• Social networks - while they can take some time to pay off, a little time spent on these sites could pay off big in the form of either referrals or direct clients in the future. Sites like Active Rain, Facebook, Real Town, and even LinkedIn are great places to start.
• Take advantage of the web 2.0 sites out there, like Trulia and Zillow. Both allow you to add your listings and brand them with your information. Then, you can import them onto your website or blog as a widget to help promote them there, as well.
• Blogging - maybe this should be first on the list, as it’s a great way to draw in visitors interested specifically in what you’re talking about. Showcase your knowledge and experience by providing information your potential clients need, and make that connection that is so important in a client selecting you to be their agent.

Stay tuned for future posts on tips, tricks and best practices for your online real estate marketing. Or, ready to get started but simply don’t have the time? Work with a real estate virtual assistant to get these tasks done quickly, efficiently, and affordably.

Technorati Tags: real estate marketing, real estate blogging, online marketing, virtual assistants

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It can be a lot harder than people realize to keep up with their blog consistently. But unfortunately, this is the key to success. Or maybe it a fortunate thing after all, because your competitors are probably having just as much trouble as you are at being consistent.

But how to make more time in the day?

A real estate virtual assistant can take your quick, two line thoughts, and turn them into full blog posts. Let us help you establish yourself as a go-to expert in your area, while you focus on those income-producing tasks that are always the bigger priority. Don’t have a blog yet? Let us set you up with one of our custom real estate blogs.

Contact us to find out more about assistance with blog posts and maintaining your blog, info (at) invisibleassistantservices.com

[tags]blog posting assistance, real estate virtual assistant, real estate blog design[/tags[

Today, I’m going to give you my favorite SEO tools.

1. To start with, there’s SEO Book’s keyword research tool. You could pay for WordTracker, but if you aren’t going to use it regularly, then check out SEO Book. Very cool tool that compares your keyword results from Google, Yahoo and MSN. They actually pull from Wordtracker, so you get the best of both worlds.

2. LinkHarvester is a great tool, also from SEO Book, that allows you to do a little bit more in-depth link analysis. You can…

• see almost every site that links to you
• see how many pages of your site are indexed
• see how many links are pointing to your specific pages
• find out how many .gov and .edu incoming links you have
• see if a particular site links to you more than 5 times (you’re just Mr. Popularity, aren’t you?)

3. Abakus Keyword Analyzer will check your site for keyword density. Search engines still look partially at how many times certain key words or phrases are mentioned on your site, as they tells them what your site is about. You may think your site revolves around a keyword, but you never actually mention it. Wouldn’t that be good to know?

4. Need an idea or two for a long-tail keyword to narrow down your focus? Check out HitTail. They have free and paid versions, and give you the “least utilized, most promising keywords hidden in the Long Tail of your natural search results.” This allows you to target what your clients may be looking for, and increase the effectiveness of your listings in the search engine.

5. Finally, there’s the SEO extension for Firefox, yet another tool by SEO Book. If you’re using Internet Explorer, than this one won’t help you. But if you use Firefox, check this one out.  It will highlight no-follow links, give you the Page Rank & Alexa rank, let you check keyword density, see meta tags without switching to the code view, and see backward links to the page you’re on. I recommend it.

In the spirit of helping make 2008 a super-productive year for you, I have a great tool I want you to check out. Real Estate Shows creates really attractive, professional internet commercials, complete with music and captions, along with a branded business card. It’s quick and easy, and provides so many different marketing opportunities for you.

You can use it to:

• Create a commercial for your local area, establishing yourself as the “go-to” expert. Who knows, feature a business and they may even add your video to their website!
• Create “welcome home” videos for your buyers that they can send to their friends (with your contact information, of course!)
• Service long distance clients better by providing a full slideshow of photos for homes they are interested in
• Enhance your MLS and Realtor.com listings with slideshows versus static photos
• Or, create a testimonial slideshow for your website. Use photos of happy clients in front of their homes, and add testimonial captions.

The great thing about this site is that for one affordable yearly fee, you can create unlimited commercials. So if you’re wanting to implement something like this in your marketing plan, check them out! Already using them, or something similar? I’d love to hear what it’s done for you.

And if you don’t have a ton of time, shoot me an email, and we can discuss how Invisible Assistant can help you with your online marketing campaign.

So, I’d love to hear from you. Did you get to see your online marketing activities start to pay off in your new page rank?

But an even cooler tool that I’ve found for social bookmarking (especially to help with backlinks and possible traffic to your site) is Social Marker. The downside with Onlywire is that they don’t offer some of the biggest social bookmarking sites, like StumbleUpon. And they don’t give you the option of posting that cool new link you found onto Twitter, or even Technorati.

Social Marker lets you do all these things. You can post to all 120+ of the sites they link to (not necessarily recommended), or post simply to the list they call Best. This includes the top social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Propeller, and Digg, and lots more.

So take an hour, sign up for all the accounts you want, and post away. Don’t have time? Hire a VA! (hint, hint)

So I’m wondering, what sites on the list do you use, and which has been most effective for you?

I set many of my clients up with a blog customized for their area and their audience. And the ones that do as I say, not as I do, often call me up excited, because they got a lead off of their blog. Sometimes it was someone that first made phone or email contact, and then began reading the blog. Other times, they found my clients’ blog through a search engine, and began reading it.

Either way, what my clients often hear is that this potential client already feels connected with them, and is convinced that they are more knowledgeable about their area than other agents. You have a potential client that is ready to work with you even before they’ve spoken with you!

There are lots of success stories out there for agents and solopreneurs that have begun blogging. It really does work.

My favorite features are one-click install for Wordpress blogs, an included e-commerce package with 3 different shopping cart systems to choose from (I’ll be playing with those this weekend!) and a basic autoresponder. These are great for clients that don’t need extensive carts or autoresponders, just a simple way to offer a few products and keep in touch with their customers.

But the best feature of all? They will host unlimited domains for the same price! I’ve never seen that anywhere, especially not at $6.95 a month. So you can start with one site, and get great hosting for a great price. Then, if you ever have the desire to create another site (or two, or ten!), you simply purchase the domain name for about $10 a year, and hook it up to Bluehost for no extra cost. I myself have 2 sites, and manage another for a client. I can host them all for just $6.95 a month, as well as manage them from the same CPanel.

Gotta love it!

Well, that’s all for now. Talk to you later!

Rebecca

Unfortunately, I sometimes fall into the 4%. For example, there’s the craziest story on the back of a bottle of Newmans salad dressing in my fridge, and I doubt very many people have even noticed it. But I digress!

Business has changed a lot in the last, oh, few years. With the popularity of blogging and social networking sites, people can have access to other people they do business with. And instead of the dry, emotionless, polite “front” people would put on at work, it’s much more acceptable to let your real self shine through (so long as you’re still considerate and respectful, of course!).

People want to trust a business they’re giving their money to, and an easy way is to “connect” with you. Social networking, or a blog, is an excellent way to connect with clients and customers. You can see that a lot of big companies have started to do it, both online, and with ads like the above that talk to you in a casual tone, the way a friend would. So if you’ve been meaning to get started in either form, now is a great time. Let us help you get started developing a relationship with your customers today.