real estate marketing

15 Queen Anne Court Commercial Linkbait

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March 21  |  Viral Marketing  |   Ryan Clark

A slight warning that this commercial is perhaps NSFW, but there isn’t any nudity…just close to it. I’m always keeping an eye on what’s blowing minds in the marketing world, and this commercial blew mine right off. The commercial is for an amazing real estate property(15 Queen Anne Court) in The Sovereign Island (Queensland), and I couldn’t think of a better way to get the word out. The luxury real estate market is a tough battlefield, but if you have the coin and the know-how to drop a bomb like this; then by all means doooooo iiiittt!

Viral marketing is an art, and sometimes that means you have to step on some peoples toes and get down right crazy. There are real estate agents talking about it, whether the form of marketing is too controversial or not for the real estate market. I think the real problem there lies in fact that us North American’s tend to get easily offended. So who’s this commercial really for? Without a doubt the young, rich and famous are going to be drooling over this luxury property. The rest of us will just end up dreaming, wishing and clicking that share with friends button. I’ll be checking back on this video and their website to see how well it performed later, so bookmark this post if you want to find out!

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Luxury Real Estate Marketing Opportunity

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February 22  |  Niche Link Building  |   Ryan Clark

I’ve been working on a few guest blog posts for our real estate marketing month so I only have a small post again for everyone here today. Since this month we’ve had a lot of inquiries to do marketing for real estate agents which is great, and optimally the end goal here. We have also made some cool friends within the industry, all of which are working on some unique projects. Todays is a socially powered content site called the Luxury Real Estate Magazine, which explains itself really. They’re launching in beta mode this week so I said I’d give them a mention and let the real estate agents out there know they can start using it for free! You can also read our interview where I ramble on about luxury real estate marketing in 2011.

The has some goals in mind, and currently the advertising is 100% free for real estate agents, home owners and interior designers. If you’re involved within the luxury homes market, then this site wants and needs you to help it grow. As of now, you can submit a guest blog post, get your property on the featured listing, get your property listed in the blog, get an interview like I did, submit a press release and a few other options. I really like the idea behind the site and I hope it takes off, but again, it will need the agents and home owners to help grow it all the while getting some free promotion. To get the party started, you can follow them socially via the usual suspects;

Homepage: http://www.luxuryrealestatemag.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/luxuryremag
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=106788689398124

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Lofts.com Launches: Niche Marketing Opportunity

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February 21  |  News  |   Ryan Clark

I was trying to find some neat new social media resources for real estate marketing month and saw that Lofts.com has launched into the spotlight as of this month. This was a website service for the Boston area but it looks like they’re opening up the site to agents and buyers all over the world. I personally really like what they’ve done and now that you can list your loft with them, it seems to be a smart niche marketing tool to take advantage of. They have listing services which is something I’d take a look into if you’re selling a loft.

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Real Estate Plugins For WordPress Roundup

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February 19  |  Wordpress SEO  |   Ryan Clark

Since it’s real estate marketing month here I’m continuing on with our theme by providing what is hopefully a useful resource. I know a lot of agents utilize WordPress on their site in whether that be for full IDX integration, or just hosting their blog. It’s obviously a CMS that powers Linkbuildr, and just about most of the blogs around the web. Because of that, there is an abundance of ingenious plugins and code hacks to set yourself apart from the pack.

I will mention that there were of course too many plugins to cover in one post, but I do encourage my readers to post up in the comments. I would love for companies or agents to let us all know what they’re using, and and if you can tell us its hottest functions. I’ll also invite any company to come to an interview for this month about your plugin, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.

For this article I found almost everything on WordPress Plugin database, and of course Google helped a bit. Not all the IDX system I saw in use were listed there, so how’s that for a link building hint hint hint?

WordPress IDX Plugins:

Every real estate agent needs an IDX system to pump their site full of listings from their area. While there are a lot of non WP based IDX platforms, notably REW’s IDX, WordPress has a few really amazing plugins to handle the job. If I were an agent, I’d tend to stick with the one that integrates other cool features such as Google Maps, Tweets and other features to provide a more unique listing. This will go a very very long way in how well Google will index your listings. Remember, there are hundreds, or maybe thousands of agent sites with the same listings.

DS IDXPress: http://www.dsidxpress.com

This IDX plugin for WordPress is the real deal, and is my first choice for a reason. This affordable package has pretty much everything you’ll need to get your listings in your site…and easily! Some of the features include an installation that takes no more than 2 minutes, widgets to do all sorts of handy things, Google maps integration and a nifty slide show system. They have a demo site here which isn’t bad, but you could easily have a much better theme designed than that one.

WP Realty: http://wprealty.org/

A lot of you have most likely come across WP Realty’s impressive IDX solution for WordPress. The great thing about this platform is that there is a team of experts there to help with customization, or building your site from the ground up. They also have a set of themes that are perfect for selling homes which is great. One key feature in mind is that this plugin is compatible with the All-In-One-SEO Pack which makes your on-page game all that much better.

WP Real Estate Helper Plugins:

There are a plethora of plugins that add extra features to your WP site that’s specifically for real estate. I’m all for these even though they may take more of your precious time away from you in setting up and maintaining. These plugins will make your website much more pleasing to Google, as well potential clients as it adds more functionality to the overall process. These features will make you also stand out from the rest of the agent sites which I know can all kind of blend together.

Real Estate Q/A: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/realanswers/

This is a really cool plugin that I think every WP based agent site should have running. While it might take a bit to get the questions flowing in, I have personally seen it work wonders for agents. It’s a great way to handle easy questions, establish search rankings for the hot terms, and showcase you’re an agent who knows your market well. After a few years and a few hundred questions, that will only do great things for your long tail search marketing game. Oh and this plugin is 100% FREE!

Simple Real Estate Pack: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-real-estate-pack-4/

This plugin has so many features I couldn’t believe it was out there for free. Props go to Max Chirkov for creating this gem and providing it to the community. This is something I’d almost not give away if you know what I mean. I’ll take some wording direct from his description and let you know this plugin includes mortgage and home affordability calculators, closing cost estimator, live mortgage rates, Trulia and ALTOS statistical charts, local schools, local rental rates meter, business listings from Yelp and Google Maps. You can see the in-depth options here, which should give you a grand idea the many things you can do with this plugin pack.

WP Great Real Estate: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/great-real-estate/

I’ve used this plugin personally on a pet project real estate site I’ve been involved with. I can say how much of a gem this is and I couldn’t give it enough praise. If you’re wanting to add in homes manually supported by a whole whack of features then this is the plugin for you. I’ve seen some very stunning looking agent sites as well completed with Great Real Estate, so don’t miss this one. This plugin utilizes the likes of NextGen Gallery to upload, manage, and display property listing photos. It uses WordTube to upload, manage, and display videos. There’s FPP Pano which displays panorama photos in a Flash 360 degree interface. Makes use of Feed Wrangler to enable you to send a listings feed to various websites such as Google Base, Trulia, and Zillow!  It uses WP-DownloadManager to display and track links to downloadable brochures…and that even isn’t all of the features believe it or not.

WP Property:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-property/

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/realanswers/

 

This is a full featured WordPress plugin that basically turns your website into a powerful real estate CMS. This property and real estate management Plugin allows you to create a directory of real estate properties and integrate them into you site beautifully. I’ll spare you a few extra lines of me blabbing and let their handy video showcase to you the ease of use with this software.

WP Mortgage Loan Calculator: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mortgage-loan-calculator/

It doesn’t hurt to add a bit of extra functionality to your real estate site, so why not a handy mortgage calculator? This acts as a sidebar widget, as well it can provide nifty looking AJAX graphs that are quite appealing. If you don’t have the time to have one programmed or integrated into WordPress, this plugin makes for a quick fix.

Local Market Explorer:http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/local-market-explorer

This will be the last plugin I put into this post and it’s a doozy! The Local Market Explorer plugin does so many amazing things that everyone should drop what they’re doing and get this configured on your site! This plugin allows WordPress to load data from a whole host of neighborhood related APIs(Yelp, Zillow, Education.com, Nile Guide & more) to be displayed on a page or within your own posts. I highly recommend reading the features of this plugin, but just take a look at this screenshot to get an idea of the powerhouse this plugin is. This is my top pick for all the plugins I’ve seen and if you have a coder on staff, you can make it even more custom to suite your needs.

You can see more screenshots of the features in action here http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/local-market-explorer/screenshots/.

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If you’re needing help with any Real Estate Marketing or WordPress help our team is available and here to help. We provide a wide range of real estate marketing options that will help you get the most out of your website, as well give you the time to focus on what you actually need to do…sell homes! If you’d like a proposal or just chat with out real estate marketing team don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Smarter Classifieds Marketing For Real Estate Agents

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February 11  |  Local Business Marketing  |   Ryan Clark

I wanted to get into an older form of marketing agents either do a lot of, or stopped after getting discouraged from poor results. Classified sites are still a great way to bring in leads, I just think agents need to do it a little smarter. I’ll do my best to keep this post brief because once you get the gist of what I’m saying, the ideas will be a flowing! Remember to check in every day as we’re having Real Estate Marketing Month here and on many guest blogs.

While it doesn’t hurt to just list your latest property listings, you’ll still be see in front of a lot of eyes. As of late, I’ve noticed one really key feature about Craigslist, Kijiji, Oodle.com and others is that their listings can rank really easily for long tail keywords. How often have you noticed this but never thought to take advantage of it?

They key of course is just as simple as titling and making the first sentence right on top with what you want to rank for. This tactic is great for targeting the long tail, especially for new developments, communities and local specific real estate.

I will give you a specific example from my current place of residence here in beautiful Victoria BC. But before I do that, let’s quickly talk about links in your ads. While most classified sites expire after a certain period of time, I still think (keyword being think) that they’ll have a chance at temporarily passing some link juice. At the very least, make sure you fill out your profile on the sites that let you have one. A lot of them will have a place for a link and a followed links, so make your profile write up good and unique!

Example Of Classified Long Tail Domination!:

Keyword: sidney adult community condos (very popular retirement area here)

As you can see, this is a really interesting set of listings completely dominated by classified sites. This also tells me, that a well established local agent could get a page up targeting these keywords. That eventually should easily be able to out rank these classified listings, so make sure to do both! I recommend using your real estate blog to also tackle long tail terms like this. The advantage here with the classified sites though is the ability to rank top 5 within 12-24 hours!

List Of Classified Sites:

Keep in mind there are WAY more  classified sites out there, just do your best to determine the quality of them before wasting your time. I’ll list the top ones here of course, but don’t exclude sites that are built for your local area only. These will not only be great for ranking, you know that most of the traffic on that site is for your area only. Simply brilliant!

Craigslist
Oodle
iList
BackPage

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If you’re competing in a tough real estate market then why not get out help and focus on your core business. Link building, social media marketing and all the bits in between is a full time job and that’s what our team is for. We not only have a vast real estate marketing skill set, we have a passion for the industry and take pride in building up your brand.

Services: http://www.linkbuildr.com/real-estate-marketing-seo/

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Real Estate Marketing Month @ Linkbuildr

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February 9  |  News  |   Ryan Clark

I just wanted to drop some news, although a little late, about it being real estate marketing month here at Linkbuildr. We’ll be doing a round of guest blogging posts throughout the web, as well here on the blog. If you’re wanting us to do a guest post on your real estate related blog, use our contact form to get in touch. We’ll provide an awesome, unique and informative posts to target and engage your readers. At the end of the month I’ll link to all of our posts here so our readers can enjoy easy access to all the good info.

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Dwellicious Social Bookmarking For Real Estate

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January 6  |  Link Building, Social Bookmarking  |   Ryan Clark

Dwellicious is set to launch January 7th, 2009 and I thought I would sneak in this post a day early. I’ve been following this web 2.0 app for a while now and the buzz surrounding it has been large! A lot of you may have heard about this already, and my real estate clients have been also talking about it to me quite a bit. Now the idea is of course a clone of Delicious geared towards the real estate crowd, but for both consumers and agents. The folks behind this project were very smart about going about the design, and taking on all the food features of Delcious which makes using this a breeze. Since they had consumers in mind firsthand, this should generate a lot of user traffic and allow for Realtors to get highly targeted leads.

You can sign up already and get started with Dwellicious, and you’ll be happy to hear it works with most web browsers, even Google Chrome! Once you’re ready to go you can start browsing real estate listing, and when you’ve found something you like, it’s a breeze to bookmark with fully detail notes and tags. Of course you have the option to make your findings private or public, and you can easily share with friends and family members. Currently a lot of the web 2.0 real estate websites are already onboard. Some of the sites include Remax, Craigslist, Zillow, Realtor.com and so many more!

From all the clients I deal with, I can easily say that realtors are some of the most techically advanced when it comes to marketing online, so this web app came as no surprise. I would really like to hear back from other Realtors about what they think, and I’ll be bringing this to the attention of the good folks over at Real Estate Webmasters.

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