Advanced Access Blog

Having a solid content structure within your website can help visitors and search engines easily find the specific information they are looking for.  Taking a little time to pre-plan what you want your visitors to find on your website will save you a lot of time in the short and long term marketing efforts of your website.

Identifying Your Keywords

Being able to identify exactly what potential buyers and sellers are searching for on Google should really be the first step in planning a successful structure for the content of your website.  Without this fundamental step you may literally be shooting in the dark and hoping you hit something.

We’ll be utilizing Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool to complete our research during the course of this post.  The data is based primarily from their paid inclusion program but gives us a pretty solid idea on which keywords within any given market drive more traffic than others.

Finding Keywords

The first thing you’ll need to do is open the Google Adwords Keyword Tool in another browser window.  You can do so by clicking the above link or by copying and pasting the following into a new browser window:  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Once you have that window you’ll see something like the following:

Start typing in keywords that you believe your clients may be searching on Google to find you or your competitors.  You can add as many keyword combinations as you’d like on this screen.  Once you’ve done this you have the following options before you run the tool:

• Use synonyms
• Don’t show results that contain one or more words
• Don’t show ideas for new keywords
• Include adult content in my keyword results

Once you’ve inserted keywords into this window and have selected the other options go ahead and click on the Get Keyword Ideas button to get your results.  Your results may look something like the following:

Once you have a list of keywords and the estimated search volume for each of those keywords, you can begin writing content that includes your most searched keywords.

Tip: You’ll find an export option at the bottom of the keywords on your screen that will allow you to save the keyword data inside an excel sheet for future use.

Next Time we will be continuing on with more great content writing advice to help you better plan the structure of your content.  The next topic will be titled, “The Five Major Real Estate Website Content Categories”.

This series is written by our Search Impact team.  If you’d like more information on this service which includes thorough keyword research your websites focus please contact our sales team today at (800) 335-1563.

ADVANCED ACCESS will be hosting a FREE Q & A session on Wednesday March 3rd at 2:00 PM (Pacific) about developing content for your real estate website. Click here to register!

Join host Jeremy Rivera, Website Marketing Manager, for an online training session where you can learn everything you ever wanted about content, but were afraid to ask.

We make sure to regularly write about the importance of developing unique and quality content for your website, and we want to help you continue to learn all you can to make the most of your online presence.

Have you ever wondered what to write about on your website, or why you need content in the first place? Are you unsure of how to optimize your content for search engines? Take advantage of our free question and answer session!

Here’s how it works:
- Click here to register for the session. You will receive a confirmation email with your link to join the session after you register.
- If you have questions that you would like us to answer during the session, email us at marketingtips@advancedaccess.com with your content questions.
- Show up for the Q & A!

We will also be taking some live questions during the session, so don’t miss it!

Contact us at 866-518-1571 with any questions!

Last week I had the pleasure of being a panelist in a Secrets of Top Selling Agents webinar that presented Advanced Access real estate site owner for Monument Colorado and prolific blogger Mariana Wagner. During this session, she broke down the various elements of utilizing a blog to offset, compliment and improve your website. By using the medium of blogging, she is able to reach out to clients, become and authority and bring visitors to her blog and website and convert those readers into customers. She also describes how there are very real benefits to be gained from improved search engine placement and using Search Engine Optimization.

Search Engine Optimization = Consistently writing about what you want to be found for in the search engines, in the language used by the community of people you want to do business with - accompanied by the proper use of interior and exterior links.

-Copyright 2010 Mariana Wagner

If you didn’t get a chance to join the session, then you can view the recorded session, and read the follow up posts from the remaining Q & A questions asked during the session.

Advanced Access is happy to announce that we have just added Overstock.com, Vast, LoveMyZip, PropBot, OLX, and HotPads as our newest listings syndication partners!

We are now exporting all hand-entered listings to these partners in addition to the others we have recently announced (Google Base, Zillow, Trulia, and more!) This is another significant boost to your online presence and marketing your listings from Advanced Access! The best part is, you don’t have to do much to take advantage of this FREE addition to your service.

What do you have to do to get your listings to our listing syndication partners? Enter complete listing information into ListNOW. The “Export this listing” box will be checked by default. If you want your listings exported, don’t uncheck it. That’s it!

Complete listing information vs. the bare minimum

Once you add your listings it seems many of you enter the bare minimum. That is not a very effective marketing strategy. You want your visitors to connect with a property and want more. You don’t want them to need more because there’s practically nothing there.

I have heard many agents say they don’t add extensive listing information because they want the website visitor to call them. It’s a way of getting leads. In my opinion, this is not the best way to get leads: someone calling you because they felt your information was inadequate. Will they really call you?

Your website content is the place to engage your visitors. Relevant placement of contact forms within your content is key. This is the way you want leads coming to you: confident in your knowledge and abilities. Listings are prime content for a real estate website!

Every field in ListNOW serves a purpose, and should be completed to the greatest extent possible. You may think you don’t have the time. If time is money, invest it wisely. Take the few minutes to enter complete listing data.

Why bother? There’s a photo, they’ll either like the property or not. I’ve put it in front of them, the rest is up to them. Wrong answer. If you leave out the most important information, you may find yourself without “them“.

Consider your seller for a moment. They want to know you are doing all you can to get the most exposure for their property as possible. Without adequate listing data, you run the risk of having your listings excluded from our syndication partners.

We export manually entered listing from ListNOW to various sources. Once the listings reach our syndication partners, those without enough data are dropped and not displayed on their site(s). This is an industry standard in marketing your properties; you need to be sure you take advantage of the options available to you.

Contact us at 866-518-1571 with any questions!

CRISNET MLS, SoCalMLS, and MLSListings deliver member benefits with statewide real estate marketing platform

BOCA RATON, Fla. (PRWEB) Feb 11, 2010 – eNeighborhoods, a leading provider of real estate information and marketing systems, announced today the expansion of Mercado, California’s statewide real estate marketing platform.

The expansion includes the addition of Van Nuys-based CRISNET, Anaheim-based Southern California Multiple Listing Service (SoCalMLS), and Sunnyvale-based MLSListings, all of which have signed on to provide Mercado as a member benefit. Mercado now provides statewide access to MLS information and marketing applications for more than 110,000 users and 4.5 million active and off-market listings.

Mercado is a Web-based marketing system that leverages the cross-MLS property search of MLSAlliance, joining together multiple California MLS databases, with local information on neighborhoods, school districts, and community demographics. Mercado provides real estate professionals with a single gateway to a vast amount of real estate information throughout the state for producing personalized CMAs, buyer tours, and single-property profiles, along with market-to-market comparisons and referral opportunities.

“With this expansion, Mercado now unites the two largest MLSs in Northern California with the three largest MLSs in Southern California,” said Andy Woolley, eNeighborhoods vice president and general manager. “Our goal has been to deliver marketing tools agents and brokers can use every day to further leverage the power of their MLS systems. To see Mercado grow in size and usage so quickly indicates that the technology investments being made by these MLSs are paying off by enabling them to deliver additional member benefits today and in the future.”

Mercado will be launched to other MLSs participating in the California MLSAlliance over the next several months, and is expected to be available eventually to real estate professionals throughout California.