo of your real estate office, photos of agency partners and awards.

For video, some great options include customer testimonials, or a company promotional video.

By using great imagery and video, you are putting your listing one step ahead of the competition by creating a more interesting listing.

Service area of retail location?

When you are specifying the locations you service, Google allows you to select either an area within a certain distance, or simply outline that your customers need to come to your location.

The one flaw in the Google system is that businesses that select a specific location rather than an area, tend to rank better.

So, choose a specific location.

Get more reviews

Reviews and testimonials are always important both online and offline. Google Places is no different. Google uses reviews of your business as a factor in determining how trustworthy your business is, and where it will rank you in the Google Places listings.

Encourage your previous clients to spend a few minutes leaving a review for your services on your Google Places page, it will help your ranking, and help you convert more of your potential customers online.

Google Places is a great tool for getting more targeted local customers. Typically as they are highly geographically targeted, they tend to also be more relevant users and convert at a much higher rate.

The above points are a great start for your Real Estate business, or any business for that matter, but like anything, it just takes time!

This article was submitted by our guest blogger – James Richardson

James Richardson is director of Optimising an SEO, PPC, Web Development agency based in Melbourne. He has worked in the Online Marketing industry for the past 7 years, and has helped over 500 businesses achieve more success with Google”

What do you need? and what does it cost to set up your own real estate blog. Well it’s probaly simpler then you think. For those of you who have been thinking about it but have always put it in the too hard basket. You may want to read on. It really isn’t that hard. So here’s what you need to set up a real estate blog:

1. A Domain Name – Also known as a URL, your domain name is the address of your real estate blog. When choosing a name try and use words that are descriptive of your product. Using words like real estate, property, your local suburb or region will increase your chances of being ranked higher in search engines like Google. There are plenty of Australia sites where you can check domain name availability. I personally use Crazy Domains as they are cheap (Approx $30.00 for 24 months) and easy to use.
2. A Hosting Service – This is where your website lives. Basically a hosting provider will offer you space on their massive computer systems which stay online all the time. This blog is hosted on IX Webhosting. At about USD $4.00 per month they don’t dig too deep into your marketing budget. Regardless of which service you choose to host your website just make sure they offer the basics like PHP and MYsql which in basic english are technologies required to display your content on visitors computer screens.
3. Content Management System (CMS) – There’s a few you can choose from but in my opinion I wouldn’t look further than WordPress it’s free and has nearly everything in it to deliver optimized content to your potential readers. Once downloaded you need to edit a file with your hosting service login details and a few other pieces of data all clearly outlined in the wordpress installation manual.
4. Real Estate Theme – WordPress blogs can take many shapes however for the ultimate real estate experience you will need a real estate theme which incoprorates all the elements required to post listings and display them on Google maps and offer photo galleries etc. Most wordpress themes are free however for a real estate theme you may consider making a small investment as this is ultimately the finishing touches on your real estate blog. One such theme is Smooth Real Estate, Cost is USD $39.95 and definitely worth every penny

So there you have the basics you need to set up your own real estate blog. All you need to do now is bring them all together. You will need to make sure that your domain names point to your hosting service and that you install the wordpress CMS on your hosting service, once that is done you will need to install the real estate them and start adding content.

Cost Summary:

• Domain Name –  +/- $30 for 2 years
• Hosting Service –  +/- $100.00 for 2 years
• WordPress CMS – FREE
• Real Estate Theme – +/- $40.00
• Total Cost (Excluding Time) $170.00 with annual recurring charges of between $80.00 and $100.00.

Do you have a real estate blog? Why not post a link to it on this blog, just go to our real estate links page and add your link.

Happy Blogging

It’s important that when we embrace new technology we do it right. Real estate videos are becoming more and more popular. Great? Well it is. But only if it’s done right.

There is much to consider when you decide to embrace video marketing for your real estate office and/or for your sellers online property marketing. In this article I would like to share some tips about optimizing your video content for search engines, real estate video SEO, aka VSEO.

The 4 steps to a succesfull real estate video SEO campaign are simple;

1. Select an Impressive Thumbnail – The thumbnail is a screen shot of your real estate video. It is what is displayed on web pages. You should review every second of your video and choose a frame which is the most compelling.
2. Host your video – Your own website and blogs are obvious places to host your video, however the most obvious place on the web to host your real estate video is youtube. Youtube videos have the best chance of high ranking in search engines. There are however other sites where you can host your video. Some of these are listed below;
   • Hulu: premium programming from the leading content companies, mostly TV and movies.
   • Metacafe: short entertainment videos.
   • Videojug: how-to videos, expert advice and tutorials.
   • Vimeo: a community of positive individuals with a wide range of video interests.
   • Google Videos, Yahoo! videos: online video platforms by major search engines.
3. Describe your video – It is impossible for search engines to understand what your video is about without it have the appropriate attributes. All videos loaded to Youtube should include:• Video Title Tag – A short descriptive and optimized headline which best summarizes the content of your real estate video
   • Video Description Tag – A more eloborate description up to about 160 words. Emphasis should be made to include all keywords selected for marketing your video
   • Video Tags – Much like keyword and phrase tags, just use the words and phrases you think people will use to find your video.
4. Broadcast your Real Estate Video - Last but certainly not least, your real estate video needs to be promoted, this should be done accross every platform you have access to like your facebook page and twitter profile, to your blog and agency website. Most real estate portals accept video as part of your online real estate marketing requirement. Setting up a youtube channel is also certainly an option you should consider if video is to be become an integral part of your real estate marketing.

I am looking forward to seeing lots of real estate videos published on the web over the next year. please feel free to forward your link.