Rent or Own? Why are most Realtors renting?

Wordpress and blogging for realtors and real estate

Wordpress and blogging for realtors and real estateThe National Association of Realtors and Realtors in general are famous for posing the question “Is it better to Rent or Own?” then there are tons of reasons showing why buying is better than renting.  But do they practice what they preach?

What about Internet marketing? Are real estate professionals owning their brand or are they “renting space”.

The secret to successful Internet Marketing is to drive clients to your site through inbound marketing.

I was just on LinkedIn and responding to a question that Frank put out:

I am looking to take advantage of Internet Marketing. Looking for advertisement and Lead Generation. Checked out several: Real Estate Animals (Expensive), Trulia (INTERESTED), and Zillow.
Looking for recommendations and feedback. Wanting the most offered for the price. Just started working with clients that were searchin on Zillow. All the properties they had interest in seeing were off the Market. Please advise

Here is my response to Frank:

I did some internet marketing with some of these sites, Google, and Facebook. Frank, I want to tell you that the secret to making all of this work is to have good inbound marketing.

You want to OWN not RENT space for your clients. When you are paying these folks for ads, the leads stop when you stop paying rent. You want to post on your website.

At http://RealSocialPros.com where I blog 2-3 times a week and I can see the traffic and the google rankings coming in.

If you use us, or someone else, get a good SEO optimized website that YOU control. post about your stuff, or what you are doing, real estate in your city or subdivisions, and let Google do the rest. It will take a little time, but within days or weeks, you will see something happen and you will start getting organic traffic and leads from those folks.

It takes longer, and is more work, but it is cheaper and better.

 

I am going to write a post about the secrets to successful blogging for real estate agents, but for now, there are some basic things you need to keep in mind.

  1. You want all of your marketing to point back to your website/blog.  This is what YOU own.
  2. If you use sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, ActiveRain, RealTown, Zillow, Trulia or even Realtor.com, just be sure all of it comes back to YOUR own real estate website or blog.
  3. Pick a niche.  Don’t try to use the keywords “residential real estate” or “Miami real estate”.  Those are TOO huge.  Get something small that you can defend.  Try “Rogers real estate” or “Shadow Valley homes”.  Those are small enough to own.
  4. When you start your site post often and use keywords so you develop some credibility.
  5. Include a photo in each post.
  6. Use an IDX feed like IDXbroker.  This puts all the homes in your MLS on your site and really drives leads to you. (and gives you marketing materials)
  7. Post a video for at least every 10 posts.

We will stop with those 7, but I am going to make a series about how to get more leads to your real estate website or blog.

Be sure to invest time developing your own site or hire someone to do it.  We can do it for you.  The great thing is that as your site moves up the search engine rankings, you will get more and more traffic and spend less and less money.  You will also get better more focused leads.

If you want to have us setup a great Real Estate lead producing website using an IDX feed just click here.

Sign up here to get your Website with IDX and get valuable leads

just click here at idx.realsocialpros.com and signup today!

 

Get your FREE

customizable Home Buyer Handbook ($19.95 value)

Google + over Facebook: 3 advantages for real estate professionals

facebook_vs_google

CEO Larry Page kicked off his recent earnings conference call and described not only the financial data but some other notable figures as well: the number of Google Plus users, how much they’re sharing.

10 million Google Plus users
1 billion items a day are being shared on Google Plus
+1 Button is being served 2.3 billion times a day

Does this look like something that might be huge for your real estate business? I’d say so!

Let’s check out a few plus “es” of the new Google + service and look at some plugins and such.

How is Google + better or easier to use than Facebook?

  1. Google plus comments can be edited. How many times have you posted something to your group on Facebook only to realize that you have made a nasty typo.  Then you have to make another Facebook post to “correct” the mistake.  With Google + you can just edit a comment that you have made.
  2. Easily organize your people into “circles” on Google plus.  You can do this as you add new people into your Google + circles.  Facebook has groups, but they are “clunky” to use and most realtors struggle to define where people need to be.  One of my favorite features is that you can put people into more that one circle.  Like I have people who are in my “Real Estate Tech” group, but they may also be friends and I can put them in both circles.
  3. No Farmville.  I hope they never integrate “games” on Google+.  I really got to the point where I had to block all the people who were farming and doing Mafia wars and the like.  (Sorry Tony, that’s you).

If you liked this press the +1 button !

If you want a Google+ invitation just post to the comments below and we will send you one.

How many real estate leads can I get from having IDX on my real estate website?

February analytics for Social Media Optimized SEO happy real estate website

We have had some people asking:

How many real estate leads can I get from having IDX on my real estate website?

Of course that depends on how you have your IDXbroker configured.  Do you have some cool subdivision pages set up on your IDX site? Are you blogging at least once a day for 30 days?

I have had some people ask about the traffic on our RogersMLS.com site. I am a little nervous about sharing because I haven’t been blogging and nurturing my site, but I thought I would include the graphic below just so you can compare the traffic that we are getting with the traffic you get on your site.  There is another graph from February when we were using our IDX feed for lead generation.

If you liked reading this click on the “+1″ button on the bottom right!

Check out my post about our sweet offer to setup your IDX social media optimized website by clicking here.

IDX and IDXbroker web traffic on your social media real estate website

Here is another little graphic that shows better page views and traffic.  Look at the over 11,000 page views in one month.  That is due to the way we did some cool Search Engine Optimization on our IDXbroker IDX feed.  It makes a HUGE difference in the amount of leads you get from your real estate website.

If you are an agent or broker, a team, or even an entire brokerage and you want to get your business moving and have great Internet presence, just go to IDX.RealSocialPros.com to get started today.  For only $199 we will do the setup on your website and for $39.99 a month for a single agent site, you will have access to IDXbroker’s IDX feed, and our great tips for SEO optimization.

Click here to get started!

February analytics for Social Media Optimized SEO happy real estate website

RealSocialPros and IDXBroker $199 Setup and $39.99 a month – A perfect match for any real estate agent or brokerage

IDXbroker $199 setup and $39.99 month special

IDXbroker and RealSocialPros have the best prices on Social Media Optimized websites for real estataToday we are pleased to announce that RealSocialPros and IDXbroker have joined together to provide the best in Social Media Optimized websites for real estate agents and brokers.  IDXbroker has a huge feature set and we have used it for several years.

Check out our special offer for the week ending July 16th

Just $199 setup and $39.99 a month for your site with IDXbroker.  Our usual setup fee is $199 and we were able to get a special deal.  So you can have us setup a sweet site for you like our demo site at realsocialpros.com/demo or our site at RogersMLS.com.

If you are ready to get your Website with IDX and get valuable leads just click here at idx.realsocialpros.com and signup today!

 

Get your FREE

customizable Home Buyer Handbook ($19.95 value)

IDX Search Forms

  • Map Search 
  • Basic Search
  • Advanced Search
  • Address Search
  • MLS Listing Number Search
  • Custom City List

 

Cool Widgets on your WordPress site

  • IDX Featured Listing Slideshow
  • Custom Search Showcase 
  • Custom Search Slideshow 
  • Custom Quick Search
  • Wild Card Search
  • Agent Showcase Widget
  • Lead Login Widget 

 

Search Engine Friendly

  • Landing Page Management
  • Dynamic Title Tags on Property Detail Pages
  • Domain Control 
  • Custom Subheaders
  • Search Friendly City Links
  • Dynamic Meta Description Tags
  • Dynamic Meta Keyword Tags
  • Offer an IDX Sitemap 

 

Mobile Marketing

  • Mobile IDX MLS for the iPad and iPhone

 

System-wide Maps

  • Results Pages: Map Search 
  • Map Location Button
  • Walk Score Maps 

Capture and Retain Leads

  • Contact Page 
  • Property Info Request
  • Schedule a Showing
  • Property Manager Signup
  • Lead Login Page 
  • Custom Email Updates
  • Email Updates Signup 
  • Saved Searches Management
  • Custom Lead Signup Form
  • Review Saved Properties 
  • Top Producer Integration 
  • Export Leads
  • Prevent Spam
  • Force or Request Registration

 

Featured Listings Management

  • Featured Listing Showcase
  • Home Valuation Request 
  • Syndicate Your Listings
  • Supplemental Properties 
  • Open House Management 
  • Sold and Pending Listings 
  • Automatically Feature Listings for an Agent 
  • Add a Unique Custom Link to Every Featured Listing
  • Choose Which Active Listings to Display
  • Add Virtual Tours

 

Build Your Niche

  • Predefined Property Prices 
  • Predefined Subdivision
  • Keyword Results
  • Predefined Map Search
  • Predefined Address Links
  • Predefined IDX MLS Search Results
  • Social Media Sharing Tools 
  • Custom Labels 
  • Custom Links Results Landing Pages
  • Search Multiple IDX MLS Feeds at Once 

 

Advanced Analytics

  • Lead Traffic Stats
  • Track Conversions
  • Track Your Search Engine Referrals

 

Advanced Customization

  • Back Office Map Controls
  • Built In Mortgage Calculator
  • Select your primary IDX feed 
  • Filtered Search 
  • Choose from Predefined Templates 
  • Many Design Templates 
  • Advanced IDX Customization with CSS

 

Manage an Office (With Team IDX or Office IDX)

  • Round Robin Lead Routing
  • Carbon Copy Email Address
  • Price Based Lead Routing 
  • Branded Agent Login 
  • Manually assign agents to leads in lead management 
  • Show Agent List
  • Assign Agents to an Office
  • Custom Office Pages

 

Attract Agents (With Team IDX or Office IDX)

  • Agent Roster Page
  • Agent Bio Pages
  • Email Update Management
  • Agent Lead Assignment and Subheader
  • Branded iPad and iPhone App for Agents 
  • GIve Your Agents a Login 
  • Add Agent Information to Featured Listing Details 

 

4 reasons to use WordPress for your real estate website or blog

Agentpress wordpress for brokers

4 reasons to use WordPress for your Real Estate website
Why should a real estate agent use WordPress for a blog or website?  To promote your own real estate brand.

1. Search engine optimization for real estate professionals.

SEO – Search engine optimization. This is what brings traffic to you thorough search engines. We use the words “google juice” around our house to describe it. Read Matt Cutts’ definitive post about the SEO benefits of using WordPress here.

 

2. Content and updating

With WordPress as the foundation for your blog or website, especially if you are in the real estate business, you have the following benefits:
- No webmaster – updating, changing, and adding more content is super simple. You just use the built-in tools. You don’t have to wait a week or pay thousands of dollars each time you want to add a new listing or posting more information for your clients.

- NO HTML – There is no need to take HTML classes or buy Dreamweaver. You just login and post.

3. Tons of WordPress extensions

All of the available extensions make WordPress a natural choice for realtors to build a great website or blog. There are tons of themes, plugins, widgets, polls, and more. All of these extensions allow you to include video, images, podcasts or anything you can imagine to help build your business and bring you great leads.

4. Integration – the last thing we touch on here is all the integration to other websites that you love.

Everyone loves WordPress integration to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg, YouTube, and all the social networking tools you need.

I love the tie-ins to Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Aweber, and other CRM packages. There is no better way to keep all your info on your clients up to date.

For Realtors there are also tools to tie in to Zillow, Trulia, IDX, and other real estate specific tools.

Check out our plan for hosting your real estate website by clicking here.

We will set your site up and give you your own email on your own domain, install WordPress and install a custom theme with all the social networking bells and whistles for just $98.

If you want to get your site going today, just click here to get to our PayPal information or shoot us an email at info@realsocialpros.com

 

Setup your personalized website, email, and blog today for only 98 bucks.

Do you need a website that is set up for YOU and not just promoting a real estate company or other website?  Want to get more interaction from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube?

Customized real estate wordpress website with social media optimizations

Take advantage of our limited time offer for real estate pros:

1. You pick a domain name like yourcityRealEstate.com
2. We host it for you and install WordPress for you.
3. We set you up with your myname@yourcityRealEstate.com email address and either help you set it up on your smart phone or tablet, or we will send all the mail to your current address.
4. We will throw in one free month’s worth of web hosting

All this setup and running within 24 hours for only $98. Hosting is just $19 per month with no contract. You can cancel at anytime.
First Click here to purchase the install of your site and your domain name then below to set up your $19 per month hosting fee. Buy this month and we will waive the first months fee.

 

Install WordPress on my domain
 

 

Hosting for my new domain
 

Until the end of this month, we will also toss in the following:
1. Facebook like plugin installed free
2. Twitter plugin installed free
3. Google analytics plugin installed free

Just fill out the form and we will have your personalized real estate site branded and setup for you within one business day.

 

Sign Up Today
  1. (valid email required)
New Website Info
  1. (required)
 

 

Your new domain name must be available.  You can check at domaintyper.com. (if it shows up green, then it is usually available) We will copy and paste what you type in here, and this cannot be changed. Please make sure that spelling is correct.

If you want more help or have a question, just fill out the form above or shoot us an email at info@realsocialpros.com right now!!