I think this business is about putting together lots of different things that really work well together for you. I learned an EXCELLENT TIP that worked quite well for me. It was really simple, but I didn't think about it until someone mentioned it to me. If you have pretty much ANY real estate website that lists your personal listings (and that should be any site you have) you can make yourself stand out like an internet pro to ANY seller you meet. During the presentation in their home, I would tell them I was going to get their home not just on my website, but I was going to get their home it's own address online. Then I showed them how I would literally get their address dot com. Example, if the house is 123 Main Street, their domain would be 123Main.com. I simply went to a website like godaddy (or any of the sites that sell domains, I just found godaddy was cheap and easy to use) and buy that domain name after the listing presentation. I then had that doman forward to the page on my site that directed to their house. When anyone typed in 123main.com, it would go directly to their home on my website. Now, 99% of the sellers you talk to are going to mention how agents all claim to be high-tech, well THIS REALLY IS high-tech. It is also something the average seller can understand, and see how it is an advantage to the other agents' marketing ideas. Another benefit is, you can use this in all of your marketing from now on. Instead of wasting 2 lines in a classified ad, one for the address or neighborhood and the other for my website, I used one line that said 123Main.com. It gave me another line to use for whatever else I wanted to market. You can use the address on your website as well. Not only does this set you aside from other agents in the presentation, but people reading the ads will see you are different as well. This only costs the price of the domain, which is less than $10 bucks per listing. It worked well for me. Let me know how it works for you...

Raymond Owens

That's very creative thinking....

That's a really good idea. If you have a Point2 Agent site (Professional Version), once you create a listing, you can create a sub-domain for the listing. For example, if your site's name is www.yourname.com and you have a listing on 123 Main Street, you can create a sub-domain as 123mainstreet.yourname.com and use that for all your marketing efforts. With Point2 Agent, you can even provide your client with a log in page, where they can add notes and pictures to that listing.

I do agree that those agents who know how to utilize the power of Internet, do stand out from the crowd.

Thanks.

Russell...

Yes, I point2agent is the site I used too... I know you CAN do sub-domains, but it is more impressive, and shorter to just buy the 123main.com domain... and it makes it super easy for your sellers to give it to their friends/family... which puts your name out in front of them... think about it, how many people who are listed tell their friends, "Hey... click on johnsmith.com and click listings, mine will be the third one from the top..." I know some people will do that, but most of the sellers love the 123main.com so much they are calling everyone going "Hey.. our house is listed... check this out... it is at our street address dot com... 123main.com. We love the photos.."

Raymond

Oh, I agree. Having it's own domain is more impressive. The only issue I see is, if the name of the street is difficult to remember (like 14354 Susquehana Avenue), some people might not remember that name and you would still need to email them the URL. Also, if the house is sold in 2 weeks, the name will still hang around there for at least a year. But if the name is easy to spell out, it would be a great idea.

Thanks

One more thing... I think another good idea is to have business cards for the house with instructions on how to find the listing and instead of the agent's picture, put a picture of the house. Then the seller can join in the marketing effort along with the agent.

Instead of the seller saying, go to this site, click here, etc., the seller can just give a business card with all the instructions on it.

Just my 2 cents.

Russell.... Business cards are an excellent idea as well... I never have tried that (making personalized cards) but I am sure the seller would love that idea... You can always get free cards at sites like VistaPrint.com and pay for an upgrade to photo, so you can add a photo of the house... Excellent idea...

Raymond

These days, you have to be really creative. The power of Internet, really opens up all kinds of different creative marketing techniques. Agents who can think outside the box, can stand out from the crowd.

Good luck.

Thanks... yes, all the talk recently about how Realtors who don't want the net to be a big player in Real Estate... if those agents would just learn to harness the net, they would realize it actually makes it easier for them to make money in the business... People will always need someone to talk to and help them... that is why agents will never be completely removed from the transaction...

Raymond

Don't forget that once you've sold the home for the seller..the buyer might like to be able to tell their friends and family where to go to look at their new home. And guess whose name and contact information will be there? :>

Plus an existing site would be an easy thing to point a listing prospect to.

Thanks for the domain and business card ideas. I think this is impressive and outside the box.... As much as trying to get the listing sold, it's also another good marketing tool to attract new sellers.

I might do these prior to my open house and will leave feedback.

i have bought a domain name for the property as well. of course the listing has come and gone but i still have the domain for the year. Now if someone looks up the domain it lets them know that home is no longer available but i have others.

as far as the business cards go i print out stickers that i then place on the back of my business cards. the stickers are almost the same size as my card and pretty much take up the whole back of the card. i usually have a pic of the home and the domain name i bought for it as well. i give some of these to my clients so they can pass them out to friends and family, and i also hand them out. i let the sellers know i hand out lots of cards every day and that their home will be on the back. the actual label i use for the back of the cards is a avery i.d.label that is 2" x 2 5/8.

That is an excellent idea.... how much do stickers like that run? Do you get them from a website?

Raymond

I've been offering the services of setting up custom addresses for a few months now and the response has been positive from the agents and their sellers.

As you say, these are fairly easy/inexpensive to setup however I offer the service because I've come across many agents who either don't have the time or the technical ability to manage them.

I also offer a whole web link package that gives the agent 5 web addresses per listing that are not only print advertising friendly but also can be used in tracking how many hits each web address is getting. Use one address in a daily paper, another in the sunday paper, another in a real estate flyer, etc. and see what venue is working the best.

Now that's thinking out of the box!

I recently found a website that I really like alot. It is great to use during listing presentations because you can show the sellers a demo of "their" home's website, and not pay anything. The site is www.singlepropertysites.com It has the best prices that I have found. You can list 3 different sites with them for about $19.00 a month. It also has a feature for FSBO's to help you get them interested in your services! Check it out!

These ideas are great! Thank you.

Yes... there are some websites out there that will do all of this FOR YOU, but if you already have a site, you can buy the domain and forward it to the page on your site for less than $10 a listing by using godaddy, or similar domain purchasing sites...

Raymond
FSBOScripts.com

Great idea...Thanks!
What is the Promotion code for that site?
T

So, I don't understand something here.. From what I am reading, in addition to the monthly charges, I also have to pay for each domain name of each listing I need, right?

If I am on activation level 5, that costs $19 per month...

Then I also have to buy the domain name too, for each listing I have?

I would agree that "Web Presence" is a driving factor relating to customer satisfaction, as well as attraction for the agents. What I feel is equally important is for the Agent to have a professional and user friendly web presence as well. We offer both and much more for agency, as well as agent web-page designs. OUr custom sites would allow agents to list individual "hot" properties, scrolling views in flash, and several other options hand picked by each agent to personalize your web advertising. Feel free to browse the site at realestatecreate.com, and contact me at jamie@voltz.com to create your own personal web page.

Straight Shooter.....

No, you don't have to buy a $19 per listing page PLUS a domain. If you have ANY Real Estate website that makes a page for each listing, you simply buy the domain from a company (godaddy.com is who I used) that sells them, and forwards them for free. I paid $7.95 or $8.95 each. That was it... and all I did was forward it to the part of my website that was the specific house I wanted to promote with the domain.

Raymond
FSBOScripts.com

Any sellers ever ask you about traffic? How much traffic do listing spacific sites usually get?

See, that's why it is good to just use a domain that forwards to your main site... all of the traffic still goes to your website. There is no traffic that goes to the "domain," because the traffic is all forwarded to your main site (their house on the main site.)

Raymond
FSBOScripts.com

You can find domains to forward at pretty much any domain site like godaddy...

Raymond
FSBOScripts.com

Good call... It wouldn't be the worste idea to create these as "microsites" and to keep these domains forever anyway. It's only going to increase the Google PR and inbound linking of your home website anyway. If you are actually creating microsites that have the ability to directly link back to your home page and as well all of your contact info right at the microsite.

Obviously Real estate is a VERY competitive keyword on the SE's these days...so any advantage is a good advantage. There are lots of cool instant contact features you can add right on that microsite also. Instant live chat, instant telephone calls from the click of a button etc...and at the same time with each link you are creating back and forth between your home site and the microsites you are creating better Google PR and essentially increasing your overall traffic volume. There is a lot of benefit to this.

Yes, and don't forget to mention small areas or neighborhoods in your area on your site. There are fewer sites targeted the smaller areas/neighborhoods out there.. and even fewer RE sites doing so. There may be fewer people searching for those areas, but when they do, your website will show up higher on the search results. Just an idea.. A friend of mine has basically every little neighborhood/community on her site, and it works well for her... deannagorman.com is her link if you want to see what I'm talking about...

Raymond
FSBOScripts.com

Some of my agents get an that from godaddy for about $4 and that matches the street address. You can then list it on all of your marketing material. Like the flyers that you put in the boxes, you can say, for more info and pictures, visit www.123Statestreet.com. You can even upload sellers disclosures an the like.

I learned about these ideas years ago in StarPower (http://www.gostarpower.com) and CRS classes on listings. I think the GRI certification talked about them too.

There are tons of creative ideas and I liked that I learned about them upfront. I don't use the business cards or domains yet, but plan to.

All of the listings classes talk about putting the domain on rider signs, doing podcasts, using home hotlines, putting a good faith estimate on the back of flyers (using a lender partner), etc. I'd suggest CRS, GRI, Star Power, Brian's Power Marketing Center, and iSucceed for people who want to get a ton of listing ideas.

In real estate your name is your brand, so make sure that you show up at the top of the search engines for your own name. You can either add your name to your current ad campaign on each respective search engine. Or if you don't have an ad campaign running you can resort to a new service called Linked Realtor. Linked Realtor can help you do this very easily and cost effectively. This is also a great way for clients to easily find your listings or your website. GMAC Real Estate just launched this service for it's 22,000 agents nationwide and it's resulting in additional business for it's sales associates. If you Google "Fabiani Koski" you can see how it works for one respective sales associate. Check it out: www.linkedrealtor.com

Wow, that linkedrealtor.com is an interesting idea! These are some great tips!

Assistant on call,

Don't be fooled. You are effectively paying for someone to monitor your PPC account in Google adwords to make sure that you are one of the top 3 highest paying accounts for your keyword.

And guess what! Google does this for you for free. These guys are praying on the naievety of the Realtor population.

Take a look here... https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=36482&query=top+3&topic=&type=f

I'm sorry, what were you referring to Klick2kall? The previous post I wrote was about setting up listing sites. This is the site where you list one property at a time an all of its features (good for the expensive listings, not the small ones.) I didnt mean anything about pay per click or adwords. This is just the cheapest single listing site that I have found. However, you do offer good advice about ppc services. That is a good link to share!

It has been a couple of years since I started this post, and I've seen several agents locally using this technique. Some of the other responses to this post are also still very relevant. Do you think the internet is making it easier, or more difficult to succeed in the real estate business? I might start a seperate link for this topic...

Raymond

How do the redirected hit affect seach engines? and how much does redirecting hits cost?