Go Beyond MLS » Internet Marketing

The Basics Again: USP

Matt — Tue, 18 May 2010 15:23:22 +0000

I’d like to kick off what I hope will be a short series on the basics of selling anything at all. Of course this applies to selling real estate but it equally applies to selling cakes, CDs or cars.

I am going to start with USP – Unique Selling Point. Now if you know even 1% of what you need to succeed online this should be like teaching grandmother how to suck eggs. However, we all, even me, need to be reminded of the basics.

What is it about the real estate (or necklaces, watches, computer cases or greeting cards) that you are promoting that no one else offers? Why would Mr Joe Public choose you over the other six or seven thousand people in the country offering the same or similar services?

If you don’t know the answer to this question then your business in in trouble.

Let me illustrate this with a story of real estate in the UK. In a small corner of the UK there are three towns. The area they are in has about 120,000 people in it. One real estate agency that has been doing very well opened a branch less than five miles away in a second of the towns. It did not do very well.

Why?

Well, for starters they did not advertise the business but also they offered the same commission rate as everyone else. They did offer a slightly more comprehensive service than many competitors but without something exciting to cause word of this service to be spread the slightly better service was a well kept secret.

So what did they do?

They dropped the commission rate to make it the lowest in the town, they started to offer not just a better set of reports but a guarantee of specific actions at no cost if the property fails to sell within a time period,. They did not tie people into an exclusive contract and they offered free professional photo shoots. All that in a down turn economy.

What they did was change the USP so no the question is not why would Joe Public use this agency but why would Joe Public want to use any other agency.

When the economy is grey then a USP that is a shade of grey different tot he next guys does not stand out.

What will you offer to make your services stand out?

It does not need to be the lowest price (although if you can afford to compete like that good luck to you). Offer the customer more bang for his or her buck and suddenly you have a reason to be chosen.

Stand out. Go further. Be seen.Similar Posts:

Setting up Facebook Pages for beginners

Matt — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:32:29 +0000

Matt Brown

Before we set off on our voyage of discovery today I want to give you a bit of background as to why I am writing this article. I have found myself of late being adviser to a lot of people setting up facebook pages for lots of different reasons. Rather than repeat what I have to say ten times I am going to try and summarize it. Where possible I am going to use the Go Beyond MLS page as an illustration.

Now I should also point out that I am not a guru at this sort of thing but a really enthusiastic geek. With that in mind let us look at setting up pages.

What is a page?

A page is a blog.

Don’t look at me like that a page is basically a cross between twitter and wordpress. For plugins you have applications and instead of tweets you have posts with attachments.

All the basics of blogging apply to your page. We will talk about this in a moment. First some basics to make sure we have not missed anything.

Making the page

Most of you that read this article will know how to make a page already but for those that don’t this is the quick version.

1. Go to a page (the Go Beyond MLS Page is good).

2. At the bottom of the left hand column you will see a link that says “Create a Page for My Business” (this link leads tot he same page).

3. Click it, fill out the details and there you are a page. It has no fans (not even you) and is ready for customisation.

Getting the basics in place

There are some things that a page needs before you even make yourself a fan of it. These are simple that it is easy to overlook them.

1. Upload a picture. In fact if you got as far as making the page and did not have the perfect logo then you need to stop whatever you are doing and get one. Now.

Your picture is your only branding that you get. Everything else looks exactly as facebook wants it to look.

A good image can be as tall as you like but is limited in width. Take a look at the Lord Matt fan page (and become a fan perhaps). You will see that it has a customised image that fills down the page and adds my character to the page. I also get to make the public speaker and blogger points boldly while getting two pictures of me on the one space.

If you do not have the skills to make such an image then a photograph might do. Just remember whatever you use had better be yours to use.

2. Put something short and snappy in the about box.

Treat this like the most important tweet you will ever send. I like to end with a call to action (suggest to friends).

3. Find something worthwhile to say for all the fields under the info tab.

If the fields on the info tab are very much not what you need and do not fit in the slightest then you are not to late to delete the page and try picking a better category. Make up your mind now because it’s the work of ten minutes to change things with no loss if you change them now.

Okay assuming that you stick with your current settings write that “about” section and make sure you make it good.

You have around 100 to 300 words before people have to click to see more so just like blogging you must capture people’s interest within as few lines as possible and then keep it. If it takes days to get the “about” perfect then that is what it takes.

4. Consider making the about tab the default landing page because your wall is not going to be very interesting to start with.

There are more advanced things you can do like adding new tabs that people land on but for now let us just stick with the info tab.

To make it the default landing page you are going to have to click “Edit Page” which is found just under the image you set a while back. Get in there and make some changes.

5. Consider making the default for the wall both fan and page so that it is as much like a basic facebook profile as possible.

You can do this when looking at the page proper.

Still not ready, whatever you might think

It is still not time to be a fan of your own page. The basics are done (more or less) but now you need to do something so fundamentally simple that you could actually miss it entirely.

You need, and I do mean need, to make one of the best status updates you have ever written. You need this because as soon as you are a fan it is possible people you know might come and visit the page. Becoming the first fan is the first motion that starts the door opening and you do not want to invite people to the party before the catering is planned.

Only then are you free to fan the page.

How to get notifications when someone comments on your page

There are only two ways to get a notification of something getting a comment (that I know of) on a page.

1. You have to like the something in question – press that like button and move on.
2. You have to comment on the something and (I think) not be an admin.

A word of warning to page owners with many posts. If you go “like” made you will spam the hell out of your own wall and devalue it. Also if you are the only one carrying out actions on the page it will look spammy if you went and liked everything. No one likes everything. Don’t do it.

If you can get a friend or two that you trust to co-admin the page with you then you can carve the likes up between you but remember that none of you can comment as you on the page once you are an admin. So you might like to get your closest friends to poke you when there is something to look at.

Honestly though you should be going to your own page most days anyway…

Your page is a blog so write on it

Your facebook page is a blog. So like a blog you need to write on it. Daily.

You want to see regular updates. Links, videos, comments, forum posts (that’s a whole other topic), pictures and all the other stuff that walls can have and it needs to happen organically – a little at a time.

I’ll talk about how you can automate a few tasks at another time and place but before you can understand what tasks can be trusted to a computer you need to understand the tasks. Most of them can only be done by you.

Now that we are one!

Now that you have your first fan (you) it is time to get more. This is how.

1. Add value. Make it worth while to be a fan.
2. Invite all your friends. Twice if need be.
3. Link tot he page on your blog or website.
4. Do not stop with the valuable updates.

Getting fans is a slow and organic process but by removing reasons not to fan your page you help things move along well.

I’ll be talking about this and other topics soon.Similar Posts:

Go Beyond MLS Facebook Page

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:20:45 +0000

After Matt’s fantastic introduction to what I think will be number series of posts about Facebook Marketing- it is finally time to announce the Facebook Page of Go Beyond MLS, even thought Matt did it in some ways. The main reason for not promoting this page before, was my own confusion about pages an apps on Facebook.

A while back I have tried to use a WordPress plugin called Facebook Connect by Sociable. To use this plugin an application was created for this blog on Facebook for the purposes of showing latest Facebook visitors, register new users once they left a comments etc. In the end I gave up on using the plugin since it had some flaws at the time I did not want to deal with.

In short, I confused them (Facebook Apps and Facebook Pages). However, after creating a Facebook page for Chocolate Belles, a business I have been advising about internet marketing over the past two years, I found a new appreciation of Facebook Pages and how useful can it be for any business. But I have to leave it at this, sine Matt plans to share more useful tips about Facebook and all it has to offer to help you with you online marketing efforts.

In the meanwhile if you do not see your picture in the widget bellow, chances are you not yet the fan of Go Beyond MLS on Facebook, please join us and don’t be shy to interact with us on Facebook.

Go Beyond MLS on Facebook

Similar Posts:

Facebook Marketing: Initial Case Study

Matt — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:35:48 +0000

Go Beyond Facebook

What I am going to do int his first article is simply look at the Facebook fan page for this website and use it to explore Facebook pages in general and what they can do for your blog (regardless of niche).

Vlad tells me that apart from setting up the page he has not actually done very much with it least of all tell anyone about it.

This, for this article’s purposes, is fantastic! It means that we can actively measure what I am about to have said (keep on reading or you might miss it) and watch what happens as we implement the theory. Over the next few months I’ll revisit the topic of Facebook and representing your blog therein reporting on our efforts to go beyond just having a page and to actually getting traffic from it.

As I write there are 3 fans. In three months let us see if we can get over 100.

The page as it is

Go Beyond Facebook Page

As the page stands there is nothing obviously “wrong” with it. The blog posts are being added to the page and there is a graphic that matches the website theme. However, as you can see, there is a lack of variety and this makes the page visually unappealing and repetitive.

In other words we have settles down to making Facebook a very expensive feed reader. That’s fine but it’s not exciting enough to get the average Facebook user to do much by way of interaction.

According to something I was reading (somewhere) the average Facebook user fans two pages a month. That means to see growth in the page’s fan base some work is going to be needed.

Then the page must add value to the user’s day and if that was not enough it must actually be interactive enough to get enough interaction to show up in the news feed of the fans who have added it.

Facebook promotion is no walk in the park. Keep reading for an insight into using pages.

Go beyond what is missing!

The first thing that most people are going to say is missing is the fans. Look for yourself. (When I wrote this there were three of us)

Go Beyond MLS on Facebook

Yet this is not what is missing but a metric that we are heading in the right direction to attract people.

What is missing is the variety of media that can be found on any page in Facebook.

Pictures

This is a tough one for a blog. Many blogs are of non visual topics and yet people are going to want to see that the blog has something of a gallery. Pictures break the page up and give the senses a change of pace.

So what can a blogger show pictures of?

Well for starters there is the writer or writers of the blog. Assuming that your names are known then some images of you serve to help the fan connect with you on a deeper level.

If images of oneself are not enough then there are diagrams. A well thought out diagram illustrating some key point from you recent blogging allows Facebook users to see that they are getting exclusive content.

Product shots – fans in your t-shirts. If you produce a physical product then this is an ideal space to allow fans to show themselves off with their newly purchased product. Mum’s, sisters and close friends might also agree to get the ball rolling.

Status updates

The Facebook page is like your personal Facebook wall and has the opportunity for you to speak with the voice of your blog. Give your fans something to ponder or shout out to a fan that has submitted some particularly interesting comments.

Let the Facebook users know that the page has a life that goes beyond publishing the blog feed.

Videos and links

Any article, youtube video or podcast by someone interesting from in or near your niche could be worth sharing on your page. The concept of linking out, adding value and being the resource for others that drives blogging applies here too.

Furthermore a good resource can be sued to connect with your Facebook friends and promote your page to them in a not-at-all aggressive way. Posts of all forms of link have a SHARE button which will post the link to your page and say “from NameOfYourPage” which gives you a little exposure and, so long as it is interesting, enhances your social capital as an interesting person.

Go Beyond what is expected

One thing that you will find about pages is that they have very little opportunity for energy saving automation, branding or free text. However with a little inventiveness you can get quite a lot out of them.

Take as my first example a little shameless self promotion: My very own fan page.

The image below is a screen shot of that page.

Matt's Facebook Page

You might notice that the left hand side is almost all customized. This is because there is no limit on relative height for your profile image. Use this space to get the most out of the branding and impact space of your page.

In my case I made sure there were images of me that I could use to get an attractive thumbnail which you can see is a picture of a poster of me getting some attention from the lovely ladies (yes it is a genuine fake).

A little planning and you can maximize your impact buy controlling the image dimensions.

Additionally you might notice int his screen shot that there is a visual variety in the posts themselves. This happens to be because I posted a largish number of links recently and have yet to write a new blog post.

Talking of blog posts when-ever I write a blog post I know that my Facebook page (and twitter account) will be updated to. To do this I use NetWorkedBlogs which is a valuable application for Facebook using bloggers. To get the most out of it it is vital to make sure that 80% or more of your blog posts have an image in them that the NEtWorkedBlogs app can use. Keep the images varied and the page “wall” will look interesting.

You can also get added feedback onto your page if the NetWorkedBlogs application posts to other locations (like your personal wall or another page). This is because a like or a comment in any location is a like or a comment on all copies of the post. This too makes your page look interesting.

Going beyond the theory: The game plan

This is the game plan for the page over the next few weeks and months in roughly the order they will be carried out.

1. A taller image.

2. NetWorkedBlogs doing it’s thing.

3. Status updates, links and videos.

4. Invite fans.

Once this minor tweak is fully in place I shall revisit the topic and look at what else can be done to use Facebook to engage with potential readers and promote your blog. The results we are looking for as a result of good promotion of the Facebook page are:

1. More fans

2. More fan interaction

3. Traffic to the blog

Final thoughts

So far we have not looked at methods of getting from three fans to one hundred. However it is vital to get the foundations right or the rest will not stand up too well.

Have you made a fan page yet? What was it like and did many people “fan” it?Similar Posts:

Google Local Ads: Post to Your Place Page

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:14:45 +0000

If you are using Google Local Business Center, you may have already noticed a new feature which allows you to post messages (limited to 160 characters) to you place page:

Each message will expire in 30 days from the time it is published. If you decide to include a specific link inside the message, it will be converted into an HTML (click-able) link on your listing page see example bellow of first message from The Chocolate Belles:

You can see Chocolate Belles live listing here.

This new feature offers you an additional options to promote specific events, services or products via Google Local Business Center.

According to Post to Your Place Page FAQ – you can only have one message at a time posted to your place page.

Disclosure: I currently advise The Chocolate Belles on Internet marketing.Similar Posts:

Google Local Business Center Now Offers Reports and Statistics

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:18:41 +0000

I have always been a huge fan of Google Local Business Center- a free way to drive foot traffic to your business. When you list your business with Google Local Business Center, you business is likely to show up alongside a Google map for certain search terms. Let say you need to find a dentist in Jackson, NJ- all the listings along the map are result of dentist offices taking advantage of Google Local Business center. I have written in the past how a friend of mind noticed increase of visitors to her shop after we listed her business in Google Local Business Center.
I also wanted to see more statistics and reporting inside the Business Center account. My wishes have finally came ture. It appears that Google is now providing some insightful statistics for your business’ local ads and coupons associated with your listing. Just go to your account and you should see a link to your report as shown in the image to your right.

The port shows the graph of impressions and actions associated with your business:

The actions are divided into three categories: clicks to your website, clicks to get driving directions and clicks to get more info on Google Maps:

It shows you top 10 queries that trigger an impression when an internet user is looking for terms associated with your business:

And it also provides the list of top 10 Zip codes associated with the requests for driving directions:

At this point I am not sure what statistics are available for coupons- as I do not have any active coupons running at this time. However if you do and are able to write a short post, with some snapshots of reporting for coupons, please come back and live a link to your post or article.

If you are a business owner and are looking to drive “foot traffic” to you store or business location you should definitely look into taking advantage of Google Local Business Ads- it is absolutely free!Similar Posts:

5 Tips for Killer Online Press Releases

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:15:51 +0000

This is a guest post by Janet Meiners Thaeler – Newspapergrl (online PR)

Have you ever thought of improving your online business with a press release? Press releases are great tools to help your web site rank higher in search engines. I’ve written press releases for national brand name real estate pros. Here are some tips to help you write and distribute your first press release:

Find something newsworthy to write a press release about.
Right now the economy and saving money are hot topics. You may be doing some creative marketing in your area that would be a great story. If you need inspiration, search a site like PRWeb for “real estate” and see what others are writing about.
Remember that news is something that exists in time – something has happened, is happening now, or is happening in the future. Sometimes people get confused and mistake a press release for an advertisement (not objective) or an article (not timely information).
Add quotes to your press release.
Quotes are important because they say key points of the news “in your own words.” This is the only time you can use “you” and “yours.” I like to use at least 2 quotes in a press release and make sure that they capture the news or an aspect of it. Be specific in your writing (rather than vague or generic) so that anyone reading the quote could know who you are, what the news is, and why it matters just from reading the quote.
Use Links in your press release.
Many people make the mistake of not using links in their press release. Online it’s vital to use links because links are the currency of the Internet. A link is a “vote” for your web site in search engines. Use about one link for every 100 words.
Link to other pages besides your home page.
It may be tempting to just add a link at the end of your press release that says something like: For more information, see “www.yourwebsite.com.” So you only have one link and it’s just to the home page. Ideally you should link to related pages, articles, or blog posts. You should aim to use words as links, not just URLs. I usually add a link in the intro, throughout and then as the last sentence of the press release. S
Distribute your press release online.
Press release distribution sites like 24-7pressrelease.com will let you add text links for about $50. It’s worth the cost to use a service like this. For larger distribution I highly recommend PRWeb‘s $200 SEO visibility package. The submission process is a bit more involved but you’ll get traditional media and get the best online distribution on the Internet.

Hope these tips are helpful. I’m writing a book about online PR. Send me an email – janet [at] affiliateflash [dot] com and I’ll let you know when it’s finished and I’ll also notify you when I’m ready to give away a few copies on this blog.Similar Posts:

Have You Listed Your Business With Google Local Business Center? You Should! It is FREE!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:09:59 +0000

It is quiet surprising how very few business owners who operate both a website as well as provide services from a physical location do not take advantage of Google Local Business Center. This service can give your business (and your website) extra exposure for free.

Background story… I have been helping a dear friend of mine, who owns a candy supply store in Brick, NJ, with her website. Most of her revenue comes from clients who visit her store to purchase candy making supplies, order cakes for special occasions or attend her decorating classes. Keeping that in mind, after setting her up with a WordPress powered website (which I barely touched since! Excellent Job Ann!), I have immediately registered her business with Google Local Business Center. I hope that after reading this post, you will do the same for your business because…

You Can Get More “Spotlight” In Search Results.

Often, as it is with Ann’s business, Internet users will search by adding a “geo-qualifier” (yes I made that word up) to their search term. For example, often times Google users will search for “candy supply store Brick NJ“. And here is the snapshot of the search results they get from Google:

Not only Inter user is presented with a relevant result, as well as with a quick access to driving directions to your business, operating hours and reviews.

If you list your business in correct categories you have a very good chance to drive “laser targeted” traffic (both foot and Internet) to your business.

You can also enhance your local ad with pictures and/or YouTube videos and offer discount coupons for the services you provide.

When you think about array of meta search engines, none of them are capable to produce such results. At least none that I am aware off.

If you have used Google Local Business ads in the past for your business I would love to hear your experience and/or success story.Similar Posts:

Paid Review. Is It Worthed?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:14:00 +0000

Seams like the subject of paid reviews will be around for some time. While I have a unique prospective on paid blogging, I think the proper place to discus the subject will be on Sage Blogger, the blog where I write about affiliate marketing and related subjects of making money online.

I do however need to thank Greg Swann and Chris Johnson for stirring up emotions associated with the subject.

While some may think that such an article may fit better on this blog, the truth is that vast majority of real estate bloggers are not looking to to monetize their blogs. However most of the visitors to my Sage Blogger come to it looking for things that will make you money on the Internet- many are them are bloggers who will consider signing up with one of the paid/sponsored reviews websites.

I will leave the readers of Go Beyond MLS with a following thought. Paid review was the worst mistake I ever made as far as blogging is concerned. If blogging is your long term goal, paid and sponsored reviews maybe prove to be very shortsighted strategy and can sometimes cost you way more in legal fees should things go awry as a result of your review.Similar Posts:

ePerks To File For Bankruptcy. But Things At LeapFish Are Peachy!

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 18:53:50 +0000

UPDATE May13, 2010: Things pertaining to LeapFish.com, their founders and management, along with related startups are no longer of interest to me, therefore no further comments are allowed on this post. There are also more reliable sources out there (such as Better Business Bureau) to help you make an informed decision about LeapFish.

***You may also want to know that the Law Firm of Daniel Bakondi, in San Francisco, CA, is investigating a possible Class Action Law Suit Against LeapFish.

If you are trying to get your money back after receiving no leads from advertising on ePerks, chances are you are out of luck. As one real estate agent learned, ePerks is to file for bankruptcy and is offering a 20% refund. If you are not happy with a 20% refund tough luck- you may get nothing after the bankruptcy goes through:

Yesterday, Michael with ePerks called me on my cell phone & said that eperks will be filing for bankruptcy & will not be refunding my money. I was floored. This is really upsetting to me. I cannot believe that a company that is STILL selling memberships would tell me that they will not keep their word. He said that I have 2 options- that I can walk away now with 20% of what they owe me “so that I get something” or I can agree to be pd out over the next yr, but if they file for bankruptcy then they owe me NOTHING. - read the entire article here.

The agent goes on blaming, of all things, government for not covering ePerks under the blanket of recent bailouts:

(Michael) told me that times are really tough for the company with the economy being like it is and unfortunately eperks didn’t get to be part of the government bail-out & doesn’t have the money to pay back all of the people that want their money back.

Well since we are using the recent events in the economy, why don’t we bring up Bernard Madoff as well. Why? Thea answer is LeapLish.com- a new search engine launched by the same group of people. if Unlike for Michael (the sales rep cited above)- things for LeapFish sales representatives look peachy. According to a recruitment ad on Craigslist, a sales rep can make $150,000 a year while working at LeapFish. I am not surprised at all that ePerks decided to fold down their shop, just about after about one month of unsuccessfully trying to get traction with the search engine and even having been humiliated on the world’s leading technology blog TechChrunch.

It has to be said that LeapFish.com and DotNexInc did their best to distance themselves from Brabus Ventures and ePerks. It appears that founders and sales people at LeapFish are infatuated with real estate agents- just take a look how much astroturfing has been done on ActiveRain.

I don’t know how the bankruptcy works. Never filed for one. Never plan to. If it works the way I think it works, it’s a great way to screw your clients. The hell with the clients, just file for bankruptcy start another business. Why shouldn’t life be peachy?Similar Posts:

ActiveRain: Why Every Real Estate Professional Should Join?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:23:56 +0000

Over the past few months I have been slowly falling in love with ActiveRain. The first time I have ever came across this real estate network, I did not know what to make of it. I did not join ActiveRain right away because I did not feel there was a place for me. I had no interest renewing my real estate license and was under impression the network is reserved to real estate professionals exclusively. I am not sure why I had this perception, but after joining ActiveRain I quickly realized that this community is very open minded and most importantly not limited to real estate agents exclusively.

However in this article I would like to point out that real estate professionals can probably benefit the most from ActiveRain. And here are just few points why.

Blogging. Every member upon joining the community is given their own blog. If you were thinking to start blogging yet was not sure you were ready to invest resources and time into it, ActiveRain blogs is a place where you can try to “wet your feet” as far as blogging is concerned. While their blogs may not offer all the bells and whistles that you can normally get when hosting a blog on your own domain. It does offer the basics and can get you started.
Instant Audience. One of the best part about blogging on ActiveRain is that you have an instant audience for your blog. Even a newbie to ActiveRain like myself can often get 10+ comments on their initial posts. To me the most rewarding part of blogging is an audience that is engaged.
Networking. As I am writing this post there are 108,851 members on ActiveRain. My guess that majority of the members are real estate professionals or working in the field closely related to real estate. If you ask me that is an impressive number of members!
ActiveRain’s Popularity. Before joining any online community or forum, I am always trying to look at the “popularity factor”. The more popular certain website is, the better chance to gain some extra visitors to my own websites. According to statistics from Alexa and Compete (see the charts below) ActiveRain is outranking Inman by quite a margin:

Click on the image below to see detailed statistics on Alexa:

Click on the image below to see detailed statistics on Compete:
ActiveRain Referrals- a place to share and find referrals posted by other ActiveRain members. If you are on a “hunt” for leads, why not to browse referrals by other agents rater than spending money on lead generating schemes?

To conclude, I simply would like to repeat my earlier statement- I am slowly falling in love with ActiveRain. I am also confident you will appreciate ActiveRain as well. If you are already a member, visit my profile page and add me to your associates, I would love to connect with you on ActiveRain.Similar Posts:

Real Bird Introduces New Feature: RealBird Virtual Tour

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:48:18 +0000

The RealBird Blog just announced new feature called RealBird Virtual Tour. I have written in the pas about RealBirds nifty widget that allows real estate agents create a “mini-showcase” of their listings while offering an opportunity for viral marketing, and allowing bloggers or any webmasters to grab the code and feature the listings on their websites or blogs.

The new feature ads Google Maps Street view to the lower par of the widget and comes at $9.99 per listing or $14.99 when purchased with a property domain name:

The Google Maps of this version is unique in itself as it offers map view, satellite view, hybrid view, terrain view as well as Google Earth.

Just taking a look at few of the featured listings, they need to be more optimized. The images are downloading rather slow even though I have a cable connection. The slow load may be caused by the scripts as well.

Overall it is a nice addition to their product. The “branded virtual tours” offer users an opportunity to share the tours on variety of social networking websites as well as easy way to publish information to their blogs. Personally I would prefer to grab the code via “copy and paste” as it was the case with their former widget, since I do not like to give away the user name and the password to my blog.

Hope to hear from some of my readers what they think about this new feature.Similar Posts:

How Can I Thank You?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:31:38 +0000

photo credit: psdOver the period of last few months I was a recipient of incredible support and generosity for the bloggers around the world and real estate bloggers in particular. While I have no words to describe my gratitude, there was one question constantly on my mind: “What can I do to show my gratitude to all these wonderful people?”

I am a firm believer in saying “what does around, comes around”. In other words I should not be expecting other people to be supportive and generous to me, if I am not supportive and generous to other people. However at the end of the day, no matter how much I give it always seems that I receive back hundredfolds. And so is true about last few months.

As a token of my gratitude to many bloggers and real estate professionals, I am working on few projects that hopefully will benefit you in some way.

Blogroll
While I am not in favor of site wide blogrolls, I have decided to implement on on my blog. The exception of course is that it is not a side wide but a dedicated page which will show the blogs on my blogroll. With the help of the Live Blogroll plugin, I have added a little twist to my blog roll. If you navigate to the blogroll page and hover with your mouse over the links a need ajax pop-up will appear with the latest articles from your blog. This blogroll is the work in progress, so if you did not see your blog there yet it will probably appear in next few days. I will also look into the way to paginate that page so it can redistribute the “link juice” to the bookmarks there in equal measure. I will also try to play around with the plugin and instead of serving the “latest post” through the ajax widget I will attempt to embed them in the page itself. I think that would add more value to the blogroll itself besides it being just collection of links.

Free Consulting: Blogging and Internet Marketing.
As many of your may gather I know a thing or two about blogging and internet marketing. If you do not have a blog yet, I encourage you to start one immediately. If you have one already, feel free to ask my advise on how you can improve your blog performance.

Free Translating And Interpreting.
If you ever decide to market your real estate business in other languages, I will be happy to help you out. While I do not speak Spanish, I can translate and interpret for you in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and Italian. Due to my schedule I will be offering this only to the blog owners listed in my blogroll, again the Blogroll is a word in progress and I am anticipating to have more than 100 blogs on the list. So please stop again in the future.

If you have any questions about the above offers feel free to contact me.Similar Posts:

RSSPieces: Will Their Pieces Stick Together Without Mary McKnight

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:06:13 +0000

Trying to bring myself up to speed with things around real estate blogosphere I have came across across the RSSPieces announcement that Mary McNight, the founder and (now former) Chief Marketing Officer of RSSPieces “is no longer part of the day to day operations of RSS Pieces”.

During last week I have e-mailed Mary once or twice and never received a reply. Very unusual of her, since in the past Mary would respond to my e-mails rather promptly- at times within minutes.

On her Active Rain blog Mary wrote briefly that her relationship with RSSPieces went south. Evidently many of the Mary’s social medial accounts where hijacked, but she is on they way to recover them.

So will the pieces at RSSPieces stick together now that Mary is gone? From the comments on RSSPieces appears that they might already be falling apart.

I personally never was Mary’s client and our paths would not have crossed if I was not interested in Internet Marketing and Blogging. Needless to say Mary has my respect and support. Mary had build a strong and respectable profile for RSSPieces. She is well known and respected in various circles of this wonderful new media we call blogging. It is hard to know what really happened and what Mary is planing for the future. Real Estate Radio USA is interviewing Mary today, so I am looking forward to that interview.

I am certain though that Mary will have no problem to be successful no matter which direction she decides to take. RSSPieces on the other hand will have to struggle and really step up a bit, especially now that many of the clients are disappointed and confused.Similar Posts:

How To Determine The Value Of Feed Subscribers and Track Associated Goals With Google Analytics

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:40:58 +0000

If you write a blog, it is safe to presume that you want other people to read it. Unless of course you have blocked the search engines and are allowing only certain people to see your blog. From what I can gather when it comes to the real estate blogs, most of us would like our blogs to be read. In fact some of us have set a goal to turn first time visitor to our blogs into regular one or even a subscriber. In fact in some other niches, the value and the influence of a blog is determined by the number of subscribers.

In real estate, blog can also be responsible for the growth of your business. In fact, many real estate blogs are highly monetized digital “properties” on the internet, while others contribute to the successful real estate transactions outside of the Internet. In either case the subscribers to your blog may have something to do with the dollars in your pocket at the end of the day.

In this tutorial, I will show you one way you can track a specific goal (lets call it “subscriber goal” for the sake of the argument) using Google Analytics. If you are not familiar with Google Analytics but are serious about your online marketing efforts I strongly suggest opening an account. Learn as much as you can about what Google Analytics has to offer, it will only benefit you in the long run.

Before I get into technical part, which will require some minimal knowledge of HTML, I would like you to sit down a determine following. Think about the past month. How much income (preferably net income) can you contribute directly to your blog? Now divide that amount by the number of subscribers- the result will be used in Google Analytics as “goal value”. For example if your net income was $1000 and your blog has 265 subscribers, dividing $1000 by 265 will give you $3.77- when setting your gaol at Google Analytics you will use this amount to indicate your “subscriber goal”.

Setting The (Subscriber) Goal In Google Analytics.

If do not have an account with Google Analytics, you might want to register first and implement the tracking codes in the template of your website.

In order to track your subscriber you need to know who many people had actually clicked the subscription button or link. However, I highly discourage against placing Google Analytics tracking code int the feed of your blog. Also, if you are directing your visitors to your blogs feed at FeedBurner, you may not be able to implement the tracking code even if you advanced in programing.

In order to capture these statistics you will need to implement what is known as a jump page. You can do that by using a simple text editor such ad Notepad. Create a file a name in subscribe.html. Then copy and paste the code below, but make sure to replace few lines of that code with your own info (explained below the code):

<–REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR GOOGLE ANALYTICS CODE HERE–>

Make sure to replace YOURFEEDSURL with actual URL of your blog’s feed and the line that says to replace it with Google Analytics Code.

Upload the file (subscribe.html) into the root directory of your blog. The meta refresh in the “head” of this HTML file will redirect users to your blog’s feed wile Google Analytics will capture necessary data.

Login into your Google Analytics account. In the dashboard area you will see the list of your websites in the table called “Website Profiles”. Then click “Edit” link for the blog you are about to implement a “conversion goal”. You can set up up to 4 different goal for each website. If you followed my instructions in creating the jump page and uploading it to your server, your conversion gaol configuration should look like this:

Note that 3.77 is the result of calculation we did dividing your net income by the number of your existing subscribers.

I know that it sounds some what complicated. But it is not as hard as it looks and the benefit of having these statistics measured should supersede any fear of tackling Google Analytics and a little bit of HTML coding.

Depending on the popularity and traffic to your blog you can see results within day or two. However to have more accurate statistics, you might need to wait longer than just one day.

Here is an example of how this is working for my website:

The figures in “Per Visit Goal Value” column offer me clear idea how much I can pay per each visitor and still profit if I were to strike advertising deals with the referring websites and blogs.

Warning: The above describe method should only be used in conjunction with other statistics. It maybe that some visitors may not actually subscribe eve after clicking the subscription button or link. You will also need to factor in unsubscribe rate and never ever use the gross income in calculating the goal value. Being very conservative when assigning the goal value will shorten the range of the error margin. You should also be conservative with your subscribers numbers, it’s better to err on the side of lower number of subscribers.Similar Posts:

And The Question Remains… Why?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:25:36 +0000

Since publishing the infamous Cease and Desist notice, I was asked by fellow bloggers few questions that I cannot ignore. But before I start, I need to say this- the publicity may scare the “beast” away, but this sort of publicity is the last thing I am looking for. I just want to do the right thing. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is also a great opportunity to say thank you to other and way more influential bloggers for noticing my story. Greg Swann, Marlow Harris, Jay Thompson, Pat Kitano, SEO Emperor, Wayne Harriman – thank you everyone for your support and advise.

So lets get to it…

Why did I take the posts down?

I wish it was simple. The cease and desist letter sent the chills down my spine. When the original post was getting so many comments I was hoping that some of the other influential bloggers would notice my article. But as Greg Swenn points out this blog is insignificant. There are barely 100 unique daily visitors to my blog. So when I received the lawyer’s letter I knew that I was facing the Goliath all alone. To put it simply, I was scared.

Why am I posting this now?

Since attempting to comply to the demands of the lawyers from WILLOUGHBY, STUART & BENING it not feel right. I basically was admitting that all their false accusations are true. I also felt like I had betrayed all who offered their feedback. Publishing the cease and desist letter was a way for standing up not only for myself but for all who commented on my post.

And finally an extra bonus if you wish: I still believe that idea for the website was good. Way short of brilliant, but good enough to run with it. The execution of the idea was absolutely terrible.

EPerks.com claim to be a part of what we know as Web 2.0 marketing. As such, Web 2.0 is a form of marketing where engagement with those who like you as well as those who criticize you is of great importance. But so is reevaluating your product and improving it.

Many companies of this “Web 2.0 pound” started off by offering free membership to their potential clients and customers knowing that their product is so darn good that 99% of the free members will pay money to continue to use their products. EPerks has chosen a different path, launching their website they charged real estate agents $100+ dollars per month, without a proven record for their product’s effectiveness. I am not saying it was wrong way to launch a website. But if you do so, not listening to the criticism is like shooting yourself in the foot.

I would suggest to go back to the drawing board. Consider all criticism and come back a winner. Of course you can continue the way you go about your business. Continue to send cease and desist notices and even sue small guys like my self. Will any one remember your name a year from now?

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Century21′s YouTube Channel

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:22:09 +0000

Have you seen it yet? Here is the link. I think it’s great that real estate companies are finally realizing the potential of such websites like YouTube for the growth of their own business. I do find the videos a little cheesy. Here is one for you. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Does your company have a channel on YouTube? What are you waiting for?Similar Posts:

PRWeb: Easy And Powerful Media Tool

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:09:34 +0000

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:

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Is Twitter Good For Real Estate Business?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:15:51 +0000

Watch the video. Decide and then connect with me on twitter.

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Top 100 Blogs: Gathering Feedback And Responding To Criticism.

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:32:04 +0000

I has been more than one week since list of top 100 Real Estate Blogs went live. If you made the list before we launched the list, you may be well aware of it. If you have not heard about it. It is a list of real estate blogs that ranks blog. To rank real estate blogs we have factored in Google PR, Technorati Rank and Alexa Rankings. It is a first list of its kind and of course such an attempt will draw some attention and criticisms. So today I would like to acknowledge the incredible feedback we received and to respond to some criticisms.

Thanks For The Buzz

Fir of all I would like to take time and thank every blogger and blog that linked to my original post announcing the list or to the list itself:

Agent Genius mentioned the list twice: Agent Genius Ranks #19 and I’m Number #1- thank you and we appreciate your feedback.
The Real Estate Weenie was laughing at our list as well as at the reaction to it by some real estate bloggers. Thanks for lightening up the subject!
RealcentralVA acknowledged the list in the following post: Realcentralva is #30 real estate bog.
Bonzai Real Eatate Blog evidently did not make the list before the first update- this mistake of mine was quickly corrected.
Finally Maureen McCabe offered her feed back of our list in Top 100 Real Estate List- Did YOUR Blog Make THE List. Maureen decided against linking to neither this blog or the list, her feedback is appreciated nevertheless.

I also would like to acknowledge all who took their time and commented on the post that originally announced the list.

Responding To Criticism

Now I would like to respond to some criticisms. While I tried to respond to some of it personally on the blogs offering their feedback, I think t is important to gather the criticism into one place. I have tried to counter the criticism I found so far, but I have decided to include the criticism or rather my response to what I see as trends in criticism of our list. I tried hard to respond to particular posts personally, however it doing so I mark all the criticism with hope to improve our list or or to respond to something in a greater detail here on my own blog.

The list is unreliable. Just because we use rankings that are not necessarily most reliable does not mean our list not worthy to take a look at. Out of all list that rank blogs and websites our list is the most focused on real estate even though some blogs that are not primarily write about real estate slipped through. However unreliable one may hold Google, Technorati and Alexa- these statistics are hard to manipulate and artificially inflate therefore it will be very hard to progress on our list as well.
I can’t compete with big Blogs. There is an underlying consensus among real estate bloggers out there that in order to have nigh rankings you either need to write about technology or otherwise to be connected to “Silicon Valley” or you need to have a multi authored blog. I would argue that when it comes to blogging it is not your connection and your niche that are crucial to your success – it is the content of your blog. Here is an example. Doshdosh- an internet marketing blog is barely year old and is authored by one person. In just over one year not only the blog gained 11,000 subscribers but is widely accepted as leading blog in that particular niche.
The list has many blogs that should not have been there. I have tried to be diligent in compiling the list. I started with 30+ blogs from my Google reader. Then I moved to the blogrolls of the blogs I subscribe to and other websites like Blogflux to come up with the “first” 100 blogs. I certainly may have made a mistake or two and if your notice a blog that should is “home an living” kind of website please let me know and I will correct.
What other value our list brings comparing let say to Blogflux. Our list is more focused. I examine carefully each submission before including the blog into our list. We give each blog clean and search engine friendly links. We aggregate the latest post form each blog on the list.
Infringing on NAR trademark. I just have to say that it was on oversight on my par when we purchased the domain. There was no intention to neither compete with nor associate ourselves with NAR. As you an see our list is hosted on it’s own domain now.

Feel free to offer your onion about the Top 100 Real Estate Blogs. If you have a real estate blog feel free to submit it to me via email: vlad @ go-beyond-mls dot com. Special thanks to Mark from 45n5 fro his tireless effort programing the list. If you have not visited the list lately we have 127 blogs already with more submissions in my mailbox. Make sure to bookmark the list for the future reference and use.

Picture credits: atroszko and Daino 16.
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