A widget allows for dynamic Web content or database information to be syndicated to numerous users simultaneously with the widget installed. They can emulate coloring books, play videos and video games see the latest news and events, or deliver new and recent real estate listings in your area.Widgets are pieces of code that come in several forms.

They can be embedded within existing operating system, website or can be freestanding

1] Operating system widgets (often seen as a part of the Windows or Mac OS),

2] Internet widgets (generally embedded with in an HTML page),

3] Freestanding widgets that do not require an operating system or a webpage.Most widgets resemble a tiny window on the user’s desktop or Web page, similar to picture-in-picture television sets.

What they do, and how they promote their clients, varies.

“Widgets are an extension of someone’s personality,” says Chris DeWolfe, co-founder of News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace. “It offers a window into their taste in music, how they feel at a certain time, their opinions. Just having friends and sending messages on a profile can be utilitarian.”And they’re catching on…·        

 As the popularity of widgets grows, so does their potential as a source of revenue. Ads on social networks hauled in $1.9 billion in 2008 and expect 2.6 billion in 2009, says researcher eMarketer. ·        

  Although Facebook members generally avoid banner ads, they are more receptive to widget ads, according to a study in July by market researcher Grunwald Associates.

“They’re a new form of self-expression, but on a grand scale,” says Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. “When you think back to high school, kids put stickers on their lockers to let others know what was important to them. This principle now applies to people of all ages with widgets.”

Relevance

Everyone runs their business a little differently. Each KW associate has a different angle and business needs. Make sure that the tools you add to the space where you are branding yourself online are relevant to your site, your angle and your needs. Many agents might focus on a niche or specific target market when it comes to their website. So, why not add a widget that provides local content, events, and even property listings  

Value

Every time you see a shiny new widget that you want for your site always ask yourself “would this widget be helpful for the buyer, seller or investor coming to my site to research real estate?” If the answer has any form of the word “no” in it, do not click on the widget.. close the page close your browser and put it out of your mind.. , no matter how cool it is. Be discriminating in your widget selection.

Widgets are there to improve the user experience and keep users coming back to your site, therefore they MUST be useful and related to the overall context of your site. It’s ok to add widgets, just aim for those that compliment your niche

“Advertisers are no longer wanting people to click on a link to buy something,” said Haroon Mokhtarzada of Freewebs’ 27-year-old founder and chief executive. ”Now they’re wanting people to engage in a neat product while they build brand equity.”

This is something the companies take into consideration when they build their widgets - Your home page, your most valuable website real estate and should have your most valuable information and/or tools. You want your visitor engaging in your website and your brand as much as they’re engaging in the tools on your website.  

NOTE - One word of caution - anytime you add a widget to your site, you’re pulling data from another web site’s server. This can slow the load time of your own page dramatically, so be careful with the number of widget you install. Snazzy interactive widgets can guzzle computer resources, which will slow down page loads.  

Placement

For the most part, you see widgets in the sidebar of websites. If you would like to see your widgets repeat from page to page, you can test them to see if they fit in the focus boxes.  Limited space means that we all have to balance usefulness, value, fun and quantity on these websites.

Wherever there is a WYSIWYG editor on the agent websites, you can use a widget. W-Y-S-W-Y-G means what you see is what you get  Widgets are code and 95% of the time, must be inserted using the Source function of the WYWIWYG editor.

Sometimes when you take code from one source (the host of the Widget) and use it in other places, it might not work like it does in the place you found it.Quite frequently inserting code… inserting code incorrectly can break a website. These widgets can make or break a good website depending how they are used.. And it is up to the individual user to assess that riskSteps on adding HTML Code/Widgets to Your eAgentC Website –  

1. The Widget must provide you with html code to embed into your website. Find and copy the code. Depending on the site, it may be called HTML, Source Code, Embed Code or something similar.
2. Go to the desired step on the agent website admin tool with the WYSIWYG you intend to embed the code into.
3. HINT – (not necessary) – type a word into the WYSIWYG as a place marker and hit save
4. To add the code: Click the Source button on the toolbar.  Place your cursor in the desired spot and paste the code– if you typed the place marker word, hit Ctrl+F to find the word – highlight the word and paste the code over it. 

Where does one find widgets?

Entire communities have formed up that provide all the different widgets available to the progressive web page designer these days.There are about a million places to get widgets, but these are some of the larger directories.

www.widgipedia.com

www.widgetbox.com 
Widgets for Realtors

Eppraisal Widgets:  These are super cool – Widgets for instant home valuations and community information,  median sales price for homes in that area, Enter a city, state or zip code to get a list of the most expensive zip codes in that area., or get the cheapest homes in the area·        

Trulia Widgets Trulia Stats: Shows a graph of the median or average listing price and listing volume for any location you choose.Trulia Map: TruliaMap is a free tool to help real estate professionals showcase their listings on an interactive, easy-to-use map.

Mortgage Calculators and Mortgage Rate Tickers – §         Vflyer Mortgage Payment Calculator Designed for real estate agents, the Mortgage Payment Calculator lets visitors determine what their mortgage payments will be based on the loan amount, interest rate and any taxes.§        

Mortgage Rates Live rates for mortgages, home equities, CDs & autos.Home Valuation – Zillow Search Box, or Cyberhomes API.http://www.zillow.com/webtools/widgets/ - 9 real estate widgets on their site.

Blidget – ·make a widget for your RSS feed, customize the size and appearance for the perfect look on your website. http://www.widgetbox.com/create/create_widget.jsp. ·         www.feedburner.com – customize the display of your RSS

Home Staging Ideas and examples - Home Staging RSS Feed:

Hyperlocal Content - “hyperlocal” info can help you carve your niche and further emphasize your local expert status. Try: Upcoming Events, Google Calendar   iBegin Weather, and Walkscore 

Industry News, Information & Statistics - Nothing supports your message like great data! Try: Trulia Stats, Altos Research, Wiki Widget - A widget that searches and provides free results and answers from the largest online real estate encyclopedia - Real Estate Wiki.

Featured Listings - Showcase all your listings and get additional online exposure. Try:  vFlyer, TruliaMapCustom NewsMSNBC launched NewsWare which brings you a variety of news widget options, including the Spectra Visual Newsreader and NewScroller a build-your-own news ticker.

Collaboration  http://www.sharethis.com/  ShareThis makes a widget that any content publisher can use on their. It gives users a very easy way to share a story they are reading. With this tool,  individuals sharevia their social network, or through e-mail or instant message

http://www.addthis.com - Increase your traffic and page rank with the #1 bookmarking and sharing service -

AddThis features 

Social Media Build your community and foster interaction by utilizing widgets from your favorite social networks. Try: MyBlogLog, Realbird Widget for ActiveRain, YouTube, Flickr, Criteo Autoroll  Real Estate Technology
MyTechOpinion is your go-to resource for all the real estate technology happenings. get the MTO widget  

A Splash of Flash?

For the real estate professional, using widgets can mean anything from embedding a Youtube video virtual tour, embedding a slideshow or RSS feed. Slide –www.slide.com. Upload pictures and create one of 5, ready-made slide shows. If the user would like to see the unformatted show, they can choose to by clicking the slideshow button on the widget http://www.southaustinteam.com/atj/user/AdditionalGetAction.do?pageId=175499

Instant Chat?  - Meebo –  embed a chat widget onto your home page – here are the instructionsYou will need to log into meebo with your meebo account that created the widget to chat with your meebo me widget visitors.

When a visitor visits your web page where your widget is embedded, your meebo me widget name will appear on your meebo buddy list. The visitor’s name will appear underneath the widget name. If your visitor did not set a nickname on the widget, you will see guest#####.

To chat with the visitor, double-click the visitor’s name on the buddy list. if somebody is browsing my site, they can see whether or not I’m online. If I am and they have a question, they simply find the chat box and type it in.  I respond the same way. Even If I’m offline, they can still type a question, and I’ll get it the next time I login.

You must have the browser open with the Meebo page up for you to be ‘online’, otherwise you can install the Jabber client. The help instructions say this will work.   

How to embed almost anything in your website·        

• Embed RSS Feeds in Web Pages·        
• Embed High Quality or HD YouTube Videos·        
• Embed MP3 music and other Audio·        
• Embed Flickr Photos and Slideshows·        
• Embed Picasa Web Albums·        
• Embed Events from Google Calendar·        
• Embed Very Large Photographs ·        
• Embed Charts and Graphs in Web Pages·        
• Embed GIF Animations and Screencasts·        
• Embed Chat in your Blog·        
• Embed Word Documents·        
• Embed PowerPoint Presentations·        
• Embed Spreadsheet Data·        
• Embed Adobe PDF Files·        
• Embed Flash (SWF) or Flash Video (FLV)·        
• Related: How to Embed FLV Flash Videos·        
• Embed LinkedIn Profile·        
• Embed Google Maps in Web Pages·        
• Embed Another Webpage in your Blog·        
• Embed Windows Media or QuickTime movies·       
• Embed Other Fonts in Web Pages
• Embed your Lifestream in a Web Page

Feel free to visit Graham Cohen’s site

Social Networking – “What’s in it for me?” 

Getting Started

Probably the biggest attraction of social networking sites for most business owners is cost, or lack thereof. Setting up an account on any of the social networking sites out there is free, but the variety of services they provide rival the abilities of costly media advertising campaigns.The only items that will cost you money are the digital camera (or video camera) and your computer. The investment you make is time, but as we’ll soon see, it’s well worth it.  

Lack of information – or lack of good information - is the biggest annoyance most Internet users have. Except for a few major sites, most of the information on the Internet is fluff, advertising in disguise. Users are getting sick of the bombardment of fluff. Content that actually fills a void makes an impact. If that content is yours, they’ll remember you when it’s time to select a real estate agent. Placing your knowledge of a particular area on a high visibility social networking site can lead prospects to your door.

But first, in order to do so, you need to be willing to pull away from the pack and become an expert in a particular area or niche. This will require two things that most of you have already – commitment of time and passion for what you do.

Thinking Like a Customer

Think like the customer and then show them what they want to see. It’s the basic premise of real estate marketing. The difference now is how you’re getting your message across.If you don’t think you can make an impact using social networking sites, do this. Go out to YouTube and search anything real estate related in your community. You’ll probably notice that there is not a lot going on. It’s a gap. It’s a gap you can fill easily and inexpensively.

Most any of the social networking sites provide you with an incredible opportunity to carve out a market niche for your business. When you consider what it actually costs you to take advantage of what’s available, it’s hard to consider not using the tools to build your business.

According to a NAR study in 2007, 84% of home buyers now use the Internet to  search for a home, which is up from 80% in 2006. Most of those buyers (82% of them) used a real estate agent to complete their purchase.

Social networking gives you the chance to attract new targeted traffic to your existing web site and puts your face in front of thousands of these potential customers – and get you referrals

Social Networks

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows you to post 140 character ‘tweets’ to your followers. - not really.. it’s just what they call your  friends, colleagues, and people who share similar interests, and they can follow you. Twitter is a social networking platform that has been growing seemingly exponentiallyaccording to CNN: It is a great way to brand yourself and is becoming quite popular - a 1,374 percent jump in visitors in 12 months –

Businesses can form instant direct relationships with their customer base by signing up and using the service regularly, and according the models Twitter is trying out – you will soon be able to advertise to the Twitter community as well.The best way to build a list of interesting people is to go to the

Twitter search engine at search.twitter.com and plug in your interests.Add people based on your interests, as most people will follow you once you start following them.Twitter was built to accommodate being updated from phones. The origin of the 140 character limit is the 160 character limit for SMS, which leaves some space for a name in addition to a 140 character message Some general rules to follow while tweeting -

o            Give Your Followers Value - Answer questions that your followers have if you know the answer. Share helpful tips for your industry that they can take away from the conversation and use

o            Tweet in Peak Times Peak times are basically during the day throughout the work week.

 o            Tweet Regularly Tweet often, but only if you have something of value to say. You should aim for a few tweets a day. Do not install a bot program to Tweet for you -

o            Leverage your other online real estate – show off your blog or  website, show off your new listings, share updates that you make to it

o            Create a Custom Profile Page Background - This tells your potential followers that you care about your Twitter presence and will probably be a good person to follow.

o            Give Out Free Stuff - Sitepoint grew their followers by 10,000 in a week. All they did was give away a free e-book that was usually only for sale as a paper book to anyone who followed them on Twitter or gave them their e-mail address.

o            Obey the Law of Reciprocity - Retweet other user’s tweets when you think they are relevant or you can help them out. Do unto others as you would have done to you and you’ll be a valued member of the community.

o            Tweet Really Interesting Stuff Only If you read an article that completely rocks your world, tweet it. If articles are rocking your world a number of times a day, pick only the few that rock your world the most.

o            Don’t Tweet Confidential Stuff -

The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter

 Question from the last Web Conference over TwitterSubject – Observing twitter posts for new homes or updates to listings.  Jonathan Osman is one of many agents that uses Twitter as a real estate hot list. The tweet provided a few listing details and a link to the listing or agent website through Tinyurl (tinyurl.com) in order for the URL to fit into the tweet

Question – Does using tinyurl instead of an actual link to your website help with linkback SEO

Answer - TinyURL does pass rank. It’s the same thing as a url redirect. The easiest way to tell is to look at the HTML of the link – if it has a “nofollow” in the <a href/> then it does not pass rank. 

Filling those gaps with Youtube and other video sitesYouTube is the best-known video sharing site these days. There are many others, but Google owns Youtube. Combining the gap filling concept with Youtube, you can provide a video that highlights the lifestyle and quality of living in a given community. Once uploaded, the video is searchable by the YouTube community. Why not create a series of videos that capture what’s great about living in your community? If you do this and post it, people will find it, and when they do, they find you.  

Microsoft Photo Story – (XP USERS) If you don’t have videos, create slideshows using your digital photos. touch-up, crop, or rotate pictures. Add special effects, soundtracks, and your own voice narration to your photo stories. Personalize them with titles and captions. Small file sizes make it easy to send your photo stories in an e-mail. Watch them on your TV, a computer, or a Windows Mobile–based portable device.  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=92755126-a008-49b3-b3f4-6f33852af9c1&DisplayLang=en  

Tubemogul.com will post to many video sites at the same time. Start and account and pick the sites you want to upload to. And don’t forget to link back to your site!!!

MySpace.com, Facebook.com - Real Estate Lead Generation

 52% of the users are between the ages of 18-25, 15% are under 17, which means the rest are over 26 years old. – insidefacebook.com

How does one actually go about getting business on MySpace and Facebook?

The answer to this question is to simply drive traffic where you know leads can be converted. Both Myspace and Facebook have the ability to drive traffic to real estate website, and your website was built to convert leads. When posting messages to friends and speaking to others about the happenings in your (and their) life, be sure to drop a line such as, “Hey, I listed 123 Sesame Street yesterday. Have a look!” or “Did I ever tell you I was in real estate? Take a look at my site!”.

You will most likely be dropping messages by friends and family, and these people are your network and sphere. There’s no reason why this message left on Myspace or Facebook shouldn’t be considered as a “touch” or “contact” for lead generation purposes, Why not dedicate some time to it? 

Be ready though.. it’s scary how many people from your past will find you. But remember this - the average person will know at least a couple people throughout the year that are looking to buy or sell a home, so you owe it to yourself to stay in touch with those you already know.

LinkedIn - How LinkedIn Really works
For the linkedin traditionalist, you need to only like or link to to people you know and trust. That way, when other contacts are looking to use the services or hire someone from your contact list, they know they can have a higher level of trust in that person. That sounds good in theory, but LinkedIn doesn’t work that way anymore. Too many people have signed up and too many other people are offereing opinions/recommendation for too many people -  so the “rules” have changed. get what i’m saying?

• For many people using LinkedIn today, the game is to link up with as many people as possible. For someone trying to reach an audience of potential people to hire and/or give them work (i.e. real estate agents, mortgage brokers, lawyers, etc.), you want as many connections as you can get because each connection gets you that much closer to someone who may be looking for your services in the future.

Here are four good reasons why you should be on linked-in

• Real estate professionals are still pretty novel on the site, so there is plenty of room to stick out.
• It is really easy to stand out… Simply upload your email address book and ask previous clients for recommendations. (will prompt you as soon as you sign up)
• The site is primarily made up of primarily tech savvy people.
• What’s the worst that could happen?

Other Real Estate 2.0 for SEO tools:

• Blogs:  probably most widely used symbol of Real Estate 2.0  these journals or commentaries are incredible tools to drive traffic to your website. . Blogs can be on a free-standing site you create, a brokerage site, a real estate–oriented site that also includes listings, or a site designed to host real estate bloggers.

eAgentC Blog – Realtor.com blog powered by Top Producer Active Rain  - , You are likely to get referrals here, rather than leads for business to the consumer directly. The “ActiveRain Real Estate Network” is a free online community for real estate professionals run on behalf of its members. Our goal is to create a valuable resource of information and ideas for real estate professionals and their clients.

• Wikis: These are compilations of information from a variety of contributors. Real estate networking gurus are creating wikis for their local communities, asking visitors to their sites or blogs to comment on schools, shopping, and other topics of interest to buyers and sellers. Web sites such as Inman.com and Zillow.com are also creating real estate wikis, asking real estate professionals to contribute their community insights.

• Mash-ups: This term refers to combining elements from different Web companies on your own site. That could mean combining Google maps with local demographic information. (you can see the design I stole from Todd Ohlde and Jonathan Osmaon on www.southaustinteam.com The goal, as with wikis, is to give potential customers community information that will help them decide where they’d like to live.  (

Social networking and Search Engine OptimizationOne of the most important aspects of search engine optimization is the building of backlinks, which is something that social networking allows you to easily do. 1. Del.icio.us2. Technorati3. Digg4. Stumble Upon5. Google Notebook6. Furl7. Yahoo Buzz8. Reddit9. MyAOL 

Other social Networking Sites to check out

Ning, - featured on a previous tech call – create your own community and social network – share collaborate, communicate.  

Real Estate Voices, “RealEstateVoices is a real estate social news site designed to help you discover the most interesting articles of the day, as voted and suggested by your fellow users”, (www.realestatevoices.com, 2008).Trulia Voices - Consumers can ask real estate–related questions and get answers from real estate pros in their area.

Wanna Network, have fun while you network with other real estate professionals across the nation

Zolve - based in Colorado Springs, Colo., launched in mid-October 2007 with 2,800 members (membership is free). Is now HUGE and allows business referrals with contracts on its site creating a digital paper trail for any referral.My Agent Book – another online community network, share collaborate, communicate. General rule overall for Social networking – There is definitely a right way and a wrong way to use social networking to engage prospective clients. “Hard selling” or soliciting people you find online is a sure way to get “blocked” from another user. Agents who have had the most success on sites like Twitter have used it to become a resource for those looking for information in their area. By showcasing their knowledge and expertise through a blog, and then using Twitter to bring attention to that blog, an Agent can become a trusted advisor or resource for their local market. 

Some links I pulled from people I follow in twitter. – good for your soul, not necessarily your business J  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq6b9bMBXpg&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM

Feel free to take a look at Graham Cohen’s Site

 There are some general rules you can follow to get your website to appear on the lesser known engines, as well as Google.  Here are the best ways to organize yourself and your website when putting it together.

Where does SEO begin?  ”on-page” and “off-page” criteria.

The first thing that one must realize about search engine optimization – for any search engine - is that to be implemented correctly it must be broken down into 2 distinct factors “on-page” and “off-page” criteria.Always remember that search engines do not consider “websites” they consider the “pages” of those websites. There should never be a debate as to which is more important between “on page” and “off page” characteristics as the truth is both are equally as important. However once one defines the two there is a logical order in which they should be considered.

On page/Off page characteristics defined

‘On Page Characteristics’ are anything you can effect within the construction of a single page. This includes everything that is placed in the headers, body, and on-page links (both internal and external). Special attention should be given to: Title and meta description, Keyword proximity, keyword density and relevance… Off Page Characteristics refer to all links (both from pages contained within your own website and from pages of other websites) that point to your specific page(s).

ON PAGE Characteristics

Every search engine defines a sites’ importance or page rank and we’re going to examine how to boost this with regard to any of them.

What keywords are people searching with?

This is the basic question that needs answering before you can start constructing you site. Best way to start is to ask yourself “what would I type in if I was looking for my listings, products or service?”. Type in the terms you use and see what comes up, If the sites you see at the top of the search results are offering similar products and services then you are right on the money. First -  try putting together a quick questionnaire 5-10 answers based on 2 questions:

Describe the top 5 products/services on my site?   What would you type in a search engine to find these products/service?

 Second – This can be done as you do the first step. Try to reverse engineer the keywords those at the top are using – for Internet Explorer users, click on View à Source -  pay particular attention to what they place after the <title> tags and tags and the tags with the word ‘meta’.  You don’t need to be an HTML guru, because the title tag and the meta tags are normally at the top of the code. Topics and Keywords:You have done all of your keyword research and you know what keywords people are using to find your products and services. Now you need to build a site that will not only reflect those product and services but will raise to the top of the search engines for those terms, so that the people will be able to find them.

Plan on grouping your keywords

For each page of your website you will want to target different keywords. To maximize the potency of each page for its targeted keyword search phrases plan on optimizing for a “maximum” of 3 keyword terms. Also group “like terms” so that you may increase your keyword density with much less effort.Example:
Keywords: south austin, cherry creek, shady hollow, travis heights,  central austin, barton hills, tarrytown In this list I have two very obvious groupings – if you lived in Austin, you would know that the first four I listed are plainly in South Austin and the rest are in central. The proper way to optimize is to assign “Page 1″ to the first group of South Austin keywords and “page 2″ to the central Austin keywords. If these 2 pages and subjects were your entire site then you’d probably want the more competitive group to be optimized for the home page as it usually has the highest page rankLocation, Location, Location…and FrequencyOne of the main rules in a ranking algorithm involves the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Each major search engine has developed a different algorithm. All the algorithms are looking for a combination of relevance, trust, and community value. But they don’t share the same databases or criteriaSearch engines operate the same way. Pages with the search terms appearing in the title are often assumed to be more relevant than others to the topic.It’s a good rule to include main keyword phrases as high up in your body as possible – if you’re including a lot of other text this is again for a logical reason, the logic being “the higher up a word or phrase is in the body of a document the more important it must be.” Frequency is the other major factor in how search engines determine relevancy. A search engine will analyze how often keywords appear in relation to other words in a web page. Those with a higher frequency are often deemed more relevant than other web pages.

OFF Page Characteristics

Crawler-based search engines have plenty of experience now with webmasters who constantly rewrite their web pages in an attempt to gain better rankings. Because of this, all major search engines now also make use of “off the page” ranking criteria.Page RankThe term “pagerank” – the tool can be turned on in the Google Toolbar - which isn’t the actual pagerank, but can give you a good idea- is specifically designated to evaluate and weigh “off page” criteria.

From Google – PageRank – summarized

PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance.

A page “votes” an amount of PageRank onto each page that it links to. The amount of PageRank that it has to vote with is a little less than its own PageRank value (its own value * 0.85). This value is shared equally between all the pages that it links to.So the pagerank of the site that links to your own is important – in other words – the more popular a site is that links to your site (the higher the pagerank), the more popularity rubs off on your site.

Link Analysis  - Off the page factors are those that a webmasters cannot easily influence. Biggest among these is link analysis. By analyzing how pages link to each other, a search engine can both determine what a page is about and whether that page is deemed to be “important and relevant“ and thus deserving of a ranking boost.

Example - A home warranty site that links to your site will be better for your page rank than one that sells shoes. To a spider, www.domain.com, www.domain.com/. Domain.com, domain.com/index.php are all different domain names. Standardize the way your site is linked to, by standardizing the way you give others your domain name or the domain name you use to link to pages within your site.

Clickthrough  - Another off the page factor is clickthrough measurement. In short, this means that a search engine may watch what results someone selects for a particular search, then eventually drop high-ranking pages that aren’t attracting clicks, while promoting lower-ranking pages that do pull in visitors.

Get Linked This process hurts a lot of the time. The most important aspect of ranking in search engines is about getting good, solid links around your Web pages. You can only achieve that if your content is strong enough to induce it.Ask yourself, “Why would anyone want to link to my site?” Be brutal. Write down as many reasons as you can about why other sites should link to you. If you can’t convince yourself why another site would want to link to you, you seriously need to question what your value proposition is and how your site promotes it (or not, as the case may be).

The goal of a website

The best converting websites are those that have:·       Clearly marked navigation ·       Well laid out access to order pages ·       Obvious and logical click choice ·       Esthetically pleasing design Make sure you clearly lay out what it is that you have to offer and how the visitor can obtain it and your done. – remove all of the default text

Being Frank about Search Engine Rank, by the FTC - http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt119.shtm

Add URL to Yahoo Site Explorer - https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit  - can validate and submit the .xml feed.

Add URL to MS Live & MSN Search URL Submission - http://search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx

for more information and ideas visit www.southaustinteam.com

Austin Property Search - By Zip Code

Click on each zip code and refer to the search within to search for properties in these areas

www.propertysearchwebsite.com

by Graham Cohen

 

View Larger Map

Online Advertising We talked about ad words and other forms of online advertising in our April and May tech calls – We’re moving into a new era with advertising.. People are taking their money out of offline and spending it onlineA Dynamic AdReaction survey shows what types of ads consumers are receptive too. (graphic below)  Users seem to be receptive to online search ads and regular online advertising. The Kelsey Group, a market research company in Princeton, N.J., estimates that sales revenue from searches for local businesses and searches on wireless devices will increase to $13 billion in 2010 from $3.4 billion in 2005.So.. we know the experience is generally worth it, though the learning curve may be steep.NOTE: You have to know what you are doing or you can lose a lot of money   Effective Use of Pay Per Click - Recently Built Websites Has Google stopped crawling your page because it’s the same old content as all the other Market Center or Agent Websites?A new website may not get listed in the natural results for its company or brand name for several weeks after it’s built, this is especially true in Google. If this is the case, and you are spending money on offline promotions with the objective of driving visitors to your new website, it would be a good idea to include your business and brand name in an online Google Adwords campaign until the search engines index your newly built siteEffective Use of Pay Per Click – Your Company NameBidding on your own company or brand name in a pay per click campaign –It’s an important issue because a good percentage of traffic to many websites is generated by company name or brand-based phrases,… and often this traffic converts!!Example – Yard sign or other marketing says Keller William’s… the customer gets home and remembers Keller Williams so they type in Keller Williams and the city they live in.. That three word combination can cost as little as $.05/click..–> set a budget of $25/month, if you just want to test the watersWhy one might not bid on their company name: Many businesses are reluctant to pay for visitors that are already looking for their website. It could be described it as feeling like they are paying twice for the same visitor.Why would you just do it anyway? (Information from ReachLocal – international SEM and advertising company)  1)       Pay per Click ‘Quality Scoring’ algorithms (calculations Google uses to determine how much you pay) means you’re likely to get the best deal on your own company and product names. That translates to lower bids and increased ROI2)       It’s insurance. If you slip from the organic rankings for a day or two, your paid ranking will maintain your presence.3)       If you don’t bid, competitors will. In the United States it’s perfectly legal to bid on competitor product and company names. It happens all the time. You can easily outbid them, though, thanks quality scoring (see #1)4)       More often than not visitors using your company name in a search are responding to an offline promotion a word of mouth recommendation or are trying to find a site that they did not bookmark the first time around. Whatever the source, these are highly qualified visitors that have a higher chance of converting to a sale than visitors using other search phrases and every effort should be made to ensure that they can easily find your website.Content? Content! Content Now.. the experts generally advise business owners not to establish a Web presence unless they have time to keep it updated. I found an article by Jean A. Pratt, assistant professor of Information Systems at the University of Wisconsin – She states, ‘A static site may damage the credibility of the business’Remember what the mantra is for SEO, the standard advice to all site owners, regardless of what web space they’re in: most important thing about maintaining a website – CONTENT CONTENT CONTENTWhen creating content, keep in mind that it can come in multiple forms — services, searches, contests, games, video, RSS feeds and even news . It’s critical that the content is interesting and compelling, so it has the chance of being linked to by a fan or customer, It’s also extremely important to have a “yes we can help” customer service attitude. Your loyal customers can be solicited to come back or tell others about their experience. If you are still unsure:1)       look at the competitor’s sites and see what they’re doing, what’s driving traffic to them. 2)       Ask your customers where they go to look for properties or what tools they look for on a real estate website It’s also important to understand that you cannot trick the search engines. Flooding the engines with multiple versions of the same page, repeating the same term over and over - these tactics will only lead to negative traffic from search engines and the likelihood that your site could be banned from being listed in a search engine.You must be diligent in understanding how people are getting to your site and focus on providing quality content that is geared towards the audience that is trying to find you.UsabilitySteve Krug, author of the Web usability guide Don’t Make Me Think (New Riders Press, 2000), says what looks great to a business owner may be totally lost on a user unfamiliar with the site.He suggests that business owners’ watch others test their site. Then devote several hours a month to usability and content. Watching someone use your site for the first time can be a humbling and enlightening experienceAlways ask the question, “Does your site work?” Never assume that it does. Turn your website into a tool people can use repeatedly – build some custom IDX searches, get maptracks (property search using a map, you want people to meet with success on your website or else they won’t go back.  Social Networking and Media   Getting quality, relevant inbound links –
A successful social media marketing campaign can result in many new inbound links to your site.It’s a known fact that inbound links are one of the most important things that influence the rankings of your site. Put two and two together, and it’s easy to see how social media can be a great way to improve your rankings. Using social media websites for reputation management  Getting people talking good things about your business can be a positive way to generate traffic to your site, Conversely, it can be very easy for people to tarnish your reputation on these sites.  Time savers when ranking newly put together sites So if you’re launching a brand new site and you know it’s going to be awhile before it ranks, you might want to consider uploading some videos to YouTube or creating a MySpace profile and building a few good links to it. These sites are crawled frequently and content is automatically considered popular in search engine results Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, Digg.com These are all social networking and media, .. all you have to do is add a profile and your name screams to the top of search engine results