Archive for November, 2007

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I’ve found that this is a hot button topic among many real estate agents and brokers. Maybe someone can enlighten me, but I just can’t seem to understand why more agents don’t blog about their listings. You have a free opportunity to let the world know about one of your properties… what are you waiting for?

My only conclusion is that most real estate agents just don’t know how to do it. Maybe you are an agent but just don’t want to include a property listing post right in the middle of your other blog posts… whatever the reason, I want to show you 4 reasons you would be crazy not to start blogging your listings

Crazy Myth #1: Blogging about my real estate listing takes too long

Nonsense. You don’t have to be a photoshop pro in this day and age. There are plenty of tools out there that will allow you to create an online flyer that you can easily post on your blog. My favorite, and probably the easiest is VFlyer.com - It is super fast, and it even submits your flyer to GoogleBase, Trulia, Craiglist, and more… sort of a double whammy. And there are plenty of other sites out there there let you create an online flyer… just make sure that you can export it in an html format so you can copy and paste it as a blog post.

If you don’t want to use a property flyer on your blog, or you can’t get it to work, you can still just write a quick description of the property and include a picture slide show using flickr, slide, or Real Estate Shows. You can even post a video tour right on the blog using youtube or Wellcomemat.

Crazy Myth #2: My blog gets no traffic, what’s the point?

There are plenty of other places you can post that listing. Just because you may be new to blogging doesn’t mean that there isn’t value in blogging about your listings. Think outside the box… try using Localism.com. Just go to ActiveRain, paste in your flyer, or listing as a new post. Then choose “for consumers”, and “advertising a listing”. This will also increase your AR points with little to no work!

But don’t just stop there, almost every single social networking site out there has a mini-blog feature that will let you paste in an html flyer, or even add a slideshow. Try: Facebook, wannanetwork, xanga, plaxo, cre8buzz, Myspace. Go crazy… there are hundreds of sites like these to choose from.

Crazy Myth #3: The chances are slim that an individual listing will be seen online.

Even if posting your listing online doesn’t bring a direct buyer, there are still plenty of other benefits to be had.

• Blow your potential clients away during listings presentations by showing them a huge list of places where their property will appear online. Most people are floored when you tell that you will be blogging specifically about their property. It’s impressive!
• If you spend the the time posting your listings in places besides your primary blog, you have the opportunity to create a call to action within the post itself. Direct people to click a link to view all the available MLS listings in their area. Ask them to sign up for your IDX email delivery system notifying them of new properties on the market in their area. The possibilities are endless here.
• Each time you post a listing, you’re creating a link back to your website or blog. This will improve your search engine ranking… but make sure you use good anchor text.
• Branding. Your face, logo, name, comapny… etc. are all branding tools. The more places you leave them online, the more branding will come into play.

Crazy Myth #4: Posting listings on my blog will water down the rest of my content

This myth actually isn’t so crazy. It’s a real concern that many real estate bloggers have, and I don’t recommend that anyone write a post about an individual listing and include it with their regular blog content.

So, here is how you get around that… The solution I’m sharing can be done on any platform, but I’m going to show you how with wordpress.

The best solution for this problem is to create a specialized category just for your listings. Then, you want to tell wordpress (or your platform of choice) not to include that category on the home page. You are essentially just excluding that particular category.

You will want to place this code in your index.php file to tell your home page not to include the category you choose.

Here is the code: <?php query_posts(’cat=-13?); ?>

If that doesn’t work, you can also try this:

<?php  if (is_home()) {query_posts(”cat=-13″); }?>

You will need to change the category number to make it work (where it says: “13″). To find the category number, go to >Manage>Categories, then view the category number you want to exclude. For more detailed instructions on this try this wordpress tutorial.

I hope that was helpful. It doesn’t take much work to blog about your listings. Just go out and do it!

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If you are looking for a customized blog, or in depth coaching to kick start your blogging or internet marketing campaign, please email or call me.

You heard it here folks.  Damion Foxworthy is now the proud new owner of my ActiveRain profile.  The story behind the sale follows…I’m sure many of you have heard the controversy about the sale of MMORPG characters and goods.  It is quite an industry actually, complete with overseas sweatshops where workers will spend hours mining for gold in World of Warcraft, or building up an Everquest Character for resale.  You can even buy 50,000 “Linden” dollars on ebay for only $199.99, in the popular online universe known as second life.  I even wrote a post about it a while back that discussed the implications of a lady that became the first millionaire from selling virtual goods.

It’s an interesting topic… and it got me thinking.  If people can sell virtual goods and money, why not ActiveRain points? ActiveRain isn’t a game or an online virtual world, but it does deal with a potential commodity called: points.

In the early days of ActiveRain, it was pretty common to see people gaming the system for points.  Writing 10 junk posts a day, or commenting 50 times a day just to build their points.  But as AR has evolved there have been measures put in to make sure that in order for people to get ahead, they have to actually work at it.  Which makes the points that much more valuable.

Let’s discuss the value of points for a moment…  As most of you know, points can help you get ahead of your competition in any given market.  You can see here that I am currently listed in Colorado.  Ranked 7th in Colorado, 2nd in Douglas County, and 1st in the town of Castle Rock.  Not Bad!

But, lets say I decided to sell my profile to a real estate agent in Virginia… it’s a hugely populated state, and represents a huge real estate market segment.  But, there is very little competition for points.  Meaning if I were to switch my profile to Virginia…

I suddenly catapult to the number 2 position in Virginia, 1st in Arlington County, and 1st in Arlington.  Pretty amazing!

Not only does the profile now catapult me to the top of the Virginia members, but it also gets me to the home page of activerain for all the people from Virginia viewing the site!

It struck me like a ton of bricks the other day that my AR profile is valuable!!!  And somebody might pay some serious dough to get an instant high placement in the state they work in.  So, I went ahead and sold it to the highest bidder.  I considered the fact that many of the AR member would be angry, frustrated, or even hostile. And if you happen to have read this far into the paragraph you’ll be happy to know that none of this is actually true.  I haven’t sold my profile, I just wanted to see what kind of reaction it would get from the AR community.  What if tomorrow you woke up and saw a profile selling for $6,000 on ebay?  Would you be mad, upset, surprised, frustrated?  What?  Points are important to alot of people… whether you are trying to beat your competitor to the home page or AR, or trying to get to that coveted first spot on localsim.  Points on AR are the underlying thing that drive the community.

The other issue to selling an AR profile is the content.  What do you do with it?  Let the person have it for free?  Place a CC license on it so they can’t duplicate it?  You have to ask yourself, are you willing to let all that content slip away… how valuable is it to you?

Points rule activerain… and I plan to make a fortune from selling AR profiles.  Who’s with me???