Real Estate Blog Lab

Wait, if it is free, there is no exchange, right?

Hi,
My name is _____ and I work for _________, a provider of high
quality, custom content for a wide variety of industries. I was impressed with http://www.realestatebloglab.com and can provide you with free, professionally written blog articles crafted specifically for  you.
Your Benefit:
Based on your direction, we will prepare a custom article related to real estate. The post will be professionally written and edited and provided free of charge.
Our Benefit:
In exchange for this free article, we simply ask that you provide us a link in the content of our article to one of our client’s websites. Of course you will be able to decline the article if you are not satisfied with the content or with the linked URL

In Exchange for Free

I have to remember this one.  I’m sure I can find some places I can use this.  But none with a straight face.

Real Estate Related

This is my first clue they haven’t read anything on the site.  If they had even read the homepage blog topics they would know this site isn’t about real estate.

Cooling Strategies for Rack Mounted Cloud Servers

This is the topic I would like them to cover, right up there with fragistats and muffler bearings.  Oh and let’s not forget radiator caps for 67 VW Beatles.

I’m  a big fan of Nextgen Gallery.  I know it has it’s detractors in the RE community.  It actually requires you to read the instructions and set up the plugin for maximum use of the many features it offers.

One of those “features” that RE agents seem to love is SLIDESHOW.

NEVER USE NEXTGEN GALLERY SLIDESHOW

Dave, are you kidding?  No, I’m not kidding.  Please get over it and move on to the best thing for listing images,  Thumbnail Galleries.  I say this for a couple of reasons.

First, as a web guy.  You don’t want to create an unpleasant and frustrating experience for your visitor.  Nextgen slideshows can do this in two ways:

1.  If you didn’t configure the slideshow, or you have a plugin conflict all your view will ever see is this:

2.  When I’m looking at listing photos, I don’t want to see a slideshow.  I didn’t come for a movie.  I came to quickly see if this place has what I’m looking for in a home.  I want those thumbnails to scan quickly and enlarge when I want more detail.  I don’t want a slideshow to sit through.

I want to know there are 15 or 20 or 40 images I can tell that with thumbnails.  I can tell if a Youtube video is going to be long, but a slideshow, I have no idea how long it is going to take to see it; that is if it ever loads.

So please, do your views a favor.  Show the listing photos in a gallery, not a slideshow.

This post is short and sweat.  Here is the hidden value of having and IDX solution that keep your visitors on your site.  Bounce Rate.

Another way of putting it, Real Estate Porn.  I a session at BlogWorld a couple of years ago about travel blogging, the speaker called it travel porn. Travel porn is people looking at pictures of far off places they would never visit themselves but would like to dream about going there someday.

The beauty of IDX search is this:  No one is limited to viewing only homes they can afford.  Buyers can spend hours on your site looking at homes they could never purchase, but should they win the lottery, would consider it.  It is that desire to hope and dream and look at all those homes they would love to have that keeps them on your site.

But don’t forget, this applies to IDX that is ON YOUR site, not a sub-domain on the IDX Providers site.

Where are you Going with Your Site?

This is one of the most significant questions you need to keep in mind at ALL times.  It is the first question I ask of potential clients.  The answer determines what kind of site and functionality we build into it.

Let’s take this site.  The Real Estate Blog Lab.  What are they keywords I’m trying to rank for in the search engines?  What are my long tails and Short tails searches?  What do I need to focus on to rank for the search terms I want to rank for?

The Answer.  I DON’T HAVE ANY.  There is nothing I want to rank for with this site.  Do I want more traffic to my site?  I’ll take it, but do I want it?  Not really, I don’t have a bunch of affiliate links or ads I’m selling on the site.  I have a luxury with the Lab.  I’m not looking for business from it, I’m not promoting an event, a service, or selling a product or service.

This means If I want to load down this site with a 100 plugins and it takes 15 seconds to load, so what?

Other types of sites where this applies

• Hobby sites
• Event Sites  (There’s no competition, if you are BlogWorld you are BlogWorld)
• Most Photo Blogs  (very little competition)
• Niche market sites (again where there is very little competition for the search)

You get the idea.  There are sites like these that have little or no competition for rankings. They don’t need to be careful of page load times.  They can pretty much do whatever they want.  No leads to capture because people want what they have anyway, that’s why they come to their site in the first place.

But if Your Site is a Real Estate Business Site . . .

You don’t have the luxury of kludging up your site with lots of Eye Candy and bells and whistles that slow your site to a crawl.  Well, you might get away with it if you want to spend a couple of thousand a month to an SEO company to “Get You On Page One of Google”.

I troll ActiveRain for Bad Practices

I’ll admit it.  I get a few good post ideas from reading posts on Active Rain.

I see so many REALLY BAD IDEAS there promoted as “REALLY GREAT” that most of the time I can’t read more than one at a time. There are way to many topics to go into.  One of my favorite.  Change your permalinks to something that is better SEO.  Oh do they mention that this will cause your site to return all 404 page not found errors to visitors until your site is re-indexed unless you are some kind of 301 redirection in place?  No, they always seem to leave that part out.

Overselling on your Website – The kitchen sink syndrome

Let me BURY you in information and content.  There was a site a few months back in Florida that was being held up as a “beautiful” example of an RE site, it has accordion sliders (2 of them) on the home page, lots of things like mortgage calculator, (We all need that calculator) and on and on.  And on my High Speed Cable connection it only took 18.9 seconds for the homepage to load.
At Mcds Free WIFI it took over 30 seconds for the home page to load.  Oh, yeah, that’s a powerful example of what an RE site should be like.

Page 1 or DIE

Let’s face it, you have to be on page 1 and preferably position 1 – 5 to be considered viable placement.

The one other location that is sometimes useful is top of page 2 but that is a consolation prize at best.

Therefore, the most important question you have to keep in front of you at all times.

What Kind of Site Do I Have.

The second question?  What is my Target Audience. But that’s another story.

Comments are Frosting – LEADS are the Main Course

I can’t tell you how many postings I read on various forums for RE that are focused on getting people to leave comments.  Let me tell you straight up.  Comments are frosting.  You don’t need frosting to survive.  You need LEADS.

I don’t care if anyone ever leaves a comment on my RE blogs.  Quite a few comments I do get come from real estate agents trolling for back-links.  Now and again there is a question from a consumer about a topic.  But I don’t need comments on my site.

Of course I enjoy getting comments, but I don’t NEED comments for my blogs to be a success.

What I do need are people that give their contact information because they want a service we are providing.  Being a real estate site there are RE services which we provide and no they aren’t white paper articles on Selling or Buying a home or market reports to which they can “subscribe”

They are four buttons which I believe should be easily found on every real estate site wanting to capture leads.

Button 1.  Search For Homes

I fought paying for IDX on our site for years.  Finally I gave in biting the bullet and providing IDX search (By Diverse Solutions) on my primary RE site.  It was and is the best $1000 we spend every year.  Does it capture leads.  YES it does.  Do we farm them?  No we don’t, we leave them to search as much as they want without requiring registration.  Do they register?  Oh, yes they do, we have over 1000 registered users searching for their next home.

Why would they register if you don’t require it?  It is the only way they can save their custom searches.  It is like pre-screening your leads.  We used to have 20 free searches then require registration.  I can’t even share some of the email addresses that were given so they could keep on searching.  Let’s just say the WTF@gmail.com or a variation of that or a Disney character were quite common.  Now we only get the names of those that want to save their searches.

Button 2  Home Finder

There are the DIY folks that want to do their own searching, and there are others that don’t have or want to take the time to search.  These “Leads” are people that simply want to input their criteria for a new home and have listings sent by email to them that match their criteria.  A form listing the most common wants and needs with a “Additional Comments:” at the bottom is great for getting leads which are then setup in the MLS with a client portal.

Button 3  What’s My Home Worth?

Those first two buttons are for buyers.  This one is for sellers.  Fill out the form and get a CMA.  Of course we all know you can’t give a complete CMA without seeing the condition and amenities of the property.  But getting potential listing clients to fill out the form is a foot in the door to a potential listing.

Button 4  Relocation Package

Back to buyer; relocation buyers.  These are future leads.  People that aren’t actively looking for a home but are thinking or planning on moving to your location in the future.  Putting together a relocation package is pretty typical, why not offer it on your site.  You send them out anyway.  And when you send the package offer to set them up with a client portal to receive listings to give them an idea of what homes are selling for that match their criteria.

Location, Location, Location

1. Above the fold (No scrolling to find them).
2. Probably above all those social media buttons you offer for people to connect on . . .
   You want to connect with them directly not just by SM  Put those buttons first.
3. Upper Left corner (first choice) upper Right corner (second choice).
4. Make them prominent, easy to see, BIG is better.

If you don’t have these four buttons where they can be easily clicked you are missing out on lead capture for your site.

Comments are frosting, LEADS are the main course.