Archive for the ‘Video Course’ Category

Using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, a real estate agent can add another dimension to his or her personal marketing strategy.  Even though some of the networking sites like MySpace are becoming less prevalent, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are becoming more prominent with businesses and professionals.  These sites seem to have noticed the fact that people want a more serious approach to social networking.

In the case of Facebook, a real estate agent could easily network with all sorts of business professionals in a particular geographical area.  He or she could easily do so, by connecting with and networking among a group of people that are defined in such a manner that would be beneficial to a marketing strategy.

In this video, you will learn the basic steps to finding people in your geographic area that you can make friends with, and begin to develop a marketing network using Facebook.  It will teach you how to make friends in your area as well as how to connect with business professionals that will be able to help you in your real estate profession.

Watch the video: How to use Facebook to Find Clients and Network with Professionals

Resources: How to Network on Facebook In an Hour a Day

Before I forget, I would like to invite you to sign up for my FREE real estate marketing course.  It is packed with tips and ideas that will help you attract clients, and gain an online presence so that you will be able to attract more clients and sell more properties.

In this video blog post I am going to tell you about a basic trick that everyone in Internet marketing should know about. I am not going to go into great detail here because it is on today’s video post. I will say that this is an easy but important tip that you need to pay attention to, and I go into detail about how you need to use it.

Use Pictures of Your Real Estate Listings

I recently mentioned in another real estate marketing blog how important good clear pictures were in the selling of houses. I was sort of chastised by the moderator of the blog because he said that he had to do a heck of a lot more than put pictures of their properties on his blog to make his clients happy. While I have no problem with that statement, I can’t tell you the number of times my wife and I were looking for properties on the Internet and glossed right over the real estate listings that did not have pictures. As a matter of fact, if there were only a few pictures or poor quality pictures, I glossed right over those as well. Why would someone pass right over these properties? When you are looking on the Internet at the vast number of houses that are on Realtor sites you have a tendency to get distracted by the properties that have good pictures. Also, if there are few, poor, or no photographs, then you have to wonder, “What is wrong with this property and what are they trying to hide?” After all, you are selling a very big investment with real estate so why not present it in a way that will get it noticed?

So, in my humble opinion, photographs and pictures are very important, probably more than you would think. While I’m on the subject, I want to also point out that if you are selling land, the same principles apply. You need to take as many, good, clear pictures as you can. Let’s face it, if your pictures are going to derail people from coming to see your property, then chances are when the people actually come to see the property, they are probably not going to be interested in it anyway. So, don’t be afraid to post a lot of good clear pictures on the website or blog.

Keeping it Simple – The Easy Trick for Real Estate Websites Video:

Resources:

Adobe Photoshop – This is the most elite photograph altering software on the planet.  This program is so incredible that I amazed every time I use it at the depth and magic you can do with it.  There is a downside to this program such as a learning curve to using the software as well as the price.

Corel Photoshop Pro -  A much cheaper alternative to Adobe Photoshop and it is also a great program that works well

In my last blog post, I wrote about the fact that using a marketing medium such as Facebook or any of the other social networking sites in just five minutes a day was probably a fantasy. If you are going to use these vehicles to market your real estate, you need to have a strategy and spend a little more time on them. However, having said that, I would like to say that you can use some of these social networking sites in a manner that will allow you to quickly post to them on some days rather quickly. What do I mean by that? Well, here is an example:

You will write a great 500 word article that is well written, clear and concise. This article you will not post to your blog, but you will use it to post multiple times on the Internet using article sites, social bookmarking sites, and any other place that you can put them. On every single one of the copies that you post, you will place a link back to your website and a notice at the bottom of your article. You will tell everyone that they can post this article on their websites or blogs as long as they leave your bio information and links back to your site on the article. This will give you back-links to your web site or blog which will help your search engine rankings.

The reason that you are not going to place this article on your own blog or website is because you are trying to avoid duplicate content issues with Google. Google does not like duplicate content, however, if your article appears on many other people’s sites with your consent and back-links that is great for you. It might not be such a great thing for them, but that’s their problem.
So, using this strategy, you can post this article onto your social networking web site, and let everyone on there know about it through the newsfeed. (I give a demonstration on how to do this with blog posts as well.)

If you are going to make brief posts at least once a day to several sites like Facebook, then it won’t take you very long. You will still have to make friends, write articles and comment on other people’s opinions on there to build friendships and credibility, which does take time….More time than just 5 minutes a day I’m afraid.

Here’s the video:

Resources:
Facebook for Beginners

Google Trends for Facebook

In this next video, I am going to show you how to use Seo (Search Engine Optimization) Tools to get noticed on the Internet. It is not enough to just write a blog post or web page you have to follow a certain procedure to make sure that you will get indexed and noticed by Google. As I told you on one of my earlier posts, if you do any kind of marketing on the Internet it is either going to cost you money or you will have to do the grunt work yourself.

Take my video posts for example. It takes me the better part of 2 hours to create these videos per episode. I’ll bet most people look at those videos and think, “Shortcut!”, but that would be far from the truth. Here are the steps I have to take to create a video blog:

1. I research what my video post should be about. I don’t want to blindly create videos and if I can make series of them that relate to each other I consider hat factor as well.

2. I then do my keyword or care-word research. I want help my blog post get found.

3. I prepare my PowerPoint slides with intro and exit info.

4. Selecting websites or pages to use as examples.

5. I then make the recordings; usually I have to make them several times because I’m not as articulate as Larry King or Oprah.

6. I then have t edit and add tracks to the video capture.

7. After all of that I try to write an intro so that word content on my blog stays fresh (Oops! Add another ½ hour!)

8. Then I will have to watch the video for accuracy and to make sure it makes some sort of sense.

9. I then have to take the completed rendered clip and use BitGravity to place it into a video viewer for the Internet.

10. Then I past and post into my blog.

Now, I’ll bet everyone thought that making these real estate marketing videos was a snap. As you watch consider these SEO tools while watching my video, remember that any type of marketing that is worthwhile takes time, work and commitment.

Resources: SEOBook

The First Step in Internet Blogging is a video tutorial on exactly what a real estate professional must do whenever he or she posts to a blog. It is not enough to write a post; there are several things that you must do whenever you post to a blog. Listed below are some of the things you need to consider before posting.
 
1. You need to do some search engine optimization research You will need to know what words or phrases people are looking for. (Did you notice that the title phrase “First Step Internet Blogging” was little unusual? There is a reason for that.)
 
2. What tool should you use to find out what people are looking for? Note: This tool is great and 100% Free!
 
3. How can you use Google to find out how well you are doing? There is one simple technique that can help you find phrases and keywords and how much competition you will have when you rank for certain terms and words.
 

Once again, I want to encourage you to sign up for my FREE Real Estate Technology Marketing Course. It is loaded with ideas tips, strategies and graphics that can help you gain maximum exposure on the Internet.
 
Resources: SEObook (http://www.seobook.com) – A great resource site for anyone getting their feet wet in search engine optimization.
 

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to have a blog or website that looks professional as well as original.  Many real estate marketers that start blogs make the mistake of using a free template for their website or blog that they found on the Internet some place.  This is the wrong approach because many Internet savvy surfers can recognize a free template very easily.  Templates of this nature aren’t usually personalized by your face or brand that you are trying to establish.

In this video post I am going to teach you a valuable real estate marketing lesson and show you a very easy way to make it look exactly the way you want it.  Below, I am going to give you a way to contact me if you want more information on how to make your site unique and original.

Resources: Mark Ellis – (859) 271-9973 mark.ellis@insightbb.com

The next video lesson I will show you the very first thing that you must  before you begin to write your first blog post and I will also show you a great, free tool that I use before every single post I make.

I also want to make sure that you know that I have a massive, FREE marketing course that you can immediately download if you sign up for it.  The information is located on the top right hand side of this blog.

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In this video blog post ( I guess you could officially call this a Vlog –video blog), I am going to show you how to put a real estate listing on Google’s free blogging platform- Blogger. I am going to take you step by step through the process of writing and getting content for a property that you may have listed. I will then show you how to place the information, pictures and anything else that you may need to have done onto the blog.

I want to also take this opportunity, before you actually watch the video, to remind you that I have a free down-loadable course for you to read and use. It has strategies and tools in it that you can use to get onto the Internet and begin to market yourself and your client’s properties as fast as possible. There is also a resource section on it that will show you all of the tools that I use as well as resources that will help you get started.

You know, it doesn’t matter how much information that I give you, there is one very important principle that you need to know before you get started on your journey to use the Internet to make money. As a matter of fact, if you don’t use this single idea, you probably won’t get very far at all, and you will probably wind up as a wandering generality if you don’t pay attention to this concept and use it.

The concept I am referring to is the principle of ACTION! As a matter of fact, you need to take massive action if you want to if you really want to achieve your stated objectives and goals. Years ago I started an online embroidery company called Ellistrations. Up to that point, I had never sewed one stitch of embroidery or built a website, or even knew what Internet marketing was. The funny thing I want to mention about that first site is that it was what you would call an e-commerce site. With an e-commerce website, each product has to have a method of purchasing the item online through a check-out system. This was very difficult for a novice web designer to build, but somehow I taught myself how to do it.
So, when hear from clients that are in the real estate business tell me that they are scared to death of learning how to do simple things like blog posts, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger. Many of us had to go through the process, but it was well worth it.

Web Content for Real Estate Marketers

In the last couple of videos I have produced for this blog, I have shown you how to get a domain, adopt a hosting plan, and begin blogging on Blogger and WordPress.  In this installment, we will discuss what to do with these Internet tools.  It is simply not enough to acquire high technology tools to market real estate, real estate marketers need to start developing their own web content to gain attention and traffic from prospective buyers and clients.

In this video I am going to talk about one of the best books I have read on Internet marketing in the last 5 years.  If you really want to gain exposure and get your blog or website noticed on the Internet, then you need to pay attention to this video post and get a copy of it from Amazon or your local book store.

Another thing that I want to mention is the fact that on the Internet, there is no one particular Internet marketing strategy that will exactly work the same from year to year.  However I believe that there is one exception to that rule and that is the one that is on this video.  It has been reported that Google tweaks their algorithm about four hundred times a year, so it should be no surprise that any strategy or tool, that you might buy on the Internet will be obsolete.  However, there is one aspect of Internet marketing that the search engines would be stupid to mess with and that strategy is on the video.

Resources: Gerry McGovern’s Website – Gerry’s site has a little information on it but mostly he is selling his consulting services and resources at a premium price.

Gerry McGovern’s Book is the resource that you should purchase as a great addition to your resources.

In this video tutorial, I am going to take you through the set up of the WordPress blog platform.  Now, I must confess that I am going through this rather rapidly because I am trying to keep the video less than ten minutes.   Being an educational technologist, I understand that you will probably have your head full and need to take a break.   Remember, you will still need to purchase a book or two and teach yourself some of the basics.

I do want to take the time to encourage you on your journey into Internet marketing.  First of all, if I did it, you can too.  I never built a blog or a website before, I am totally self-taught.  As a matter of fact, before I went to college I was a self -taught composer. You have to sometimes get outside of your comfort zone and really push yourself.  I can honestly tell you, that you have it much easier than I did when I started to learn this stuff.  Thanks to the Internet, you can easily get all kinds of help on how to do things.  I have had all sorts of friends that I have met on the Net, from millionaires to programmers and they were all too happy to help me out.  So, don’t be afraid to ask someone.  If they do not want to help you, you can easily move on to someone else that can.

Anyway, I will try to list a couple of resources at the end of this posting so that you can buy a cheap book or two to teach yourself a new skill in your spare time.  Don’t forget to sign up for my info- packed course on the left if you haven’t done that yet.

Resources:

WordPress for Dummies – Once again I like the “For Dummies” books because they get right to the heart of the matter and tell you exactly what you need to know in a step –by-step fashion.

WordPress: Visual Quick Start Guide- I used this book when I took classes from Boise State University.  It was an excellent resource and I highly recommend it.

In this continuation of my previous videos I am going to show you the very basics of blogging just so that you will become familiar with what a blog is and how it works.  Google’s Blogger is probably one of the easiest blogs to use because it is based on the simple principle of point & click. You basically can learn how to use Blogger in no time because it is so user friendly and easy.

As I go through this video tutorial, I will show you the absolute basics, but I will also point out the fact that you should always consider learning more from books that are on the market.  Below the video you will find some resources that I have listed, because they will go into much more depth that I can in this nine minute video.  You can get these books pretty cheap on Amazon from people that have already read them and used them.  I always buy my books this way because of the savings.  I know as well as you do, that real estate pros need to watch their money as much as they can.  The last statement leads me to another point, if you have not signed up for my free massive Real Estate Marketing Course on the right, then there is something wrong with you!!  This course is packed with information that can show any real estate agent, or Realtor how to use technology to accelerate their sales and increase their bottom line. Originally valued at $49.00 it is now absolutely free, all you have to do is sign up.

So, start taking massive action at your job as well as your personal development and start reading and blogging today!

Resources:  Google’s Blogger for Dummies – I like the “For Dummies” series because they break everything down into easily understandable steps.  Plus, you don’t have to waste time delving into content that is too technical.  These books cut right to the chase and tell you exactly what you need to know.

PROBLOGGER by Darren Rowse & Chris Garrett- This is an outstanding book that spells out in great detail the method behind marketing with a blog.   Rowse & Garrett also tell you the hard truths about this type of marketing as well as how you can make an income from blogging.  Chris Garrett also has an excellent website where he gives out two incredibly awesome reports on how to blog for free and you can get them here: Chris Garrett’s Blogging Site