Written on January 1st, 2010 by adminno shouts
I’m always on the lookout for new ideas, websites or tricks to help market my clients, or market myself. While scanning various articles that have accrued over the holidays in my Google Reader, I came across a few that sound interesting and ones I plan to check out. It’s a constant battle to obtain and remain on the first page of Google so any new ideas are welcomed. Today I will highlight Posterous.com.
Posterous is a new social media platform where you can post anything from text to videos to pictures. But you post these by sending an email. Pictures can even be sent via a cell phone. This sounds like it could potentially save precious time. As one reviewer states, “It’s also the ideal solution for sharing content that’s too long to tweet yet too short to blog post.”
Posterous also autoposts to all other social media sites you use. You simply email your content and it will automatically update your blogs and sites such as Facebook, Xanga, WordPress, Blogger and more. You can also publish your content on your website by setting up your Posterous account on your own URL, which could be a sub-domain on your website. And because posting videos and pictures is so easy, you will share more and more content therefore increasing your presence in online search results.
Posterous is easily customizable as well, and has plenty of themes to choose from. If you know CSS/HTML however, you can build your own theme. Google analytics is built in and Itunes podcasts work automatically.
This seems like a really innovative site worth checking out. To set it up, you simply email Posterous at post@posterous.com with your first blog post, or pictures, and your account is automatically set up. So easy! I’m going to try it now.
This poem is from VANetworking’s site, written by YvonneW. Its adorable and I wanted to share it with our clients and future clients.
On the first day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
an SEO ready website
On the second day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the third day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the fourth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the fifth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the sixth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the seventh day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the eighth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the ninth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the tenth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
ten new client info packs
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the eleventh day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
eleven article submissions
ten new client info packs
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the twelfth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
twelve months of bookkeeping
eleven article submissions
ten new client info packs
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
Remember, the virtual assistants at REVATS can do all this and more for you! Add to it 13 listings, 14 new leads processed, and 15 updates to TopProducer 8i! What a way to get your real estate business rolling!!
Written on September 25th, 2009 by adminno shouts
While on Facebook today, I noticed that TopProducer had posted a link on their fan page from another blog which had such good advice for real estate agents and just about anyone with multiple web site domains that I just had to share it with our readers:
Can’t I just forward all of my domains to my homepage?
Not too long ago website owners and even search marketing professionals were buying a ton of domain names and simply pointing them back to one destination. They would then submit these domain names to the search engines in hopes of having all of their domain names indexed and ranked, in the hopes of creating a mass populated search results page of their domain names. Over time the search engines picked up on this, and realized that some people may not have the most relevant content; rather they just have a ton of domain names pointing back to the same content. Search engines fixed this by not allowing those multiple domain names to be seen at any significant position, and in some cases not allowing for the primary domain name to be as successful as it possibly could be within the results.
What should I do with all of these domain names I own?
The most ideal scenario for using multiple domain names is to have a website on each one of the domains that you own. Each website should be at least 2-3 pages and, like any other site you want to get ranked, they each should have a lot of really resourceful, unique content. By creating this portfolio of specific websites targeting certain aspects of your business or areas that you farm, your websites and their domains will receive much more value and recognition from the search engines than forwarding all of your domains to one site ever could.
What if I don’t have the time, money or technical knowledge to create more websites?
Unfortunately, not everyone has the ability to create a website for every domain name that they own. So, one useful technique is to take your great real estate domain names and direct them to specific internal pages of content that are relevant to that actual domain name.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
Sounds like some work, huh! We own a few domain sites ourselves, so we will have to consider doing something along these lines for our other domains as well. Currently our second domain, real-estate-virtual-assistance.com simply links to our main site. What creative use could we come up with for that? Hmm…
–Kim, virtual assistant with REVATS
Written on July 9th, 2009 by adminno shouts
There has been some talk about whether or not some real estate agents, or any bloggers for that matter, should or do use ghost writers.
Well, to answer the last question, yes, some do use them. (Some of these “ghost-written” posts have even been featured on ActiveRain!)
Should they? Well, that just depends on their purpose in blogging.
If they are blogging simply to bring in and retain clients with community and real estate information or to increase the SEO of their website, then there is really nothing wrong with it. Everyone needs at least a little of this anyway, and let’s face it, some people just have no ability to write or no desire or time while still seeing the value in it.
If a blogger blogs because they love it, because they see their blogs as a tool to be themselves and to touch their readers in a unique way (isn’t that the real purpose of a blog?), and if the blogger is good at maintaining their blog on a regular (daily or even more often) basis, then there is little need for a ghost writer. In that case, a virtual assistant might come in handy to edit for grammar, to research supplementary information, or to take the finished piece and push the necessary buttons to post it on the site.
Should a ghost writer, usually a virtual assistant, pretend to be the person they are writing for and create a false relationship with others on the site? Hmmm…that’s where it gets sticky, huh? I would personally not choose to do that, although I know some who do. I might post a comment now and then in order to increase a client’s network (or to earn them some coveted points on a site like ActiveRain), but it would be rather generic sounding…something like “in MyTown, USA there are x number of houses on the market and the average selling price is…” in response to a blog post about nationwide numbers perhaps. But would I say “Hey Sally, I sure hope to see you around at such-and-such conference. We could hook up for lunch!”? No, to me that would be deceptive in every way. But, at what point is the line between those two crossed?
At REVATS we do offer a blogging package and a social media package for our clients. But we encourage them to do the “personal stuff” themselves. We see our role in ghost-writing as simply a supplement to a real estate professional’s interaction with their online network.
What exactly do we recommend? Well, if budget is no issue, we would recommend that a virtual assistant write and post 2 to 4 blog posts a week on general topics that would be of interest to the online community in one respect or another. At the same time the agent would be encouraged to write their own blog posts and to comment and network. This would be a win-win for the agent. The posts we would write might require a great deal of research, which the agent probably doesn’t have time to do, but it is research that we are doing on a regular basis. So by simply carrying on with the networking and expertise type of items in their blog network, the agent would be enjoying their time, creating connections that would (hopefully) build their business and freeing up a few hours a week to pursue that business!
This can also carry over into the rest of the social media world. A virtual assistant is a good source for regularly scheduled informative Twitter or Facebook posts, which would free up the agent to post their daily happenings while still knowing that their network was getting a regular feed going, even if they happen to have a day where they are just not in the Tweeting mood.
Afterall, your business is selling real estate. Our business is doing the things that increase or support your business, especially when those are things you don’t want to or can’t do.
REVATS is a team of independent virtual assistants working together to bring comprehensive virtual services to real estate agents around the USA. Contact us today for more information!
