What gave me my edge…part II: the tools I used to become successful
With the realities in the marketplace, I leveraged my understanding with my website and other forms of online marketing.
My website
This was probably the most critical aspect of doing well in Real Estate. This was my online resume. This was the potential place for a client to learn everything and anything about me. It could also give them the tools to educate themself before speaking to me. It could also provide them knowledge in how to make an informed decision. It could also help them look to other markets and I would get paid from some of those referrals. It was a powerful tool.
I started by using my name as the domain. I would be creating a brand out of my name “Brandon Na” — which coincidentally had “brand” inside my name. There are a few approaches to creating the new website for the business. Agents could use their name, they could use their area they want to specialize in or they could create a niche that they hope to be good at. Well, I did all of them. Websites are cheap these days. It costs a whopping $5-10 a year to buy your domain name. The problem is that just like physical real estate, online real estate is going through the roof & names that people would use to search for their information are being bought by the thousands every day. Once gone, it’s really hard to get that domain without paying more than the annual fee.
There are domain names like diamond.com which went for $7.5 million. Seniors.com went for $1.8 million. In terms of the Real Estate business, RealEstate.net went for $300,000 in a private sale in February of this year. HotProperty.com went for $120k, BajaCalifornia.com went for short of $95.5k, HomeForeclosures went for $90k, and Houses.net went for $75k. Even the new domain .mobi for mobile phones is selling online property for a lot of money. RealEstate.mobi went for $85k! For more details on how the domain property market works, visit: http://www.domainsandkeywords.com/
At the time, I didn’t realize that creating a website was as easy as it is today. So, I decided to look for a vendor who could build it for me. After looking at many different options, I chose this company called z57. I can’t remember the exact fee they charged me, but it was in the hundreds of dollars — the customization and everything cost me close to a gran for the whole thing. What I liked about them was the fact that they had a nifty tool that allowed you to create reciprocal links with other websites & eventually, if enough websites to link to you, you would probably create a bit of traffic & potentially decent search ratings by Google and other search engines.
The website was so good at one point that I was getting random calls about everything. Right now there’s even 1550 results in google when you search for “brandonna.com”. The first result shows someone copying my contents into their site. It was successful. However, it didn’t really create “warm leads” or quality calls or emails that led to a lot of sales for me. I didn’t realize at the time that the reciprocal links weren’t necessarily helping the website with Google’s algorithm because their way of calculating quality of websites in the search path wasn’t purely by just linking and having others link into you.
In retrospect, I needed to write more about real estate & have more resources about real estate splattered all over the site.
There are also other elements that need to be tweaked on your website to get better search results. You also need to keep your website fresh so that search engines index you for having fresh content. One of the reasons why blogs are so great these days is that you can add a quick entry on a daily basis & it really makes it feel to the readers & the search engines that you have a website that is constantly provided up to date information.
Also, I wouldn’t use z57 again because it was way overpriced and their salespeople are a bit gimicky. No offense Justin, but it really is — even you have to admit it, if you could step away from the business for a few minutes. Justin was my sales rep — or at least that’s the name I recall. My site actually looked o.k., but I’ve since found people who can do it for as little as $50 to a $100 and maybe do even more. I know others who can also now do all the search engine techniques needed for the same price or less. In the global economy, we have many more resources than we even know. Fortunately, I’m great at researching things & finally found those resources.
If I started over again, I would probably use some of the blogging software out there. I’ve found that the tools available now are so good & there are search engines for blogs like Technorati that help them gather even more traffic. The software/installation is SOOOOOO easy that I was shocked when I found out how to do it. If anyone is interested in doing it after reading this, I’ll help you set yours up for a negotiable fee which just covers a bit my time — you’ll save hundreds by just listening to some simple advice. We’ll negotiate something on paypal or something. You will be shocked how easy it is & how much you can save by not using them.
More to write on other online marketing tools soon — please check back on an update to this post.
…
After all the success, I was thinking of going on tour throughout America to teach these simple things on how to build a successful online business. However, I wasn’t sure if people would think a 1 year agent who rose to the top as quick as I did was a legitimate person to listen to or I wasn’t sure if I could fund this as well. Nevertheless, it’s in the back of my mind still.
I also wanted to speak out to prospective buyers and sellers as well to TRULY educate them on what to look out. However, I still need to get closer to retirement or have enough funds to do something so altruistic.
This comment is to plug this poster. Not plug him up but plum him as a GREAT guy. I worked with Brandon for most of that year he was in RE. I have to say he was very instrumental at helping me get my career going. I considered him an internet and marketing guru. The great thing about Brandon is he gave you everything that made him successful. He truely wanted me and many other agents to succeed. He was and is an open book and he will let you read him anytime (as you can see by these blog postings). Even many months (Maybe years) after Brandon was out of the RE biz I would do a Google search for many RE terms/key words and I would find his site/s on the first page.
Thank you very much Brandon for all of your help and knowledge and don’t let your limited time in the RE biz keep you from doing those RE marketing classes. I think its very impressive what you were able to do in that short amount of time.
http://realtorgreg.wordpress.com/
Thanks again!
Greg