Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
I’m All Out of Ideas…So What Should I Post?!?
Friday, April 1st, 2011Having a populated, interesting Facebook page that engages people is difficult. Facebook is something that you have to allot time for every day, because you need to have an active page. You want your posts each day to be interesting, relevant, and engaging. You also want to make sure that you’re posting a variety of posts to keep your audience engaged and your content interesting. While we want to post about our community as much as we can, we have to admit that sometimes, there just isn’t a whole lot going on that day.
Getting “Facebook block” can be incredibly frustrating, as you feel as though you’re wasting time trying to find something unique to post, but at the same time, you don’t want your page to go unpopulated for the day. This is a dilemma that is all too familiar. So, here they are…the things you should post when you run out of ideas:
- A good quote. People love quotes. Whenever we post them for our clients, someone almost always “likes” it, comments on it, or retweets it. A good quote motivates the person who reads it and makes them want to get up off the couch and do something with their day. At RealSupport, we really like the website BrainyQuotes.com. All quotes are broken down into categories, and we browse the “Success”, “Work”, “Business”, “Inspirational”, and “Motivational” categories daily. While you don’t want to post quotes every day, it can be a nice change of pace once in awhile, and it’ll also show your fans how much you value success and motivation. The best part about posting a quote is that it doesn’t take much time, and you’re practically guaranteed to get interaction.
- Ask a question. While posting articles about real estate tips and events going on in your community is great, it doesn’t always invite interaction. Asking a question is always smart because it’s telling your fans that you care what they have to say and that you want them to participate on your page. Your fans want to engage with your page, or else they wouldn’t have “liked” it! Asking a question essentially invites your fans to share their thoughts and feelings on certain issues, and the sooner you start getting interaction on your page, the more likely it is that those fans will continue to interact with you. Try to make your questions relevant to what is happening in the world right now. For example, the end of March Madness is coming up for the NCAA Basketball season. You could ask your fans which team they want to win it all! Since it’s the beginning of spring, you could also ask them what their favorite part about spring is. Questions like that are easy for your fans to answer, they’re things that the world is interested in at the moment, and they’re guaranteed to get the interaction you want from your fans. It’s also a good cure for any form of “Facebook block.”
- Tell everyone what you’re up to! If all else fails, share a tidbit about what your company is up to! People love to hear success stories and updates about the people that they know, so sharing some exciting news about your business is always a great idea for a Facebook post. Are you hiring new team members? Have you had any closings lately? Any new clients? Are you attending a seminar any time soon? Sharing these things with your fans every once in awhile shows that you want to keep them informed on what is going on in your business, and that you want to share your successes with them ! At RealSupport, we call these success stories and updates “Kudos.” Your fans will love hearing what you’re up to, and we bet that you will get a few congratulatory comments, too.
- Think outside of the box…what’s the world talking about? We want our posts to be appropriate, professional, and interesting, but that doesn’t mean you have to confine every post to real estate tips, community events, and home improvement ideas. Sometimes, it’s good to take a second to think outside of the box of what you could post.One good way to do this is to sit down and think, “What is the world talking about?” For example, just a few short weeks ago, the iPad2 was released on the market. While this isn’t exactly real estate related, it’s something that everyone knew about, was talking about, and was anxiously anticipating. It would have been a good idea to post about the new iPad and see what your fans had to say about it. Another good example of “out of the box” things to post about are upcoming events that the whole country tends to get involved with. For example, in January, you could post about the Super Bowl. In July, you could post different barbecue recipes for Independence Day. If you know of a good sale or Groupon for the day, you could post about that. These are all things that people enjoy reading about, and they’re also things people care enough about to respond to. Sometimes, with a little thought and the willingness to expand your horizons, you could come up with great posts that aren’t confined to the “real estate” or “community” category.
This is just the beginning of the list of possible ideas to cure your “Facebook block”. While it can get frustrating when you run out of ideas in the real estate and community realm, these four ideas are great alternatives that will still get your fans talking and interacting. Not only will they help you populate your page when you’re out of ideas, but you’ll also find that it’ll help you get more of a variety of content on your page, and that can only spark your fans’ interests even more.
Remember, if you’re having a hard time thinking of things to post about, just take some time to think outside of the box. Your Real Estate Virtual Assistant can (and should!) maintain your social media presence for you!
Contact Carrie
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The Top 7 Marketing Trends for 2011!
Friday, March 11th, 2011
I think we all sensed it. It seemed that the beginning of 2011 established the fact that real estate marketing had officially changed. The last few years have been a whirlwind of crash courses in social media, blogging, videos and other creative online tools. Many agents remained on the fence as to whether or not jump on board to this seemingly passing phase, while we, as Real Estate Virtual Assistants, quickly came up with processes for the most effective way to market for our agents using these mediums.
During the slower holiday season, many agents took the time to evaluate the last year, wrestle through their stance regarding their online presence, and determine their steps for the future. As the real estate community wrapped their minds around the changes, shuffled through their options and planned for the coming year; it seemed there emerged a renewed attitude, balance and self confidence with the beginning of 2011.
We’ve seen the change as agents are coming to us with a sense of calm and fortitude knowing what they want out of their social media and online branding. The whirlwind is settling, along with the debris of the past few years, and we’re clearly seeing our way along this new path.
Here are the 7 marketing trends that are at the forefront of marketing for 2011.
1. Niche Marketing- We’ve noted this in the past that the most effective agents are those that hone in on a niche market. Rather than being a “jack of all trades, master of none;” find that place in which you excel and focus your energy. Whether you’re great at helping first time home buyers, can sell a waterfront property in no time, can relate with empty nesters or work best with high end buyers; there’s a market out there for your specific skill set. Find it and go for it.
2. Quality Content- In a world of texting, Facebook, Tweeting and key word greedy blogs; we can tend to push quality to the background, and focus more on quantity and quickly climbing the crowded SEO ladder. The bottom line: it’s still business and you’re still representing your brand. While these mediums can be more casual; they still require professionalism and virtue. Make sure that what you’re saying online is valuable to the reader in order to stand out from the online noise.
3. Leaning towards Social Media- Agents are spending less money on print marketing and moving their funds to their social media and other online branding. It’s the idea of meeting your market on their terms, and we can’t deny that it’s an online world. Marketing money is being used to enhance and maintain social media sites as well as custom websites and other online initiatives.
4. Multiple Branding Experiences- You’ve probably experienced the feeling that suddenly keeping up with your Facebook and Twitter isn’t enough anymore. Flickr, YouTube, Yelp and other marketing means are also coming to the forefront. It’s a matter of providing a variety of options for people to interact with your brand.
5. Getting Local- Narrowing down your online presence through geotargeting allows agents to market to their direct market. There are a variety of ways to hone in to your area of service through Facebook ads, Yelp, Google and many others.
6. Co-Marketing- This form of marketing is quickly emerging in our current economic state. From teaming up with non-profits, local stores, restaurants and more; agents are finding creative ways to cut marketing costs and build local relationships. (View our recent blog on Co-Marketing.)
7. Mobile Marketing- While still in the works; mobile marketing is beginning to take off beginning with QR Codes, Foursquare and other applications. Creating a mobile marketing presence will most likely be one of the top growing marketing strategies this year.
As you can see; these top seven approaches to marketing are significantly different that a year or two ago. It’s no longer a matter of if you want to jump on board; it’s necessary for staying in the game!
If you want to take this year to get up to speed, but aren’t sure where to start; find a Real Estate Virtual Assistant! Your VA can walk you through determining your needs, finding a plan that works for your target market and budget, and can handle it all for you! If you just need guidance in the beginning and want to learn along the way to be able to take the marketing on for yourself; your Virtual Assistant can help with that too.
It’s not too late to start, and a renewed marketing plan can be just the thing to rejuvenate your spirits for the spring season and carry you through the rest of the year!
Contact Carrie
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Real Estate Resolutions: 7 Good Motivators for 2011
Friday, January 7th, 2011
I don’t know about you, but I absolutely love making new year’s resolutions. As the self-diagnosed Motivational Book Addict, making New Years Resolutions is probably the highlight of my year. This is when I can sit myself down, reflect on the past year, and re-evaluate what I can do differently to make the next year AMAZING. Although I highly recommend making a personal New Year’s Resolution list, this blog is about your Real Estate Resolutions to jump start your marketing plan for 2011.
So get a pen and paper and get ready to motivate yourself. These are just a few ideas to get you thinking. They will most likely spark a few other ideas, getting you really revved up, until you can barely wait for your first new listing of the year.
1. Make a marketing plan
Maybe you have already been skilled in the ways of real estate marketing. You send out postcards, you’ve re-vamped your website, you’ve even attempted a Facebook page. Now, however, is the time to take that next step. Wherever you are with your marketing (“you don’t even have a website” all the way to “you are ranked #3 on Google for your keywords”), find out what you can do to improve upon it. I know that’s frustrating to hear, but there’s always something you can do better. Make a plan laying out everything that you’ve ever wanted for your real estate marketing. Don’t by shy here. This is where you can go crazy.
2. Take Baby Steps
The difficult thing about real estate marketing, is that it can be expensive and time consuming. The best way to tackle your biggest fish is to execute them slowly. Take a look at your “dream marketing plan” and see what you can do realistically. If you have a template website currently and you would like to make it a lot more customized, but can’t afford a custom website right now, start off with working within the parameters of the template to make it more personal to your business. Realsupport.com has some great examples of how you can make websites like Point2 and RealPro look like they were made for you, without the custom website price tag.
3. Create a timeline
Visualization is everything when it comes to reaching your goals. If you can go out and buy a calendar, specifically for the purpose of your real estate marketing, it would serve as the ultimate motivator to accomplish your goals. If you can fill in, to the day, what you are going to do each month for your marketing, you are much more likely to do it. Putting it on the calendar makes it specific, gives it a timeline, and encourages you to get it done.
4. Cardinal Rule: At least one touch per month
Make it a rule for 2011 that you make at least one touch per month with your SOI. Whether that be a postcard, an email, or a phone call, make it a point to keep in touch with your past, present, and potential clients. That means by the end of 2011 you should have reached a handful of buyers and sellers at least 12 times.
5. Start blogging
I’ve told you before and I’ll tell you again – blogging can do wonders for your real estate business. Blogging to your clients not only reaches out to them on a more personal level, it also increases your SEO. There really is no downfall to it. The hardest thing about it is keeping it up. If you can’t do it, talk to your Real Estate Virtual Assistant about blogging for you on a regular basis. It really is worth it and you will see results if you do it correctly.
6. Positive Attitude
Okay. Try not to roll your eyes at this one, buy we all need an attitude adjustment. We all know that it has been a rough year for the market, and many of you cannot stop reminding yourself of this fact. But there is nothing better than a clean slate and a new year to change your attitude. Think positive for 2011. It just feels good to say it.
7. Hire a Real Estate Virtual Assistant
The job of a real estate agent requires a ton of responsibilities. Your day-to-day tasks can be very demanding, and stressful, and overwhelming. And that is without the addition of the marketing aspects. A good real estate virtual assistant can take a lot off your plate, as well as take your marketing to the next level. Take a look at our website to see what services we offer. Even if you don’t use us, it’s always okay to ask for help from somebody. A real estate virtual assistant may be just what you need to make this year everything that you imagined it could be.
Have a Very Happy New Year!
Carrie Gable and the team at RealSupport, Inc. are our “VA Quick Tip” columnists offering expertise in real estate marketing, technology and more. RealSupport’s office and team of 9 full-time staff members is located near Chicago, IL. Their successful team works virtually for many top real estate agents and brokers nationwide. Pioneers in the Real Estate Virtual Assistant industry, RealSupport offers marketing, branding, website and logo design, listing marketing, lead generation, technical support, transaction management, social networking, blogging and much more… Just ask!Contact Carrie
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Tool Time With Mr. Internet
Monday, October 18th, 2010
Don’t you wish you had a way to do so much more using less day-in-day out? Well stop wishing because here’s Mr. Internet’s top 10 Tool Tips that make his life and business so much easier and more profitable…
Okay, here’s the quick Cliff-Notes on these tools, most of which don’t cost a dime (CLICK HERE to view our recent Live Group Coaching session that provides full details of where to get them and how to use them most effectively):
- Say Goodbye to Password Angst – here’s a way to never forget another password yet be as secure as possible when working online.
- Copy and Paste Without the Garbage – if you ever tried copying and pasting from a Microsoft Office product (i.e. Word, Excel, etc.) into something that didn’t need or want all the formatting that usually comes with it, here’s a free and instant way to solve that problem forever.
- No More Post-Its – here are a couple of extremely powerful ways to keep track of everything and anything so you never lose or forget them again.
- Screen Shots on Steroids – here are two ways (one of which is completely free and very cool) to take and share screen shots of just about anything.
- Brainstorm Heaven – here are a couple of ways you can “bubble chart” to your heart’s content to maximize your creative flow.
- Free Virtual Meetings – no more expensive GoToMeeting subscriptions when you have this free tool in your belt that can be launched in a heart-beat.
- Free Heavy-Duty File Sender – need to send dozens of files or large files or even dozens of large files easily and at no cost, wait till you see this awesome solution.
- Free File Sharing on Steroids – this is the way I use to connect my entire team and even temporary help so we are all working on the same digital documents.
- Convert PDF to Word – here’s an absolutely free way to convert nearly any PDF file to an Editable Word document no matter how complicated.
- Piece of Mind – this proven automated backup system will give you that and more.
And of course there is more to be found on the video of our recent Live Group Coaching session as well!
This is just the first of many “Tool-Time with Mr. Internet” sessions we plan on having via our Online Dominance Live Group Coaching sessions about every quarter —enjoy!
The Nearly Perfect Real Estate Website
Monday, July 12th, 2010
As a speaker and author about doing business online I’m asked all the time for examples of Websites that work. There are plenty to point to but almost all have one or more things that don’t meet what I consider certain standards. Well here’s one that does and scores a 10 out of 10 on just about every measure of an awesome productive site.
Don’t Bother Calling a Web Designer
Roman Pavlik, the owner of this Web marvel is a member of my ULTRA eTEAM Alumni and is frankly one of the most coachable sales associates I’ve ever met. Instead of hiring the best Web developer he could find, he spent the first four months planning and outlining every aspect of his site www.DowntownLivingMiami.com from the perspective of his target market. Once he had his written site plan completed (and fully vetted by me and the rest of the ULTRA eTEAM) then and only then was introduced to the best Web developer I know of. With a written plan in hand (including most of the copy produced by a professional copywriter) it was relatively easy for the designer to manifest Roman’s vision for his site.
Hot Seat Wunderkind
During our Tuesday evening Live Group Coaching sessions we will occasionally have what is affectionately known as a “Hot Seat”. This is where a sales associate volunteers to have their site evaluated by me and the group live during the session. For most it is an extremely useful exercise on how to improve their sites dramatically. The video below is a recording of the recent DownTownLivingMiami.com site’s hot seat session. In this particular case it was a struggle to find any way to improve this site. Check out the video and you will see why (and you will also see which criteria I use to evaluate sites.)
(NOTE: it is strongly suggested that you play this video full screen to see all the details being discussed.)
Nothing is Ever Perfect…
You are probably wondering why this site is referred to as “nearly” perfect. Well, if you watched the whole hot seat session video above all the way through (it’s about 71 minutes long) you will have seen and heard about “constant refinement”. There is no such thing as perfect, only a constant state of refinement to continually improve a Website’s ability to generate business and differentiate you from your competition. By the way, Roman’s is the first of several “nearly perfect” Websites we will be highlighting here and during our future live Hot Seat sessions. These others will also be coming from my ULTRA eTEAM Alumni. You will find that their sites are just as impressive and unique as Roman’s but for different target markets.
The moral of the story here is don’t even THINK about contacting a Web designer before you do your planning and outlining first. To do otherwise you are inviting much frustration, financial pain and ultimately ending up with a business Website that is anything but perfect.
Maximize Profits Through Hyper-Targeted Facebook Advertising
Monday, June 28th, 2010
Imagine if you could advertise your services in such a way that only those who are most likely interested would even see the ads. And better yet, you only paid for when they acted on those ads. Sounds a lot better than traditional print advertising doesn’t it? This is what “hyper-targeted” advertising is all about and nowhere is the opportunity greater for this than on Facebook and yet few people in the real estate industry have taken advantage of it.
Facebook vs. Google
Facebook is huge with close to a half a billion members and continuing to grow rapidly each month. What makes the advertising potential so great however is that by the very nature of the data found in “personal profiles”, Facebook has amassed incredible demographic and psychographic information on its members that is the envy of even companies like Google. This information includes personal likes, dislikes, affiliations, interests and so on. It doesn’t stop there however because Facebook also has the ability (and the necessary funding) to cross tabulate their internal member information with purchased third party data like magazine subscription information, group membership affiliation, etc which allows them to further refine their targeting ability.
When Google serves up ads to users of its search engine, the ads typically are targeted based only upon the search query because that’s limit of Google’s knowledge about that particular consumer. Whereas when Facebook serves up ads to members, it knows far more about the member and can show ads (on the right side of the page) that are tremendously more targeted and hence more likely to convert. And Facebook ads can leverage built-in “social proof” to add credibility and increase conversion rates since your ads can show who else of the viewer’s Facebook friends have interacted with you or your services. Also, the amount of time an average member spends on Facebook eclipses even the most avid searcher on Google.
Like Google Adwords, you can pay for Facebook ads either as Pay-Per-Click (PPC – recommended in most cases) or per 1,000 impressions (CPM). The process of setting up, managing and tracking your Facebook ads is very straightforward. And frankly, no one does a better job of explaining it than Facebook. Just go to http://www.facebook.com/advertising to review the steps and best practices. (TIP: Facebook suggests ad pricing to best reach your defined ad target. Let’s just say they can be a bit biased about this. Experiment using PPC values that start out about 10% less than suggested and then continue to lower your bid amounts until you see a significant drop off in impressions. This strategy can save you a lot of money!)
Now let’s take a look at all the ways you can use this high-powered advertising rifle to grow your business…
Hyper-Targeting for Hyper-Growth
The ways in which you can use Facebook advertising to grow your business and differentiate yourself are limited only by your imagination. The following came out of a recent brainstorming session with my Online Dominance students. To help organize these ideas, I’ve broken them down into categories:
- Win New Listings – show your prospective sellers how you can advertise their listings on Facebook and receive literally thousands (if not tens of thousands) of impressions. Chances are very good that none of your competitors are doing this and it will help you stand out considerably.
- Sell Targeted Listings – if your listing is unique or fits a particular profile (e.g. Florida waterfront property) you can create an ad that is shown only to those who would likely have interest in this including “snow birds” from other areas that have a proven track record of purchasing this type of property.
- Property Tours – advertise just about any kind of tour you can imagine (the more out of the box the better) to targeted Facebook members in your area. Here are just some ideas that came up for this:
- Riding horse property tours
- Bicycle property tours
- Waterfront property tours ending in a wine-tasting party
- Luxury high-rise condo bedroom tours
- Boat tours of waterfront properties
- Golf course / property tours that include short presentations by the golf pros at each course
- Foreclosure property tours, or pre-foreclosure tours (with the permission of the owners of course.)
- Seminars – either in person or Webinar-based. There are tons of possibilities here including:
- Investor seminars
- Foreclosure / Short-sale seminars
- Invest with IRA funds seminars
- First-time Buyer seminars
- How to get around today’s mortgage maze seminars
- How to prepare your home for sale seminars.
- Community Involvement – you can advertise your community involvement by getting local people to participate. For example:
- Charity food drives
- Client appreciation parties
- Neighborhood block parties
- Irresistible Offers – if you Website has irresistible offers, using Facebook ads is a powerful way to drive targeted traffic to take advantage of them.
Advertising without targeting is just taking shots in the dark. Your chances of actually hitting something are pretty slim. Advertising without the ability to measure your ROI is just throwing money at something and hoping it sticks. Neither are a viable way to grow business profitably. Facebook on the other hand offers a convenient, inexpensive way to hyper-target your advertising dollars and almost instantly measure the results. And the good news for you is that very few real estate professionals have even started taking advantage of this potential. Now is your chance to grow your business in a way that will have your competitors guessing and you smiling, all the way to the bank.
NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.
Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.russer.com
This article is reprinted in its entirety from the June 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.
How to Publish Your Print Materials Online For FREE!
Monday, June 14th, 2010
If you have been in business for any length of time, chances are you have many print materials (i.e. special reports, articles, marketing plans, tips etc.) that would serve you better online. It used to be a bit of a problem (and expensive) to re-purpose these materials for your Website or Blog. Not any more, here’s why…
Make An Issuu Out of Everything
ISSUU (pronounced the same as “issue”) is a free online service that allows you to easily and quickly take any digital document (i.e. PDF, Word, etc.) and convert it into a very interactive online format that anyone can read directly within your Website or Blog. Your visitors don’t need anything other than Flash to view these documents and they look and act like a real magazine or report.
It only takes seconds to convert documents and you can then embed them (with the code provided with the document) into any Web page. See the example below of the PDF handout I’ll be using for tomorrow’s session with ERA Top Producers at their convention in Atlanta.
In addition to making your documents look better, the “Wow!” factor will help you really stand out. Perhaps even more importantly however, you can track statistics as to how many times a document was viewed down to the page level. This will give you a very good idea as to whether or not your material is perceived as valuable by the viewers.
Once you create a new account (no credit card required) you start converting to your heart’s content. However you can also search to see what other Issuu users have published (and selected to make public) based upon key words and phrases. Search for “Real Estate Marketing Plan” and you will see how some sales people have put this tool to use.
While this is a very cool and powerful way to display your marketing plans for sellers, some might (rightfully so) be concerned that you are educating your competitors. Well, there are a couple of ways around this. First, you can flag any converted document as “Private” which means no one can view it unless you give them the URL. You can go a step further like Mega-Producer Melinda Estridge did and also embed it in a password protected page that only prospective sellers can view.
Turn “Wow!” Into Closed Transactions
As I looked through several of the real estate examples I noticed something glaringly missing from each one –a call to action. Most squander the opportunity to engage with the viewer by simply doing the typical “Show & Tell”. If you are going to use Issuu to publish your reports and plans on the Web, at least take the time to think through how you can make it so engaging that they will want to contact you immediately.
To sum it up it’s cool, free and completely worthless unless you use it and include calls to action.
Refining Your Website For Greater Profits
Monday, April 5th, 2010
Congratulations! You just launched your brand new Website loaded with the latest bells and whistles. And, you can hardly wait for it to start cranking out new business while you sleep (hey, the vendor promised that would happen!) Sorry to curb your enthusiasm, your Web marketing journey isn’t over, it’s just getting started…
Measure, Test, Refine
Let’s assume for the moment that your site has tons of new traffic coming to it on a daily basis. Believe it or not, that is not a hard thing to accomplish. What is much more challenging however, is getting your visitors to convert to new business. That’s why it is important measure their behavior when on your site and consistently test additional ways to engage them and then refine your site to optimize conversion. And, this is an ongoing process that should take place ideally on a quarterly basis.
For example, something simple as changing the words from “Featured Properties” to “Best Buys” made a huge difference to Realtor Jim Dolanche’s site in terms of click through rate.
He never would have known unless he tested it.
Measuring What’s Hot and What’s Not
Imagine being able to sit over the shoulder of your visitors and see exactly how they interact with your site. Measuring site visitor behavior is very different than visitor statistics and is crucial to understanding how your site does or does not engage people who land there.
CrazyEgg is a service that generates “heat maps” of your site pages showing you where people click and how often. The brighter the spot, the more people clicked on that particular spot (see example heat map below).
CrazyEgg shows where people are clicking (the lowest form of engagement) whether or not there is a clickable link there. In one snapshot you get an immediate and rich sense of what your visitors found interesting and just as importantly, what they didn’t. For just US $9/mo you can measure the behavior of up to 10,000 visitors/mo on up to 10 pages of your site (prices current as of this writing).
Once you have measured your visitors’ collective behavior it is time to start testing alternative text, graphics, offers and even layout to see if these changes significantly improve your site’s ability to convert casual visitors into serious clients.
The ABC’s of A/B Testing
To effectively test changes to your site you need to have a way to randomly serve up both the current and changed versions of your site and then measure visitor behavior on each. This is known as A/B Testing (or Multivariate Testing when making more than one change at a time), and is a very powerful way to consistently improve your site’s conversion performance.
There is good news and bad news about the A/B Testing process however. The good news is that Google has a free A/B testing service call Google Website Optimizer that is very feature-rich and lets you test any changes to your site and statistically measure the differences in conversion, time spent on your site and visitor satisfaction. The bad news is that it is so sophisticated that you will need the help of a knowledgeable Web developer and/or SEO person to set up the tests and measure the results. One last caveat; your site needs to see several thousand visitors per month in order for test results to be statistically significant.
Consistent Incremental Improvements
Once you have completed visitor behavior measurement and A/B testing part of the refinement cycle, it is time to implement the changes you have determined will enhance your site’s conversion potential and start measuring all over again. Ideally, you want to repeat this cycle 3 – 4 times a year. Think of it as polishing your Website. It just shines that much more brightly with each treatment.
Websites are not “launch and forget” marketing weapons. They need to be consistently refined and course corrected if you want the most bang for your online marketing buck. If you focus more on the Web marketing journey rather than the destination, you will have a lot more fun and more business to show for it.
NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.
Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Online Dominance Fan Page at http://www.facebook.com/OnlineDominance
This article is reprinted in its entirety from the March 2010 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2010. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.
Google Makes Your Active Fan Page Even More Valuable
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Google is busy serving up real-time updates from Twitter, Myspace, blogs and so on for hot search topics or trends. It just added Facebook Fan Page updates to this mix and here is why it’s important to you.
The world of search results and relevancy is going more real-time (you can largely thank Twitter for that). Since Google is all about providing relevant search results for a particular search, it is now striving to provide these real-time yet ephemeral results right at the top of the non-sponsored results of each search. If you have an active Facebook Fan page focusing say on your primary neighborhoods, and fans are actively posting comments, then you are going to see more search engine traffic. First to your Fan Page, then (by extension) to your site. This also means that your Fan Page is likely to rank higher in the search results over all as a result.
For this to work in your favor however, two things need to be in place regarding your Facebook Fan page:
- Its focus needs to be relevant – a Fan page is NOT about you (at least not if you want to succeed)! For most real estate sales professionals this means it needs to be about your particular niche and/or neighborhoods you service.
- Fans need to be active – this means you must keep the content fresh and worthy of comment.
I truly believe that appropriately maintained social media will be the new “Google Juice” for driving Web traffic and hence most online business. Static content, even if comprehensive, is no longer enough. So if you are not connecting with clients and prospects this way (i.e. via an active Facebook Fan page), now is a good time to start!
* Special thanks to Brad Carroll of Dakno Marketing for this tip :0)
See Mr. Internet LIVE at the National Real Estate CyberConvention & Expo
Monday, February 15th, 2010
This note is to let you know that I will be the only featured LIVE speaker presenting “Dominate Your Online Competition” at the upcoming National Real Estate CyberConvention & Expo, February 21-27, 2010. To register just go to http://recyber.cyberconventions.com/
This is a wonderful on-line convention and you may attend all events — without leaving home! The event is expected to attract over 10,000 real estate professionals during its seven days (Feb 21-27) and is open to the real estate community worldwide.
This year’s speaker line up, the largest ever, in addition to my talk, includes 50 sessions plus an address by Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist of the National Association of REALTORS who will tell us what’s going to happen!
You can network in the CyberConvention Social Networking Community, check out the latest business building products and services at the Expo — and of course attend my session! Once again, my session will be the only one that is LIVE (i.e. real-time) while the others are pre-recorded.
Register for your pass at: http://recyber.cyberconventions.com/
