One of the fundamental strategies you need to execute before you do anything else on the internet is to do proper keyword research for your real estate business.  Why?  Because the right keywords will be one of the main traffic generation drivers for your website.  I know that this strategy is nothing new and pretty much everyone knows about it, but you need to do keyword research.  The important question is whether you know how to do it the right way?  Do you know how to find those golden nuggets that have tons of searches on Google but little competition?

Before I give you the tools, I need to explain something extremely important to you.  You see, people have different mindsets when they are on the internet.  Some people are there just to waste time; some people are doing research; some people need to find a particular answer; some people are looking for a free solution to their problem; and some people are looking for a solution to their problem and are willing to pay for it.

When you are marketing your real estate business on the internet, who do you want to come to your website?  Do you want a person who is doing research on selling his/her house or do you want a person who is looking for a solution to his/her problem and who is willing to take action to get that problem resolved?  I’m going with the second person.  The person who is willing to take action and possibly even pay for the solution — he/she wants the problem solved right now! 

But, how do you find that person on Google?

You need to put yourself in that person’s shoes and think: What search term would I put into the browser to solve a particular problem?  If a person wants to sell his/her house, he/she is not going to search for “house selling” or other similar term.  They are going to search for something like ” “How to sell my house fast.”  Do you see the difference?

The first person is probably in the research mode.  They are probably looking for articles, blog posts or any kind of general info on house selling, a very broad topic.  However, if the person types in “how to sell my house fast,” they obviously want to know how to sell the house fast.  They might even be willing to pay for the answer.  Maybe it’s in a video or a report that you create or in a consultation that you give them when they arrive at your site.

What if you focus on targeting your terms even more, to something like “How to sell my house fast in Dallas.”  Those terms are clearly more targeted.  Granted, the phrase isn’t going to have several thousand searches per month like “house selling,” but that visitor is much more valuable to you.

The big question is knowing how do you come up with those keywords.  I’ll give you 2 free tools from Google that you can use right now to uncover those keywords.  The first one is their Free Keyword Tool and the second one is their brand new tool called The Wonder Wheel.  The first tool is easy to find and navigate.  You basically go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal type in a keyword phrase, select “use synonyms,” enter the captcha form and hit “Get keyword ideas.”  You’ll get a sample of about 200 keywords.

One small tip when using this keyword tool.  This sample does not include Google’s entire database so use it as a way to gauge the volume.  However, I still believe that this is one of the best tools out there because it comes directly from Google.  Also, when you search a keyword, you’ll get an option in the top right corner (right about the keyword results area) that says “Match type.”  Select the “exact” match type from the pull down menu to get the actual number of searches for that phrase.  Otherwise, in a term like “sell my house fast,” you’ll get searches for sell, house and fast.

The Wonder wheel is located directly on the search page.  When you do a search on google, you’ll see a “show options” link right under the search bar.  You’ll click on that link and you will receive several options in a link menu on the left side of the browser.  The wonder wheel is located under the “standard view” menu link.  Click on that and Google will show you a wheel with your main keyword in the center of the wheel.  You can click on any of the provided suggestions and Google will DRILL DOWN and give you more options.  You can drill down several times to get more keyword ideas.

Well, that’s all for today.  I hope you enjoyed this post.  Let me know what you think by commenting below.  Obviously, there is more to keyword research that what I shared with you here.  If you would like me to expand on this topic more, let me know here and I’ll write something up in the near future.

To your Success,

Peter Kolat

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Tags: google, Keyword research, marketing, real estate keywords, real estate marketing on google, search, Website

1. Loopnet.com - Loopnet is probably the largest and most well-known commercial real estate listing site. They claim to have over 630,000 active commercial real estate listings on their website. It costs $24.95 a month for visitors to have access to all of the property listings. The free membership for visitors allows full search capability, however, only a limited number of results are shown.
2. Realup.com - Realup is brand new to the market and officially launched on May 17, 2009. It appears that all of the memberships for both buyers and sellers are free. The website says that “our property listings are charged based on a pay-per-results pricing model, setting us apart from our competitors and providing the greatest value to our partners and clients.” So, they are basically charging for the traffic or leads that your listing generates. This sounds good in principle but from my experience the technology for these “pay for the lead” type of systems is usually too weak to determine what a valuable lead is.
3. Costar.com - Costar offers the ability to search for all commercial property types. Basic listings are free for real estate professionals and property owners. It costs $24.95 a month for visitors to have access to all of the property listings. The free membership for visitors allows full search capability, however, only a limited number of results are shown. They offer information on “space available for lease, comparable sales information, tenant information, properties for sale, property information for clients’ web sites, industry professional directory, analytic information, data integration, property advertising and industry news–throughout the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and France.”
4. Lead-Trac.com - Lead Trac is designed to give investors and commercial real estate professionals access to following data about commercial real estate: property data, owner data, phone numbers. They also offer direct mailing and marketing tools within the website. Pricing starts at $69/user/county/month.  In addition to the monthly plans, they have an unlimited access plan that they sell on a per county basis.  This plan ranges from $1500 to $3000 per county per year.
5. CIMLS.com - What makes CIMLS different than many other similar sites is the fact that visitors can search listings for free while realtors and property owners can also post their listings for free. Realtors and property owners have the option to upgrade to a Gold account for added exposure. The Gold account costs $14.00 a month for the first month and $20.00 a month for every month thereafter.

Photo Credit: quinet

Tags: buy commercial real esate, commercial real estate sellers, commercial real estate website, Loopnet, marketing, national association of realtors, real estate, search commercial real estate

One of the most effective internet tools you can use to build relationships, expand by business reach, and provide your services to people who want them is the use social media websites.  Over the past couple of years, social media has literally blown up over the internet.  They are by far the most popular websites on the internet.  And you, the real estate investor should be using them to get your name out, build relationships in your market, and start driving targeted traffic to your website.

In a recent blog post, Joshua Dorkin wrote a very good article on social media marketing called How to Create an Effective Business Social Networking Profile.  If you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you head over there after you read this article and use what he says about creating an effective profile.

Today, I want to expand on that a little from a technical point of view.  The strategy I’m going to share with you below will get you more targeted traffic back to your site and more link popularity to increase your search engine rankings.  Would you like to see how it’s done?  Great and don’t worry, it’s easy to do and it will only take you 5 minutes to do it.

Social Media Profile Power Link Strategy

One of the best things about social media websites is the fact that they allow you to create your profile.  I’m not going to go too much into creating a profile .  Joshua has already given you some really good strategies for that.  What I want you to do is go into your profile and see if that social media website allows you to write a short bio, about me, or something similar to that effect.  it should be located under the link that says something along the lines of “edit profile”.  Most social media websites will have a small box where you can write something about yourself.  Next, see if they allow html code in the profile .  If they do, here’s what you will do.

Write a short bio about yourself following what Joshua said in his blog post.  What I want you to also do is include an anchor text backlink to your site in that profile.  Here’s the code you’ll insert into your bio box (you’ll have to edit the example here to fit your website):

<a href="http://www.websitenamehere.com/pagenamehere.html">Keyword here</a>

When you create a link as shown and someone looks at your profile, all they’ll see is the ‘keyword’ you used for your link. That keyword link is called anchor text link. Anchor text links are the most powerful links you can send back to your site, especially when they’re do-follow link.  Not only do they look great when your visitor looks at them, but search engine spiders love them.  More anchor text backlinks you send to your site, more power your site will receive and rank higher in the search engines.

The Power of Backlinks

You see, backlinks are like points your site receives in the OVERLY COMPLICATED Google Algorithm.  Anchor text backlinks give you even a bigger point than regular backlinks.  So use them to your advantage.

Here’s one important point I want to make.  When creating your anchor text backlinks to your site, make sure and I can’t stress that enough, to point your link to a RELEVANT page on your site.  Don’t point all of your links to your main home page. 

For instance, when you have an internal page that talks about “avoiding foreclosure in Atlanta,” then point your backlink to that page with that keyword.  That way, your link building campaign will look natural and search engine spiders will look at it as: “someone thought that this page is important and very good so we’ll have to check it out and index it in our search engine.”

To summarize, when creating your social media profile, look for a place on that social media site where you can place your bio.  When you find it, write a “non promotional” bio with an anchor text link to your site.  If they don’t allow html, then just write down your link in a regular way.  Also, when linking back to your site, link to internal pages.   You need to vary your incoming links.  Make it look natural as if someone has found your page on the internet, liked what you wrote and decided to link back to your site.

That’s all I have for today.  If you have any questions or would like me to elaborate on anything from this post, just post your comments below and I’ll answer them for you.

To Your Success,

Peter Kolat

Tags: Anchor text, google, linking, links, real estate marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, Web search engine

I was inspired to write this post because the more I talk to folks in the real estate space, the more I hear that they are getting burned out.

There are probably many thousands of social networks out there now, and I’m sure Ning.com (anyone can create a social network in 5 minutes using the site) is responsible for quite a handful of them. I actually think it is great that people have a choice of networks to join, but is it imperative to have an account on all of them?

Many social media “experts,” “coaches,” “gurus,” and “consultants” will tell you that you must “have a presence on every possible network out there! Focus on those in your niche and make sure you’ve got a profile so you can be found.” They argue that if you don’t have a profile, you don’t exist, and that is bad for marketing. Perhaps though, not existing by not having a presence, is better than not existing because you are simply not present.

When is a Profile Doing You Harm?

I had a conversation the other day about using social networks, and what intrigued me was that the people I talked to, thought that spreading yourself out across every network possible could be harmful to your reputation.

First, given the limited number of hours in a day, it is impossible to remain active across dozens, if not hundreds of networks. I know that I have to limit myself to three: BiggerPockets.com (of course), Twitter, and Facebook. Those are the three places where I not only have a presence, but also actively interact with others, participate in the community, and work to build my name and reputation. While I have a presence on several others as well, and occasionally will participate, I’d say the total isn’t any more than 10 or 12, and each serves a specific purpose. (e.g. LinkedIn for building business connections.)

So, unless you do nothing other than spend time on social networks, you’ll only be able to maintain an active presence on a select few. That leaves the hundreds of other real estate social networks for you to create an account on . . . but should you? I know a few people who, anytime I visit a new network, have a profile. This leads me to think one of two things.

1. All they do is hang out on social networks. That’s a really bad sign. It means that you aren’t out there making deals, working, etc.
2. They went and hired someone to do it for them. That is also a bad sign. It means that you think you can just pay to create a presence without being there. It tells me that this person wants to take the easy way out and not figure out how to engage. These people will never make quality connections because their virtual assistant is posing as them anyway.

How Are You Represented on a Social Network When You Don’t Participate?

Jumping back to the conversation I mentioned earlier, someone threw out the idea of the importance of showing your commitment to something. He said that by neglecting your profile, you’re proving that you are just another passer-by, looking for the quick benefit of a basic presence on a real estate social network.

It actually makes a lot of sense!

We have hundreds of members like that on BiggerPockets, as I’m sure does every network. Many of these people don’t even respond to inquiries because their attention is so spread out. These people join in the hope of building their name and reputation, but they are just not around to actually do that.

Building Your Name and Reputation takes Time and Effort

I’ll defer back to BP, because I can more easily draw examples from our site. What you see if you spend any amount of time on a social network is that each community has its own opinion leaders, culture, and style. The people who immediately come to mind as the opinion leaders are those who spend the time and effort on building their reputation and on giving to the community. These are not the passers by, but the people who commit to staking a claim in the community.

What do you notice about them?
You notice that you notice them!

Why?
Because they are involved, active, and give effort.

What do you notice about the guy who created a profile and moved on to create one on another site?
Nothing!

Even if you’re intrigued by something you find on his profile, his lack of focus shows that he may not understand that real estate, like any business, is about building real connections & relationships. You can’t do that by signing up and taking off!

If given the choice of connecting with someone who commits vs. someone who is just like a flyer posted on a college billboard, I’ll do business with the first guy 100% of the time.

So . . . What Should YOU Do?

Research! Get out there and find those social networks that best match your interests and needs. Find those communities that foster connectivity, and focus on quality content, interaction, and serve your particular individualized needs.

Then, create a presence and participate.

The self-appointed, all-knowing gurus out there need to stop spreading the wrong message here. Anyone can create a profile, but only by committing to a select few, will you truly realize the full potential that real estate social networks have to offer.

I do hope that BiggerPockets.com makes your real estate social network list!
We focus on creating a quality, spam & pitch free environment, that allows real estate professionals, investors, and enthusiasts alike, to engage one another without fear. There aren’t stupid questions, and no one is better than anyone else. By focusing on these core philosophies, we’ve created what may not be the largest, but what I think is hand’s down, the highest quality social network in the space. If you haven’t already, stop by and see why the word is spreading!

“Just because you’re present doesn’t mean that you’re present” - Me

Here are a few other interesting reads that I thought would spin your wheels:

• Twitter, Facebook, Digg: Can You Join Too Many Networks?
• What Causes Social Network Fatigue (SNF)?
• Social Media Profiles. How Many Is Too Many?

Thoughts?

Tags: biggerpockets, Facebook, LinkedIn, real estate, real estate marketing, real estate social, real estate social media, social media, social network, twitter

Last week, I wrote about email marketing and how you should automate your business by using the power of the internet.  Today, I want to expand on that topic and give you some powerful strategies to create great content that will help you build lasting relationships with your prospects.

In order to get the prospects to give up their name and email address on the internet, you need to provide them with a powerful ‘ethical bribe.’  That ethical bribe can be anything from a free series of emails, free pdf report, to a free audio or video.  I know that this may seem like a big task to take on but after you finish reading this post, you’ll see how easy and fast it can be.

For this example, let’s create a free video to give away to a person who is desperately trying to get rid of their house because they are in the foreclosure process.  First, we need to figure out what we can provide to them that will make them give us their contact information.  Obviously, since you are a real estate investor, you know a lot more about the foreclosure subject that they do.  Therefore, you can tell them how to save their house from going into foreclosure.  Believe me, you know a lot more than you think you do.

Next, we need to create a short outline of what you are going to cover in the video.  Just create 5-10 points that will help you in creating the video.  Now, we will go ahead and record the video.  You can just sit down in front of the camera and start talking.  Be honest, talk to ONE person and provide REAL value to the person who will be watching the video.  By the way, this will help you to start creating that bond between you and your prospect.

Now that you have the video created, you can just upload it on the internet and insert the link into the email you will be sending to the person that just signed up to your list.  It’s that easy!  Don’t make it complicated and keep it as simple as you can.  But what if you want to give out an audio, pdf report or a set of emails to your new subscriber.

No problem…

Here’s what you do.  There are several video editing programs that you can use.  These programs will allow you to take your video and export the audio portion into an mp3 format.  One such program that I use in my own business is called Camtasia Studio.  The program is not cheap but you can get a 30 day trial period.  Also, there is a free audio editing software that is extremely powerful called Audacity.  Just type in audacity into Google search field and you’ll be able to download it for free.

Now that you were able to get the audio, you can get that audio transcribed into text.  There are dozens of audio transcription services that will transcribe your audio for about $1 per minute.  One such service is called casting words.  So, if you ended up recording a 5 minute video, you can have the entire video transcribed into words for $5.

Next step is to download a free copy of Open Office which is a similar program to Microsoft Office but 100% free.  Then, open your new text document inside the Open Office program, customize it to your liking and export it as a pdf.

And if you would like to create an email series, just break up your transcription into 5 or so emails, import them into your autoresponder program and set the time line for their distribution.

So there you have it, a simple strategy to create a free video, audio, pdf report or an email series to build your list of buyers, sellers or investors.  Good luck and let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.

To Your Success,

Peter Kolat

Tags: Add new tag, lead generation, real estate marketing

Would you like to know how someone can go from a part-time investor to a full-time investor? I sure hope so because I’m about to show you in very detailed form.

If you read my post from last week, it was a 10 question test which would help you become more successful (or determine why you’re not already successful). Well, I got a lot wonderful feedback and one person stated that the plan was aggressive and he didn’t see how someone with a family and full-time job could do it. So you’re about to see how.

First off, let me say that part-time investors become full-time investors by following the guidelines I laid out in the earlier post. And secondly, everything else is just a bunch of excuses.

People use their job as an excuse to why they can’t market more; they use their spouse, their family, etc. But guess what? That’s all it is, just an excuse. Because thousands and thousands of investors who have a wife, kids, and full-time job have gone onto real estate success because they took action while other people wouldn’t.

When I hear people tell me that they can’t do their marketing, all they’re really telling me is that it’s not a priority. That living life on their own terms is not that important. If you haven’t noticed I can’t stand excuses. Winners don’t make excuses, plain and simple. Anyway, I got off course a little bit, but here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to show you how to find the time and make the time so that you can make the transition from part-time to the good life (full time).

And I’m going to use the same 10 test questions from last week. Here we go:

1. Have you identified your target market- This is the most important thing you do. You only have to do this once. To find your target market find out where the other investors are (just ask them). Find out where the bread and butter houses are, which will cash flow. This task shouldn’t take long at all. I’ll allocate 1 hour….and remember you only do this once and you already probably know the answer.
2. Sending out 1,000 pieces of direct mail a month-This could take no time, because you can hire companies to do it for you. It can take 10 minutes for you to upload your material to click2mail.com. Or, if you want to do it yourself do 50 letters a day. Break it up to 50 a day and this will take you less than 30 minutes.
3. Putting up bandit signs-You can hire this out (I sure do). Or do it yourself. At 3:00am in the morning on a weekend I’m sure you’re not too busy, so no excuses to get out there and put up signs.
4. Getting a mentor-Talk to your network, find out who’s good. This you only have to do once, but take your time with it. This is one of the most important things you will ever do.
5. Attend at least one networking event a month- If you can’t find 2 hours per month to network then you don’t deserve success (and before the excuses start, just remember all you’re saying is that it’s not a priority for you).
6. Get on craigslist.com everyday and send 5 emails–This should take 10 minutes a day max. I have my template email and all I have to do is copy and paste it into an ad. Piece of cake (I don’t do this, but my assistant does).
7. Spending 4 hours a month driving for dollars-If you can’t find one hour on the weekend to drive for dollars (you know what I’m about to say) you don’t deserve success. However, if you’re a brain-dead person I’ll tell you in a minute how to find that hour.
8. Read at least one book per month-Read 10 pages a day. That should take 15 minutes at most.
9. Getting on BiggerPockets.com daily and networking and asking questions-This all depends on how many questions you have. But at the very least (and I mean very LEAST) take 10 minutes and see what’s new on the site.
10. Make a “to do” list every night before you do to bed–Takes 5 to 10 minutes.

Time Management: Now I will tell you where to find extra hours:

• Don’t watch TV. Nothing good comes from TV. Did you know that I don’t even own a TV? It’s true. I get my information from reading the newspaper and the Internet
• Get up an hour earlier. One of the keys traits of all successful people is they get up early and do their most important tasks while lessor mortals are sleeping.
• Make sacrifices. Don’t go play pool with your friends, or go to happy hour or any other unproductive activity.

When you want something bad enough you’ll make it happen no matter what.

Several months ago there was a woman on Oprah who had five children. And not only that, she was a single mother! Well, this woman told her amazing story about how she went through medical school as a single mother of five (and some of you complain that you can’t get a few postcards or letters out…shame on you!)

One more quick story for ya. One of my close friends has been complaining to me a lot lately about how she wants to go to the gym and get in better shape. But that she doesn’t have the time, yadda, yadda, yadda. Finally, the other day I stopped her mid-sentence while complaining and said “Jenny, stop making excuses. All you’re really saying is that it’s not a priority for you to go to the gym and you really don’t care that much about getting in shape. Because if you really did you would go to the gym, plain and simple.” Now go do some marketing!

Tags: craigslist, marketing, Oprah Winfrey, real estate, real estate marketing, success, time management

You can sell houses on autopilot?  Yes, you can, but to a point.  Let me explain.  We all strive to make our lives easier, better and less stressful.  We all want to work less and make more, right?  So how do you do that?  Well, there are several strategies you can use to work less and make more money.  One of those strategies includes automating whatever you can in your business.   I am going to share a strategy with you that will help you automate your real estate business.

Buying and selling real estate is a face-to-face business.  People usually need to see the house before they can even consider buying it.   However,  by incorporating the amazing tools the  internet provides to us, we can automate many tasks we are tediously doing each and every day.  You can automate your appointment scheduling, open houses, meetings with clients, house tours and more.

I am a BIG proponent of building your own list.  Believe me, one of the biggest assets your real estate business can have is a responsive list of buyers, sellers, private money lenders or investors.  Imagine having a list of a few hundred or even thousands of responsive investors… how much easier would it be to flip that next property?  A lot easier than putting up ads, bandit signs, making calls, etc.  Instead, you just send a message using an amazing service called email

So, how do you build that list?  Well, if you have been paying attention to I share with people on this website and my own real estate internet marketing blog, then you know that I love landing pages.  Landing pages or squeeze pages are a one-page web site that has one goal in mind, to have the visitor provide their name and email address so you can follow up with them in the future.

Again, all you want are two pieces of information: their name and email. (Now go back to your site and see what you are asking them to give you).

Once the person signs up to your list, you’ll reply to them with an autoresponder message.  An autoresponder message is a pre-written email message that you input and schedule into your email marketing software.  Every time someone signs up to your list, the software sends out your pre-written email message to that person.

All you have to do is write that message once and set up the schedule for it.  For instance, you’ll have one message written to go out immediately after the person signs up.  That message will welcome them and give them access to the ethical bribe you gave them on your squeeze page.  Then, you’ll have another message scheduled for next day where you can tell them a little about yourself to build a relationship with them.  Then, on the third day, you can send out another message.  Two days after that, you can send them another message and and so on.

Obviously, as time goes by, you’ll send them messages less frequently, maybe every 3-4 days.  Just make sure that these messages will have specific messages to build a relationship, ask them for more contact information, find out more about them, etc.

So, if you don’t have an autoresponder service/software in your business arsenal, then get one.  It will save you a lot of time and money.  If you need some recommendations or have more questions, ask me here on the blog or send me a message through bigger pockets forum.  I’ll be more than happy to help you.

That’s it for today.  Enjoy your Sunday.

To Your Success,

Peter Kolat

Tags: E-mail marketing, real estate squeeze page