ADVANCED ACCESS July 2002 Newsletter

July 2002 Newsletter

"Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of
beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world."
- Carl Sandburg

Do you have a Success Story about your Website?
Tell us about it and you could be on your way to Paradise!

We always enjoy hearing your website or IntelliC@rd success stories. And, over the years we've received some fabulous letters about how your ADVANCED ACCESS websites have benefited you and your business in some way.

This summer we're sponsoring a contest open to all ADVANCED ACCESS customers. Here's how it works: Between July 15 - September 15, 2002, send in an entry describing YOUR success story with any of your ADVANCED ACCESS products. Our judges will decide the winner. The lucky winner of a trip to Hawaii for two will be announced in our September newsletter.

How Adding a Headline Atop Your Site
Can Keep Visitors Interested
And Thus Cause More Inquiries and Sales
by Guest RealtorŽ/Author (and ADVANCED ACCESS client:) Debbie Ferrari

When agents ask my secret to getting 95% of my sales from leads generated by my web site at www.DebbieFerrari.com, I tell them two things:

1. Make your site become easily found by search engines.
2. Have a headline that describes your specialty.

Why use a specialty headline? Because studies show that visitors give a site less than ten seconds to show that it's got what they sought. If your site came up when someone searched for "san diego horse property," then a strong headline can immediately assure them that they have indeed found a realtor who specializes in horse property. How about a headline like: "Your San Diego Horse Property Specialist."?

Or, perhaps you deal in condos? Then just change the headline above to reflect that. Do the same if you're a luxury home specialist (as I am), or specialize in residential, commercial, IRC/1031, farms, oceanfront, lakefront, hillside, view, city lights, or whatever.

Some agents fear that using a defining specialty headline will exclude visitors who aren't interested in that particular specialty. Well, ask yourself how well your site is doing right now when you try to be all things to all people with no specialty headline. The solution to this valid concern is to have your webmaster make you several home pages, or even web sites, each with a different headline, meta tags and specialty-related key words so the engines can match each one to specialty key words that consumers use in searches.

Or, far easier, and as many marketing-oriented agents do, use a headline that boldly proclaims a main specialty, but is followed immediately by a bulleted list of sub-specialties. That way you still can appeal to a primary target audience, but also to nearly everyone else. Just be sure that the rest of your site includes lavish content to back up the claims you make in your specialty headline and subheads.

Remember, while your home page is loading down into someone's browser, they see the top of the page first. Thus, it's the most valuable real estate on your site. Treat it that way. Give it a headline (just like ads have) that positions you ideally to your target audience!

Debbie Ferrari's site at www.DebbieFerrari.com has earned more top awards from major realty sites than any other known agent site on the Internet. She also effectively promotes the awards in her site to gain herself additional consumer credibility. See how at: www.debbieferrari.com/award.html. Reach her at Debbie@DebbieFerrari.com.

Have YOU got a great Internet tip for RealtorsŽ? If so, please e-mail it to us. If we just love it and you've written it clearly and concisely, we'll likely run it in our newsletter or weekly marketing tips.

Extensive Upgrades to AA's Server Network

Our new Classic Package website packages have been well received by our clients - in fact they have sold far beyond our original projections. This means we had to upgrade the capacity of our extensive server network sooner than we originally planned.

ADVANCED ACCESS has made a significant financial investment to ensure our websites are stored on the most state-of-the-art equipment available on the market today. Why is this important to you? Reliability and performance are essential in maintaining a website on today's Internet. We believe we offer the best services available for the money you spend.

Our server room is kept at a constant 67 degrees Fahrenheit (on its own separate air conditioning system,) and is designed with a single entrance and firewalls. Access is controlled by a biometric thumbprint ID system. ADVANCED ACCESS personnel are "on call" 24 hours per day, 7 days per week on a paging system in case of any system interruption, and we have offsite backup facilities.

In order to provide the most efficient service to our customers, we're recently completed a complete renovation of our server room, and have purchased a new "high powered" SQL server dedicated exclusively to our Classic Package programming. In addition, we are doubling the capacity of the server room air conditioning system due to increased demand in the room created by all of the new equipment.

Whenever possible, we complete our upgrades in the early hours of the morning in order to minimize your inconvenience. The benefits of our new equipment will be faster loading time for your website and virtual office access.

Intellicards one of the "Most Popular" Listings in Yahoo!

Yahoo! - one of the most widely used resources for Internet surfing, has listed our Intellicards site as one of the most popular websites in a separate category under Real Estate & Marketing section.

Becoming listed as one of the most popular listings in Yahoo is based on "link popularity" and "click through popularity," both terms used regularly in our weekly marketing tips. For more information on link popularity, click here.

In terms of cost and ease-of- use, e-mail marketing with Intellicards is one of the most effective elements in your real estate Internet marketing campaign. The best ways to keep in touch with prospects is to provide them with regular and consistent communication through e-mail-messages that are both colorful and appealing. Intellicards is better than ever, and we're continuing to add more features and graphics to the program on a regular basis.

Here's what Tim Parker from Prescott Arizona wrote recently about his Intellicards program:

" . . In the past three weeks, I have been busier than ever. I have LISTED 12 properties .. SOLD 14 properties and I must say, I account for over 75% of the business from my Intellicards through ADVANCED ACCESS. What else is so amazing is that I have sold over 75% of MY OWN LISTINGS in this time. [...] "

If you already own our Intellicards program, you might want to revisit it today and plan your next e-mail campaign. If you would like to know more about Intellicards, check out our website or ask your Account Executive for more information.

Challenging the Use of NAR's Realtor Trademark

It's well known among real estate professionals that NAR has owned the trademark on the words REALTORŽ and REALTORSŽ for years. Recently, in an article by Blanche Evans in Realty Times' Agent News, it was announced that several challenges to the trademarks have come before the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal board.

The challengers are trying to prove that the term "Realtor" is generic in use. Jacob Zimmerman, a San Francisco student (and not a REALTORŽ) owns over 200 URL's which include the word Realtor. As long as NAR holds the words as trademarks, they cannot be used for personal gain, which renders Zimmerman's investment worthless.

Some of you have already received a "cease and desist" letter from NAR's attorneys with regard to a domain name containing the word REALTOR. NAR allows its members to use 'Realtor' in their domain names provided the use is in accordance with its official rules.

What ARE NAR's official guidelines? Proper use of the NAR trademark would be something similar to: www.JohnDoeRealtors.com. Improper use would be something similar to: www.AnaheimRealtors.com, unless the site was posted by the Anaheim board of Realtors.

NAR's attorneys state that they don't designate a specific Realtor for a geographical area, so they consider it an improper use of the trademark.
Realtor members who improperly use the trademark usually are given several weeks to fix their sites. Non-members, however, are expected to act within several days.

ADVANCED ACCESS Staff Celebrates another GREAT Year

On a beautiful summer day recently we gathered our staff together for a BBQ luncheon celebration in the parking lot of our office building. The purpose of our get-together was to celebrate the end of our latest fiscal year - the best year ever in the history of ADVANCED ACCESS.

What a beautiful site it was to see our dedicated, hard working staff (the largest crowd ever -- 125 of us and growing!) gathered together to share common goals in a spirit of camaraderie. We're so thankful for all of our employees who work hard every day to create products and services that are the best in the industry. ADVANCED ACCESS employees are energetic and passionate about what we do, and we're fortunate to have them all on our team.

It seems just yesterday we had only a few employees and customers. Thank you to all of our valued customers for your loyalty and your business over the years. We could never have reached our goals without your support.

June 2002 | Back to Main Page | August 2002