Homeferret.com officially launched ten days ago on Saturday, March 1, 2008 with over 5,400 page views. Visitors came from 7 different countries and 35 different states. Providing customers and realtors with the most comprehensive inventory of new homes and communities available in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex, the new site is being hailed by industry professionals everywhere as a long overdue and welcome solution to a consistent and chronic problem: a dearth of internet access to new homes on the market.
Website looks good and all. Great attempt to utilize videos as well. But, judging from the press release I think the marketing team can use some advise and/or help. PrWeb allows you to utilize links back to your website in the press release. If you pay close attention to the press release, there is no link back to Homeferret.com inside of the copy. With that they are missing on many potential links from the websites and blogs who will publish the entire press release. But that is a subject for another post, so stay tuned and subscribe to my blog.
PRWeb is widely recognized as the leader in press release distribution. Many companies use this service to generate online buzz and even get attention of major publications. PRWeb is extremely well positioned for promoting your real estate website. Your press release can be targeted to a specified metropolitan so your the traffic to your website can be as local as possible. Following video explains how PRWeb works:
Smart Fox Homes, a New Jersey based FSBO website was launched today. In the spirit of FSBO rhetorics it promises customers to save on real estate commissions by selling your home on your own. Currently it offers three types of listings with a prices that range from free (two months) to $59.95 (six months).
Timothy O’Connell, Director of Business System Development of Smart Fox Homes was quoted in a press release:
Due to the downturn in the real estate market, many people simply cannot afford to pay a real estate commission and break even, let alone make a profit
It is not that hard to predict that Smart Fox Homes are going to be faced with other well established FSBO websites. The website lacks any tools that may help sellers to determine the value of their homes.
Hopefully as with many other FSBO websites, Smart Fox Homes will also become a good source of future listings to the real estate professionals.
It appears as the good folks at Inman News have decided to redesign their website. The redesign is not only about feel and look of the website. Their new logo now says: “Inman News- The first word in real estate” as opposed to the former slogan “Inman News- Where the real estate and technology connect”:
I personally am fine with either slogan, but I do like the new design. If you have not subscribed to the latest from Inman News you might be missing out on a lot of real estate news.
I am not sure what do they mean by “beta” though. The Inman News has been around ate least from the mid 90’s. Unless of course they are referring to the new design as a beta, or testing stage.
The Inman News is one of my favorite real estate websites. Do you read Inman News?
One of the great things about blogging, that in a way “come with the territory”, in an opportunity to encourage comments and create very vibrant communities of like minded people. However a blog owner you probably know that it takes time and hard work to foster discussions on your blog. In fact every one of us has a few posts on our blogs with zero comments.
Here are what I consider to be the most helpful things you can do and widgets you can use to encourage comments on your blog.
Ask. Asking your visitors to react in a form of a comment to what you have written is the easiest thing you can do. In fact, you can even modify your template in such a way that every single post will end with an encouragement like this: “I have spoken, now is your turn!”
Respond to comments. Some bloggers respond to every single comment, while others respond to many comments at once. However you decide to respond to people commenting on your blog is completely up to you. But doing so you have an opportunity not only to acknowledge the comments made by others, but also to answer additional questions and ever criticism.
Allow your readers to follow the conversation(s). On this blog I use a plugin that allows the author of the comment to subscribe to subsequent comments on the post he or she just commented. The plugin is called Subscribe to Comments. Every time the new comment is entered the subscriber receives and e-mail containing the comment. It keeps him or her updated without actual need to visit your blog.
Comment on other blogs. Yes the golden rule works in here as well.
Link to other blogs. If your post was inspired by another blog, make sure to link to that blog. Not only it’s just the matter of being kind, but often times you will find that the author of the original post will come and comment on your writing.
Use threaded comments plugin. I find this plugin to be really useful because it allows to respond to a particular comment.
Unfortunately #3 and #6 meant only for WordPress users. But the other four steps may help to increase the comments on your blog nonetheless.
If you have not put much effort into encouraging conversations on your blog, now is a good time. You will not regret it.
photo credit: Ordinary GuyYou probably have heard in the past, that in order to have a successful blog, the quality of your posts matter over the quantity. While in some cases it may be true, majority bloggers in order to succeed need to blog more frequently, without of course neglecting the quality. There are at two reasons why you would want to post frequently on your blog:
You want people to subscribe to your blog. And when they do, they in a way expect you to write. That is why they have subscribed to your blog.
Frequent posts will invite Googlebot to your blog more often.
This week, after another update of our 100 Top Real Estate Blogs, I have decided to put some interesting statistics together to find out how frequently are the new posts produced by the blogs on the list. I picked two groups of blogs: a)blogs 1 through 10; b) blogs 91 through 100. These 20 blogs collectively produced 354 posts during last week. Top ten blogs had written 312 of those posts! While the bottom 10 only 42.
March 11, 2008
Posted in Real Estate Websites 
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