Online Real Estate 101

If you’re looking for ways to improve your website this year but don’t want to spend a lot of time or money, consider adding videos and other multimedia instead of updating your content or changing your layout. With internet speeds always increasing, most users are eager to engage with multimedia like audio and video. Here are some great reasons to add video to your web page today.

1. Large Amount of Information in Not Much Space. – If your website is full of text and seems a little overwhelming, making a short video can significantly decrease the amount of text you need on your page. Rather than erasing all the text, however, consider having video to convey the primary message you want to send and then have supplementary text which supports it. That way, your page will be streamlined and easy to read but will still have plenty of information presented in a variety of ways.
2. Accommodation of Short Attention Spans. - The average person’s attention span seems to get shorter and shorter with each generation and often, even if your website is full of useful information, thoughtfully composed into copious amounts of text and articles, it’s not going to get read. Using a video format can often help bring information to your audience in less time and in a more appealing way.
3. Easier Information Assimilation. - Along with short attention spans, many people do not have the patience or, in many cases, the ability to devote all of their attention to a large block of text. Videos can be a less painful way for many people to get information since, if necessary, they can be watched while doing another activity.
4. Ability to demonstrate, rather than instruct. – Why tell people something when you can show them instead? Video can bring an added element of excitement to your website as you can personally walk visitors through your agency and demonstrate what it is that you do instead of merely discussing it in text. Watching your company work can make your agency come alive for your visitors.

The internet is expanding rapidly, with no end in sight. Typical consumers are turning more and more to web-based information than any other source, and it’s critical that your business have an up to date and cohesive page. Providing your visitors with information in the form of video can drive more traffic to your site and result in higher numbers of sales. Who can argue with that?

Photo Credit: Andrew*

As I think back to my early days on the web (I’ll date myself here) in 2000 with Headhunter.net – CareerBuilder, one of the things that I first learned about was a URL. What exactly is a URL? And furthermore, what is a Querystring? A query what?

This post is going to be a very basic introduction to some common terms in the Monday Q&A series on Online Real Estate 101.

My name is Matthew Swanson and this is my first post on the site. Having been in the internet business for just over 10 years now, I wanted to take some time and give back some of the things that I’ve learned over the past decade. Currently, I head up technology operations at House Buyer Network where we help home sellers that need to sell their house fast.

Ok, intro aside, let’s get into our content for today. First things first, some basic terminology.

URL Structure

What is a URL? The URL specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it. Basically, the URL is the friendly name for a site, i.e www.google.com. Behind every friendly URL, there is a real home (the IP Address where the resource lives).

Linking directly to an IP either in a web page, blog post, tweet, or from an email campaign is bad idea 99.7% of the time. Not to digress, but linking to an IP feels both spammy and you relinquish control of where that link goes (i.e it becomes much harder to change the destination since you are bypassing DNS. So basically the URL is the subset of the URI that you always thinking of for your favorite site (i.e Facebook.com, Realtor.com, etc…)

Now that you’re an URL expert, we’ll get to the beef, the Querystring

You probably see a querystring more times per day than you even know. But what is all that weird text up in the address bar of your browser you ask?

At it’s most simple component, the Querystring is the area within a URI that allows the Page or Website to pass data back to the web server via a GET REQUEST (or javascript on the client side) for processing. The web server can be one of many types (Apache, IIS, etc. – that’s another topic that we’ll cover in the coming Monday Q & A’s). According to the formal definition…

A URL query string allows for flexibility in retrieving data from a web server and possibly from the database used to populate pages for that web server. A read only data store, such as a weather mapping service, is one example where URL query strings can be used with great flexibility.

What that means is everytime you see a real estate listing on a website like Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com, etc.. you’re seeing querystring parameters that help tell the page on the web server what content to show to the user.

Components of the Querystring

The way the querystring is composed is quite simple. Basically, there are a series of tag/value pairs that site developers can utilize to pass data from page to page or request to request from the end user. These pair/values can be anything the developer wants to use. There is a max Querystring length but this can vary from browser to browser. I’d say that you’re safe as long as the Querystring is < 1024 characters.

The first character that starts the use of a querystring is the ? or a #. You can see this in the example below:

Seeing a ? or a # will alert you that you’re starting to see the beginning of a querystring in a URI.

From a development standpoint, one thing that always bothered me was trying to decode the querystring since it’s always so rammed together on a URI. To that end, I wrote a little super secret querystring decoder tool over at What is a Querystring? that you might find useful.

It allows you to pass in a long querystring and then the site will parse the results and show you the data in your browser. Here’s an example snapshot from the super secret querystring debugging tool

I hope you find that tool useful, I’ve used one like it I had written in my development environment for years.

Ok, now on to something a little more advanced to help you understand what SEO URLs are in regard to the querystring.

SEO Rewriting of URLs and Querystrings

Say what? What’s that mean, rewriting what? In the paradigm shift to make pages more SEO friendly if you will, we’re seeing a lot of pages use URL Rewriting to make site pages ‘friendly’ to both human visitors and search engines. Here’s a quick example of a URL in which the ‘Querystring’ was masked using URL rewriting to look like a bunch of physical sub-directories on the web site:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1445--Tangerine-Rose-Dr_Las-Vegas_NV_89142_1110181785
URL: http://www.realtor.com/
Request URI: realestateandhomes-detail/1445--Tangerine-Rose-Dr_Las-Vegas_NV_89142_1110181785

Note that the above URI looks like a bunch of sub-directories off the main URL. When in fact, that page is using an SEO friendly URL rewriting schema. This takes the raw querystring in the days of old and puts it in a more ‘readable’, ‘indexable’ format, etc.

That page behind the scenes is probably calling something like this:

http://www.realtor.com/ViewPropertyDetails.php?type=details&listing=1110181785

The Querystring parameters in this case above would be type=details and listingID=1110181785.

The page that processes the request can then take those two parameters and figure out what the intent of the user was based on that data. Maybe it’s showing a bread crumb trail of where the user was prior to this page. Or maybe, there is some data taken from the Querystring to show back to the user in terms of what they were searching for, etc. For the most part, doing something with the data is pretty simple and useful for end users.

One thing I definitely want to touch on that is very important from the developer side – security. At times, not so nice people can write bots, scripts, and other malicious pieces of software to hurt your site. They will do this so you need to prepared. When you look at Querystrings and the data on them, you must always take into account the user input and be sure to sanitize ANY user input as it could be malicious. Clean, Rinse, and Clean again.

I hope this post has been informative to you about the basics of the URI’s Querystring component and some very basic URL rewriting.

Please comment if you have any questions and we’ll do our best to answer them for you

Cheers, Matthew

Social media sites certainly can be categorized as one of the biggest Internet trends of the last, few years. Social media sites, in short, are where the action is, so it only makes sense that your marketing efforts should be focused on these sites.

Taking a Different Approach

Marketing on social media sites involves a whole different approach than standard marketing techniques. Instead of brow beating people with your offers and deals, you must first gain their trust. You must build a relationship and then wait for them to come to your website through a search engine.

Placing your services or your offer on a social media site doesn’t grab customers and it certainly doesn’t prompt them to visit your website. In short, you must build a relationship with your social media traffic. Otherwise, don’t expect your website traffic to increase through social media sites.

Give your Customers the Tools to Research

Thus far we have established that selling something on social media sites doesn’t necessarily work. But what does? Your goal of establishing a presence through a social media site is to help your customer do their research. If you give them the tools necessary to research, and provide them with the ability to tell others about the information they obtained from you, then you’ve done your job on a social media site.

If you try to sell to your social media traffic through a social media site, you’ve likely lost your credibility. But if you provide them with valuable information that they can use, they will then likely view you as a credible source and will then likely search you out through a search engine.

The Social Aspect of Social Media Marketing

Think of social media marketing like this: make yourself part of the group. Understand the whole social aspect and you’re on your way to successful social media marketing. Earn respect through valuable information and you will soon find that individuals will listen to your suggestions and will likely come to you when they need your service.

In other words, gain trust before offering them anything; because it’s all about trust in the social media marketing game.

Now, once your social media site traffics heads to your website, you can be sure they are ready to make a move. This is where you approach them, in an obvious way, about your products and/or services and what you can offer.

The idea of converting social media isn’t a difficult one, provided you understand the whole concept of building value and trust and establishing relationships so that your media traffic views you as a credible source through which to do business.

Although social media can’t be accomplished in just one, obvious step like other forms of marketing, it can be highly valuable and is usually well worth your time. Just remember that people on social media sites don’t all have the same ideas, notions and goals. However, if you build their trust, you can be sure that they will be ready to buy when they make their way to your website.

Photo Credit: respres

Fresh off our experiment with Heap CRM comes a new experiment for February: Altos Research. Twitter addicts, conference attendees and Lucky Strike Social Media Club members may already be familiar with Altos Research’s co-founder, Mike Simonsen. Besides being an all around nice guy he is also a known peddler of real estate data reports.

Before getting into Altos Research here is a refresher on what our monthly experiments are all about:

What Our Monthly Experiments Are Designed To Do

Each month we choose an online service or product that we’re going to try out over the next 28-30 days. These products/services are chosen at random though we are open to suggestions (let us know what you want to see put to the test in the comments below.)

After the experiment has been chosen we keep you up-to-date on how useful the product/service is for our businesses and whether it’s worth trying and/or paying for.

What is Altos Research?

Altos Research is a third party provider of real estate data reports. These reports include market statistics like pricing trends, whether it’s a buyer or seller’s market, recent activity by zip code (i.e. homes absorbed, number of new listings) and automatically updated website inserts that contain valuable market data for homebuyers.

Here’s an example of the automatically updated inserts on my website HouseMeetsOwner.com:

Why It Was Chosen

When RPR was introduced it rocked the real estate data world. There was even (what I consider to be) an exaggerated death knell for data providers like Altos Research because of the premise that RPR would be the all encompassing source for data real estate pros need.

Upon further digging into RPR I discovered this tidbit (emphasis added):

Members who register with a valid NRDS ID can access non-proprietary, non-MLS/CIE sourced data; however, only MLS/CIE Subscribers/Participants will be able to view MLS/CIE sourced information. There will be no public access to the RPR™, and the database and its data cannot be shared through consumer websites.

This reaffirms my belief that data providers still serve a purpose in our industry so I wanted to give exposure to that cause all the while putting one such provider to the test. Be sure to subscribe to OnlineRealEstate101.com by RSS or email to read about our experience with Altos Research over the next month!

Search engine optimization (aka SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website so that info seeking bots from search engines like Google and Bing can crawl your site quickly and read all of your content. By doing this the search engines can direct searchers to your website if your content is relevant to their search query. Unfortunately, just being relevant won’t get you to #1 in Google.

Another part of SEO is a link value system search bots use to evaluate the importance of each site on the web. The more links you have to your website from highly trusted websites (like CNN.com or your local newspaper’s site) the more important those bots will think your site is.

If the search bots think your site is of some importance they will place you higher in the search engine result pages (i.e. third result on page 1 instead of result #18 on page 2) than sites with similar information but no sites linking back to them.

Here’s an example:

Website #1 is considered very trustworthy because it has been around for 10 years and has over 25,000 other websites linking to it. If Website #1 links to Website #2 (your site) then the info seeking search bots see your site as more important and trustworthy than Website #3 which has no links from other sites to it.

That leads us into our Monday Q&A question…

Question:

“What is anchor text?”

Answer:

The link text Website #1 uses to describe your website will play a major role in how the search bots use your site. That link text is called “anchor text”. For example, if Website #1 links to your site with the anchor text “Sarasota, FL real estate” your website is more likely to appear near the top of the search results when someone searches for “Sarasota, FL real estate” than competing Website #3 above which still has no links from other sites vouching for its relevance to that topic.

Here’s an example of anchor text in a link courtesy of Wikipedia.org’s definition for anchor text:

<a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page”>Wikipedia</a>

The anchor text in this example is “Wikipedia”; the unwieldy URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page displays on the web page as Wikipedia, contributing to clean, easy-to-read text.

How do I use anchor text to rank higher in search engines?

You won’t always be able to control the anchor text used to describe your website but when you can be sure to focus on a set of keywords that you want your site to rank higher for.

Doing keyword research with tools like Google’s Keyword Tool will help guide you on keywords and phrases that are most frequently searched for so you can target the largest possible audience.

Have any questions about anchor text or finding keywords for your site? Feel free to leave a comment below!

Last week we added our Facebook fan page box to the sidebar and this week we’re officially announcing (or pre-announcing) our new fan page. Although fan pages almost seem like a dime a dozen these days, we promise to make ours well worth being a part of.

What to Expect

Our Facebook fan page will feature all of the posts we feature here at ORE101 in addition to exclusive content and previews of upcoming content for ORE101 before it goes on the site. The fan page will also be a great way to connect with other fans of ORE101 and so much more.

Join our Facebook fan page today by clicking ‘Become a Fan’ below!

We’re pretty big fans of WordPress around here. It’s such an easy to use, free content management system for your website with a plug-in system that lets you add totally new functionality to your site within minutes.

Question:

“What is a “One Click WordPress Install”?”

Answer:

Part of what makes WordPress so popular is its famous “one click install” which can be done using your web host’s control panel. In the video below, Eric Bramlett walks you through how to install WordPress in one-click using Dreamhost:

Tip: OnlineRealEstate101.com readers can save 20% off a yearly hosting plan with Dreamhost by using promo code ORE20OFF.

Photo Credit: swruler9284

This post contains affiliate links. Find out why we use affiliate links by clicking here.

In January we launched our first monthly experiment with Heap CRM. The point of our experiments is to tear into a product or service, figure out whether there is value to you as a real estate agent/broker, and give our final recommendation.

Heap CRM stood up to our test and delivered on some key points (and a few points we didn’t expect) but there is definitely room for improvement. Check out our full review of Heap CRM, including our recommendation below:

What We Liked:

First, let’s get this out of the way upfront: Heap is a very advanced CRM. Loaded with features not found in competitors like Highrise HQ, Heap gives you a way to manage your entire client database without the hassle of using multiple products. The service’s cost ($9/month per user) is also very reasonable considering what you’re buying into.

Tracking Client Follow-Up Emails

You can BCC Heap on emails to clients using FirstName_LastName+yoursite@crmondemand.biz which will save that email in your client’s file. I prefer this format to Highrise’s dropbox@233082.yourname.highrisehq.com. Because of my mobile lifestyle as a REALTOR I don’t always have access to my Highrise dropbox email address (due to different computers, iPhone etc.) so Heap wins for email address retention on the go.

Event and Email Template Creation

One feature I didn’t expect to find in Heap was the event and email template creation. Right now I pay around $240/year to use Diverse Solutions’ dsAgentReach to follow up with clients using an email drip campaign. That’s in addition to the cost of their contact management and search solution.

Theoretically, dsAgentReach could be replaced by Heap’s email and event template package and save me $240/year. I say theoretically because there are some features missing from Heap that DS covers like ISP spam management and unsubscribe requests that make me think twice about going with the more minimal solution offered by Heap.

Heap’s event and email creation is super simple. Just go into Settings -> Email Templates -> Create a New Email Template. Write your email and click ‘Save’. Then go into Event creation and add those emails to your follow-up event template and you’re good to go!

Each time you create a new contact you have the option to run an event template. This template includes a pre-determined time to make calls and send automated emails to prospects from within Heap.

Other Great Features in Heap

• Google Docs Integration
• Report Tracking – See how many leads, opportunities and customers you have in your pipeline. Goal setting also available.
• Customizable Tabs – Rename your tabs to whatever you like. I didn’t see much value in this but I can see how others might.
• Mobile Website – Heap has a pretty decent mobile website design. I tried it out with my iPhone and was impressed by its ease of use.

What We Didn’t Like:

Unfortunately Heap didn’t pass our test with flying colors. One strong pain point for me was the dashboard interface. Heap’s interface feels like it was created in bits and pieces without any refinement going into making the interface cohesive afterwards.

Much of the dashboard could be improved by way of 37signals’ philosophy on building a really well done product with fewer features initially and then adding new features only after the launch package has been refined.

More Human Proofing Needed

During the first round of testing with Heap I found myself endlessly frustrated because I would send emails to the service but they wouldn’t show up. After almost throwing in the towel, I DM’d fellow ORE101er and Heap user @erionhouston to see if he had experienced similar problems. Through some troubleshooting (and Googling) I realized it was an error on my end.

The error was a simple one: I was attempting to send emails to Heap from an email address that it didn’t recognize so they weren’t added to my client files. This was a dumb mistake and error on my end but here’s the kicker: Heap didn’t tell me that I was making a mistake so I stayed frustrated and puzzled. Highrise HQ, on the other hand, sends out the email you see below informing you of your folly and how to fix it.

Is Heap CRM Worth Using For Real Estate?

Yes, with slight reservation. At $9/month per user, Heap is the biggest bargain among web-based CRMs as of this writing. Combine an affordable monthly cost with advanced features like an easy to use email/event campaign creator, calendar export using the iCalendar format and straightforward reports, Heap is a force to be reckoned with.

Heap’s biggest downfalls are in its presentation. The dashboard (aka user interface/control panel) isn’t intuitive and I spent a good amount of time in the ‘Help’ menu trying to figure out how to do things. Contrast that with 37signals’ Highrise HQ which was very easy for me to pick up with only a small learning curve.

Heap is smart — no doubt about it. But in their quest to create a highly functional CRM I think the developer needs to put some of the feature additions on the back burner to focus on making Heap a smart AND easy to use experience.

This post contains affiliate links. Find out why we use affiliate links by clicking here.

Today’s question focuses on a video format that has been gaining a lot of traction outside of its traditional education-focused niche: screencasting.

Question:

“What is screencasting and how can I use it to get more sales?”

What is Screencasting?

Screencasting has been used by educators and trainers to teach students online for many years. In its most basic form screencasting is a video recording of the teacher’s computer desktop with an audio track that allows the teacher to explain what they are demonstrating in the video. That is an oversimplification of what screencasting is really capable of but as a definition it’ll do.

Here are a few real-estate specific examples of how to use screencasting in your business:

• 1-2 minute video showcasing how to use your website’s real estate search.
• Under 30 second clip showing clients how to open email links if they’re not formatted properly.
• Explain market conditions using data reports on your desktop combined with a video from your webcam.

The two leading programs for screencast creation are Camtasia Studio (Mac and Windows) and Screenflow (Mac). You can usually save a few bucks on Camtasia Studio if you buy it at Amazon.com .

Each screencasting package offers a free trial so you can test the software, create some screencasts and see how you like the platform. If you do create a screencast be sure to post a link in the comments below so we can check it out!

Here’s a guide on what you can do with Screenflow from YouTube user SoldierKnowsBest:

Photo Credit: Яick Harris

This post contains affiliate links. Find out why we use affiliate links by clicking here.

Respect your network. (photo credit: jurvetson)

Let’s get the question everyone asks out of the way first: Is there a simple, free show-my-listings app for my Facebook page?

Answer: No, unless your particular IDX provider has created one and failed to put it in the Facebook apps store. There are a few free apps, but all of them require membership to third party sites, or are ad supported, most don’t work, and most don’t even run via IDX but require manual input of each listing and some weird restrictions on your “basic” account. Save yourself the frustration and link to an external page with your listings (I know you’ll still look for that one true app anyway, but at least I warned you).

Here’s where a normal blogger might put a quick rundown of “Why You Need a Facebook Page”, and that might be a wise choice, but I’ve answered the question so often lately I’d rather focus on Stage 2, that is, how to make your Facebook page rock. If you need to know the answer to why, I suggest Jay Baer’s 11 Mind-Blowing Reasons Your Company Needs Facebook. Every drop of it applies to real estate, perhaps especially to real estate. You should also read Mike Mueller’s run down, Why a Fan Page? if you’re still not convinced (at which point I give up).

Let’s begin.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. When Facebook’s native apps do something well, stick with them. Your Photos tab is the best example of this. Nothing you or your web guys make will rival it, unless you just love paying a king’s ransom for redundant technology. Smart page owners find interesting ways to feature and link to these standard apps, while placing an emphasis on superior content in these decidedly un-flashy frameworks.

Make it look good. Use Photoshop or hire someone to create a landing page that represents you and lets visitors know that your page is going to be better than those boring, static pages other agents have. Upload your image somewhere secure and then paste this basic code into the FBML box you’ve made for this tab (with the URL replaced by that of your image):

<img src=”http://insert.address_of_your_image/here” />

Reserve an SEO-friendly username. When you reach 100 followers, go here and grab a URL (facebook.com/XXXXX) that accurately represents what you do, but also takes into account what people are searching for online. It doesn’t need to include your business name, it shouldn’t be too long, and it should establish you as the authority in whatever space you’re attempting to fill, at least on Facebook. For instance, working with Nanette Labastida, we were able to reserve facebook.com/EastAustinHomes, which is generic enough to be a hot search term, but specific enough to ensure she won’t be competing for traffic with impossibly-established terms like “Austin real estate”. Understand that once you choose, your URL is permanent.

Your page name—separate from your username—absolutely has to include either your name or the name of your business, per Facebook’s own terms of service. You should want this, too. Search engines will associate the more generic terms in your username (URL) with the specific information in your page name. For example, if Nanette keeps up her page with content people like and interacts with fans and visitors, Google will soon associate the search “East Austin homes” with Nanette Labastida, and serve up results accordingly. This is especially true if others link to her page form within Facebook and without.

Wall posts aren’t enough. Whether it’s exclusive information or your contagious charm, people fan-up and stay for a reason. You interact with them, keep them in the loop, ask them questions, and find a way to stay in front of them in interesting ways. Jay Baer, in the post I referenced above boils down an interesting recent study:

9. Wall Posts Don’t Impact Popularity

The Sysomos study also found very little correlation between how frequently the Facebook page admin posted to the wall, and total number of fans. However – and this is important – there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of fans.

Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook fan base, it is imperative that you move beyond simple Wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content.

Think: What are you able to give them that others aren’t? It’s not as simple as reading a blog post and plugging in some badass content. Sit down and think about what you’re offering and how to get it to them.

Your page is about them, not you. So is your business, actually, but that’s another discussion. Keep this in mind as your cardinal guiding principle and your Facebook page will not only rock, but net an ROI that no one can sneeze at.