Before Web 2.0, if you provided good service it was widely regarded that people would tell a handful of their friends about their great experience. But, if your service was poor or you did something wrong then they would tell 20 people.

Well, what used to be Word of Mouth, has now become World of Mouth, simply because it is now very easy for people to share their customer experiences with their friends over the web. Read the rest of this article »

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I was looking in the window of a real estate agency the other day & noticed that they had no listings available to sell. This got me thinking about ways that a real estate agent could market themselves & build their profile without even having any properties to market.

These online marketing foundations could be adopted as a good start up strategy for any new agent or simply a way that agents can build their profile & generate more business.  Either way, to begin building your online profile these first 4 steps are probably the best place for an agent to start.

1. Personal Domain Name

Secure your personal domain name. eg.YourName.com or .net.
To order your domain name, there are lots of domain name providers to choose from & the cost for domain names seem to be getting cheaper all the time. There are sites like GoDaddy.com, PlanetDomain.com, Intaserve.com & CrazyDomains.com just to name a few.

If your domain name has already been taken you can try putting a hyphen into the domain name. eg. Your-Name.com. There are lots of hyphenated domain names that are still available.

At present, there doesn’t appear to be any real benefit in securing the .com.au or .net.au unless you really want to. Your TLD, (Top Level Domain) YourName.com is better to secure if it’s still available.

Simply register the domain name & don’t sign up for the hosting packages because in a future post, I’ll show you ways that you can get your hosting for FREE.

2. Twitter

Secure your personal name on Twitter.
Once a Twitter username is registered then no one else in the world can create the same username. That’s why, even if you don’t want to use your Twitter account for a while, it’s still better to secure your username.

If Twitter.com/YourName isn’t available then you can use ‘underscore’ to create Twitter.com/Your_Name or you can even have the underscore at the beginning or the end of the username, like _YourName or _Your_Name.

The reason why it’s important to have your name within the username is that it forms part of the URL and this can help somebody find you easier on Google, Bing & other search engines if they type in your name.

3. Google Profile

Register your Profile on Google.
Having a Google profile enables you to provide a biography/profile of yourself on Google’s site. You can also include links back to your company website & links to any of your other profiles/websites.

Simply go to www.google.com/profiles and register today.

The same applies with Google Profiles, once the username is gone it’s gone, so it’s worthwhile going & securing your Google profile before someone else in the world with your name does.

4. Facebook

Register your profile on Facebook
Facebook has recently announced that as of this Saturday, June 13th at 12.01am New York time (2.01pm Sydney time) Facebook users will be be able to choose a username URL for their Facebook account.

It’s designed to make it easier to direct friends, family, and coworkers to a Facebook user’s profile.
This move by Facebook will also mean that people’s Facebook profiles will start to appear a lot more on personal name searches within the search engines.

For example, the new Facebook URL will become Facebook.com/YourName which can make it a lot easier for people to connect with you on Facebook.

Usernames will be issued on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and any other Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting http://www.facebook.com/username/.

Facebook Pages are designed for your business. There appears to be are a lot of agents & businesses that have started registering Facebook fan pages for their businesses & it may be a good idea to secure the Facebook username for your business at the same time. Eg. Facebook.com/YourBusinessName

Whilst there are lots of others sites like YouTube, LinkedIn, etc that you may want to register with, these are the Top 4 things you should do first.

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With Myhome soon leaving the local landscape soon I came to thinking of what would make the ultimate portal. I know Peter has posted on something similar before but I thought I would throw my hat in the ring and mockup what I believe would be the perfect portal from my perspective as an agent.

Technology
Keep a familiar navigational style similar to current portals however utilise the latest web 2 technology to improve functionality without sacrificing usability. Don’t try and reinvent the wheel, just make it better and go faster.

Bandwidth and storage is cheap these days so the site would feature high resolution photos and full screen slideshows. Read the rest of this article »

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Over the last 12 months we have seen many new entrants coming into the market offering cheaper annual plans, different strategies and grandiose claims. But what impact have these new entrants had on the marketplace and what if any will they have in the future? Over the coming weeks I will write about each of the incumbent portals and take a look at some new entrants in the marketplace. I will also look at some overseas developments and see what impact if any they will have an impact on the Australian Market.

Firstly we will take a look at the giant of Real Estate in Australia realestate.com.au.

Overview: Without doubt the leader in most regions of Australia. Will continue sit around the 3.5 – 4 million mark in visitor numbers. REA will struggle to grow this number in Australia because let’s be honest how much more room is there for growth? REA has a number of problems. To begin with REA are the best at what they do and all large media companies love the marketing spend of real estate agents, so they will never be left alone to sit and count the cash.

Another problem is that in the next 12 months we will see large new entrants such as Google, Yahoo and MSN enter with their FREE classifieds websites. REA will continue to be aggressive in international acquisitions and will look to see its revenue base expand as it continues to make purchases in weak competitive markets.

As for the current website it is getting a little long in the tooth and REA will no doubt look to launch a new site soon. They will also need to forge closer ties with agents and make them feel that they are pulling together in the same direction, this sometimes means dropping the tough stance on fees and being a little more flexible. The new site will really need a stronger clearer focus on agents property listings rather than 3rd party advertising. The company will also struggle in the long term to lift revenues from agents as competition will drive down annual fees significantly into the future. The site still performs day in and day out and with more than triple the daily unique browsers of its nearest competitor will see it reign at the top for quite some time.

Threats: Fairfax (Domain.com.au) has now Rural Press in its bed and with the Macquarie Media going top to tail – REA will have its hands full keeping an eye on its local business whilst pushing to grow internationally. Google, Yahoo (maybe partner with News Ltd in talks) and MSN are all looming large with their FREE classifieds offerings and this will have a long term impact on annual agents revenues.

This creates another problem for REA. Once the FREE classifieds sites come online will also have to be very careful about intrusive 3rd party advertising as Google, Yahoo and MSN classifieds websites have a very clean and unobtrusive advertising model that has a strong connection with site users. Google Base will be the main problem once they launch here in Australia because Google will also include its classifieds listings in search results meaning consumers can get this property information from the search engine without having to go to another website. MyHome has had no impact whatsoever on REA and I doubt they have the know how and mettle to make a challenge in the short term. However MyHome cannot be discounted in the long term IF they stay the course and admit to – and fix the current site.

REA recently integrated/added the Home Renovation section to their website and it has an impressive array of articles and hints and tips for home buyers and renovators. This will no doubt bring in more advertising revenues and has been a great addition.

Future: REA will eventually do a deal with MySpace (which will carry REA listings much like Facebook now do) and possibly Yahoo if Rupert gets his way. They will continue international purchases and growth of many of these fledgling companies and I see real potential here for them. They have already seen impressive growth in New Zealand and the UK and will continue to push heavily in these areas. Will still be at the top in 3 years but its lead will dwindle and their agents revenues short term will stagnate and then fall dramatically once the free classifieds sites start to bring agents results. All in all I think the international future is bright, but Simon Baker and his team will have their work cut out for them to stave of competition from rivals even his hip pockets and visitor numbers cannot match. I see a Digital TV station (IPTV) feeding data to lounge rooms and possibly a TV show on a rival network to Nine.

Links:
www.realestate.com.au
www.domain.com.au
www.yahooclassifieds.com
www.liveexpo.com
www.googlebase.com
www.facebook.com
www.myhome.com.au

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