With the market like it is right now, you may want to take the time to build up marketing impact when the daily work of real estate isn’t all-consuming. Are you interested in finding new ways to advertise your listing online to improve that home’s chance of selling, while boosting your own visibility?

Featured Listings
Here’s a list of a few of the best online resources for advertising yourself… er… I mean your listing. Be sure that you have your listing FEATURED on your own home page. By doing this, any incoming links “for more information” will lead to the index page of your website. So, even if the home sells, you still have a link that’s live and is helping you. And when you sell a home, you will have other “featured” homes listed for the incoming traffic to review.

Landing Pages
You may want to add a landing page that gathers the “from” URL and customizes your website to say, “If you were seeking the featured home from Craig’s List, it’s already sold… but we have these great homes still available! And then list the home you do have featured in a thumbnail format so they can click for more information.

Localized Online Classifieds
Most popular websites for free (or extremely low cost) real estate classified ads today:

http://www.kijiji.com
http://www.craigslist.com/
http://www.backpage.com
http://www.tenant.com/
http://www.nfafn.org/
http://www.usfreeads.com/
http://www.freeclassifiedads.com/
http://listsomething.com/
http://www.nocostclassifieds.com/
http://www.postlets.com/
http://www.facebook.com (Free “MarketPlace” ads)
http://www.trulia.com/
http://base.google.com/
http://www.oodle.com/
http://www.local.com/
http://www.propsmart.com/
http://www.vast.com/
http://byownermls.com/
http://www.livedeal.com

Many of these websites have an expiration day- so don’t forget to renew!

(photo by mconnors of morguefile.com)

I blog. I’ve blogged since the turn of the century. (I just love saying that!)

I love saying it, even though it makes me sound like I’m sitting in a bentwood rocker, creaking slowly back and forth, reflecting on my long-ago wonder years.

During the course of the last decade, it occurs to me that, when it comes to blogging, there are four distinct groups of people.

Early adopters:

Some people understood the blogging concept from the get-go. They just “got” it. These were big-picture “Wow!” folks.

There are some forward-thinking folks that fall into this category, but even those bright-eyed optimists in the early days of blogging were usually shocked at the outpouring of benefits and followers of this new format for online communications and (a bit later) for relationship-building.

Gee-whiz folks:

Others, like me, took the plunge because I have a bad case of the “can’t help its.” This format, with the “coolage” factor of technology with an Internet platform from which I can climb on my soapbox proved irresistible. (It was called a “web log” back when I started.)


I’ll admit that I did my blogging anonymously in the early days, before I was quite comfortable with this “complete transparency” concept.

The folks in my group may or may not “get” how important blogging is to a small business, but they do it because… like any other opportunity to write… it must be done or because their inner geek cries out for it.

The opportunity to publish my stuff in a WORLD-WIDE forum was just too alluring to ignore. I started with small, personal vignettes, and moved up to articles on technology, marketing, real estate, politics and personal opinions. Those of us in this group quickly discovered the many layers of benefits. Many of us became blogging evangelists.

The “but” folks:

Some recognize that they NEED to blog, even if they aren’t exactly sure why. Maybe someone they trust told them they should. Maybe someone harassed them enough to get them started.

Some members of this group, know they need to blog, they understand the importance, but they never seem to find the time.

The members of this group usually don’t blog or at least they don’t blog for long. They are the reason that so many new blogs, like new businesses, fail in the first few months.

There is always something a bit more important to do, or they genuinely doubt the long-term advantages. These are the same folks that have business leads sitting on their desk that are days, or weeks, old. They really intend to get to them, but they never quite manage to do so in a timely fashion. It’s sad.

Case-study: I was meeting with a client this week. I’ve been preaching “blog” at this guy for over two years now. I even showed him a blogger in his own market a year ago and said, “This is your competition — he’s going to eat you alive because he blogs and you won’t.”

His response? “I never heard of him.”

(Note: a few months later, said competing blogger powned most of the best search terms in my client’s market.) The client ignored this and refused to discuss said blogger with me anymore. It became a not-so-silent point of contention.

Suddenly, this week, he calls all excited.

After agreeing to do regular blogging for 30 days — JUST this ONE month — he’s seeing a huge boost in his Google results on his key terms. Go figure. (I guess that 30-day challenge — which was my desperate final attempt to move him — was a better idea than I’d hoped!)

“This blogging thing,” he tells me, “it really works!”

“Oh?!?!” I reply, “this blogging thing? Really? Who’da thunk it?”

“No really!!” he insists, all jazzed up and trying to explain that he’s now a convert.

I roll my eyes silently, despite my quite audible huff, and am thankful that I’m not on webcam for this particular call.

All I can say is it’s a good thing that he’s a couple states away, or I may have been tempted to hop in my little car, drive to his office and shake him with my bare hands until his teeth rattled.

(Yes, I know that’s HORRIBLY unprofessional, but I don’t really care — that was my honest impulse.)

The best I can hope is that he will now blog on a regular basis. He’s already agreed to craft his titles with effective SEO in mind and with more thoughtful consideration on how to grab more attention from his visitors. We had a tutorial on that this week.

He has also endured “how to categorize” and “how to tag” tutorial sessions, so — who knows?!?! Maybe he finally has hopped the fence to become a believer. I guess stranger things have happened.

The nay-sayers:

Others don’t understand blogging, don’t trust bloggers and will purposefully never give any credence to blogs and their creators.

Case in point: My father. Just yesterday he and I had a conversation wherein he said, “I argued with him (a mutual friend) about this blog crap, and he’s like you… he thinks it’s great. I want MY news and information to come from a source that’s been vetted and checked and has at least had an editor look over it. I don’t care what someone without anything more than a computer and a website has to say about something.”

And my response, as a long-time blogger was rather snippy (it WAS my father, after all), “Yeah, I see how wonderfully well-researched and balanced the national news is these days as a result of following your prescription for perfection.” (This was a continuation of an earlier and ongoing debate about the way the election and every other important news item is being covered — or not covered — by today’s media.) We like this debate (we must) because we have it often.

He “humphed,” and I “humphed.”

I reminded him that I’d been a journalist, a newspaper editor, and had been making my living as a writer and researcher for nearly ten years now and that I blogged.

He summarily excused me from the “bloggers” category he was blasting. (There are some advantages to being an offspring — like being excused from a group of wayward souls by your parentals.)

I “humphed!” again.

His views however, are fairly common. Many people assume that online conversations are meaningless. They assume that bloggers don’t take the time to verify their sources. Sometimes that may be true. After all, it’s often true with journalists. (I know — I used to check the sources on some of my reporters’ stories before printing them.)

Because he thinks blogs are unimportant, it never ceases to amaze him when I pop up in a Google search on the front page. I try to explain how and why, but I might as well be describing the attributes of magic.

He now uses the “customer reviews” on his favorite websites, but flatly refuses to ever leave any feedback of his own. He won’t do it.

So I know he understands the value of “collective” experience and collective thought being shared about specific computer products on, say, NewEgg.com (his favorite online vendor). But he feels no responsibility to reciprocate or participate in the building of that knowledge base. (I’m still working on that one with him.)

To try to explain micro-blogging and twitter to my father makes him ready to fight. So, I give up.

The fact is, my father doesn’t really need blogging (he has me to listen to him on his soapbox) and he doesn’t need twitter (although he’d enjoy it and learn a lot if he’d permit himself to try). Pops doesn’t run a small business and he can just forget about the conversations on the web and the cutting edge thinking and continue digesting the pablum that the national media outlets dispense. (And, I told him as much.)

My clients… and YOU — if you are working on the web… can’t afford to ignore it. Blogs aren’t dead. They are stronger than ever, it’s just not as easy to own (pown) your niche now as it was a few years ago.

And despite what you may have heard, the new microblogs, relationship marketing, and other forms of social media haven’t replaced blogging. They have augmented blogging and have brought a whole new, shorter format to the online, immediate communications realm. Personally, I find it all quite alluring.

Until recently, I found it exhausting to juggle all the online “faces” of me. The social networking thing was just completely out of control. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been evaluating where I spend my online time (socially speaking) and where I enjoy being the most.

I wanted to do the 80/20 thing on social networking (the same way I’ve tried to apply it to other portions of my life). What I didn’t expect was to get all tied up with a massive time-suck while doing so. But, stuff happens.

It all started when I rediscovered Tumblr…

My Tumblr Experience

I’ve had a Tumblr account for forever, but it was just sitting there… like so many of my social identities. Recently, I wondered if I could use it as the “go to” place for all my online snippets and info. My experiment has become my own little monster. It sucked up alot of my time for a few weeks. I was always tweaking the layout, getting my own URL, trying new ways to get the information up there quickly and easily.

I fell in love! It’s so easy to post, so quick, and with a sidebar RSS here on WB, it makes my updates insta-matic!

I’m not willing to go with ONLY a Tumblr Blog — although the thought has been tempting. Using it really brought me into the “soundbite” era — and I now appreciate media catering to the “television-commercial-length-attention-span” I once despised. Gone are the overwhelming urges for long, verbose blog posts. (I’d rather just grab something interesting (or bizarre) that I find and slap it up on my Tumblr.)

Blogging on the Fly: No — REALLY!

Having a shortcut on my Firefox browser makes it easy to grab my online finds and share the golden ones. (If you want something to get ALL your social networking options in one place, try Sharaholic.) I also purchased Tumblrette for my iPhone (for $1.99) and find that having a quick and easy way to post when I’m out (including quick snapshots from my iPhone’s camera) makes me use the Tumblr blog much more often. It’s probably the best 1.99 I’ve ever spent at the apps store.

Tweaking it so my Twitters are automatically included, and so my blogs here on WB are also auto-magically added (along with other social networking automatic updates) has resulted in Tumblr becoming my personal online mashup.

I know that when I get time, I’ll be tweaking it more. I’d like to (eventually) host it myself — I’m not even sure if that’s possible yet. The brief research I’ve done hasn’t turned up any simple methods to accomplish this. In the meantime, visit my ever-evolving tumble log over at angelaallenparker.com.

And if you are just starting to blog… it’s a great “leg up” on the process. Tumblr makes blogging really fun. And it’s low-maintenance and it’s multi-format friendly. It’s a great way to create your own online “mashup” and can even be used to organize research and online finds (if you use your tags intelligently).

Now, I’ve “whittled down” my online time Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts and I don’t spend much time on them anymore. The others are there, and I add them to my profiles, but I don’t really spend time with them. (I can’t… all my extra time is spent on my Tumblr!)

While putting the polishing touches on my brand new website, I played with the cool wordcloud tool over at Wordle.net. If you want a “search engine” view of your website, with a little more organization and a lot more visual appeal, go make a wordle of your own.

Wordle's Word Cloud for WickedWriter.com

I’ve been juggling a business site and this blog site for YEARS (along with a couple other specialty blogs that have come and gone along the way). I was also blogging over on Active Rain for quite some time and I’ve recently picked up a bit of involvement in Facebook and Twitter (I just LOVE twitter!) and I’m getting more involved in Linked In and more interested in Squidoo.

As a result, I’ve started dropping some of the “balls” I try to juggle. My business site has not been updated in ages. That’s pathetic. I’ve quit doing submissions over on Active Rain (since putting them on my own blog and putting them over there causes duplicate content issues and I don’t have time to do both right now). I’ve not even been doing much blogging for RemoteProfessionals.com lately.

I’ve also determined:

• Research required to stay in step with all the latest in online marketing trends is time intensive and goes far beyond what’s required to write targeted, SEO-friendly web copy
• Successful online marketing hinges on two things: excellent, relevant copy for organic SEO ranking and intuitive navigation that makes it simple for visitors to get what they need quickly and easily. The rest is all black hat/white hat stuff and changes from hour to hour
• Splitting my concentration between multiple sites and services keeps me in front of my computer too many hours a day and my participation in the social web model needs to be managed more effectively
• I spend too much time staying on top of the latest in technology, encouraging clients to regularly call on me to serve as tech support - not a service targeted in my business model, but one that just happened
• I don’t want to maintain two “main” sites, it’s giving my marketing a split personality (and me a headache)
• Branding one URL will be more effective and easier than branding two, even if it makes me slide backwards a bit in Google while I get it done (and a few months thereafter). Howdy, sandbox!
• The overall SEO benefits of combining my blog with my business site are compelling

On the down side, moving my business and blog sites to another domain will damage the branding I’ve been building since 2002, when I switched over from my first business name to my current one.

Gradual changes

Being the “go to” person for a slew of clients is great for the ego, you are constantly in demand, constantly on call — but it’s hard on anyone attempting to have a life. It gets old quickly, and I’ve been in this business for a lot of years now.

I’ve been trimming my client list for the last year to offer better service to fewer clients. I’m now ready to try taking on writing project work. Until now, I’ve avoided “project” work. I preferred to build relationships with my clients. I treasure those I’ve built — both past and current.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve started sending my own favorite clients to other providers for services that aren’t my specialty. At first, that was scary. “What if they don’t come back?” I wondered. But I’ve not lost one yet.

This approach offers a better service to my clients, makes me the resource person for the services I don’t provide, allows me to help other outsourcing folks to gain access to fantastic clients, builds my professional network, and reminds my clients that I’m doing what’s best for them — even if that means referring them to someone else.

I want to keep my favorite long term clients through this transition and will only be trimming one or two more from my new better-sized list. Accepting project work will help me continue to expand the writing portion of my business — and writing makes me happy.

Sweeping changes

So the time has come to make some pretty drastic changes in my business model. I enjoy writing more than any other aspect of my business so that needs to be my marketing focus. It’s crazy for me to continue to perform all these other non-income producing research and learning tasks to support the services I offer that are NOT my favorites. What have I been thinking?!?!

I’m a geek, so some of the research will continue. I love it. But, I no longer want to “fool” myself into believing that it’s all business. When I’m working, I want a better billing ratio than 1 billable hour for every 3, 4 or even 5 hours of time spent. That ratio simply sucks.

Making the gradual changes has helped some; the sweeping changes will help even more.

Following my own advice

I’m doing for myself what I’ve been doing for clients for years — helping to organize and focus the business model and spend less time working and more time living — while improving the bottom line.

My whole life, I’ve been great at helping others, but not-so-great at doing the same things for myself. I have serious “do as I say, not as I do” tendencies — just ask my kids (for instance, when I send them to bed because they need sleep and I stay up all night working on the computer). Being honest to myself, about myself, isn’t always painless. It’s much easier to help others “fix” themselves!

I’m still working out the details of this next evolution in my business, but I know that there will (most likely) be a name change, there will be a merging of this blog and my business site, and there will probably also be a new site redesign, new logo, and LOTS of 301 redirects to try to help visitors find what they seek and to send old links to their new locations.

Transitioning

It will be a tremendous amount of work, and will have to be done in stages. I believe these changes will (in the long-term) make my life better, my workday shorter, and my business more focused on my best (and most enjoyable) services. Can you imagine only one site to maintain for the business? I can’t… but I will!

I may add other specialty blogs later, if/when I have time and energy… but the business site will be a singularity.

I’ve resisted this to date because I get “personal” on this blog. I often wander great distances away from business topics here. I’ve finally decided that’s ok. I’m not a big business, I’m a freelance writer who does small business consulting for a few choice clients. My personality IS part of my business. They really can’t BE separated. Like Popeye says… “I yam what I yam and that’s what I yam.”

Building good relationship with clients means having a common ground with them. I work best that way. So, the better we know each other in the beginning, the more likely we are to succeed in a mutually beneficial relationship.

I cross-promote my blog on my business site, so there’s really no reason to hide the fact that I write about a variety of topics on my blog. Anyone who clicks on the blog link already knows the “other side” of my story. Besides, I get more feedback from my blog right now than I do from my business website. (I’m sure that has NOTHING to do with the update ratio on each site *rolls eyes*)

With the all-in-one site, I’ll simply find a way to “highlight” the more “business-y” posts on the index page (maybe using a tag filter) and permit full blog access one click away from my index. I’ll be sticking with the WordPress content management system because I love it. It gives me enough control to do my own thing — without doing more HTML than I can easily handle or requiring me to call in my favorite programmer too often to extract my butt from the programming mess I’ve made.

Most of the issues I am still ironing out can be handled in the design and function of the website. I just have to figure out the particulars.

What I’ve learned

Since starting to serve clients online in 1999 and subsequently launching my first website in 2000, I’ve learned many things.

I know that simple websites are better than complex ones. Sounds easy, but knowing something and applying that knowledge are two different things. I like my blog better now with the current, cleaner look. The older layouts were too “busy” and less effective.

I’m a writer, so the text (not the photos) should take center stage. Graphics and images should only support the text, even if I like pretty pictures for their own sake.

I prefer simple, impactful logos. My logo incarnations over the years have often been too complex. They tried too hard. I do like the one for WickedBlog — even better than my business logo — despite that fact that it’s the only one I actually designed solo. The others required professional design assistance. It just proves that playing around with concepts works wonders. Sometimes when you try too hard, you lose the advantage of whimsy.

I may work toward a similar look for my new business logo.

Need your help

At this point, there are several contenders for the new name. I know that I want to keep my “wicked” branding. I like it. I’ll retain my purple and green colors. I like those too. These feel comfortable to me. They feel right. (They will also help with the branding transition and will permit me to keep my branded “wicked” 800 phone number.) I’ll have to replace all my pretty (and expensive) business cards, but I may replace them with a sleek mini card style.

Right now, the business name topping the list is Wicked Writer. I own the URL (and have for several years — which may reduce the time I have to spend in Google’s sandbox). A few other names are still under consideration. Since I haven’t gone through and cleaned out my domain name collection yet (yes, it’s on my list), I still own all the contenders as well.

I’d appreciate any feedback from my readers on using WickedWriter.com. Having a second, third… or even 20th opinion would really help me in this process!

It may be a couple months (or more) before I can get this transition completed. But it’s starting!

My favorite scent, my “signature” scent is Satsuma. It’s a perfume oil from the same-named fruit (mixed with goodness knows what to make it sell). It’s not expensive, it’s not flowery, it’s just simply perfect.

I’ve tried more “grown up” scents over the years and, honestly, most of the “designer” fragrances give me a headache. I always come back to Satsuma.

Tonight, on a whim, while I was ordering more of my favorite oil, I Googled the term and found a couple of pretty interesting sites. One, Satsuma Press Designs looks like a great little stationery designer. I’m going to have to look more into that the next time I need custom work done. I also really like the simple satsuma blog of the business owner, Lynn.

On her Etsy page, I noticed a great take on the mini business card that really turned my head. I think I need something like that for my wicked blog cards. They are so simple and pretty!

I also found a great little renewable bamboo baby blanket and accessories site called Satsuma Designs. And a sushi place that made my mouth water on site… too bad they are located in California.

Although all the houses (and features) aren’t directly related to Tiny Homes, I just love this website, aptly named “Off Beat Homes” which displays unusual homes, details and treatments. I particularly like the idea of a tiny house with a fairytale styled roof. (Isn’t that sweet?!?!)

You may also enjoy looking at these unusual home and building photos, courtesy of HotHomesOfUtah.com (now this is an interesting way for a real estate group to draw in traffic to their website, bump up their rankings and amuse the general public, all at the same time!) Or, you may want to look through these pages of strange houses and these oddities.

Web two-point-oh. You have been hearing about it several years and in 2007, it was EVERYONE’s favorite online buzzword.Now it’s 2008 and all you know is that you are supposed to be more “involved” online and that you probably need to sign up for a bunch of “social networking” sites and get some cool widgets to make your site score more visitors.

You also know that you don’t have the time to send messages to people on MySpace (and you don’t really want to). So, if you can just find the right tool, the right technology, that elusive “thing” you are missing — you can conquer this Web 2.0 frontier. Right? (more…)

I was asked (by colleague and nature writer JJ Murphy) this weekend if a blog chain was good for marketing. She asked me several questions:

1. What is the marketing value, if any in a blog chain?
2. Does it make sense to reply back to a comment on your site?
3. Is there a marketing advantage to guest blogging?
4. Does any of this help in search engine ranking?

(more…)

Simplicity is the key to effective communication. When you give someone your business card, you want them to remember your name, what you do and be able to contact you (or recommend you to someone else). You also hope that your meeting (in person or virtual) is a memorable one.

If you have a business website or a blog site, you don’t need to go into detail on your business card, you just need to give them a way to get more information. That’s enough.

I’ve dropped using a physical address on my own business cards. After all, in my business, does it really matter where I live and work? Nope. It only matters that people can call me, email me and visit me online to learn more — if they are so inclined.

(more…)

If you are building your first independently hosted blog for your real estate business and you have decided to go with WordPress, you have already made a great decision.

Now, there are some other items to consider:

(more…)

In addition to the Real Estate keyword help I offered in an article on WickedWordCraft.com, I also found this cool “right here, right now” tool from SEO Book. Give it a spin!

(more…)

Today, you should take a moment to consider pumping up your creativity. If you are a writer, or if you have always wanted to be a writer, I have the resources you need. If you are just stuck for a way to begin your next blog, I have a present for you. If you are bored and would just like to be amused, these will work for that too! (more…)

I’ve only recently discovered “Oblique Strategy Cards” — now available in a fifth edition. Apparently I’m a little slow sometimes, but I LOVE the concept.

They are, according to the creators:

Observations on the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated.

They can be used as a pack (a set of possibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case,the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident.

(more…)

With the constant droning buzz about social media and Internet communities, it can be pretty overwhelming to determine where you should spend your limited time and even more limited energy.

If you are considering joining some now, you should:

Select only a few - it’s better to do a few things really well than to “sort of” do many things. Choose carefully based on your interests, the others involved whether or not the layout/setup makes it easy for you.

Participate - social media doesn’t work if you don’t work it. Signing up and staying quiet is like going to a dance and propping up a wall all night. It’s no fun and it doesn’t help you become more visible to your potentials.

Advertise - if you are a member of a social network and you don’t tell anyone — how will you be found? Many of the people you already know (or those who know you) may be interested in becoming involved with you on a social network — if they know which ones you use… (more…)

Today, I’m feeling like counting my blessings, and I’m dragging you, fair reader, along for this trip. I’ve assembled some great-looking opportunities to give back to your community, your world. It’s a feel-good thing and I think you will like what I’ve found!

There’s a philanthropic pursuit for every taste here today! (And the holidays are just around the corner… so you COULD start doing something to feel good about this year during the seasons of thanks and giving.) (more…)

My peer, writer JJ Murphy of WriterByNature.com, sent me a great little link this morning to http://www.truemajorityaction.org/oreos/
where Ben Cohen (of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream) solves the federal budget issues with a few packages of Oreo Cookies as presentation tools. Nicely done!

If you want to be better informed, more politically active, or would simply enjoy being entertained — visit the TrueMajority website and watch the animated presentation.

The energy and enthusiasm of youth is amazing. It utilizes the leverage, strength, and sheer “force of will” to grow, mature and eventually to become self-sufficient. The same is true of your small business.

You watched in awe as your business grew. (Never mind the lack of sleep and the volume of work you endured to make it happen). Every tiny success made you work harder and kept you moving forward.

Then you were breaking even (or maybe even making a small profit) but the business needed your constant, careful guidance. Later, you were forced to endure a stretch of “business adolescence” complete with the inevitable identity crisis.

You were forced to make difficult decisions about the direction your business should take. You knew benign neglect wouldn’t work and even your focused diligence didn’t prevent some small details from wiggling out of your grasp. There was so much to juggle!

Now the business isn’t quite so needy. Finally, it has matured enough that you don’t have to tend it 24/7 and you are officially playing with the “big boys.” A mature business obtains the power of experience, professionalism and polish.

Showcasing these traits makes your business more appealing to the best clients and helps you to secure your place in your industry. It’s time your business “dress” for success… I’ll show you how in five easy steps! (more…)

Ok, I admit it looks a little rough — but I work with what I have — the important part is that it was quick and fun to create this little multi-media mini-me. If you want to do the same, visit www.Gizmoz.com.

Are you curious about WordPress as a publishing tool for your online success as a real estate professional? I was too. And I’ve been using WP on my own blog for some time now. I must say, I love it!

I’ve helped several clients switch over to WP. They love it. Currently I’m in the midst of the process to switch over a HUGE real estate resource site to WP for content management. Using WordPress as a real estate website has many benefits: (more…)