Agent Update Blog

Each month well over 100,000 new advertisements are listed for the first time on realestate.com.au and realcommercial.com.au.  These advertisements cover sales, rentals, new devleopments and share accommodation. With this many new advertisements being listed each month, it is important to stand out from the competitors.

One innovative agent in Victoria, Woodards of Carlton North, has taken a more innovative approach to advertising a home in Nth Fitzroy that is in a dramatic state of disrepair.  Check out the ad at www.realestate.com.au/103087227. 

So what did the agent do?

Posted by Simon at 05:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I recently picked up a magazine from an estate agency group that had 150 properties advertised from across many of its offices.  Inside the front page, the following was written

"ABC (not real name of the group) is a truly international network of offices ... Every ABC office operates under a common set of objectives, policies, procedures and quality control to ensure our clients receive the same high quality service where-ever they are. ..." and so on.

Based on this writing you would think that they would have a clear and consistent appraoch to handling their website and driving traffic from the magazine to the website so that i could find out more information on a property.

So imagine my surprise when looking at this publication to see that there were 10 different web addresses being promoted and none of the URL's being promoted actually immediately gave me any more information on the property they were referring to.

So there are 2 simple things that a group or an office can do to get the most from their URL or web address.

Consistent Use of Your URL Across All Advertising Materials

All of the marketing materials of an agent should carry a consistent URL.  No matter if it is your business cards, letter head, newspaper ads, or magazines.  One magazine i picked up recently mentioned the URL of the website on the front cover and never again in the publication. 

Another important point is that an agent should not do is carry the branding from a third party such as another portal like rightmove or primelocation.  They are service providers and should be carrying your branding and links to your website.  Too often i see the agent's URL right next to a portal's URL.  Well if i was to type the portal's URL i would get the agent's properties and those of their competitors. 

Use URL Extentions to Link Directly to A Property

Often agents have a URL but dont get the most out of it.  I recently picked up another magazine that had the agent's URL at the bottom of the page.  However, having typed that, i had to search through 200 properties to find more information on the property that i was really looking for.

If there purpose of the magazine or other advertisements is to get someone interested and they want to find out more information, then it is important for the agent to make it as easy as possible to do so.

One simple way is to use URL extentions.  These usually take the form of www.abc.co.uk/propertyid number.  Here is an example from our sister site in Australia www.realestate.com.au/103058561

Posted by Simon at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Blogs or weblogs, as they are more formally known, are one of the online growth stories of 2005.  It is estimated that there are over 50 million blogs out there and that the number of people reading these has grown to over 200 million. Anaylsis of Hitwise data shows that visitors to UK blogs have increased by 24% between January 2005 and January 2006. The number of blogs tracked by them have doubled over the course of the year.

So what is a blog?  A blog is a web page that allows you, the agent, to openly discuss issues with your audience and allow them to respond or comment on those issues.  It will help build loyalty to your website and also reinforce your local market leadership position.

How do i start in Blogging

So you want to get into blogging but you are not sure how.  Firslty you need to get a blog.  This is easy to do as there are a number of companies that provide hosted blogging services.  Typepad from Sixapart is a good service that is easy to use. (See: http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/) 

If you are a more advanced internet user and want to host your own blogs, then Movabletype (also from Sixapart) is a great service.  Movabletype is the software that powers the www.propertyfinder.com blogs.

Once you have your blog software up and running, the challenge is to make sure that your content is up to date and relevant to your market.

A great read is Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright.

Posted by Simon at 05:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)