Looking for information about online real estate lead generation can turn up a minefield of totally inappropriate rubbish. Unfortunately, this becomes like looking for a needle in a haystack. Are you are a real estate investor and have you reached a dead end in lead generation? Where do you go from here? Contrary to popular belief, the most important person in lead generation is you! You are your business and you have to get out there and sell yourself – your whole business does not revolve around the internet. Yes, it helps you and spreads your presence, but nothing will ever replace the personal touch.

Myth No 1: You need an Expensive Flashy Website

Whether you have a website or not is not going to matter if you cannot keep and nurture any returning clients. Personal involvement is of prime importance! Clients know that without them your business would fold like a house of cards (excuse the pun!). With no clear idea of how you can generate leads for real estate, even the best online marketing site in the world will get you nowhere! Have a clear picture in your mind of who your target market is and then look after them, reassure them that they doing the right thing all the time. Never lose sight of the personal touch and face to face interaction with your clients.

Myth No 2: More traffic means more Profits

More traffic to your website is all well and good, but what happens then – Do people read the articles? Do they sign up for newsletters? Do they want more information?   I bet you they don’t want anything – they were not interested enough to stop for long enough because you have no personal details on the site – no photograph – no feel good invitation that makes them want to call you. They will never come back again and they will never be clients of yours. When you increase traffic to your website, you have to have a plan for it – how are you going to turn these potential new prospects into a closed deal? Redesign your website. Have a response page. Become interactive, have discussion forums. Ask some friends to be part of a test group and see how that turns out.

Myth No 3: Bigger is Better when Building your Client List Read more…

In today’s world of explosive internet business, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have a targeted plan of exactly how you are going to carve out your business niche online. Someone in the advertising industry once said, “Doing business without advertising is like winking in the dark: you know what you are doing it but nobody else does”. Like marketing in newspapers or magazines, you need to identify your target market. However, unlike print marketing, if you get your online marketing well established, you can reach a much wider, virtual audience. Word of mouth is not what it used to be; now anyone can search online with 4, 5, or more different search engines and find out exactly what they need at the touch of a button. If your business is not positioned carefully and correctly, no one will know you are there.

Most important when marketing online and especially for real estate investors, would be to keep your website personal by including photographs and making sure that the copy is friendly, everyday and conversational so that prospective clients reading it get the warm, fuzzy feeling of being comfortable in dealing with you. You have to make a very good “virtual” case for yourself as you are introducing yourself and your business through an impersonal website, so you have to fill in the blanks by creating the right impression from the outset. If you simply have what is known as a “landing” page where prospective investors can send you their details by email, not many of them are going to do that. There is no particular reason why they should pick you out of other real estate investment companies. Read more…

Common Sense Social Marketing – Social Media About to Die – Part 2

If nothing is certain, one thing is – social media is losing it’s magic. What once was a new and improved way to keep in touch with your closest loved ones has become just another sales pitch to convince you to sign up to another dreadful business opportunity, newsletter, product, or service. There is no opening or closing – simply raw advertisements that lack sincerity. The people advertising their products don’t care about you or general interests. They’re too set on the idea that you’re going to sign up and turn them into a success.

What’s wrong with this picture? Could it be that the advertisements lack taste and real value, or could it be that the people who want your business care less about who you are and what you are interested in? What business entrepreneurs are forgetting is that they are on the other side of the fence of social media. They are on the advertising end, which means without a real connection to the “the people”, they are getting nowhere. At some point, a real connection needs to be established or otherwise, all efforts to make a sale or spread the word are pointless.

The truth? No one cares about you unless you care about them, particularly when it comes to social media. Let’s say that you’ve got an account with Facebook. Each day when you see those tiny red notifications, you’re dead sure that they signify a message from your friends or family. Unfortunately, you open your inbox and all you see are loud advertisements. What do you do? You delete them, and you do so automatically without any interest whatsoever about what they say. Read more…

“If you know the enemy and know yourself,
you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained
you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself,
you will succumb in every battle.
~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War”

Other websites often hold the key to getting more traffic for your own website. Their collection of traffic sources and links is one that you can appropriate for yourself when you are trying to build more traffic and links.

Assuming that there isn’t a huge gap in topics covered and content quality, websites that link to your competitor will generally be willing to link to you as well.

If the competing sites in your niche are older and more established, their backlink profile might just reveal the traffic sources you need to grow your own website.

Competitor analysis may lead you to websites you have never heard about and will also show you what type of traffic sources you need to cultivate to be successful in the long run.

Three Ways to Perform Competitor Analysis

These collection of web tools and sites will help you to find out what websites are referring traffic or linking to your competitor.

I’ve not included any keyword-based or SERP research tools because I’m not focusing on organic search traffic but rather, defensible traffic sources. Read more…

In this post you will find a collection of the best Twitter marketing tips and strategies I have used to gain success.

After building several accounts on Twitter, I’ve noticed much confusion about why and how people are using Twitter.

The reason behind having a good Twitter accounts Is Really Simple:

To find and attract others with similar interests, so they will share your Twitter page with other people they know that  have the same  interests.  Your twitter followers will grow which will lead to more traffic to your website, and more leads for your business. This is true viral marketing.

So…

• If you’re not seeing results, it’s probably not twitter’s fault, it’s how you’re using it. Reevaluate why you’re there
• Help people.
• Be yourself on twitter. People will either love you or hate you for it but at least it’s you.
• Create a dialogue with your followers, don’t just push promotions about your brand in their face.
• Twitter about how your promoting, or how your getting paid, give followers something they can use!
• Don’t just talk about your product, talk about your area of expertise. And the key talk – have a dialog with your customers or potential customers.
• Be the first to share. Get an RSS feed of topical news for your industry and post a link as soon as breaking news hits the search engines.
• Have you written a lot? Tweet the titles of all articles you have written, and each URL, so your followers can easily find them.
• Twitter is a conversation. Take some time to listen to what is going on and respond, don’t just talk at people.
• Don’t just use auto-follow tools to spam legions of people – instead, create individual conversations
• Use Twitter as way to grow your networks on other social media channels. It can be the hub of your social media wheel, each channel a spoke
• Marketing Is about promoting what your expertise is & how that is advantageous to someone else. Now get tweeting that!
• Twitter is not a scripted dialog. It is an open conversation between you, your followers and your potential followers. Read more…

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