Having correct permalinks that tell Google what your posts are about are a very important factor in correctly configuring a Wordpress site. Director of Business Development, Eric Stegemann, covers how to correctly setup Permalinks.
Optimize WordPress permalink structure for SEO
This discussion was given at Social Media Mastermind Orange County
Thanks to Kevin Sablan for shooting the video.
Lately, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking at events around the country (Request a Consultant Speak At Your Event). I get many requested topics to speak on: Brokerage of the Future, Increasing Profitability, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization and more. I always try to relay the fact that Social Media is a branding tool and not a lead generation system and that search engine optimization for the average Realtor should be for them to just write content. Agents around the country hope that “this Twitter thing is a great new way to get clients.” Sure, over the long run a good Twitter strategy will help you acquire clients. If you’re using sites like DemandSpot and doing Twitter Searches in your area for people interested in real estate, and you answer their questions instead of selling them in 140 characters… sure you will eventually get clients. And sure, a great SEO strategy over the long run will definitely increase your traffic faster than a poor one. But then someone always asks:
Folks, it’s not Twitter. It’s not Facebook. It’s not postcard campaigns. It’s definitely NOT any form of print advertising.
So what is it then?
Drip Email Programs! By far the single most effective strategy is email campaigns to clients. What is it that makes email campaigns so effective? It’s simple. If you have a regular program you either A) create interest in a potential buyer or sell to start considering the home purchase process or B) If they are already interested, you’ll constantly be in front of them so when they are ready to contact an agent, you’ll be the person they remember.
One of the keys to this process though is that your emails have to provide consistent value. They can’t be “Go to my website” or “look at my new listing.” One of the best campaigns we ran for our St. Louis Real Estate affiliate was a campaign on Short Sales and Foreclosures. People signed up on the company’s website to receive weekly updates. The click through rate for this email was an astonishing 28%! That’s almost 3 times the average for a real estate related blast email. Couple that with the fact that the list at it’s height had more than 3000 subscribers and you have 840 clicking through to your website each week. Users that are sticky and spend time on the site. Users that are constantly remember that your brokerage is where they can go to get quality real estate information in your area. Or that your agent website has hyperlocal content.
There are other factors in email marketing. Do you know when the best time to send out bulk email is?
Most Realtors when I ask this question say “Saturday or Sunday.” WRONG!
Statistically the best time for real estate emails to be sent is actually Mondays at 12:30-1:30 pm. Why? Simple. It’s Monday, people have just eaten lunch and they don’t feel like getting into work yet. They want to avoid work a little longer so they troll through their email box and find something distracting. Newly listed homes! Check out their subdivision. Check out areas they are interested in… etc. We found that a simple shift from sending emails on Fridays to Mondays increased the total number of emails opened by almost 50%!
We’ll be writing more in the near future about this topic. But start looking at services like MailChimp, ConstantContact, and MadMimi.
Shameless Plug: Tribus offers TribusConnect a full service drip email platform. The system connects your Customer Relationship Management software to your IDX and to your drip emails. Each time someone opens an email it’s recorded in your email box, as well as any properties they end up viewing on your site. Then you can tell
2009 was a speaking tour year of sorts for me. I spoke at over 10 Real Estate Bar Camps throughout the country, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Phoenix, and Los Angeles… At almost every event I did a session titled hyperlocal media to win at Google. The conversation almost always starts the same way, I cover Mike Simonsen’s statement that there up until 2009, there were only 3 things that people cared about when going to a real estate website.
But early last year I decided we needed to add a new item to this list. Hyperlocal data. Up until now, there wasn’t really an easy way for people in subdivisions or smaller neighborhoods to get news about their community. When are the garage sales? What did the homeowner’s association decide? etc… Realtors across the country started to tell some of these stories via their blogs etc. Because Realtors are so ingrained in the community they were primed to provide that data in a central easy to find source. But Realtors only have a limited amount of time. There are plenty of other blogs out there by community residents that discuss local news but they preiously had been hard to find.
Outside.in is changing this! I’ve been a fan of Outside.In for driving traffic to your local blog for about a year now. In some cases for brokers that we’ve setup hyperlocal blogging platforms for, it’s the number one referral source! Recently we’ve been playing with a private beta version of Outside.in ’s new publisher’s engine. And I believe it’s an easy way for real estate brokers to get hyperlocal content on their site. While it has almost any city listed, it also in some cases gets as granular as a subdivision! (To check out one of our sample pages using this new platform see Brentwood, MO Home Stats )
Here’s a video of the CEO of Outside.in speaking at Inman New York 2010
How to Become a Local Media Titan
Rob Hahn from 7DS and Associate and Tom Ferry of YourCoach discuss social media.
First of all, although Rob starts being facetious here, some of the points he makes, he’s quite serious about. So let’s tackle some of them:
1) Why do “none” of the top 10% of Realtors in the MLS not engage in social media? Well I would suggest that first of all a very small percentage on a whole of all Realtors engage in regular social media usage. Second, a big issue is that these Realtors can sit back and be fairly complacent with their current practices and know they have checks coming in… They don’t need to embrace social media as either a lead generation or branding play. I would suggest that it’s Realtors that are looking to get to be top that are in the trenches of social media and the ones using it effectively. A great point Rob made here was that “what’s your time worth?” The top agents just don’t want to spend the time. Again Rob correctly points out that you can’t pay someone on your team to tweet for you. Unfortunately, many of top professionals attempt this only to lose all credibility.
2) “Social Media is new media” that should be treated like a marketing campaign. It’s a way to reach more people and lower costs. Although I tend to agree that social media CAN be used like the farming postcard campaigns of old, its not necessarily a given. You don’t have to hyperlocate your tweets. I think that you can easily brand yourself for your entire area and beyond as an intelligent Realtor. Using the farming method for tweeting and social media interaction is probably the closest you will get lead generation. But social media is much more about interactions. It’s about creating relationships. No print campaign can create a relationship. Social Media is so much more than just a postcard campaign.
3) Apple has no social media, so social media isn’t always necessary. Tom Ferry makes a good point here. Apple has a $400million ad budget. They don’t need social media. Much like in #1 how top Realtors don’t need social media, big brands don’t need it either. However, Apple does have some social media interaction. They do have at least two Facebook pages, one for Students for Macs and one for iTunes. Both offer free music downloads, and push current discounts for Mac products. Furthermore, Apple uses its standoff nature in it’s marketing. That’s part of their game. There is a reason they don’t release any information about products early. It’s how they build hype. They keep things close to the chest. It works for them, it doesn’t work for everyone. Realtors can’t do big announcements of new listings that everyone will fawn over.
4) Agents shouldn’t brand the broker on Facebook. This concept goes directly to one of our core beliefs at Tribus. The balance has shifted DRAMATICALLY towards agents having too much power. When agents can put out ads like these brokers need to start taking control. Consumers think less of those major brands because of the ads that the agents put out. Just like with print ads, someone in a brokerage should at least be monitoring the brand and ensuring it’s proper usage in ads like on facebook.
What do you think of each’s arguments?
Zillow continues to dominate the listing syndication search site traffic. With an average of 8.3 Million unique visitors to the site each month in 2009, they are crushing their 2008 traffic by 60 percent! But they want to be the number one site period to surpass Realtor.com, so what are they doing?
Today Zillow announced they will be adding the ability for landlords to advertise their for lease properties on the site. You can search them at Zillow Rentals. Here’s the kicker, Zillow knows they need to start making money. (After all they’ve received $87 Million in venture capital funding… someone is going to start wanting some of that back.) Without specific information, I’m sure that their ad revenues are down. Their primary ad partners were Realtors advertising themselves and their listings. With revenues to Realtors down they are surely not forking over the dollars they were willing to in 2006.
So, to add a for lease listing to Zillow they will charge $9.95 for the post to be live 180 days. Each post is entered manually and not received via a syndication feed. This means that Realtors will not have the ability to have their rental listings appear on Zillow without manual entry and paid insertion.
I believe that this new rental traffic could drive as much as 15% new traffic to Zillow’s site which would put them in the number one spot for all real estate websites. We’ll see though if they can drive enough traffic by having paid insertions. My guess is that at some point rentals will go the same way that for sale properties do. Paid insertion for manual entries, free if included in the feed.
Zillow is also adding a new Search by Payment feature to the filters once results are returned. These new feature will compare For Rent listings with the expected average mortgage payment to purchase a home. This way people in the market considering renting can see what they would be able to buy for the same price.
While it’s a big deal that Zillow will be adding rental listings, I think the hidden story is Zillow finally going after revenue…
According to Zillow, 3% of all listings on the site are manually inserted. This means a Realtor, Brokerage, or Owner is manually typing in the details of the home and uploading the pictures. Like the rental listings, Zillow will now charge brokers to do this. Again the fee will be $9.95 for 180 days listed on the site. The fee however does get you something extra… manually uploaded listings will now be featured on the site.
However, this is going to effect some people that generally really understand the power of Zillow and are probably some of their biggest proponents. Chances are these manual insertions are from small to independent brokerages and for sale by owners that don’t have the resources to create their own feed. These agents need to immediately find a resource to syndicate such as Postlets, VFlyer, or Tribus’ listing syndication system. (Owners will still be able to list a “Make Me Move” price, it doesn’t allow them to feature the property for sale. Also if your listing is currently for sale it will stay on there until January 13th when it will expire or you’ll have to pay.) I wonder though, will Postlets or Vflyer start to consider charging because of this?
Consider that Zillow has around 4 million listings on the site. 3% of 4 million is 120,000. Potential revenue: $1.2 million every 180 days. I think it’s more probable that only a small percentage of those people will end up actually paying for the service. But it’s a start to making $87 Million.
So will landlords pay to place listings on Zillow? Will sellers and small brokers? That has yet to be seen.
You’ll hear many SEO people, especially those in the real estate industry, make wild promises about what they can achieve. “You’ll be to the top of Google”
Jim Somers, an agent at Alain Pinel who sells Homes in Redwood City, CA recently told me he spent $4000 with one SEO firm who promised him top page of Google, yet he never made it past page 3. Of course he didn’t get his money back and ended up doing better by purchasing SEO for Dummies!
The proof is in the results. Where does your site rank after someone has managed the SEO? Be wary immediately of any SEO person that promises a specific result. The truth is that SEO is art, it’s just as much art as the original design of the site. It takes knowledge of what users search for… it takes knowledge of how search engines rank results… it takes knowledge of how code works. Furthermore, it takes content, quality written content that to the average users appears as completely natural, but to a search engine it’s gold.
We had a proud moment at Tribus today, our Los Angeles, CA brand Partners Trust Real Estate Brokerage made it to position 6 for the term Los Angeles Real Estate Brokerage. One might think this is a lengthy term, but there are 58 million results that were produced from this search. We were able to achieve this after just 3 months of the site being live.
Starting in December every year, I take this time to plan for the coming year, what strategies worked this year, where do I need to change, how did my marketing budget work out etc…
Some examples of changes that we’ve previously made at this time of year:
This is a great time of year to review the year that was in real estate both for you and in general. While it’s not necessarily a good idea to go chasing every fad that’s out there, sometimes looking for a multi-year trend to capitalize on can be very profitable. For example, short sales and foreclosures are at the forefront of our minds right now but in 3 years from now they might only be a blip in the total nationwide sales (likewise 3 years ago I wonder how many agents knew what a short sale was). But I bet there are plenty of agents that survived this year because they went after this shift in business.
So as you review the tools and systems you have in place in your business, don’t take anything for granted. Don’t just assume you need this product going forward. Unfortunately, on many sales calls I am involved with, I speak with people who have spent thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars on products that just aren’t working for them. They don’t want to leave it though because of the investment. Understand the concept behind a sunk cost. If you an make $100k by dumping your current product and investment $25k, and your current product is only making you $25k on a $25k investment, you should obviously move to the new product (assuming you have the budget to make the move).
Which of your systems, tools and marketing are working? Are you still spending $1000s on print advertising? If so why? Study after study proves broadcast printing that it’s a losing money effort. In speaking with agents and brokers nationwide the only true return I see from any print advertising is farming a hyperlocal area.
Have you considered an E-Farming system? Systems like Constant Contact, MailChimp, and MadMimi, offer low cost solutions that offer broadcast emailing.
Do you have a Customer Relationship Management software designed for Real Estate? Setting reminders etc for client follow up can help you break the curse of most agents, that only 6% of clients return for a follow up sale.
Are you syndicating your listings? Many of you probably are, but to just one or two sites. Why not get your Seller’s the exposure they deserve? Imagine the marketing you could do by increasing your online presence.
Do you offer virtual tours? Did you know that listings on national websites get viewed 299% more than those without?
Why not take the next few weeks, and consider dumping some of your expenses and looking into new options that are available. Review what worked for you and what didn’t.
Make a business plan for next year and try to stick with it. Take a look at the article Linsey Planeta wrote over at AgentGenius on Planning for Your Next Year in Real Estate and creating obtainable goals.
This post will part of a series of branding issues relating to real estate brokerage.
It’s all about doing what you say you will do. I know it’s debated, but I personally love flying Southwest Airlines. Why? Because they deliver on their promise. They are rarely late, I know how I’m going to board, I know that there is no food, I know that my bag flies free. They have made it very clear what their brand promise is. Cheap fares, decent service, efficiency.
What about real estate companies? Many promise great service, how many agents within the company thoughactually deliver on that promise though? If you are an agent are you working for a company that sets you up for brand promise failure? Do they promise a technological edge and don’t deliver? Do they promise to do everything it takes to sell your home and they don’t?
As a broker do you have agents that are poor agents that don’t follow through to build trust in your company? Why?
In a world where trust is becoming even more scrutinized due to social media and the speed at which information is shared, why not starting building trust with your clients and potential clients by starting at your brand promise.
Tribus is pleased to announce that our Dallas affiliates has won the 2009 Center for Real Estate Technology Pioneer award! (More info here) Brandon’s vision to create a completely virtual real estate brokerage company from scratch in a down economy is truly pioneering!
Being a company formed only in March, Tribus was asked to help build their strategy from the ground up for a Virtual Office system. Their company implemented all of Tribus’ solutions including Accounting, Email, Chat, Calendar, Website, CRM, mobile application, and more!
Alternatively Tribus has been studying user behaviors since its inception. www.BMATexas.com is the first site to implement our refined real estate search system. The idea was to make the search as easy as possible for potential visitors.
Brandon will receive his award at the National Association of Realtors Conference Young Professionals Reception starting at 7pm Friday November 13 at the Hotel Solamar in San Diego, Califorina.
-I preface this post by suggesting that there is NO specific rules about social media and what you can do. It SHOULD be free and an open conversation, not something that is forced. You shouldn’t take the information below to be an exact program for what you need to do. I suggest this only as a way to begin in social media. You’ll find that after you get into it, it will ingrained into your daily life.
We do social media trainings around the country offering Realtors a glimpse at how it can expand their long term business. I’ve been to numerous other sessions offered by qualified social media trainers in real estate and I converse with them about what is the number one push back on using social media. Without a doubt it’s “where do I find the time?”
If you had a TV during the 90s you no undoubtedly remember “8 minute Abs.” It was a video sensation. You could have six pack abs in just 8 minutes a day!
However the concept in the video offers nothing different than what we all know. Crunches and situps leads to tightened abs. The real sensation of this video is that it made this easier to achieve for most people by convincing them to do it each day. Who can’t find 8 minutes in their day to achieve something they really wanted? They started the routine and stuck with it because it didn’t seem as daunting as dressing up for a workout in a public place, driving there, waiting for machines, etc. It really was just 8 minutes that could be done whenever there was free time.
The question is are you as serious about increasing your online branding and potential long term business by devoting just 8 minutes a day? I’ve been working on this concept over the past few weeks and am convinced it’s not only feasible but very doable.
There are a million scenarios of how you can use your 8 minutes, but I will focus on what I believe to be the two most powerful social media networks for Realtors: Facebook and Twitter. (We’ll do another post soon on who to follow on Twitter, this is an important aspect. Many Realtors spend their time following other Realtors on Twitter. For long term strategy it would be much better if they actively sought out people in their area to follow.)
(It is best to try and break up your 8 minutes into two chunks, one around lunch, one in the evening. But the tasks to do are the same….) Each task can be completed in 1-2 minutes. Where people spend a lot of their time in social media jumping from person to person trying to find anything of value. When time is a major issue it’s much easier to just look for the tidbits and if you find nothing to move on…
1) I would start with Facebook by logging in and looking at your news feed (the main portion of the site when you login). Take a quick glance through to see if there are any photos or items that are of particular interest to you. If so comment on them not just with “nice photo” but with something meaningful.
2) Take a few moments to look through some of your close friends’ pages to see if there is anything you missed throughout the day. Try to pick different people different days. Obviously you’ll have a mix of friends that are ultra-social on Facebook and those that rarely update their pages.
3) Login to Twitter and immediately check your @Replies and DMs respond to them immediately if necessary.
4) Look through your current stream of commentary and see if anything is of interest to you and if so @Reply them.
5) Post a message or link to an article that you were interested in throughout the day.
Things to remember
- Try to post at least one item every 5-7 days that without selling reminds people you are a Realtor. A really amazing deal… Market stats that show something you wouldn’t expect… a VERY high priced listing… a message saying your excitement at closing a deal today… etc. The most important aspect here is that these sorts of message should encompass no more than 10-20% of your total feed.
- People don’t go to social media sites to buy houses. They go there to strengthen previous relationships and build new ones. You’re goal is to interact.
- Over time you should try to expand your social media usage to be something you do in lots of little spurts throughout the day. For example if I’m waiting in line chances are I’m on Twitter or checking Facebook. It’s a way to stay connected without taking up time I should be doing something else. What else do I have better to do while waiting for food at a restaurant? This involves getting social media apps on your cell phone.