Are you Puking Your Business Identity onto the Internet?

Are you Puking Your Business Identity onto the Internet?

Real Estate Agent · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2008 · 193 posts · 7 votes

Forgive the title, but it was the title of a fantastic Real Estate Blog entry: http://hismove.com/blog/the-art-of-puking-your-business-identity-onto-the-internet/ that I came across a couple months ago. It was written by a real estate agent that said he would post everywhere he could for hours on end to drive traffic to his website.

I find that after I put my kids to bed, I head up to my computer (around 9pm) and I don't get off it until after midnight (in fact, this post is at 12:11am). I spend about 3-4 hours every day "puking" myself all over the internet on my own blogs, various investing Forums, commenting on other peoples Blogs, Active Rain, etc. I find that I am getting small doses of success. I have seen my website traffic increase, but it is still only a couple dozen "unique" visitors per day with 0 usable leads. I am on the first page of Google for some long-tail keywords.

I am curious to hear from other Agents that use the internet for lead generation to see if I am just the spinning my wheels, investing time in the wrong places, or if this is what it takes to generate internet leads.

Is everyone "puking" themselves all over the internet?

0Reply
10 views

15 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Real Estate Investor · London · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 74 votes
    19y

    Scott,

    Very interesting question.

    How would you describe your business? Where do most of your customer come from? Are they regional, local, national, etc?

    I am not all that skilled with Internet marketing. I would expect that if your business comes from a specific niche a focus on that niche is important. I am not sure many Realtors can do much other than be an expert in their local market so they really only need to attract folks looking locally. Being the local expert might not take all that much time.

    John Corey

  • Real Estate Agent · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2008 · 193 posts · 7 votes
    19y

    Most of my other customers have come from referrals from my mortgage broker. I would say I am an experty at Investment Property in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

  • Jackson · Member since 2008 · 11 posts · 0 votes
    19y

    The reason you "Puck" yourself all over the internet is to increase your position on the search engines. If you have not sat down and thoughout what keywords are import for your sit, all the exposure will not help you much.

    Example: I want to be at the number 1 position on google for the keywords "Cape Girardeau Real Estate". So if a buyer/seller type in "Cape Girardeau Real Estate into Google, my site will pop up first. To do this I make sure links to my are titled "Cape Girardeau Real Estate". I place wording on my site that includes cape girardeau real estate. Blog, forum post, etc would also have that sorting included.

    The question for you is "When potentail clients are looking for someone in your business, what do they type into Google"

  • Real Estate Agent · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2008 · 193 posts · 7 votes
    19y

    Thanks. I am doing that with "Minnesota Investment Properties" and a few other keywords.

    My question was actually about how much are Realtors "puking" themself on the internet? Is everyone like me spending 3-4 hours in forums, Blogging, commenting on other Blogs every day?

  • Real Estate Investor · London · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 74 votes
    19y

    Scott,

    I sent you a PM related to this thread. Things I am not supposed to ask you to do in the forum. Please reply there to that question.

    As to the general process you use. Assuming that you are not posting to the exact same blogs or other sites each day how do you keep track or how do you find places to post? I am assuming that part of your strategy is to broadly search for RE related sites and then to add comments with links back to your site. That helps in your ranking and tends to drive traffic is there is a connection between the discussions.

    Any particular tools or ways that you organize you time to maximize the value?

    John Corey

  • Real Estate Agent · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2008 · 193 posts · 7 votes
    19y

    Thanks John-
    I replied to your PM.

    For the other readers, I do the following (without URLs):

    Forums I participate in:
    Bigger Pockets
    Agents community
    Real Estate Webmaster Forum

    Blogs I write on:
    My website
    Active Rain

    Other social networking sites I try to comment on to make sure I am getting my name/website out there:
    Technorati
    MyBlogLog
    Zillow
    Trulia

    And then I am trolling around looking for other place to post.

    Actually, I really have a tough time finding any other Blogs that talk more than a post or two about investment real estate. I would to find another guy in another part of the country that posted similar topics that I post on my blog. Josh's Blog is probably the most consistent one out there regarding investment property.

    If anyone comes across one, send me a PM.

  • Real Estate Investor · London · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 74 votes
    19y

    Scott,

    Two things.

    There are a number of blogs that talk about investment property. One is even run by a female member of BP who is investing in the US though she and her husband are from Australia. There are a few folks who write for the newspapers that run blogs. The Wall Street Journal has a property section and there is one or more blogs that you can find there.

    Activity level does vary a bit but I know some post weekly. There is a couple of blogs that are group efforts so you get someone from the group posting on a very frequent basis. Mostly RE agents.

    As to tools. Are you saying that you do not use any RSS readers or other tools to track the blogs you prefer? I was using the Google RSS facility but wanted something off-line. Guy Kawasaki recommends NewNewsWire. I really like it. He and I use Macs but I believe there is a PC version.

    For non-blogs (forums mostly) do you use anything more than a history list or a set of bookmarks so you remember what ones to go back to?

    Another tool I like (Mac specific) is 1Passwd. It manages passwords and provides a password generator so you can have robust passwords. It works with multiple bowsers. When using a number of forums I figured it was best to have unique passwords that were hard to guess. I do not like how some forums email the password back to you in clear text.

    Are you a member of any link exchanges?

    Do you manage your blog online or off line. I tend to dislike needing to be online when editing as the preview takes too long with a server.

    John Corey

  • Real Estate Agent · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2008 · 193 posts · 7 votes
    19y

    I use Outlook 2007 which has a great RSS feed. Just upgraded recently so that does help organization.

    As for forums, I just keep a bookmark of each as I only have 3 right now. Some forums I have found are not oriented toward REI or are not very well participated in (or frankly, the moderator isn't hammering on the personal attacks which makes you not want to stick your neck out with your personal opinion).

    I have used a password tool for many years and recently had to upgrade when I went to Vista. I now use Password Manager XP which I find is awesome. It generates crazy complex passwords (for example: (i7$cv90) for the websites and lets me simply autofill the websites.

    I have done only a couple link exchanges as everything I have read says that Google is going to eventually put the hammer down on abusers of link exchanges.

    The software that I use for Blogging is a stripped down version of Wordpress that I get with my real estate website. It does not have 1/2 the features I want and does not have off-line writing capabilities. I also wish I could schedule posts for when I am not in the mood! Do you have a recommendation on a Blogging sofware you like?

    By the way, what city are you located in? Although you can't post the URL for your Blog, tell me what the topic is.

    Thanks.

  • Real Estate Investor · London · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 74 votes
    19y

    Scott,

    As I am on a Mac the blogging software I just switched to is Mac specific. RapidWeaver is the name. I went with it as I do not want to learn the details of HTML, etc. I also want to edit off-line and like you I want to schedule updates for when I am in the mood to write. Also when I want to take a holiday.

    I have a somewhat stale blog on WordPress.com's site. They offer free hosting and a nice set of tools for online blog creation and maintenance. Just click on the WWW button below to get there.

    I am in the process of moving the WordPress site under RapidWeaver and transferring it to a fresh domain. Or I will just point to the old blog and leave the replies and other things in tact. What pushed me from using the online site to RapidWeaver is the problem I had with some formatting and the idea that you can not track site traffic with specific tools when hosted by WordPress. That and the offline comments above.

    As I am in the middle of the changes your initial post was rather timely.

    John Corey

  • Real Estate Agent · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2008 · 193 posts · 7 votes
    19y

    I just came across a great article on WebBlogging 101. The writer recommended ecto3 as a good editting tool that allows you all the flexibility of posting to multiple blogs. I may give it a try.

    Ever heard of it?

  • Real Estate Investor · London · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 74 votes
    19y

    Ecto3 is what I tried. It was not able to work smoothly with Wordpress when Wordpress is hosted by Wordpress.com. Maybe it was more pilot error on my part. The key is I want a tool that makes it easy for me to focus on the content and not on the programming. That is what a blog should be about is my view.

    I suspect the product is great but not what I need now. I am not maintaining multiple blogs. I think I can mange the proces with RapidWeaver if I start more than one blog. Time will tell.

    John Corey

  • Newtown, PA · Member since 2008 · 60 posts · 0 votes
    19y

    Maybe that's the reason why its hard for me to come across SERIOUS clients!! I guess tonight I will be up "puking!" Very good information for exposure!
    Thanks!! :beer:

  • Member since 2008 · 8 posts · 0 votes
    19y

    First I would like to know how long you have been at this. everything takes time, I'm not familiar with internet marketing everything I do is old school hands on., and focusing on one general area at a time that is the way marketing has always worked for me. I think you should give it a little time being the market has not been so good lately can be a direct result to your problems. I say if you have been at this for a while and you are getting poor results switch it up a bit. good luck

  • Newtown, PA · Member since 2008 · 60 posts · 0 votes
    19y

    I have actually been at it for less than 6 months. Believe me I know that is not long. My colleagues who walked in the door with me are moving along quickly which is the only reason I made my point. I don't quit and I enjoy this too much to do so. I know that success does not come without hard work!

  • Member since 2008 · 14 posts · 0 votes
    18y

    Promoting your website is an ongoing, ever changing 'science' but if you get it right it can pay handsome dividends.

    Add yourself, and your listings, to as many real estate portals as you can to take advantage of their established traffic. They will improve your rankings too.

    Keep your site's content fresh, relevant, changing, and above all unique to your site. Write it yourself, don't copy it from other sites or use your own content on several sites. It will devalue your rankings if you do.

Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.