Your Agent Website Series | Part One

The first part of our series on agent websites covers a very simple procedure on how to purchase a domain name since naturally this is the first step in owning your own website. If you are already a domain name buying pro you can have a hall pass and check back in tomorrow for the next part of our Agent Website series (you will not want to miss that one).

So the first step in the longest & most important journey you'll ever take in your career begins with purchasing a $10/year domain name. I know it's so cheap, that's because everything else from here out is so expensive (j/k).

I always recommend GoDaddy.com for domain name purchases because they own around 80% of all domain registrations around the world and I never have to worry about them going out of business and losing my domain names. The one thing I will say about GoDaddy.com that I don't like is they try and sometimes succeed to up-sell agents on things they don't need.

If you don't own a domain or haven't actually purchased a domain yourself all you need to do is watch the second video above for a step by step tutorial on how to buy a domain name from GoDaddy.com.

Here are a few tips on some domain names:
- always buy www.yourname.com, .net, .org, etc.
- choose keywords you want to be recognized by (your location, homes, real estate, etc.)
- if the domain name you want is taken use GoDaddy's tips to choose one that is available
- Just remember Domain Names are the new "Net Estate" buy as many as you can!

Hope step one gets the ball rolling. I can't wait for step two.

Have a great day,
Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Sorry it's been a while..

I went to Miami last week and right before I got on the plane to come home I ate a slice of pizza w/ mushrooms (big mistake). I got sick during the flight and turns out food poisoning will keep you down for about a week. Well, i'm feeling better now and I've got a new series coming tomorrow about agent websites.

I have to take a long 7hr USPAP course tommorow but I should have time to put the first video in the series up tomorrow.

See everyone soon.

Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Great News!

We got some really great feedback but I need more. I need Jim Whatley, Scott Dilbeck, Pat Williams and John Palmisano to skype me to talk more about your ideas. If your not on the that list and you have some great ideas about what agents need in a website call me on skype so we can talk about it. It's not like i'll be in Vegas at REBlog World :(

-Real Estate Technology Online

I need your help. Calling all agents!

Hello everyone,

I need some help with getting a grip on what agents want in a real estate website. I am an agent but i'm kind of disconnected with what everyday successful agents need in a real estate website. I know I have had huge success with my pre-qualification system and my lead generators but I want the little things. Do agents want mapping systems like google earth do they want their listings displayed in a special way? Do they want their clients to have special log in information? Do they want a heavy page or a light page?

I need some help? Just post a comment or e-mail me if you have any ideas.

-Real Estate Technology Online

Going Green with Technology | It's Easy!

I have tried and tried to wait for someone to do this post because I just didn't want to. I didn't want to fall into this whole "Go Green" movement but it has been brought to my attention that it just has to be done.

I am going to briefly talk about how to make your real estate career "greener" using free technology available to everyone.

First we have to go over communication. Some people like to have face to face meetings and therefore will not use their cell phone to talk with you. Instead of driving 20-30 minutes to meet them just download Skype and have a video conference with them and that way no one has to waste any gas driving to a meeting point.

The next "green" thing agents can improve on is the time spent driving around showing houses. I really think it is silly to drive all over the place showing 20 different houses when we have the types of technology available to us were we can do all of this from home. Take Google street view for example, this mapping technology allows my clients to literally walk down the street or around the neighborhood of a home they may be interested in. They can evaluate the neighborhood without ever leaving their computer. Then when a client does find a home and location they are interested in I should be able to call the listing agent and have a full interior video sent to me by e-mail so my clients can do a "video-tour" of the home before we set out and waste more gas.

I am trying to keep this short but I guess what I am trying to say is agents need to use the tools that are readily available to them so they can save time and money while also being "green".

Any Questions? Contact me at info@retechblog.com

-Real Estate Technology Online

Facebook.com & First Time Home Buyers

I know this one's brief but it's dark, raining and i'm tired :( I hope it does give you some quick pointers on Facebook though.

-Real Estate Technology Online

Leave Comments | Part 2

Watch the VLOG Here

Hello again everyone. 2 days ago I posted a blog talking about the importance of commenting on other blogs to create traffic for yourself. The theory goes that if you comment with a full proper signature people will see that signature and click the links inside thus driving traffic to your site.

Let's take a look at how it turned out. The post done 2 days ago has 8 comments and 3 were done by myself so that leaves 5 people commenting on that post.

The first comment was Jeff Turner from Real Estate Shows letting me know he was following orders. Real Estate Shows is a well executed marketing website for agents listings. For more info you can visit them Here

The second comment was from Manny Otero. His web home is www.MySpace.com/realty21 . Manny will be at our Miami Tech Seminar in September and I look forward to talking with him and showing him some new tricks and tools to market himself online.

The third comment was from Jim Whatley at http://www.uberrealty.com/ . Jim is an innovative agent with a lot of great ideas about how the real estate industry is moving. Although Jim your comment didn't lead me to your site I actually had to Google it.

The fourth comment was from Scott Schmitz at www.RealtyJuggler.com. Scott works on getting agents organized and much more over at their website RealtyJuggler.com

The last and fifth comment was made by Pat Williams over at www.CyberCletch.com and www.RealHomeSense.com. I really enjoyed looking at your Real Home Sense website and I think the graphics & content are great.

Ok, so we had five people that just took a few seconds out of their schedule to post comments. So what does that do for them? SEO SEO SEO SEO!!!!

Now that they have commented with the web addresses and names google with "crawl" this site and pick them up. It gets complicated from their but just letting you know it is a great way to incease search engine optimization for a site. That's why we had vendors do it because they know what happens when they get their names out on the web.

-Real Estate Technology Online

My favorite color is Chrome...

Download Google Chrome

So Google has just released the beta version of their new web browser "Chrome". My first impression is honestly Google has done it again. They're keeping it sleek and simple with everything you need.

To really put Chrome to the test though I had to compare speeds. So in gate number 1 we have the classic Windows Internet Explorer, in gate number 2 we have Mozilla Firefox, in gate number 3 we have the Apple Safari and in gate number 4 the new Google Chrome. Now I can go ahead and tell you out of 1-2-3 Firefox is the fastest so really this is just a 2 browser race, but i'll give them all their shot.

You asking "How will he test them?". Good question. I will use a stopwatch (very scientific) to time how long each browser takes to load the same page - CNN.com - I figure it has tons of stuff on the front page so it is as good as the next.

So here we go with the load times...

IE - 5.19 seconds
Firefox - 3.5 seconds
Apple Safari - 3.97 seconds
Google Chrome - 2.84 seconds

Google Wins - Google Wins - Google Wins!!!

No surprise. Google usually does it the best. I know there are a lot of variables in my testing so I want you to test them yourselves and get back to me about your results.

For more info about what makes Google Chrome so great, check out the videos here. Another good article from New York Daily News.

Leave COMMENTS!!! It's very important to your career!

Watch the VLOG Here

Ok, so i've noticed a trend among visitors to RETechBlog.com. Vistors aren't leaving comments. You're thinking "why should I leave a comment? I don't have anything to say.".

Who cares if you don't have anything to say! Just use me! I tell agents this repeatedly, you have to leave comments and trails if you want people to find you. It goes something like this..

We get a lot of people that come to this site to read about updates in the technology/real estate industry. So that means you have an audience that you can market yourself to right here. Simply go to the bottom of any of these posts and leave a quick comment. It can be as simple as "Hey man, nice blog today" and then add your contact information.

Matt Rains
www.RETechBlog.com
info@RETechBlog.com

Now when the hundreds of other people come to this site and see your comments they will click on the links in your comments because people are curious about you and want to see more.

This is a must if you want to bring new people to your site and don't only do it here, DO IT EVERYWHERE!

So ill go ahead and leave a comment on this post to get the ball rolling and everyone else follow along. Who knows I may even add a link to everyone that comments on my next blog post??

A little more about comments - Click HERE

Matt Rains
-Real Estate Technology Online

An oldie, but a goodie.

Hello again everyone, I was just sitting here working on some video editing and my broker called me using Skype and after the call I got to thinking "Why don't agents use Skype more often?".

For those of you who don't know Skype is an online video communication software that allows you to video confrence with someone or a group of people for free. The Skype application actually does far more than just free video conferencing so let me share why this oldie is so great.

Skype has grown over the past couple of years mainly due to its purchase by Ebay 3 years ago. Skype started as simply another instant messaging program that has now developed into something that is threatening to take over our home phone lines.

Skypes price guide is as follows. You can communicate skype to skype through video, phone or instant message for FREE with up to 25 people at one time. You can pay as you go and make local and international calls any time of day from skype to any land line for only $0.021 per minute. You can also get rid of your home phone service and replace it with skype by choosing one of their unlimited plans (Unlimited US & Canada - $2.95/mnth) (Unlimited Mexico - 5.95/mnth) (Unlimited WORLD - 9.95/mnth) and communicate through your computer or land line.

Visit Skype for more info.

If you would like to skype me my screen name is "mattrains" and I hope to hear from you soon.

-Real Estate Technology Online