seo

Creating Microsites for Amazing Real Estate Properties

4 Comments
October 12  |  Real Estate Marketing  |   Geoff

It seems that creating an entire website, domain and all, is becoming a really fashionable way to market a single, usually very special, residence online. Granted, you probably won’t have nearly enough time to set one up for each listing, but for the ones that could really use some exposure, it might just be worth your time to throw up a micro site and maybe get a few potential buyers interested that wouldn’t have known about the property before.

Luxury Property on the Water

Admittedly, you don’t necessarily have to buy a domain for a micro site, but if you do buck up and spend the ten dollars, it will lend your page that much more credibility, you can buy a keyworded domain to help with your rankings, and customize it entirely for the property. Let’s be honest, the competition to represent some of these multi-million dollar pieces of real estate is tough, everybody wants the commission and prestige that comes with selling one, but you have to be willing to take that extra step for the client. Having a custom built website for the property is going to be just that.

You don’t necessarily want to stop at buying the domain and slapping up a picture or two with the MLS number. No, you’ll want to go full bore and get what you can from the property and the owner so that you can really market the place. The website you are creating is really only a container for the incredible content you should be putting up on the site so get all the content you can and make sure that its quality reflects that of the house.

In some instances, keyword domains will help you sell a place because of the ease of ranking for said keywords, but, similarly, you might be able to market a property entirely on its address, if it’s cool. I wouldn’t recommend buying a domain for “4152 12th Ave” but if it’s something cool and marketable like “1 Panorama Ridge”, go for it.

Pictures
As far as content goes, you’ll not need much more than a few pages. First of all, you’ll want to throw up a few pictures of the house. I think you’ll find that white, clean themes with rotating headers will look best for showcasing a beautiful house. Good pictures are probably going to be the most important element in marketing these properties online. Although hiring a professional photographer will yield more desirable pictures, there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to take a few stunning shots of the property.

real estate at sunset

Always keep the website in mind when you’re shooting, and even though a 15 megapixel image won’t do much for a website, a nice crisp lens and proper lighting are going to be a necessity. If you don’t have massive flashes that you can move all around the house, use natural light as much as you can. Open all the windows and, if you need to, bring a tall tripod so that you can take longer exposures for crisp photos.

I recommend having at least a couple good pictures of each room before you call it a day and when you’re shooting the exterior, the lower the sun in the sky, the better. You might have to take photos throughout the day to get the different shots of the house in the perfect light, but it will pay off.

Post-processing is also going to be a very important part of your pictures so get your skills ready and make those pictures pop.

Video
Similarly, you’ll want to have a video for the house as well. In the age of super smart phones, anything less than 720p is basically not worth trying. You might be the creative type and really run with the video portion of the website, but if not, either acquaint yourself with a video editing program or have a video made by pros using the pictures you have of the house. Not every video needs to be of the “15 Queen Anne Court” level of quality, but something like that is certainly not going to hurt your chances of selling the house. Remember that everything you put up on the site is going to be very closely associated with the property, whether rationally or not, so make sure that you’re not just carrying your cell phone through the house with wobble and a commentary that happens at the same time.

If you are going to do a tour, keep your phone or camera (my phone takes awesome video and yours should too) steady and plan out the shots before you shoot them. Always record commentary later through whichever recording device you have that produces the best sound quality. Great microphones are $100 and if you’re planning on doing this often, it’s not much for a lasting investment. A few cheesy, but admittedly powerful, time lapse shots of sun rising and setting over the property with manipulative music for a couple minutes should be plenty.

Copy
Next, you’ll want to write about the house. People tend to get bored reading long articles so I don’t imagine you’ll need more than a thousand words to describe the house to any potential buyer. You will definitely want to have a few substantial paragraphs so that the search engines are friendly to the new website, but I think that the pictures and video will do most of the marketing. If the house has any really funny anecdotes or famous previous owners, that’s definitely something worth mentioning, but you don’t really need to do a room by room description of the entire property. That being said, if it’s not too much work for you, it might be an idea to create a page for each room with a few pictures arranged in a nice gallery and a small writeup for each one. You can create a menu item for bedrooms that drops down to all the bedrooms the house has and do the same for bathrooms, kitchens, pools, airports, whatever… It will probably be overkill for the average buyer, but the site will look nice and robust to Google and the customers who want to see the house from abroad can actually view every room.

Whatever Else You’ve Got
I’m sure you’ve used tools like 360 degree room views among others, but now is the time to whip out every tool in your arsenal that helps move houses. Use maps, schools, restaurants, community centers, and whatever else you can use to sell the house on the website. Try to put a little spin on everything you do for these special properties so that they stick out from the competition. Now is the time to put on your marketing hat and whip out all the good and creative ideas floating around in your mind. Spitball with friends, associates, and, if they’re up for it, the house’s current owners. The more minds on creative projects, the better, so get together with different types of people and we could be talking about your site when it goes up.

If you need help
Quite frankly, we’ve been providing this service to some of our clients in the past and they think we should offer microblog setup as a package on its own. Get in touch with us if you need to get some help putting everything together.

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Infographic Marketing Strategies For Links & Brand Buzz

9 Comments
August 11  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

Marketing your infographics properly is a sure fire way to snag natural links, build brand buzz and gain social media followers. It’s a form of content creation that is relatively inexpensive to do and can continue to bring in links for years to come. The latter aspect really gets me excited because I’ve seen some crazy good links come in a year later from some great topical link bait. There’s no doubt that infographics have become the most widely used link bait tactic in the past couple of years, and I don’t that expect to slow down any time soon.

Source: Infographic of Infographics by Ivan Cash

There are millions of ways to tackle the creative end of things, the marketing, however, can be done either correctly or incorrectly. We’re all in the market for links from related sites, so make sure you stick on point. For the most part, I’ve seen mostly topical infographics being used with the right market in mind, but I’ve also seen others where the goal is to just get whatever links from whoever will give them to you. Not to worry though, you’ll want those related links anyway so focus on your niche.

There’s a lot of prep, or at least a lot we do, before starting your marketing efforts, so prepare your spreadsheet of choice. We’ll cover the tasks we lay down and hopefully this helps you structure your campaign better. I typically have this sorted while the client’s infographic is being worked on so that should be more than enough time to prep!

Last but not least, make sure your infographics “info” is really friggin awesome, because it’s going to make life a lot harder if it isn’t. How many infographics have you started reading only to quickly hit stop reading? This is where big flashy pie charts, numbers and eye catching statistics should be popping out like a 3D movie! You’re going to want to also provide an embed code with your infographic for ease of spreading; it blows my mind the amount of people who don’t do this.

Identify The Influencers:

So get out your spreadsheet and think of each point I make here as its own area or tab within it. We’ll need to start finding the social people out there that are within your vertical and you might stand a chance to get a share from their end. Hopefully most of you are already quite active on Facebook, Twitter and have made nice with a few bloggers. Your reach can potentially lead to huge success. To demonstrate visually, let me refer you to the picture below:

Image Courtesy: SocialMediaToday.com

Twitter: – I definitely like to have at least 25 of my most active Twitter friends on my “to contact” hit list for D-Day. Tactics like pulling a pre-emptive strike by contacting them a day or two early to see if they’d be willing to help spread the content are also a good idea. This social network alone can launch your infographic into viral orbit if you’re lucky so make sure to target the beefy and influential users that you are friends with. If you don’t really have strong ties with 25 users on Twitter, then make a list of 50-75 people you can contact in hopes of matching the same ROI… best of luck there! There are always infographics being marketed on Twitter, so check out what’s going on there to get some ideas. (Hint) Guy Kawasaki LOVES tweeting about infographics so much that I cannot tell if he’s getting paid to or not… either way, you get him you’re golden!

Facebook: – This one is tricky because you’re not usually friends with your digital cohorts at this level, just your mommy, friends from school and perhaps a girlfriend/wife if you’re lucky. The same mentality from Twitter applies here. Prep who you can contact to potentially get the Facebook shares going like wildfire. Hopefully your brands Facebook page has some decent followers that can start that initial push. If not, this one will be a tough nut to crack. I’d check for groups and fan pages as well for your brand, then get ready to share with those folks too.

Key Blogs: – This is the really tough part. I’m sure you do enough link begging, but now you need to infographic link beg. Break down a list of the best blogs in your niche and get to it because, again, just a couple shares can lead to big things. If the content is any good, blogs should jump at the chance to collect some of the hype that goes with it. You’ll be able to see which blogs have already shared an infographic from others, which blogs have a “submit news/tip” form and you should also find some other contact details like their Twitter and other social media information. You’ll be surprised at the response you’ll get from fellow bloggers and if they’re fans of your brand, then you’re in for an easy day.

Forums: – While I don’t recommend signing up to your niche’s top forums to spam them with your infographic, I hope you already have built a rep. Forums spread content like wildfire, so identifying the forums that will help launch this to a different crowd is quite important. A lot of niches won’t be so lucky, so if you have a big forum option, make sure you utilize it (or at least prep your accounts for future use). Forums are great for marketing and making friends, and mixing the two together will keep you out of trouble and in a good brand spotlight.

Reddit/Digg/Buzzfeed/Delicious/ETC: – There’s no doubt that Digg still has a lot of influence in spreading your content. The same goes for a number of other social news sites. Unfortunately, the chances of going hot on Digg are next to none unless you pay for it. Yes even after they “changed” their algorithm, the website is still dominated by a few users who get most of the stuff to the front page. Reddit is a deadly serious site that requires no spamming about on your end! Submit that sucker to the appropriate subreddit and hope for the best. If you content is good enough, it should do alright in the right subreddit, but then again, even Reddit votes are bought.

Buzzfeed is also a great place to get your infographic going around the web like crazy. You can buy front page spots for this, but you best have $3000-$5000 PER DAY to spend on this. Because of the huge price tag, the site can send a lot of traffic and get your infographic around if you’ve got the green. The other social media sites out there are up to your reach and influence, including niche specific social sharing sites. This is what we do, so if you’re looking for infographic marketing help, get in touch.

Link Analysis & Social Media Recon:

This is a no-brainer, but do your homework on other infographics both inside and out of your niche. While it’ll give you an idea of what to expect, it will also lead to other market help you may have overlooked in your initial setup stages. There are a whole host of search and link tools out there that will break down the anatomy of an infographic success story. Here’s what we use to do a quick rundown:

Link Research Tools – know who and what links to a successful past infographic campaign. Take special note of the infographics that provided an embed code, and the ones that did not. You’ll see how the linking patterns evolved and this is pretty important stuff to know. LRT can also report back on the number of social shares which can be valuable information if you know how to interpret it.

Twitter Search – I love seeing who’s sharing infographics around Twitter, especially in my target niche. People who are already enjoying them are more than likely to give yours a Tweet, so why not beg/ask? This will also lead to seeing how their followers react by checking out the RT love that that Twitter user’s post got.

Google Blog Search – While we could perhaps just use regular old Google search for this, I want to know specifically which blogs are engaging infographics. Those older posts are a potential spot to drop a link to your related infographic as well, even though that might be a bit spammy in some people’s eyes. For the most part, a few choice blog posts isn’t going to hurt anyone and if the moderator approves it, then you’re good to go!

Google Discussions – You’ll definitely want to know what forums were picking up past infographics because they’re the breeding grounds for natural links and viral activity. Since you get time stamps on posts, you can tell with your own eyes how that piece took off (or didn’t).

Infographics Gone Viral:


Image Source: Marissa Louie ( Her old site is now dead and links to Viagra )

Hopefully you have all your prep in place and you’re ready to rock once your infographic is good to go. The launch is an exciting part of the whole process, if not the most nerve-racking, so enjoy it and learn from it! There is a good chance you’re going to come up with nothing but fail, but don’t let that discourage you. We continue to see links come in over a year later for past infographics so it will be worth it no matter what if your content is good.

There are a few key places to which you can submit your infographic making life a lot easier as well as providing some initial links to the piece. Remember that people love this type of content so there will be browsers that will kick off the viral aspect of it all. The list provided here is not the end all be all, and more sites are popping up all the time so keep an eye out (hint: set an infographic Google Alert).

Infographic Sites:

http://infographicsite.com/contact-us/
http://infographr.tumblr.com/submit
http://infographicsgenerator.com
http://videoinfographic.com/submit-infographic/
http://www.reddit.com/r/infographics
http://www.infographicas.com/?page_id=39
http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/submit/ (costs $100 for a review)
http://www.infographicsarchive.com/submit-infographics/
http://www.cloudinfographics.com/submit-infographic/
http://submitinfographics.com/submit-infographics
http://www.newsilike.in/submit-infographic/
http://videoinfographic.com/submit-infographic/ (video infographics only)
http://www.infographicpost.com/submit-an-infographic
http://theinfographics.blogspot.com/p/submit-infographic.html
http://visual.ly/
http://dailyinfographic.com/contact
http://iheartinfographics.tumblr.com/submit
http://infographicsbin.tumblr.com/submit
http://fuckyeahinfographics.tumblr.com/submit
http://www.styleandflow.com/submit/
http://infographipedia.com/submit-infographic-4
http://www.omginfographics.com/submit/
http://infographic.co.za/submit/
http://www.bestinfographics.info/submit-infographic/
http://iinfographic.com/submit-brilliance/
http://www.infographicgallery.com/contact/

Submit A Press Release:

Why not? If you’re working on an infographic that has a really big reach, then you need to set aside a budget for a press release or two. I’d recommend using PRweb.com’s social media package as well as a release from Market Wire. Some news sites definitely pick up infographics and you an see for yourself with a simple Google news search. I cannot stress enough the importance of the content here for any sort of decent exposure.

Attacking Your Contacts like A Boss:

This is another time when all your prep comes into play. Just like with any viral marketing attempt, be on the ball and make sure you’re out there interacting and keeping the chatter alive. If you’ve got your social media vote buys on the ready, then make sure those are off to the races because you can forward those voting links to people who matter on your end.

Your Blog / Youtube / Newsletter:

I hope to the social Gods that you have at least two of those in place. Your company blog will most likely be the first link it gets and it makes for a great place to show off the social voting buttons for your fans to get acting on. A YouTube video talking about the infographic can’t hurt either, especially if your brand has a big following there (people even make videos of their infographics). Lastly, use your newsletter for what it was intended to do… share news! You can ask in private for your readers to check it out and vote it up if they have the appropriate contacts.

Infographic Resources:

our infographic design and marketing services
Infographic design resources and tutorials
40 blogs, portfolios, resources and other awesome infographic related material
TopRankBlog’s infographic marketing post is a must read
Adobe Illustrator infographic design resources
Tips for designing and creating beautiful infographics
 

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SEO Rage Comic

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March 27  |  News  |   Ryan Clark

This was the first rage comic I’ve seen which jumps into the SEO industry, so why not share it here. I of course found this on SEO Reddit, surprise surprise right? This one is on the theme of a close to secure contract with a large restaurant firm, and it all goes wrong so quickly. Let this be a lesson to you large brands out there who send in ill-educated senior execs into meetings they shouldn’t be at.

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Google’s SEO Report Card: Matt Cutts @ SMX West

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January 28  |  Link Building Videos  |   Ryan Clark
This is a little speech Matty Cutts gave at SMX West this year. I really liked what he had to say and think it’ll be a real information nugget to you too!
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Google’s SEO Report Card: Matt Cutts @ SMX West

1 Comments
January 28  |  Link Building Videos  |   Ryan Clark
This is a little speech Matty Cutts gave at SMX West this year. I really liked what he had to say and think it’ll be a real information nugget to you too!
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Linkbuildr Trademarks Use of the Word “Link”, Tries to Sue Nintendo

3 Comments
November 24  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Geoff

techcrunch logoRyan sent me a link today with a rather unbelievable headline.  According to TechCrunch, The US “Patent Office Agrees To Facebook’s ‘Face’ Trademark”. But trademarking a single word has famously been denied many a times before and why should Facebook be any different? Well, it isn’t.  Obviously, like all major news outlets, bloggers can sensationalize their titles to get people’s attention and maybe even get them a little worried about the power that some of these massive corporations wield.  As it turns out, Facebook does not own the word “face” and won’t anytime soon.  The title, however would have you believe that they do. Not unlike this post, TechCrunch’s article doesn’t really get into detail and Alexia only writes 180 some odd words on the subject.  You can’t really explain the intricacies of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to accept Facebook’s proposal in 180 words and they know this.

facebook logoWhat TechCrunch is really going after is the fact that your ignorance of trademarks and willingness to overreact to a headline will translate to controversy and some activity on their website. It works too; they got a link out of me… In the 19 hours the article has been up, it has received 786 Facebook likes, and more than 1200 retweets. In reality, Facebook is going to have no legal grounds to come after you for using the word “face” and this Trademark will in no way affect your life even in the slightest. What the Trademark does do is grant Facebook the use of the word “face” in electronic and online applications offering social services. If you are trying to brand or market the word “face” for a social networking app and it has nothing to do with the literal definition of face, you might have some issues. Hell, I don’t even know how true that is. They really have played to my ignorance.

One of the few reasonable comments left stated that this is very similar to how Caterpillar trademarked the use of the word “cat” when it comes to construction equipment. nobody else can make a backhoe called a “Cat” but they have no say over things like CatFeeder or lolCats. This hasn’t really ended the world.

Anyways, I’ve nearly doubled the amount of the original article so I’m going to shut up here. Just remember that if you can bring some emotion out of a reader, be it fear, hatred, sadness, or amazement, the odds that you will get a click in and a link back are vastly improved. You don’t even need to have any idea what it is you’re talking about!

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Real Time Marketing in Social Media

5 Comments
July 26  |  Viral Marketing  |   Ryan Clark

 

I’ve been all over real time marketing tactics for some of my clients lately and I’ve been trying to soak it all in. The very well respected Lee Odden of TopRank Marketing had this video out nearly a year ago. Fast forward to now and soak in all that’s going on within real time search in the last 6 months….got your attention now? Real time search is also powered by links, but not the type you want only for the link juice. Think about this, and what Lee talks about briefly because the marketing game is changing yet again, and quickly.

 

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Make Slideshows Easily For Video Marketing

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July 24  |  Video SEO  |   Ryan Clark

Animoto - The End of Slideshows

While I have yet to get my rear in gear and do some quality videos for Linkbuildr, I’ve managed to get some done for my various marketing projects on the side. I can tell you now I quickly learned and suck at being in  front of a camera, and my video creation skills are lacking to say the least. I recently found Animoto thanks to a client of mine who made some really slick videos for his Ecommerce shop’s products. I’ve been using it ever since and I can safely recommend the product to anyone who doesn’t have the time or skill to make quality videos for marketing. There isn’t a whole lot I can cover here as the video above does the job very well, so just check out the pricing levels which range from free to affordable for most small to large businesses.

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