Lasso's Real Estate Technology Blog

Location, Location, Location!!

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How to Improve Your Online Presence and Get Found Online... 

If you want to sell more houses locally, it's likely your goal is to be at the top of the list for most online searches. John Jantsch from DuctTapeMarketing.com has recently written an article on 5 Ways to Get More from Local Search. Here are some of the highlights that we think you will benefit the most from.

Real estate project marketing goals must include a strong online presence today, when a majority of prospective homebuyers turn to the Internet first when beginning their search for a new home. By following these tips, you can look forward to receiving more traffic to your website and to your sales center.

Increase your online presence by customizing your website, individual landing pages, online content, online profiles on social media networks, and more.

• Localize Your Website - Take the time to review your website. Add geography based terms to your page titles, footers, URLs and keywords on your website.
• Create Individual Landing Pages - If your business serves more than one location or community, create individual pages that feature content exclusive to each of these communities. Add information about local community news and events, nearby facilities, schools, churches, etc. Remember to customize your meta-tag descriptions and keywords in the HTML for each individual page! Local SEO Specialist Dev Basu provides very helpful tips on How to Create Effective Local Business Landing Pages.
• Online Content - When adding videos, photos, whitepapers about your company on sites like YouTube, and Slideshare and Flickr, take the time to add localized descriptors, links, and filenames to your content information.
• Online Profiles - If you haven't already done so, create a business profile page on social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. This blog article from SitePoint lists 20 Social Networking Sites for Business Professionals. Browse through to find those that suit you best.
• Get listed on Online Business Directories - Sign up with popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, Microsoft, and Ask.
• Tap into your Networks - Get your friends, associates, and happy customers to talk about you. LinkedIn offers testimonials and you can publish testimonials on your website. Create a Partners page where you feature and link to all the great people you work with from builders, developers, realtors, etc. Ask them to link back to your site.

In addition to the above, there are several real estate-specific directories that are worth exploring. These directories are typically focused on a specific location. There's been a lot of discussion regarding the importance of Craigslist and NewHomesDirectory.com is a directory service specifically for home builders. It positions itself well in the organic search rankings for keywords such as "New Homes San Diego" and "New Homes in Chicago" and their main objective is driving prospective purchasers to your project website.

Killing the Troll . . . Overcoming the #1 Deal Killer

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The following is a great post about fear being the #1 deal killer. Sonia Simone uses life experiences and the analogy of a troll creeping out and scaring away the buyer every time you get close to closing a deal.

Her commentary is about websites (and statistics do reinforce that over 80% of new home buyers are doing initial research via the internet) so it is important for real estate developers and builders marketing new homes to have a great web presence. But her post really applies to just about everything in marketing: the message, the materials, the website, the sales center, the sales people.
She acknowledges that killing the troll isn't easy, but you have to do it if for success - Trustworthiness, transparency, credible authority, lots of high-value content, and just plain old decency are your best weapons.

The #1 Conversion Killer to Your Copy (and How to Beat It) - by Sonia Simone, Copyblogger