Realtor-Marketing.com, National Realtor Marketing Resource

Here is a great free plugin for your firefox browser that pulls useful market research data right into Google’s and Yahoo!’s search results, including the following data near each search result.

• PR: (Google PageRank) an estimated measure of global link authority
• Age: age pulled from Archive.org, shows the first time a page was indexed by Archive.org’s spider. The theory is that if Archive.org found a page so did many of the major search engines.
• Links: (Yahoo! linkdomain) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a domain
• .edu Link: (Yahoo! .edu linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a domain
• .edu Page Link: (Yahoo! .edu link ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .edu links pointing at a specific page
• .gov Link: (Yahoo! .gov linkdomain ) shows a rough estimate of the total number of .gov links pointing at a domain
• Page Links: (Yahoo! link) shows a rough estimate of the total number of links pointing at a page
• del.icio.us: number of times a URL has been bookmarked on Del.icio.us. Heavily skewed toward techy / Web 2.0 stuff.
• Technorati: an estimate of the total number of links to a site from blogs
• Alexa: rank based on website traffic . Heavily skewed toward internet marketing and webmaster related resources.
• Cached: (Google site:) shows how many pages from a site are indexed in Google
• dmoz: searches the Google Directory to count the total number of pages from a site that are listed in DMOZ, and the total number of pages listed in DMOZ that reference that URL.
• Bloglines: shows you how many people are subscribed to a particular blog via Bloglines.
• dir.yahoo.com: is a site listed in the Yahoo! Directory or not.
• WhoIs: makes it easy to look up the whois data for any site.

Get it here http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html

Wanna to learn how to easily boost the ROI of your AdWords campaigns? Try this simple Google AdWords Tip.

Rotate The Copy…

Sometimes simply rotating the order of the words that you use in the copy of your ads might help boost the ROI of your individual ads. For example say your ad says, “Learn How To Easily Save Money When Buying A Home”. Try creating a new ad that says, “Easily Learn How To Save Money When Buying A Home”. Simple changes like this might yeild large gains in ROI and shows why continued split testing is the biggest secret to success with Google AdWords. Marketing for Realtors is all about getting results and by continuing to improve your ads and bring down your costs you will get results that continue to improve over time.

Prequalification, that is the key to improving you ROI with AdWords and most types of advertising, but I’ve noticed particular results with Google Adwords. Here’s how it works.
Most ads usually go something like this “feature x” “feature y” etc etc. everyone has written ads like these, and gotten reasonable results, but what kicks the ROI into high gear is when you start to prequalify your leads.

Let’s say a home buyer is looking for MLS listings. Your ad is being displayed in the traditional “GET PEOPLE TO CLICK NOW!!” format. They see all these ads all around them, and they click on yours. You have no idea what type of person this is or what specifically they are looking for. All you know is that they typed in “MLS listings” into Google, liked your ad, and clicked on it.

Your maybe getting 1%-2% conversion on these types of ads. For every 100 that would click through, maybe 1-2 would convert to a customer. 1% is not shabby, and it’s in the range of “at least I’m getting some new clients”.
So what can you do to get a higher conversion rate for your traffic…prequalify it. How do you do that? You could change your ad to say something like “Find the Home of Your Dreams Now by Searching the MLS with Robin from Remax. This type of ad is much more likely to get the person clicking the ad to contact Robin.
One thing you have to keep in mind though is that you have to balance conversion and CTR carefully. If your CTR drops off your CPC will go up which is OK if the extra revenue from prequalifying your traffic results in a higher CPC. But, and this is a big but you dont want your CPC to go up so much that your ROI actually decreases from your old ad.

So, be careful with this technique but understand that it can really improve the ROI of your marketing efforts.

There is a very simple formula to rapidly improve the performance of any Google AdWords account. We have used this over and over again to keep taking our Google AdWords campaigns to higher levels of performance. If you follow these steps, I guarantee you that you will see amazing results. The best part of this AdWords tip? It’s free and it costs nothing to follow this proven strategy. In fact, it will not only boost your Google campaign, it will also save you oodles of time and money!

Here is the most powerful Google AdWords success secret:

1) Always split test your ads: No matter what you do, you should always have at least two versions of your ads

2) Always keep optimizing: This is where most people screw up. Why? First of all, lots of Google AdWords users run out of ideas of what to test. Second of all, most AdWords users don’t know when it is time to go back to further optimize their AdWords campaigns.

If you consistently do these two easy things you campaigns will constantly be improving, its that simple.

We have been testing a new phrase that has consistently given a big boost in the click-through-rate of Google Ads. The magic phrase is the same phrase that we used in the title of this post. We have found that it works across a wide variety of keywords. So, the goal should be to just pick the keyword and try to incorporate it into your phrase.

Here’s the Formula - it just might be worth testing to see if it helps you boost the click-through-rate of your Google Ad campaign. It is one of the most effective Google AdWords tips we have found and it is easy to test. Just use the phrase below: “Did You Know that [Keyword] Could [Insert Benefit]”  The actual increase we got was a 90+% increase. Even more amazing was that our existing ad was already doing very well. Getting a click-through-rate of 5%+ is hard to come by but with the new phrase we were able to get the CTR up all the way to 10%+!

At best, a good piece of software will make a Realtor’s job a little easier and little quicker. Rarely does a peice of software allow you to make a large leap forward in productivity, but a new peice of software Keyword Elite does just that.

In order to dominate your market you must first discover which keywords and phrases surfers are using to search for information in your area. Then, you need to optimize your pages for good keywords that will give your pages an edge over your competition. The more information you have, the more likely you are to succeed in dominating your market.

This is where Keyword Elite can be extremely important, even for the novice webmaster. This program will supply the information and keywords you need to build targeted traffic to your site. Keyword Elite is a comprehensive keyword research software product that is really five products in one. It can…

1. Analyze Pay Per Click Listings: Use this software to retrieve valuable information on Pay-Per-Click listings and keywords. Profitable keyword information to have for any online marketer. Create thousands of traffic pulling keywords within seconds and soar above other marketers not using this software. It will give you a distinct advantage over your competition.
2. Create Your Keyword List: If you’re building a web site and need traffic pulling keywords to make the whole system work, Keyword Elite will produce thousands of keywords for you within minutes of running the software.
3. Select Your Keyword List: Not all keywords are useful. Discover what keywords are useful for your niche or site. Keyword Elite will help you find the best keywords for your site or sites. This will save valuable time for any busy webmaster or marketer.
4. Analyze Your Keyword Competition: For the online marketer, it’s all about out-ranking your competition for the good keywords in the major search engines. Keyword Elite lets you analyze your competition and points out the keywords worth your effort and time. Why waste valuable resources on keywords that are just too competitive or too costly to run?
5. Spy on Your Adwords Competition: This is perhaps the most useful and powerful function of Keyword Elite. It will literally spy on your Adwords competitors and tell you which keywords they are using over a long period of time. Basically it tells you which keywords your competitors are using to bring in the profits. This project mode is worth the price of this software alone for the serious online marketing Realtor. It also changes or levels the playing field where keywords are concerned. You would have to pay thousands to SEO companies to get the same valuable information.

Powerful is the only accurate word to describe the functions of this research software. It will give any Realtor marketing online the means to compete at the highest level. Click here to check out the online demo videos to see Keyword Elite in action.

So, right now you are sitting on hundreds of listings that you got from your online marketing efforts, but there is no one buying. What do you do? You start targeting buyers. Use Google AdWords to find buyers for your properties. Build a buyers keyword list and start marketing your listings using geotargeted campaigns and nationwide campaigns that use area specific keywords. Someone in California might be looking for a home in Iowa right now and you will never reach that buyer if you only use locally targted advertising. Therefore you need to create national campaigns around keywords like, cedar rapids iowa properties. To many Realtors limit themselves with AdWords to only locally targeted campaigns but there is so much business to get from perspective clients outside your current area that may be lookling to move to your area. Don’t pass up this opportunity or your listings may soon expire.

-Kaizen-

Thats the secret. It propbably doesn’t mean anything to you now, but it will by then end of this article.

Kaizen (改善, Japanese for “change for the better” or “improvement”) is an approach to productivity improvement. The development of Kaizen went hand-in-hand with that of quality control circles, but it was not limited to quality assurance. Importantly, kaizen must operate with three principles in place: process and results (not results-only); systemic thinking (i.e. big picture, not solely the narrow view); and non-judgmental, non-blaming (because blaming is wasteful).

So how does this apply to SEO, Copywriting. and AdWords, well it means to take an approach that SEO, Copywriting, and AdWords is a process that must never be left alone. It is to be constantly improved upon everyday. Efforts should be made through split testing AdWords ads and page copy to reduce advertsing costs and raise conversion rates. It also means that SEO work is never done. Find new keywords create new pages and ways for home sellers and buyers to find you. The goal is to constantly improve your site making it easier for customers to find you at a lower and lower cost for you while raising your ROI from each visitor. Kaizen from my point of view simply means “Never Ending Improvement” to any project, process, or system.

Just because you created an ad that has a CTR (click-thru rate) of 5% doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to split test it against other ads and try to get a 5.1% CTR. Never ending improvement, that is the key to continued success at all things in life.

Today we will take a look at one of the things Google AdWords beginners often find confusing. Then I will explain why this initially complex concept is actually great for you the advertiser. Realtors who learn to use this secret can potentially save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in advertising.

Why do you almost always end up paying less than the amount you bid on keywords in Google AdWords? The reason for this is that with Google AdWords you only pay 1 cent above the advertiser who bid below you. So if for example you bid $1.0 per click on a keyword and another advertiser bid $.50 per click (and you are the only two advertisers) you would only pay $.51 per click to be in the number 1 spot.

There is also a big secret that is the key to getting lower per click prices even if new competitors are starting to bid on the same keywords.

The secret is your Click Through Rate (CTR) which is a major component of Google AdWords Quality Score (Your quality score is made up of multiple components that actually determine you CPC for a position. For now we will focus on CTR but will cover the quality score in a future article.)

Your CTR is much MORE important than how much you bid on a keyword.
The CTR is the percentage of people searching who actually click on your ad. So if for example 100 people search for your keyword “San Diego Realtor”, your ad will show 100 times, and if only one person clicks on your ad, that’s a 1% CTR.

As an example let’s say I have a 1% CTR and I’m paying $1.00 for the number 1 position on the keyword “San Diego Realtor”. Let’s say you have a 2% CTR for the same keyword “San Diego Realtor”. You will probably only have to pay $.51 per click (your Quality Score would actually determine the true cost per click that you would pay but CTR is a very large component of your Quality Score) to get the number 1 position and knock me down to the number 2 position. This basically means you were twice as relevant as I was so you only had to pay half as much as I did! The implications of this are huge; if you understand this concept you can kill your competition.

So why would Google do this? From their perspective they are rewarding the more relevant advertiser which makes their users happy and they are making more money. They make more money because if your ad at $.51 gets clicked twice every hundred times its shown Google earns 1.02 and if my ad only gets clicked once every hundred times shown they only earn $1.00.

When you achieve a high CTR you can pull your bid prices down, maintain your same position, and increase your traffic. The difference can be quite amazing. Here’s an example of two ads that are ALMOST IDENTICAL but one got nearly TEN TIMES the CTR as the other:

Notice what happened: All that I did was add the word instantly and the CTR jumped from 0.25% to 3.1%!

That means that the ad on the right gets more than TEN TIMES as much traffic and I could pull down my bid prices and get that for the same amount of money as I was paying before. Think about how much money this will save you every month and how much that will add up to at the end of the year.

This system based on CTR doesn’t apply to Yahoo’s (formerly Overture) PPC advertising system as with Yahoo the highest bidder always gets the number 1 position. This is why Google AdWords is vastly superior to Yahoo CPC program, if you are a smart marketer.

It is beyond the scope of this blog entry, but there is a simple way in Google AdWords to apply this secret to constantly reduce your costs and increase traffic.

If you are a Realtor that isn’t using AdWords yet you can very cheaply.

There is one key concept that Google wants you to understand when using AdWords that can save you quite a bit of money.

If you understand this concept, Google will reward you by giving you lower prices on clicks. If you DON’T get this right you’ll pay too much for your clicks and you will end up very disappointed with your online advertising efforts.

The one thing that matters to Google is RELEVANCE. Realtors marketing with Google AdWords must make sure their ads are relevant to Google users. You can think of this as giving Google users exactly what they want when they search.

If you understand Google’s history and the search engine business this concept will be easy to understand.

Google started late into the search engine game after Yahoo and Excite were already well established. At the time, few people would have bet that Google would overtake them all - but in less than five years they did exactly that.

So how did that happen?

Google’s mission was to build a search engine that would give users exactly what they were searching for, as fast as possible. If you were searching for “California Realtors” they wanted to give you the very best and most popular California Realtors websites on the very first page of results. They acheived this by developing a powerful algorithm for figuring out who visited websites and why, and used that information in their search engine. It was Googles ability to give users relevant results that allowed them to overcome their competition.

So when Google began to sell Pay Per Click advertising they wanted to make sure they continued to give their users relevant results even if they were ads. Google acheived this by rewarding advertisers for being relevant, and letting their users who are searching vote. If an ad gets clicked on, it’s relevant. If it doesn’t, it’s not. It’s that simple on the surface.

The higher your CTR (clickthrough rate - i.e., the more Google Searchers who see your ad and click on it) - the less you have to pay for the position you want. But, if you write low CTR ads, Google will make you pay more to get your ads to show. This system is good for Google’s users, advertisers, and Google. So everyone wins except the poor copywriter. It is this system that sets Google’s PPC system leaps and bounds ahead of Yahoo’s PPC system. It allows you to take on advertisers with a much bigger budget and win.

What it all boils down to is that your ads and your content MUST be relevant to the keywords you’re bidding on. Your message must match what the person is thinking.

So, what were they really thinking when they typed in “California Realtors?” That is the question. Figure that out and put it in front of them, and you’ll win at Google AdWords. Write an ad that matches exactly what they’re searching for and you’ll beat your competitors to death.

If you want to setup an account now and start generating leads.

Pay Per Click ( PPC ) is a quick and simple way to bring targeted traffic to your website. This is great for Realtors who are looking for a near unlimited source of buyers and sellers. You can use PPC to market your listings or to build a list of highly targeted prospects.

So how does it work?

Basically, you the advertiser pay a rate you specify for every visitor who clicks through from the search engine site (Google, Yahoo, etc..) to your web site. It’s simple and quick. Each unique keyword phrase (e.g. Florida Realtors) has its own bid price. You set the budget and decide how much you want to spend a day. Most PPC programs offer tracking code so that you can calculate roi and other useful statistics which can be very beneficial to those who don’t have their own ecommerce team.

Ex. You want to get people looking to buy a home in Naples Florida to visit your site and see your listings you have in Naples, FL.

1. You purchase the keyword “homes for sale in naples FL” from Google AdWords and set that you are willing to pay .10 cents per click on your ad that shows when a user on Google searches for “homes for sale in naples fl”..
2. A potential home buyer goes to Google and types in “Homes For Sale in Naples FL”.
3. The google user see’s your excellent ad that you have written and clicks on it. You are charged .10 cents by Google and then the Google user is sent to your website. You can send the visitor to any page on your website. Since you want them to see your Naples Fl listing’s you have them sent to www.yoursite.com/naples-listing.html and they see all of your listings in Naples FL. If they find any of them interesting the give you a call or email you.

Its that easy. There are many PPC programs you can advertise with but the biggest are Google and Yahoo. Many of the smaller programs also work well but it is easiest to start with these two programs first and then expand once you have had some success.