Meet Matt Cutts the public face of Google to the webmaster community. If you do not know who he is, take some time to read up about him on his Blog and his wikipedia profile. With Google search market share at 60% and growing, comments and posts made Matt can give you that valuable insight into how to make your website rank well in Google.

Here is Matt doing an interview with USA TODAY’s Jefferson Graham on “How To Get Better Visibility on Google” Take the next 5 minutes to watch the video and Matt gives you 5 basic, common sense SEO tips.

If you are in the Real Estate Industry and you are not using email as a means of marketing you are spending to much money or you are not communicating with your customer. E-Mail is the most cost effective and easiest way for you to communicate with your customers. In fact e-mail is becoming the preferred method of communication. So here are a few tips that we give our clients when setting up email campaigns.

1. Create a custom design. Use a theme that matches your current marketing materials. If you don’t know how to do this then consult with a professional. It will be worth the money.
2. Get Permission to send out emails. Just because you have a name and email doesn’t mean they want to be contacted by you. Also include the required opt out sentence at the bottom of all your emails.
3. Be Consistent. Don’t just send out e-mails whenever you have a new property. Send out monthly home tips, recipes, etc. Use this time to communicate with your virtual farm and to nurture those relationship.
4. Be Productive. Have an exact point to every e-mail that you send out. Don’t just send an e-mail out because you need to do it. If you are struggling for ideas look to sites like activeRain.com or turn to your title rep for ideas.
5. Use a CRM System. CRM stand for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM program will allow you to manage your buyers and seller and keep you entire real estate business organized. Many of the have built in email sending functions with advance tracking features.

Remember e-mail marketing is one of the many tools that you can use to communicate with your buyers and seller. Use it to start a communication with them and then have a plan for how you are going to handle them once they want to buy or sell a house.

Not getting what you want out of your real estate website, here are five common things that we run across when working with clients. See if you suffer from any or all of our five real estate website mistakes.

1. You have the same website as every other Realtor.

Pullan, Advanced Access, and us at Seven Design Studios do a great job of providing cost effective template based websites to the vast majority of real estate professionals. But those who are wanting to take their website to the next level need to get a custom website design and write their own content for it on a regular basis. Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the other websites can only rank your website based on the words contained in your website. So if you and let say 10 other agents in your office or city have the same content how do they rank you higher then the other agents in the results pages? The answer is they don’t, you fall back to the back of the results but with less then 80% of searchers going beyond the first page and less then 2% going beyond the third page, if you are not in the top 30 results your traffic is not going to be more then a few visitors a day. So get a new website and start writing your own content. It is not as hard as you think.

2. Your website design/theme does not reflect your area.

We see this all of the time. How are you going to connect with website visitor if your website does not reflect your city. Here is an example of what we mean.

This is a website of an agent down the street from us. You would think Covina, CA is a nice beach community, but by my calculations we are at least an hour from the beach and more with traffic.

Connect with your city with photos of notable building, homes, parks, etc that are in your city. If you are not the greatest photography hire someone, partner with a college student, ask a friend, be creative and then give them credit on your website. Who knows you could have just met your next home buyer or seller.

3. Your website requires user registration.

Buyers and seller these days are looking for as much information as possible. According to the California Association of Realtors, buyers are looking online for up to 3 months before contacting an agent. Give them what they want free easy access to the MLS. Once they are on your website give them another reason to contact you. The best reason I have seen is the guys from 1000 Watt Consulting and their video “I am not a lead”

4. You try to be all things to all people.

We see this more in major metropolitan areas then others, but just because the MLS gives you access to 100 different cities does not mean that you are “Really” able to represent all of those cities. Our most successful clients concentrate on no more then 3 cities, most of then its one.

5. You not putting enough effort into your website.

The days of build it and they will come have long gone. The search engines and visitors love fresh content and your professional insight. In Covina, I literally have thousands of agents within 10 miles off our office. So use your website to tell me why I should use you for my next transaction. The amount of time you spend is not important, the fact that you have a dedicated time to work on content and marketing for your website is. If you don’t have a time schedule weekly to work on your website then schedule one today.

We often ask clients if you would trust a lawyer or banker if they looked like this?

The answer is most likely NO. The answer is no because he does not look the part of a professorial. As a Realtor we entrust you with one of our, if not, our most valuable possessions, Our Homes. When dealing with high dollar financial transaction there is a certain level of professionalism that you must project. Would you show up for a listing appointment dressed like the guy above? No you put on a professional business attire, and make sure you put your best foot forward. If NAR’s statistics are right then for a good portion of your new clients first interaction with you is your website. Does your website resemble one of the following websites?

If you answered yes to the abpve question you should think about your image that you website is portraying to potential new clients. If you would like one of our website professionals to review your website. Please fill out the contact form to the right or contact us at 626.488.0330.

I was enjoy my favorite cup of coffee the yesterday and I looked up and saw this article on the front page of the business section in the LA Times.

Finally the National Association of Realtors got something right. As a website design and marketing company serving Realtors, I have to say it’s about time!! The data provided to us by the MLS is the backbone of our business and our clients websites. Serving Southern California, we have to work with more then a dozen mls providers. This agreement will allow our customers to provide their clients with end to end service on their website, allowing the Realtors to be more productive. So what do you think about this news?

1. Detailed Property Information

You don’t have to be Ernest Hemingway , but how can I make a decision about the house with the following description.

Adorable 4 bedroom in great area of La Verne – recently painted and updated.

This was taken from an actual listing for a property in a gated community that cost over $1,000,000. One suggestion I have is look to the home owner for their help, because who knows the house better then the current owner.

2. Interactive Tools

Give the buyers custom maps of the property think about including local points of interest like which schools boundaries the school falls and the closest grocery story. Give them good mortgage calculators that offer suggested payments for the house based on today’s interest rates; integrate your calculator with the mortgage rate RSS feed from bankrate.com. And finally give you buyers the ability to email listing to their friends. My wife loves to email her mother with houses that we are looking at.

3. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

Pictures are the number one thing people want to look when they come to your website. Most MLS’s allow you to upload up to 20 photos. Your single property website should have as many photos as it takes for the potential buyer to get familiar enough with the house to envision themselves living in it.

If you are not using a professional service get a digital SLR with the smallest mm lens possible. We recommend using the Nikon D40 or the Cannon Digital Rebel XTi . Be sure to get the package with the 18-55mm lens because that will give you the most functional lens for taking photos of your properties

4. Include Multimedia

Use video and or virtual tours to showcase your property. The goal is to get the buyer to see themselves living in the property.

5. Be transparent

Disclose everything about the property that you know. If you have had a pre-listing appraisal or inspection, make those available to buyers. Also use the information from Zillow or comparable home information to gain trust with your buyer so they know your asking price is fair.

6. Contact Information

Give every way known to man for them to contact you about the house. Especially as more and more houses go on the market even the littlest things may cause them to look at other properties.

7. Establish Credibility Your Credibility

On the internet you have less then 15 seconds to make an impression. So I ask you how does your website, photo, flyers, business cards, signs, and mailers represent you? If you haven’t had professional photos taken in the last year, Get Some Done. And take a hard look at how someone would perceive your professionalism based solely on your marketing materials.