I’ve been cruising some blogs and articles lately (mostly articles) by experienced property commentators writing about single property websites and I must say that I found some of them to contain quite interesting material and they were certainly well written.

However, I did find most of them to be lacking in detail and proper research and the suggestions made therein to be either impractical in real terms, unnecessarily costly or just falling short of offering worthwhile solutions and relevant alternatives.

Let me give you some examples:

I came across a couple of articles by James Kimmins who writes for realestate.about.com. To be fair, James writes quite eloquently and does make some interesting and relevant points and has an engaging writing style that I enjoyed reading, but I did find the articles were somewhat lacking in real practical detail or fully researched facts. I’m not ‘having a go’ at James because he clearly seems intent on providing good information and tips that realty professionals can put to solid use.

The problem is that without including more comprehensive detail or pointing to a resource that provides that detail the reader ends up wondering how to fill in the information  gaps, or even worse goes charging off into cyberspace wasting time, effort and money on solutions that do little more than provide a “hard school” education to the aspiring Web2.0 realty marketer!

Here’s the link to the article in mention, and I’ll tell you why I find it lacking,..(especially considering the links pointing to it are entitled “The Ultimate Internet Listing Strategy”)

http://realestate.about.com/od/bloggingforrealestate/a/website_or_blog.htm

In the article James states the following,..

“Though you don’t have as much flexibility as with a static web page, they will generally meet your needs. The one drawback here is that each blog will need to have the pages copied into it, and the duplicate content won’t help you with the search engines.”

… and I’m thinking “what the?”,.. “not as much flexibility” James,.. are you kidding me?,.. there’s virtually no limit to what can be achieved with WordPress pages if you have the right theme and plugins and/or java scripts to go with them. So, unfortunately those comments are somewhat unwittingly flawed.

Secondly, “duplicate content”?? what duplicate content and where? A properly set up WordPress blog or CMS site will have different information on every page. Even if there are multiple (hundreds and even thousands) that all use the same template for different property listings,.. then each page is differentiated by the respective unique content.

The search engines don’t read CSS and couldn’t care less about design,.. they search content which usually shows up as html or xml language. My point is that those two inaccurate comments could deter prospective use of WordPress by agents for single or multiple property listings,..and more would be the pity because in fact a WordPress “property blog” (which is how the search engines largely see them) will beat the pants off a standard html conventional website every day of the week and twice on Sundays! I do realize it was your intention to speak favorably of the WordPress alternative, but those two comments certainly didn’t help.

The other point mentioned about the use of property address specific domain names such as www.123mainstreet.com and/or linking that to your own static pages seems somewhat confusing and I think it misses the point,.. but I’ll save that for my next post I think because it merits clarification.

Sorry if it seems as though I’m picking on you James but here’s another article of yours that again is interesting, is well written and makes some solid overall points but it sadly lacks any real practical solutions even though article does aim at being useful.
http://realestate.about.com/od/bloggingforrealestate/a/sgl_prop_blog.htm

This article also provides some interesting reading and it’s clearly a sincere effort to be of service, but again I find it’s largely just topical commentary that largely misses the point and the real practical options available.

There are several other blog posts that miss the point and just talk in general terms offering scattered views and inconclusive pointers but I won’t pick on them as they’re almost 2 years old and the market and Web2.0 Internet has changed drastically since then.

A couple of my previous posts give the indications of the real benefits and practical low cost methods of using WordPress as a single property website platform,..and of course I’m unashamedly referring to our very own IS-selling.com Individual Sites using WordPress. You can also read for yourself in our ‘About’, ‘Resources’ and other pages (shortly we’ll have more videos too) about how and why IS-selling.com WordPress sites just rock the competition and can save you countless frustrating hours trying to put something practical and presentable together yourself.

Watch out for my next post on this topic. You can subscribe to RSS here or follow me on Twitter.

It seems the whole world is buzzing about “Twitter”
,.. especially amongst bloggers, internet marketers, and social web2.0 enthusiasts, but really,- just how necessary or practical is it for a realty professional to put on their “must have” list of marketing tools?

So let’s just recap for a moment and give Twitter a brief and simple overview. What is it? Well, it’s basically an on line social community texting service (in the simplest of terms). I mean what’s all the fuss about posting multitudinous 1 and 2 line text messages that are limited to 140 characters or less?

Yep…who’d a thought it huh?… but none the less it’s here and it is immensely popular. In particular young folks between the ages of 18 and 30 make up one of the largest sectors of “Twitterers” although that demographic seems to be maturing daily and is widening and changing all the time as people get to understand that it can be very entertaining and quite useful to connect with other folks and business professionals in their Twitter community.

But let’s stay focused and get right back to how effective it really is for realty professionals. A lot of folks in the realty industry right now are really going wild over Twitter and claiming that it puts them in touch with other professionals in field such as fellow agents, brokers, financiers, etc, and also that it allows them to connect with their vendors and their local community and as such is a good source for prospective listings.

Hmmm,.. well I don’t know about that. I mean, sure it does do that and there are many reports of instances where an agent has reported getting a listing or appraisal request from someone that had been “following” them as a respected and noteworthy agent in their area. But I can only find a few instances of such reports and therefore they seem to be in the minority. For sure Twitter is a great tool for staying connected with people in your profession, and that boost to networking can pay dividends in terms of listings and sales to some notable degree, but what about the real practicalities of using Twitter as a worthwhile listing or selling tool?

Like any form of marketing it all depends on how much time your willing to invest to get the results you’re seeking. Now there are lots of folks that will tell you that it really doesn’t take much time at all to go over to Twitter.com and sign up, and from there just start “Tweeting” ,- i.e. leaving your concise little 140 character reports about what’s happening in your world, your office, your agency, your patch or whatever. That may be so but in fact I myself, like many other “Twitterers” have found that Twittering can suck up huge chunks of time throughout the day and across the week,- especially if you get hooked and start to develop an addiction. The key really is in having a purpose and a game plan in being on Twitter and then staying disciplined and focused to get the best out of it and then thus be able to achieve your goals in having it support you marketing and social networking objectives.

Shouldn’t there be some kind of ROI analysis that any real professional should be doing to gauge the actual tangible returns they’re getting (or likely to get) from the amount of time they put into their Twitter time investment? Usually, when some new form of marketing or communication medium comes out, professionals take a step back and make logical and relative assessments as to whether their resources (time & energy in this case) should be thrown into the latest thing available. But, as with most forms of new buzzworthy and fashionable attraction, practicality tends to get lost in the passion to be a part of the  scene and generally it isn’t until some time later that the reality dawns and we start to ask ourselves the question “why am I doing this and what do I get out of it really?”.

Presently, the fact of the matter is that only a small percentage of Internet users are using Twitter (an indeterminable 6% or less),.. many of which are located outside the US, and of those in the US,- over 55% are from the state of California! There are also other statistical factors to consider such as age demographics (which is shifting upwards into the 35 to 44 year old bracket from the original predominant demographic of 18 to 24 year olds in 2007) So,.. what real percentage of people (and your prospective market) does that leave as candidates that you’ll reach by using Twitter? Furthermore, it appears to me that too many real estate agents and associated realty professionals are simply using Twitter as a large ‘business card billboard’ in the hope or assumption  that they’ll be noticed or that that’s enough. I’d suggest to you that that’s probably about as valuable as leaving a bunch of your business cards on the counter top at McDonald’s (now someone for sure is going to tell me how they get a lot of business that way!).

Now,.. don’t get me wrong,- I think Twitter is good and I quite enjoy wasting spending some time over there at least once a day. Those percentage figures of folks using Twitter are likely to grow substantially and exponentially as the Internet expands and even more folks start blogging (currently 120,000 new blogs created daily, and 1.2 million daily new blog posts), therefore it could make sense to jump on the bandwagon (maybe “Twitternaught” is a better word!) early and get some experince and connectivity going so that you can swim with the stream instead of getting drowned in the flood?

In conclusion,.. I think Twitter is here to stay and that it can be used effectively by realty professionals to achieve more success, but first, you need to know how to use it (and I mean more so than just how to type text into a text box), and how to encourage and perhaps entice  and coach others how to use it to stay connected with you and what’s happening in your business or with property in your area of which they have some interest as an owner/propective seller or investor, and prospective purchaser, a landlord or a tenant. There’s also a way in which NOT to use it,.. for instance, primarily as a link posting station (folks will soon get tired of following you of all you do is incessantly post links everyday). Another thing,.. I’d suggest that having 11,672 “followers” isn’t any standard by which to judge Twittering exposure, success or tangible relevance. As with anything it’s the quality and focus that make the difference,- much better to have a couple of hundred interactive and keen “followers” than hoards of folks that really haven’t got enough time to properly follow even 5% of folks on their list!

My guess is that Twitter will be with us for some time to come and that it will continue to evolve. Who knows whether it will be a permanent Internet phenomenon or fizzle out, morph into something else or get replaced,.. but for now I think it pays to educate and arm oneself with a Twitter strategy as part of your web2.0 marketing arsenal.

There are numerous free e-books & reports floating around at present that do quite a good job of explaining the essentials of getting started and using Twitter. However, I’ve only seen one so far dedicated to realty professionals which covers some of the points I’ve raised in this post. Presently I’m working on a practical and more definitive guide for real estate professionals to use Twitter in relevant, cost effective and results focused ways. If you’re a realty professional that’s already using Twitter successfully in your business and you think you may have something to share in the report that I’ll be putting together then please feel welcome to contact me here or you can check out my profile and connect with me on Twitter. Once completed I’ll be sure to make certain that any contributors get a copy and an appropriate link to your Twitter address also.

Stay tuned…more to come soon!

Why should traditional realty sites bother with external listing or single listing websites?

Apart from the inherent advantages of diversifying and being seen to be proactive, there’s a very good reason why larger well established real estate marketing companies (such as Remax & Century 21 and the like.) should be actively pursuing other marketing means and that is,..

Web2.0 is shifting the balance of power away from traditional marketing methods over to search, social site proliferation and new tools on interactive websites that property buyers and sellers are flocking to in droves.

Simply speaking, if you’re in real estate and your not moving towards or with a Web2.0 perspective then you’re going to find yourself within the next couple of years scratching your head and saying “what happened?”

Here are some very simple but excellent reasons that realty professionals (whether small or large) should be using single property websites in their marketing strategy.

Of course we’re biased towards IS-selling.com sites even though there are other alternatives out there that are very worthwhile such as V-flyer & e-property websites which are hooked up to Web2.0 via XML feeds. However, neither of those two platforms are built on the WordPress 2.0 platform and therein lies the primary difference which sets us apart.

IS-selling.com sites are built on the WordPress Web2.0 platform which apart from being arguably the best blogging platform is continually evolving as a powerful Content Management System (CMS).

Not only do the IS-selling sites present properties very well visually and contextually but they also provide the following powerful Web2.0 connectivity:

1. Each site is linked to the agent’s/broker’s home site
2. Each site is linked to the listing agent’s blog
3. Each site is linked to the listing agent’s or agency’s Twitter account
4. Each site is linked to every other IS-selling site within the agent’s/agency’s account.
5. Each site is auto-linked via XML feed to Zillow, Trulia, Google-homebase, Yahoo, Oodle & Vast;
6. Each site has Web2.0 bookmarking and sharing widget
7. Each site has its own built in ‘visitor comments’ blog
8. Each site features auto-tagging for easy keyword optimization
9. Each site features SEO optimization controllable for your admin Panel
10. Each site can accommodate any new Web2.0 plugin module
11. Each site can feature the agents own individual colors and headers

Soon to be featured: Each site will have a “pixel resizer” to enable enhanced viewing on iphone, Blackberry, GPS. In the meantime, viewers can download a free WordPress viewing application from iphone that virtually re-pixelates and re-sizes the whole viewing experience.