SEO Series | Part 2 Search Engine Compatible

Part two in our series is going to ensure your website is "search engine compatible". Now that we have discussed the keywords and key phrases you are going to use in part one we can actually go into the guts of the website by discussing how to keep search engines happy with your site.

The first area we have to look at is what are the search engines looking at? What makes a search engine dislike you? Search engines have small programs or "scripts" that run called robots. These robots search through your site looking at your "code" and "content". Things that turn robots off are things like pop-ups, an over usage of pictures instead of text or all flash and no text content.

The key to keeping search engine bots happy is simply valuable easy to navigate content. Just be sure to keep your methods ethical and your content valuable. I tell people all the time that most search engines have gotten to the point where if your website truly deserves to be number one in the search result it will be.

Now for those of you that build your own site or have one built the following is for you. Make sure your "meta" tags are all relevant to your content and keywords. Always make sure your internal pages link back to your homepage so bots do not get lost or hit a dead end. Use external CSS whenever possible. If your using flash have a text version available for people without a flash player (iPhone users).

What this all comes down to in a nutshell is - the most important part of your website is how valuable and relevant your content is to the spectrum of visitors you are trying to appeal to. Like I said in step one the search engine world is a giant popularity contest and even if you have a sure fire way to become the most popular site on the net people will never consistently return if your content is no good and remember returning visitors shows Google that your content was worth coming back to.

PS - Our LIVE Real Estate Technology show will be aired Saturday 8pm instead of Sunday 8pm. We will be out of the country starting Sunday morning.

Have a greay day,
Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Live Video Screen Captures | Freebie!!

So you've seen Jeff Turners instructional videos and you've wondered to your self..."How does he capture his screen into a video like that?"

Well we have searched the internet universe up and down to bring you "Debut". Debut is a free screen / video / audio capture software that can create very nice screen capture videos for your website or blog.

The features of Debut are listed below and you can read more and download the software from NCH Software

• Records video in many different file formats including .avi, .wmv, .flv, .asf .mpg, .3gp, .mp4, .mov and more
• Ability to record from:
  • Camera (webcam)
  • Video Input Sources with a USB Capture Device see here...
  • Screen. Almost anything you can see or play on your PC can be recorded.
• Records audio with the video (optional).
• Multiple video and audio encoder settings.
• Snap-shot saving feature.
• Text caption and timestamp features.
• Ability to adjust resolution and framerate of the output video.
• Color settings and video effects for the output video can be changed.
• Lets you record for set specified durations (h:mm:ss).
• When recording period is over, you can either stop recording or create a new recording and continue.
• Mirror recordings to a network or backup drive to keep your video files safe.
• Can be set to automatically send video via email once the recording is completed.
• Can automatically transmit video files via the internet using FTP.
• Find and play recordings ordered by name, date, format or size
• Ability to burn directly to DVD with Express Burn Plus.
• System wide hot-key assignment to control recording while working in other programs.
• Debut Video Recorder has an incredibly intuitive and easy to use interface.
• Compatible with BroadCam Streaming Video server to distribute your recording.

Have a great day,
Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Meet Matt Fagioli | DiamondDwellings.com

Today I got the chance to speak with Matt Fagioli about his innovative "blogging brokerage" and also about his technology panel at the upcoming NAR 2008 Expo.

Matt is a pioneer in the new "blogging brokerage" frontier and I couldn't agree with this business model more. If you stand back and really look at what this type of brokerage is doing it's a no brainer when someone asks what brokers will still be standing after this hard economic time.

We already know that almost 90% of people go to the internet first to buy/sell/invest in real estate. This makes a blogging brokerage perfect. The idea is that if you only have a website it's going to be very difficult to stand against the larger brokerage companies when it comes to the internet, but if you have a blog where all of your agents can post topics about real estate in your area it shows an always evolving web presence that will always stand out among search engines.

If you would like to contact Matt Fagioli about Diamond Dwellings his email is matt@diamonddwellings.com

Have a great day,
Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

SEO Series | Part 1 Keywords

We're going to get into our new series about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The video above is a brief summary from our live show last Sunday night (www.realestatetechnologyonline.com/live).

Before you ever get in front of a computer or meet with a web developer you have to grab a pen and paper to ask yourself a question.

Question 1 - What do I want my website to be found for? or What will people be searching for when they find my website?

That question will lead you into the first step of your SEO plan; "Keywords". Search engines work by using what is called "robots" to search through the text and links of your web page to find certain repetitive keywords. After robots search your site they use your "keywords" to associate what your site is about to what people are looking for from the search engine.

Take your pad and pen and start to write down words or phrases that you want your site associated with. These phrases can be "real estate agents Denver" or "relocation specialist Denver " really whatever you want to associate yourself with.

Now that you have your certain keywords/key phrases you'll want to make sure these key terms are maximized by using the Google Adwords Tool. This tool will show you how to tune your key terms to get the most out of them.

Once you get to the tool type in your first key term such as "real estate agents in Denver". My results show that on average 110 people search for that specific key term each month. Now looking further down at those results I can see that the search term "Denver real estate agent" is searched for on average of 40,500 times each month or "Denver real estate" is searched for on average 165,000 times each month. So just using that one tool I have tuned my key phrase to appeal to 165,000 people instead of only 110. That's a huge difference.

We'll that's it for part one of SEO. Get settled down and find out what keywords / key phrases will work best for your site and maybe next we'll actually start on the website.

Have a great day,
Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

The SMS widget was a success!

Hello again everyone,

I'm here with my friend caffeine and we are very excited about how the text messaging widget has done in the "real estate industry". It has been 4 days and we've had around 200 agents implement this widget into their website/blog. I really give all the credit to my three favorite websites/people (in no order).

-MyTechOpinion.com
-Agent Genius
-The Jeff Turner

Now that the widget craziness is over I can get back to my blog series about agent websites and can start the new series about SEO (search engine optimization). If you want the widget click here.

p.s. - I swear the text message in the video was not planned and if you were wondering about the greatest and most potent energy drink on the planet that was featured in my blog it was the Rockstar - Blue. (be careful with it)

Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Get text messages from your website!!

Get It Here!

Have a great day,
Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Master Twitter.....Done & Done

-Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Your Agent Website Series | Part Three

"What in the world should I put on my website?" I get this question a lot and the first thing I always ask back is "What do you want your website to do for you?". Amazingly this always has a way of puzzling real estate agents. They never seem to sit down and think what their website should so for them.

The first thing I think a website should do for you is generate leads. Generating leads is how you make your money so of course that should be priority one and maybe even the only priority. After that realization we then have to figure out do we want buyers, sellers or a little bit of both? Right now I am in a buyers market like most of the country so I have tuned my website to be more friendly to buyers, but still work well with sellers if needed.

By tuning my website I mean I have made it easier to acquire buyers over sellers. I did this by giving buyers the number one thing they want most - A PROPERTY SEARCH - this is they key to generating traffic to your site. You have to have a way for buyers and even sellers to search the current market. Now since I have that taken care of my next priority would be to pre-qualify these new buyers. This is done with a giant button that says "Get Pre-Qualified Here" and when the potential buyer fills out that short form there info is sent to my preferred lenders and the process begins.

Now for sellers I can provide and quick "Find out what your home is worth form" that will set me up to do a market analysis for them and hopefully lead into a listing if I want it. For the most part I am currently not trying to take on any new listings but I will if they present themselves.

Some quick features you may want to add are Videos, Text Messaging and a fun/open description about yourself. These things can add a lot to your site.

I'll go over more in the video above but for now just remember to make your siute fun and useful while keeping it simple.

-Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

My New Toy | Acer Aspire One

Here is my Acer Aspire One 9" NetBook. This thing ROCKS for only $350! The video was shot in the back yard so there is some wind noise. Sorry.

For more info click here

Your Agent Website Series | Part Two

During this series we are going to talk about many different aspects of your agent website and since we have already covered domain names in the last post we now have to decide what type of site we want? I know your thinking "Well, I want the "web" kind of site".

There are a couple of different types of websites available for you. First you can host the site yourself and control every tiny aspect from creation to editing and so on. The method does have its ups and downs just like all of them. The benefit of hosting & building your own site yourself is the level of customization is limited only by your experience and skill. The downfall of hosting and building your own site if you are not experienced can be greater. It is by far the hardest to get up and running, you must know at least basic html to start and maintain and it takes much more time to keep up to date.

The second method of obtaining a website is buying pre-built. This option is great because you don't need to know HTML, you usually just pick a custom template to get started and you get to choose your own custom color scheme. The downfalls are you have to rely on tech support if there are any problems and it is not as customizable as a custom built page. This is most likely the best option for the average real estate professional that doesn't want to spend the time to try and build their own site.

The third option to obtaining a page is using a free pre-configured site given to you by your brokerage or board or Realtors. This is not my favorite option because it is always so generic and they all look the same. All the sites have a large header on top of some generic picture then on the left it has a "frame" style menu with a picture of the agent. These pages give you control over nothing, they look just like everyone elses, you gain minimal lead generation and there is no WOW! factor. I do use these pages whenever given to me just to have a picture, description and my name on the web but I would never run my business from one.

So it boils down to this... If you are good with web based programming or know someone who is then by all means have a custom site built that is like none other. If you want to get on the web quick with a semi-original page then go with pre-built and if you just don't care and want to just see your picture on the web run your business from the free broker page.

Now the last question. What pre-built website company do I recommend? I am going to leave this up to you the reader to recommend companies in the comments section for everyone to see. Just tell the company name, website and a brief description/experience so we can check them out.

Have a great day,
Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online

Just testing out a new toy.

Hope everyone is doing well. I just got a new toy I wanted test out in the back yard.

Hope everyone is having a great day and enjoying this great weather.

-Matt Rains
Real Estate Technology Online