Making A Great Impression With Your Images
July 20, 2008 by Mark
When adding images to your site, take the time to make sure the images you post reflect the professional image you want to convey to your visitors. One free web based application that makes this possible, with ease, is Picnik. Picnik will allow you to resize, optimize for quick downloads, add cool effects, drop shadows, frames and so much more. With just a few clicks of your mouse you can have great looking images that won’t take forever to download and frustrate your visitors.
Note: If you do find yourself using this tool often, as we believe you will, please consider paying for their premium service (only $24.95/year) to help support the program and ensure it stays around.
Add Listing Links to Neighborhood Profile Pages
July 11, 2008 by Mark
One great way to improve your visitors experience is to provide links that will show listings available in the neighborhood you talk about. If there are more than 50-100 listings in a particular area, you may want to consider creating a few links to listings in predefined price ranges. Not only will this help your visitors find homes in the area quickly and easily, you can add keywords in the link text to help your search engine marketing. For example, if you wrote a neighborhood profile for the Lake Tahoe neighborhood called Montgomery Estates, you could create links such as:
Montgomery Estates Homes for sale up to $750,000
Montgomery Estates Homes for Sale $750,000+
View this example page on our demo site: Montgomery Estates Neighborhood Profile (example)
Better still, create a custom quick search form that will allow your visitors to search the neighborhood they are reading about by price and / or any other criteria you wish to add. This will require you to add some html code to your post. Or, you may hire us to set up something custom for you.
View this example page on our demo site: Heavenly Valley Neighborhood Profile (example)
Zillow Allows Agents to Co-brand
July 10, 2008 by Mark
Zillow has announced that you can now co-brand their pages with your contact information and photo. Once set up, anytime you link to Zillow’s website your profile can be displayed at the top of every page. This is a great way to keep your name in front of potential buyers and sellers. Simply sign up for your free account on Zillow’s website, then enter your screen name into your IDXCentral.com Account Manager on the Account Setup > Contact Information page. Example: Zillow Co-brand page
For more information be sure to check out Zillow’s Blog post Co-brand your clients’ Zillow experience.
What is a RSS Feed?
July 1, 2008 by Mark
RSS is a format in which content on a website can be delivered to subscribers. Visitors to your website can simply subscribe to your feed using a feed reader and get instant updates on anything new you publish. Popular feed readers include Google Reader, My Yahoo, and Bloglines. You can also allow visitors to sign up to receive your feed via email if they wish. The major benefit to a feed reader is that visitors don’t have to visit multiple sites to see if anything new has been published. By simply going to their favorite reader page, they can see all updates from all sites instantly. If they see something that want to read more about, they simply click the link back to your site for the full story.
As people become more familiar with this technology it will only become more popular. No longer do you need to check your favorite sites to see if anything is new…now the information will come to you. This is a great way to stay in front of your clients and keep your name fresh in their mind.
To learn more about RSS Feeds and how they work…check out this clever video by CommonCraft.
Be Proactive and Grow Your List of Leads
June 21, 2008 by Mark
One of the best tips we could offer is to be proactive when speaking to prospective clients. Don’t just tell people you meet about your Listings Search website and New Listing Notification features. Ask them what they are interested in, get their email address and let them know you will keep them informed via email as new listings become available. Take the time (about 30 seconds) to enter their information for them into your New Listings Notification feature (if you leave it up to them they may forget). Let them know they are free to remove their name at any time or simply contact you to do so.
With SPAM (unsolicited email) being such a problem, you never want to send visitors something they don’t want. Soon enough they will truly appreciate the ability to get new listings as quickly as you do. This keeps your name and website in front of them repeatedly, helping ensure they remember you when ready to make an offer, refer a friend or family member, etc.
You should also monitor your list of Registered Users and verify they have signed up for New Listing Notifications. If they have not, send them a quick email letting them know you noticed they had not signed up for that valuable service and you are available to help them set it up if interested.
