Property Ad Guru on Property Owl

In the world of online social networking, people tend to keep an eye out for the Next Big Thing – the new social network that will somehow overtake the colossal popularity of Facebook and Twitter. Recently, Quora has moved to centre stage as the next social network to watch. The question is, should real estate agents be looking into it?

Just another Q&A Site?
When you first load up Quroa, the aim of the site isn’t immediately obvious. Describing itself as “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organised by everyone who uses it,” Quora sounds like it could be the next Yahoo! Answers or even something like Wikipedia.

On closer inspection, Quora reveals itself to be more like a search engine with a social twist. Users ask questions and contribute answers, as well as voting up answers they find useful. Users can also choose to “follow” a particular question and view the history of each thread, complete with the details of each person who has contributed.

Like Facebook, Quora encourages its contributors to use their real names and photos. “This helps anyone reading things they write to understand why they should believe what is written and take into account the author’s perspective,” the website explains. “For example, if Michael Jordan gives an answer to a question about basketball, that means something really different from someone who has never played the game giving an answer.”

So, should agents be signing up?
The fact that Quora is so new means that early agent adopters have the network almost to themselves. A search for “real estate” reveals a string of questions with just one answer, some with no answers at all, and a few agents jumping in to answer multiple questions.

The main downside to using the network would likely be the time it takes to answer questions, but that said, agents could easily re-use their answers as material for their next blog post. So as long as you have the time to provide answers, Quora has questions waiting for you.

For more of the latest in online real estate marketing news, come visit us at propertyadguru.com.

As a real estate agent looking to create a strong online presence, you already know that search engine optimisation should be a key part of your strategy. But what if your marketing budget just won’t stretch to cover an in-house SEO consultant? That’s the question one real estate agent put straight to Google, and got this video in response.

Google’s first piece of advice is to focus in on a niche, be it a particular neighbourhood, market or type of buyer or seller. If you’re stuck, check out our ten niche marketing ideas for your real estate website and see which of these you could implement.

Google’s other key piece of advice is to give people strong reasons to link to your website by offering something creative or unique. Why are links so important? The reason is that the more other people link to your website, the more authoritative it is seen to be, and that means higher rankings in search results.

Of course, these two tips just scratch the surface in terms of what real estate agents can do to improve their SEO. For a more in-depth look at how to optimise your website, check out our guest series on real estate SEO.

When it comes to Twitter, everyone has an opinion on what makes a good tweet. But what if you could get feedback from real people on whether your tweets are worth reading? That’s the slightly unsettling idea behind free Twitter application Who Gives a Tweet?

In a nutshell:
Who Gives a Tweet first asks for access to your Twitter account, then asks you to rate 10 strangers’ tweets and 10 tweets from friends. The ratings – “not worth reading,” “ok” and “worth reading” – are anonymous, and also include space for a short comment. Once you’ve filled out these 20 ratings, you then get access to your own feedback, which continues to be updated as more people use the service.

Positives:
Who Gives a Tweet doesn’t cost anything, and the anonymous nature of the service means you’re sure to see some brutally honest feedback. Think of it as a kind of “health check” for your tweets, allowing you to find out exactly what is and isn’t working.

Drawbacks:
Of course, anonymity leaves this service open to faked responses, and we have a feeling that negative responses are going to be much more common than those praising tweets for their originality and insight. Do you dare put your tweets to the test?

There’s plenty of advice out there about how to tweet (We’ve gone so far as to write up 10 Tips for Real Estate Agents Using Twitter), but few services offer you a free, personalised tweet review. We look forward to hearing from any Who Gives a Tweet users in our comments.

If one of your resolutions for 2011 is to put more effort into promoting your website, but you’re not sure where to start, we’d like to suggest some of our previous posts on search engine marketing (SEM).

First off, read through our Back to Basics article on what SEM is and how it works.

Next, you’ll want to find out more about the many acronyms you’ll come across in the world of SEM in SEM Terms Explained.

From there, you can read our take on the various search engines that sell advertising space, and decide which you want to try. If you’re having doubts about the effectiveness of these campaigns, keep in mind that not everyone is able to tell the difference between ads and natural search engine results.

Finally, before you launch your first campaign, check through these four common SEM mistakes to make sure you’re on the right track.

In seeking out some great examples of real estate video in action, we’ve also come across plenty of videos that don’t quite measure up for one reason or another. While these mistakes are common, they’re also quite easy to fix. So before you next post a video to YouTube, watch out for the following:

No contact information. You’ve gone to all the trouble of filming and uploading a video, so why make it difficult for interested viewers to get in touch? A call to action at the end of the video is always a good idea, but at the very least you should add your contact details in the description below.

No editing. While there’s no need to make a Hollywood production out of your latest video, it never hurts trim out anything that could bore your audience. For Mac users, we’d recommend using iMovie to clean up your videos, while PC users can look into Windows Movie Maker.

Too long. A 10 minute documentary of all a property’s features might please your sellers, but will appeal to the online attention span? Something closer to three minutes is much safer and will increase your chances of keeping viewers interested until the end.

Poor description. The content of your video itself is important, but arguably more important is the way you describe it. As we discussed in our SEO tips for YouTube videos, your video’s title, description and tags will have a huge impact on whether it will be found by the right audience.

What changed in the world of Google over the last year, and what (if anything) stayed the same in terms of showing up in its results? Here’s a look at back at Google and SEO in 2010.

The big news at the start of the year was Google’s inclusion of real estate listings on Google Maps in Australia and New Zealand, and its partnership with major agency chain LJ Hooker. At the time, some predicted that this would have a huge impact on top portals realestate.com.au, domain.com.au and realestate.co.nz, but any dent in their audiences is yet to be seen.

Throughout the year, Google continued to innovate with changes to the way it displayed search results. One of the most noteworthy changes was the addition of Google Instant, which displays search results as you type. Google was quick to say that this wouldn’t render previous SEO/SEM efforts obsolete, while industry commentators predicted significant changes in the way people search.

Most recently, Google tweaked its search results pages again to put an even greater emphasis on location. A location setting now shows up on the left-hand panel of search results, and there is also a new option to filter results and only show places. Both these options made the information on Google’s Place Pages more important to businesses.

These are just some of the changes we saw from Google in 2010, but thankfully there is still plenty that remains the same in terms of SEO. A look at Google’s SEO Starter Guide reveals that basics such as accurate page titles, meta tags, URL structures, and easy navigation are still important. And as always, Google is still looking for quality content to promote in its results.

With 2010 drawing to a close, real estate agents and industry commentators are busy making their predictions around next year’s technology trends. One trend that is already starting to take off, but has yet to be taken up by the majority of agents, is video.

This is good news for agents who are willing to try something new and put themselves and/or their properties on screen, as video use will give them a concrete point of difference. If you’re one of those agents considering adding video to your marketing mix in 2011, start with these posts:

Agent Strategies: Video Blogging for Visitors: Ian Watt shows how easy it is to video blog on a regular basis.

SEO Tips for YouTube Videos: Find out how to get your video to the top.

Five Inspirational Real Estate Videos: Great examples to get you thinking.

Video Listings Tips from Visual Domain: Advice from the professionals.

Facebook and Real Estate Video in Action: Bixby Knolls TV shows how video can also be social.

Recently, propertyadguru.com spoke with Ian Watt, a Canadian real estate agent who is laser-focused on marketing luxury condos in Vancouver. Part of Watt’s strategy is to publish three video blog posts a week, and we asked him how he manages to stick to this schedule.

“I post my videos on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and they are usually quite short – never longer than a minute or two,” Watt explains. “With uploading and a short edit the entire process takes 15 minutes – everyone has 15 minutes.”

Even if making the videos doesn’t take up much time, there will still be plenty of agents out there wondering what the point is in creating them in the first place. Watt answers this by saying his videos are “an icebreaker and a solidifier for relationships”.

“When people come to my open houses they feel like they already know me. After they leave the open houses and maybe see my videos a couple of months later they think ‘Right I remember that guy.’”

“Imagine that video for real estate is just like video for dating sites,” Watt adds. “If you had a dating profile online and you had a static photo with generic information, people would never get a feeling for who you are. However, if you posted a video three times a week, all the people who see your profile would either say ‘Yes I want to date him’ or ‘Not a chance.’”

Read the rest of this post here.

Google’s latest release, which has been dubbed HotPot, takes the 50 million locations in Google Places and invites anyone to add their reviews and ratings. Then, the search engine giant gives this information a social twist.

Google says HotPot works by collecting reviews and ratings on Google Places, recommending places similar to those that users like, and allowing users to share ratings with friends and see the places they’ve recommended.

While the name conjures up images of food, HotPot is limited to reviews about places to eat. Real estate agent reviews are very much part of the new network, as our search for “Sydney real estate agents” revealed. Read what we found here.

propertyadguru.com recently spoke to Alistair Helm, CEO of New Zealand property portal realestate.co.nz, about what he sees as the biggest stumbling blocks for real estate agents in terms of their online marketing. Helm gave us some frank answers, covering topics such as listing photos, property details, and the role of the real estate agent as local community expert.

“Agents are flush with a wealth of information and knowledge,” Helm told us. “They are by the very nature of this industry local experts. It is valued and respected if the agents can get it across in a compelling and transparent manner.”

In our interview, Helm also covered the importance of  SEO, good real estate websites, and social media use. You can read the full interview here.