Basic YouTube Optimization Tips That Are Often Overlooked

I love YouTube videos for all things real estate, especially featured listing videos that show details or property features that can't easily be communicated through a description or photos. But I cringe when I see a good video with a terrible description or worse, one that lacks direction on where to get more information, how to contact an agent or even a simple URL to the property. Failure to include basic information is potentially a missed opportunity.

Below is some simple advice on basic optimization for your YouTube videos. 

Give your clients some love!

With emails and text messages driving our day to day conversation, customer service is even that much more important. Home buyers have tons of information at their fingertips with Internet search capabilities. Your team’s customer service has to go above and beyond the norm to capture someone’s attention and win them over as a client.Continue reading “Give your clients some love!”

How to Use BoomTown’s NEW Seller-Focused Tools (and Benefit Your Buyers Too!)

In many areas listing inventories are lower and it’s crucial to have seller-focused tools to give you a leg up on the competition. BoomTown’s got you covered with our new Listings Manager feature and Best-Fit Leads tool. These enhancements to our Leads Management System provide incredible value to seller clients, and bonus: they also benefitContinue reading “How to Use BoomTown’s NEW Seller-Focused Tools (and Benefit Your Buyers Too!)”

Keep Your Brand Booming in 2013

Have you been a little busy lately? If you’re a Realtor and not too busy showing homes and scrambling for listings, you may have noticed that we’re seeing some pretty positive improvements in the market. Improvements that have allowed everyone in the industry to get excited about things to come and the potential of (dare I say it?) a sellers market on the not-so-far horizon. Inventory is down, buyers are more prevalent. What more could you ask for?

While it is an exciting and promising time for the real estate industry, I do want to take a moment to make sure that while you are busy building your brand on the ground with great customer service, be sure that you’re not neglecting your brand-building online.

No matter what your brand awareness online is currently, there are a few things that everyone can keep in mind as you begin to expand your reach and build your brand in 2013:

Adwords Simplified: Setting A Budget

Google Adwords for many of our BoomTown clients has and continues to be an awesome source of high quality leads and traffic.  We get a lot of questions from clients about Adwords, and many of these revolve around budgeting. 

How Is My Budget Spent?
Everyone needs to start somewhere, and to determine how much to spend it’s important to understand how Google actually spends your budget.  Unlike traditional media formats, Adwords is a “self-serve” ad platform with auction based bidding.  What that means is 24/7/365, advertisements, per-click bids, budgets, and competitors are constantly changing.  Available inventory is not sold or distributed evenly.  Your budget is spent on a CPC or Cost-Per-Click basis, which means you only pay when someone clicks on your ads.

Tackling the Subject of Subject Lines [Infographic]

Oh, the pressure of crafting a subject line that drives the recipient to open the email. As we all know, if your emails don’t get read, you miss key opportunities, and if you miss key opportunities, you limit your success. So, how do you fill in that blank to get your email read? Sifting through the often conflicting advice on creating a subject line, our friends at Litmus devised the following infographic to guide you to subject line success.

Rankings Aren’t What They Used to Be

Since the beginning, rankings and SEO have gone hand in hand. Back in the early 2000s, it made sense; you want to rank for “this keyword,” “that keyword,” etc… you write relevant content with relevant anchor text, get links and then use a variety of SEO ranking tools to track your position. Rankings were black and white back then but like just about everything related to the Internet, things have changed [for the good].

Two big events have taken place that have changed the landscape and how we use (and don't use) rankings:

1. Personalized Search  – If you and I search for the same exact query, chances are slim that our page one results will be the same. Read more on personalized search below.
2. The tools – Many companies with SEO tools have decided it's too risky to provide a ranking tool using unauthorized and scraped Google data. So even if we wanted the data, it's not as readily available as it used to be and it may be more outdated than we're comfortable with.

Leverage You in Your Marketing

Real estate professionals have a long list of expertise. One that often gets forgotten about in the world of shiny new things is being a sales professional. As sales professionals, the ability to educate yourself about your clients and their needs is crucial. The more you know, the better your marketing and customer service will be.

So how well do you know your clients?

Back To Business

With the new year upon us, hopefully you're already well into the planning phases for 2013. You've set your initial goals, budgets and priorities. And, I hope that you're also considering how you will be keeping yourself, your team and your vendors accountable. At BoomTown, we're also thinking ahead to ensure that we can deliverContinue reading “Back To Business”

Crush Your Next Open House with Social Events

Do you still do open houses? I’ve heard mixed reviews lately on their effectiveness, however if promoted the right way they are a great source for buyer leads along with establishing your brand in the neighborhood. It takes more than directional signs and a balloon in the yard to promote an open house.

Have you tried promoting your open houses through your social networks? I’ve got some great tips for you today.