There were approximately 464 searches of this particular keyword phrase in Google within the last 24 hours.
There are approximately 32 websites targeting this term.
That’s a lot of people looking for real estate agents in Memphis but not many websites jockeying for that term.
Similar to the very popular digg.com, RealEstateVoices.com is a real estate social news site designed to help you discover the most interesting real estate related articles of the day, as voted and suggested by your fellow users. Niki Scevak, the founder sent me an email this morning about the new site. I have just started playing with it, but it looks interesting.
RealEstateVoices.com is a side project for Niki as their main site is HomeThinking.com which helps users find real estate agents by showing them what each real estate agent has done in the past and what customers have said about the job they did. Both sites are interesting and worth checking out.
Giving the user the ability to save a search is nothing new in the internet world. Many property searches, including ours, gives the user the ability to save their search if they wish to do so.
More powerful than a “save this search” function is the ability to autofill specific real estate listings directly into a website. Local search is being pushed by everyone from Google to Yahoo, to even the Yellow Pages. Local is everything… if the user has found your site, you and them already know what they are looking for.
As an example, take Ian Watt, he has a website called www.electricavenue.ca. Now, you can assume that any visitor to this website is interested in Condos or Townhouses available within the Electric Avenue development in downtown Vancouver. So having a generic search is not important. You know what they want and an auto fill category (AFC) can give it to them. On this site, if you click on “Listings (for sale)” you are going to get every condo and townhouse in Electric Avenue that is currently listed for sale. So you are basically, saving the search for the user without making your visitor go through the work of creating the search that they want, and saving it.
Now, this functionality only works with MLS systems that we are integrated with and with Boards that permit it. But for those that can do it, the power of this is huge.
If you Google the term – electric avenue real estate – you will see Ian’s site come up #2
Local, niche specific websites are key to doing well on the internet. Have a look at Ian Watt’s collection of websites, all of which take advantage of an AFC:
Yaletown Park
Vancouver Penthouses
Vancouver Townhouses
Electric Avenue
Whistler Homes (new)
Ian Watt Main Website
If you have any questions about AFC’s or what can be done in your area, please feel free to contact me or your sales representative.
I receive quite a few questions in my email inbox most of which I answer quickly back to the person that asked. Sometimes, I post that response here in my blog but not often enough. Adam Smith, a Realtor in White Rock commented in another post about my blog and what he likes about it. Here is what he had to say:
“I thought this was probably the most useful blog I have seen published in some time. Thank
you. I have already added the google analytics feature and signed up with activerain.com .
I look forward to more useful information like this to come. Adam.” – www.adamdsmith.ca
I emailed Adam back thanking him for his comments and asked if he had any specific questions. Well, as you can see, he did, and this post is about one of them. Adam emailed back asking “what is squidoo…?” and suggested an “Ask Ubertor” section might be a good way to communicate these types of questions.
So, here we go:
What is Squidoo.com?
Squidoo.com is an online software platform that allows you to create a simple blog type web page that focuses on a specific topic. It is a single page that you can dedicate to anything and setup is easy and free. The best part of having a Squidoo page (or lens as they call it) is that you can earn royalties from the traffic that the lens generates. If you choose to, you can forfeit your royalties to a charity of your choice. Squidoo claims that “Lenses have huge credibility with search engines, so your lens can help your other sites rise to the top of Google searches.” So far for us, it has brought some traffic, mostly from Yahoo, but we will see how it progresses. Its free to setup and very easy.
Squidoo.com is the creation of Seth Godin, a master marketer who has written many books, all of which are worth picking up as there is so much good information in them.
Related Sites:
Squidoo.com FAQ
About Squidoo.com from their site
Seth Godin’s Blog
Seth’s Books
I hope this helps…. if you have questions that you want answered, email me as I would be pleased to help.
UPDATE – - Seth Godin adds his thoughts in the comments
Many of our Realtors do some great things with their banner photos. Lots of them use the same designer that designed their business cards, letterhead, etc to design a banner that matches. This way they can tie their marketing material together. With the many template color options that our real estate website software provides plus a custom banner, it is easy to make your web site unique to you and your business.
Here are some banners that I like from some of our clients websites:
Marketing Guru Seth Godin posted a list in his blog tonight titled – The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do. (he also made a Squidoo lens for it) He includes 3 rules:
Rule #1: If you have a site, you want more traffic.
Rule #2: You don’t have enough money to buy as much traffic as you need.
Rule #3: You’ve already made your site as compelling as you know how to.
His list is a little technical for the average real estate professional so I figured I would post my own.
The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do (in no particular order)
1. Post listing to Craigslist.org with a hyperlink back to your website
2. Build a Squidoo lens (here’s mine)
3. Issue a Press Release
4. Google Analytics – signup, monitor your sites progress
5. Comment on other blogs with a link back to your site (good quality comments, don’t comment just to do it)
6. Write a blog
7. Add a signature to your email that contains your web address (emails tend to get forwarded all over the place)
8. Signup for and participate in ActiveRain.com
Trulia.com has announced that they will cover the complete U.S. by the end of the month. For those that don’t know, Trulia is a San Francisco company that offers a residential real estate search engine that helps consumers search for homes for sale, trends, neighbourhood insights and other real estate information directly from hundreds of thousands of real estate broker Web sites.
With Trulia soon to cover the entire US the rumors of them expanding into Canada must not be far away. Trulia joins Yahoo, Google, Craigslist, Zillow and Realtor.com in providing free, no user login required property search functionality.
Seitz comes out with a 360-degree camera that will capture 470 million pixels worth of color and light. It will complete that task in two seconds flat. Now doesn’t that sound quick and easy? It will be available by early 2007.
Oh, and the cost, a mere $34,000!
If this is too long to wait for this gaget, or a little more than you wanted to spend, you could always hire a company to do it for you.
Just got back from the Vancouver Real Estate Board Trade Show at the Westin Bayshore in downtown Vancouver. Bit of a rainy day for the event so the view that the Bayshore has was nowhere to be seen. Here is what it should have looked like:
The event seemed to go well for everyone involved. We had a booth at the show. It was great to chat with many of our existing clients as well as meet many new Realtors. Dara from RealtySupport.ca and Darryl from MyHomeTours.ca were at our booth for a while showcasing their products and services. All in all, a great day.
