Archives – March, 2011
Public Transit Info
A big factor for many people these days is how accessible a given area is transportation wise, especially regarding how close their how is to work. A neighborhood-focused Toronto real estate professional has detailed information on the public transportation available in the area. He has given the name and number for each of the streetcars operating in the neighborhood, where they go, and how often they run. He also notes which subway stops the buses and streetcars connect with. He provides links to Toronto’s main public transportation companies so people can get more detailed information such as schedules and start/stop times. He even provides a link to cycling routes in the area. Cycling, bus, streetcar or subway routes would be valuable to anyone who doesn’t have a car and commutes to work.
Some areas now have rent-by-the-hour cars available, so if your area has them, it’s a good idea to let people know about the companies offering them, how to sign up, and the spots the cars are available. These cars can be a great alternative to taxi cabs when you need to get somewhere fast or need a car for some reason for only a few hours (eg. buying new furniture).
Crime
The level of crime in an area can be a very important consideration for many people, especially single women. Focus on the types of crime that impact people directly such as the number of break and enter robberies in homes in the past year. Indicate whether there is a neighborhood watch program in the area and how effective it is. (more…)
March 30, 2011
Renovation Info
Each neighborhood home’s have their own unique style and architecture and building codes. So provide lots of information on how to renovate these homes for people who want to renovate an existing home after they buy it or plan to tear down the home they’re buying and build a new one. Anyone interested in saving some money by buying a fixer upper property in the area will value this information greatly, especially rehab focused property investors.
Property Taxes
Prospective residents to your area will be very interested to know how much property taxes are for the area and whether they can afford them. So list the previous year’s property taxes for the 5 most typical types of homes in the area. (more…)
March 28, 2011
Local Demographics
Birds of a feather flock together. There may be a considerable number of immigrants from a particular country in your farm neighborhoods. If there are, have resources on your website specifically for these people. Your site should note any ethnic establishments in the area: restaurants, book stores, foreign language movies stores, delicatessens or other ethnic shops in the area.
Do the necessary research necessary to become an expert on the types of people in the neighborhood. You’ll want to know the people’s age, ethnicity, race, marital status, income, education, languages spoken, and number of children. Present this information on your website. This can be particularly valuable information to people immigrating to Canada from a foreign country. Immigrants often like to ease their transition into a new country by living in communities dominated by people from their country who speak the same language. So providing them with this demographic information can help them know whether they’d fit in with your farm neighborhood. (more…)
March 25, 2011
Today’s home buyers are buying a home just as much as they’re buying into a neighborhood. So it’s not enough to just sell people on the features and benefits of your listings. You need to sell them on the features and benefits of each listing’s neighborhood as well. You do that by becoming a neighborhood expert. But if you are currently working several different farm neighborhoods, it’ll be difficult to establish yourself as an expert in all of them. So focus on one particular neighborhood (ideally the one you live in) and design your website strictly with that neighborhood in mind. When you’ve demonstrated you’re the most knowledgeable real estate professional in that neighborhood, it’s easy for people to infer you’re also the best one to work with, and so you’ll get more listings. Having this information on your site is essential for getting your website top ranking in Google searches for your neighborhood and the surrounding area. So here are some of the things you should address about the neighborhood on your real estate website.
So here are things you can have on your website about your farm neighborhoods: (more…)
March 23, 2011
Now consider a real estate professional who takes the exact opposite approach. They focus on a single market of only several thousand or even several hundred homes. It could be a single neighborhood or just a few condos in a certain area. There will be few (if any) other real estate professionals claiming specialization in such a narrow market, so when it comes to first impressions in advertising with prospects, they beat competitors almost by default.
Let’s say you’re a home seller looking for a new home and you’re looking through Google for a real estate professional in your area. You’re looking for someone to sell your home located in XYZ neighborhood. Let’s say there were 10 real estate professionals sites, 29 of whom claimed to serve the big city and 1-3 bedroom communities nearby. A single ad said the professional specialized in XYZ neighborhood listings. If you were the seller living in that neighborhood, who would you call first? Most likely the neighborhood specialist. (more…)
March 21, 2011
So your website should have lots of information both on the local real estate market and on local listings. That way, your website will appeal to both people actively seeking a home now and those who are still researching.
The ones who are not yet ready to buy or sell typically want lots of information on the local real estate market and some updates on new listings and recently sold listings. The people who are ready to buy or sell will mostly want new listing updates. So make sure your website’s content caters to both types. When they sign up for your mailing list have them indicate in the signup form if they’re actively seeking a home now or are simply doing research. If it’s the latter ask them to indicate about when they plan to start actively searching for a new home. (more…)
March 18, 2011
How They Find Real Estate Websites
This is how online consumers learn about websites:
- Links From Other Sites – 88%
- Search Engines – 85%
- Friends – 65%
- Print Media – 63%
- Directories – 58%
- Signature Files – 36%
- Television – 32%
- UseNets and Online Discuss Groups – 29%
- Other – 29%
- Books – 28%
Note how much the top two ways exceed print media. Therefore, it’s critical you have your own real estate website and don’t rely on your company or brokerage’s website for people to find you. Our Moneymaker website for real estate professionals is a turn key solution for helping those online consumers find you. It’s designed to work hand in hand with the information you regularly receive as a Smart Agent Internet Marketing Club member. (more…)
March 16, 2011
Reputable companies usually avoid gray hat SEO, but those who don’t know the search engine rules and some agencies will occasionally use one or two of these tactics for getting ahead further with their SEO.
3. White Hat SEO
These are SEO techniques that follow the search engines rules and regulations with the goal of getting high SEO ranking by using honest, ethical practices in posting website content. With White Hat there’s no trickery or deception involved in seeking greater SEO. Sites who use White Hat SEO use original website content, navigation, Meta data, and linking strategies for achieving progressively greater SEO.
(more…)
March 14, 2011
Do Search Engines Have Rules For Search Engine Optimization?
Yes. A critical thing to understand is how search engines assess and rank a website’s content. Search engines have rules for determining how good a site’s content is and you must follow those rules. The more you follow those rules, the more likely your site will rise in search engine rankings. However, not all approaches to SEO necessarily follow these rules. Consequently, there are 3 basic approaches to SEO and each is defined by how well it follows the SEO rules: (more…)
March 11, 2011
What Content Should My Real Estate Website Have?
Always remember your real estate website should serve only one purpose: building your email mailing list. That is, your website needs to entice visitors with enough valuable, current local real estate information that they will want to sign up your mailing list and receive information updates from you on a regular basis. If they don’t sign up, it’s likely these visitors will never come back to your site, so you won’t have any further opportunity for building relationships with them. So getting people signing up for your mailing list is absolutely essential. Search Engine Optimization drives qualified prospects to your site, and your site captures these leads so you can develop relationships with these people via email.
Your website’s information and style should reflect (more…)
March 9, 2011
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