Building a real estate website with a WordPress premium theme is something that every real estate professional should consider for two great reasons:

You get a great looking website for your business that is extremely easy to customize and that offers you tens of thousands of free add-ons (plugins, in the parlance of WordPress) that enable you to extend your website’s functionality

You get a built-in blog that allows you to interact with your audience, establish yourself as an authority in your market, and multiply your opportunities for ranking in the search engines (every post you create becomes another page for search engines to add to their index, which is what they build their search results from)

You can get both – a great-looking website with tons of functionality and a built-in blog that can help you capture top search engine rankings – for a fraction of what you might expect to pay, as premium WordPress themes do not really come at a premium price. In fact, most premium themes won’t set you back more than $100.
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It doesn’t matter whether you are a real estate agent, mortgage broker, loan officer, or have some other important job within the real estate market, you need people -potential clients- to know you exist. Half of the battle in earning commissions, closing deals, and selling homes or mortgages is finding people to buy them and that’s where marketing comes into play.

Marketing doesn’t have boundaries

You may not consider yourself a marketing expert and might scoff at the notion of some its methods, but the bottom line is if you want to be successful -at any level- in the modern business structure, you need to market yourself and you need to be somewhat aggressive in your marketing approach. And although most of what this industry does takes place on the visceral plane, in real time, in person, the Internet is still becoming increasingly important to any businessperson’s success.
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Some of the best from the web this past week:

Effective Listing Presentations by Cheri Alguire at Real Blogging

The internet and blogging are just tools … not the answers by Mariana Wagner at Agent Genius

Gmail users: 4 Highlights of the Gist Google App by Katie Lance at Future of Real Estate Marketing

Open Beta Announcement for Local Market Explorer 3 by Andrew Mattie at Geek Estate Blog

How do you title your listings? Do you try to squeeze in as much detail as possible, or do you aim to appeal to home hunters with more expressive language?

Giving some though to the title of your listing is worthwhile, particularly if you’re using free-to-list websites that don’t allow for photos to draw your audience in. To get an idea of what works – and what doesn’t – when it comes to listing titles, we thought we’d take a look at the real estate section on one of the the top free-to-list classifieds websites in the US: Craigslist.
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A call capture service is often touted as the end-all be-all solution for the real estate industry. However, just as with any technology employed by a business today, it is how the technology is used, not the simple fact of its existence, that will make or break a company’s success with it. While a call capture service can help an agent to increase sales leads and generate interest on a property, it can just as easily be a money sink with no return if it is not managed properly. Here are three tips that can help agents and companies alike get the most from their system.

A call capture service is, at a basic level, a better version of the standard phone line. Instead of a company having one line for consumers to call and ask questions to receive property details, a call capture service allows an agent or company to purchase a dedicated 1-800 number that lets clients and prospective buyers call for free. The cost of the call and toll free number system is picked up by the agent, but comes with features like multiple extensions on the same 800 number and the ability to record audio listings for each property that the agent has for sale – and then attach different extension numbers to all of them. Call capture services can even be used to track information about when customers call and which numbers they are calling, allowing for a streamlining of ad placement. While all of these features are intended to make the process of selling homes just a little simpler, it is up to an agent to use them properly.
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Some of the best from the web this past week:

Microsoft’s new Street Slide blows away Google Maps Street View by Tony Kawaguchi at Geek Estate Blog

The New Ultimate Listing Presentation (Part 6) by Matt Jones at Real Blogging

7 Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers by Katie Lance at Future of Real Estate Marketing

Four tips for future agents to jump start their career by Herman Chan at Agent Genius

There’s a difference between a run-of-the-mill type of real estate professional and someone who’s regarded as a real estate expert, and it’s not about the level of knowledge and experience one posses, it’s actually the right type of marketing and branding that cement your place as an authority in any given field. Luckily for you, it has become easier to climb up to the status of an expert by using the power of internet, once you’re there, you can expect more customers, bigger paychecks and more importantly, the recognition every professional strives for.

It will take time:

There’s no shorter route to success and you need to put in the time and effort needed, without getting impatient. It will take some time before people start taking you seriously, it will take even more time before they start acknowledging you as an expert and even when you’ve established yourself as an expert, you cannot afford to relax. In fact it is difficult to maintain your authority than establishing it. During this time, you’ll need to provide some free advice and guidance as well.
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Some of the best from the web this past week:

Targeted Ad on Facebook Test…and the results! by Christine Wade at Real Blogging

Useful Online Resources for Real Estate Agents by Jeremy Rivera at Geek Estate Blog

Changing the real estate prism – an outsider’s perspective by Greg Cooper at Agent Genius

4 Companies Paving the Way in Real Estate Technology & Innovation (Part 2) by Katie Lance at Future of Real Estate Marketing

Everyday is nice when it starts with a positive attitude. In business dealing, it is best when the one selling not only have the attitude but the knowledge of what they are doing. That is most essential among any businesses, and it applies the same to the Real Estate Agents. Over the years, marketing strategies have been thoroughly developed. This is one of the theorems that marketing experts advise. Always have the essential qualities in doing a business transaction towards your supplier and the consumers. By then, you and your company or your firm will establish a good name to provide quality services and products.

What are these qualities that they have formulated? Technically, it has been systematized into three categories. The following qualities a Real Estate Agent must have are:

• Self Presentation – It is always a must to look good when making a deal. Proper set of clothes in a daily basis. Personal Hygiene that is strictly observed from head to toe. Appropriate make up and scent of men and women. It also includes the physical area or office presentation relating to the field of business. All of these should be presentable creating a professional and comfortable atmosphere.
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Recruiting – I like the way author Jim Collins puts it in his book, Good to Great: “CEOs need to fill the bus with the right people and then get the bus going in the right direction. To find the right people, you must assess the firm’s weaknesses and then seek team members who can compensate for them.”

Training – I hear over and over from agents that they want brokers to provide plenty of training opportunities so their skills stay sharp and powerful.
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