Thursday, October 29, 2009

Luxury Real Estate

While most luxury real estate marketing professionals are still reeling from the downturn in the market and working harder than ever just to keep up, some are seeing the enormous opportunity that the new era of the internet has to offer and they are starting to reach for the gold ring. Yes, there is a gold rush out there. But, what may not be obvious is what the new gold looks like and how to find it.

The new gold is all about identifying an uncontested niche in your marketplace where you can add extraordinary value; then staking your claim to ownership of that new market space. It is about cashing in on who you are, what you are most passionate about and leveraging the new media tools to reach and connect with your ideal clients in a focused manner.

What Is the Catch?

You need to know who you are, what you stand for, what you are passionate about what you can do better than anyone else in your marketplace. You need to discover you unique voice. Only then will the new media tools make any sense to you in terms of their potential to tap the gold reserve that awaits you. The tools are meaningless otherwise. Only when you become "follow-worthy" will you attract and retain your audience, and also convert that audience into cash flow.

You Must Discover Your Golden Voice

The blog is a great example of a new media tool that is useless without knowing your unique voice. Luxury real estate agents have been hearing, for a couple years, that they need to blog. They have been promised that Google will magically send traffic to their sites if they just spew "content". Never mind that the content that they are writing about or the stories they are reporting are of any interest to a target market. Forget the idea of original content. After mindlessly regurgitating other people's information, most agents abandon their blogs within 60 days concluding that it was a waste of time and was of little value in terms of generating immediate leads, let alone transactions.

What an awesome tool the blog is for those who have discovered their unique "golden" voice, a voice that is "follow-worthy"! Blogs offer anyone the opportunity to become a syndicated columnist because followers can subscribe to their "column", keep up on the latest installments and also engage in discussion with the author and other followers. Plus, it is virtually free! So, is the help you can get from your silent marketing partner, Google. Google wants to help create a perfect match between you and your potential audience, your ideal potential clients because they sell more ads when users experience better search results.

Right now, there is an abundance of unexploited marketing niches right under your nose, where you can become the undisputed market leader. But, you will not perceive these untapped "gold mines" if you do not know your own mind. You first need to discover your own golden voice.

For more information on Luxury & International Properties visit: http://www.robertjrussell.com

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Monday, October 26, 2009

Can a Blog Help your Business ?

So you have been thinking of creating a blog right ? Well, the time is now to get a blog. A blog, if done right, can act as a 
direct and indirect mechanism that brings large amounts of qualified visitors to your site, many of whom may become customers.

This is mostly related to the way blogs interact with search engines and the traffic I am speaking of will come from search
engines, mostly Google.

Before I explain how you can do this to help your website, let me first give some background on how search engines work, Google in
particular.

When it comes to optimizing your website (or blog for that matter) for search engines you must always keep in mind two
things: on-page optimization and off-page optimization.

On-page optimization is the elements of a Web page that better optimize it to be found and ranked well in the search engines.
These elements can include on-page content such as the actual sentences and paragraphs on the page, the headlines (or headers
or Hx tags), the links, the links' text, the title tag and much more.

Off-page optimization means the things that are done on sites besides your own, namely link-building. Off-page optimization is
the process of creating links (or causing others to create links)on other websites that point to your site. Inbound links as these
are often called have a major impact on how well you rank in search engines. Generally speaking, the more inbound links, the
better. But the quality of the sites with these inbound links, or the way the search engines perceive the sites, is even more
important.

To rank on the first couple of pages on the search engines requires work on both on-page and off-page optimization.

Two additional and important pieces of information that you'll need to understand are related to site content and internal
links.

Search engines also very much love new, original and quality content, and they like to see your website regularly adding this
kind of new content. You don't need to add pages every day, just add pages at the same rate over time. So if you add a page a week
to your site, keep it at around that same pace, or increase or decrease gradually.

A website can be considered a living entity in a sense. It certainly shouldn't be static. It should grow over time. And the
fantastic thing about content is that the more of it there is on your site, the more chances you have of getting found in the
search engines.

The idea that inbound links help your search engine rankings that I explained above can be extended to your own internal pages as
well. In other words, the more links to a particular page coming from other pages within the same site will boost that page's
rank as well.

Think of it this way. If you had a ten page site, including a product page and every page on the site contained a link to your
product page and, if all other things were equal, your product page would rank higher than the rest of your site's pages (besides
the home page which is given a little extra weight).

Now let's consider what would happen if there were only you and your competitor in your industry (if only that could be true!)
and your site still had those ten pages while your competitor's site contained one hundred pages. Furthermore, your competitor
set it up the same way as you where he added a link to every page on his site that pointed to his product page. If all other things
were equal, his product page would outrank your product page every time. Why? Because he had 100 internal links pointing to his
product page and you only had 10.

If you put all these pieces together now, on-page optimization, off-page optimization or link building, content creation and
internal linking, can you begin to see why a blog may be a good thing? A blog helps with all of these.

A blog that is regularly updated is providing a mechanism for adding fresh content on a regular basis. Plus, it's so easy to
use a blog that anyone can use them, so even if you or your employees don't know a thing about Web pages and HTML, you'll
still be able to add new content to your site.

Consider this. If you add fresh, quality content to your blog on a regular basis by writing posts, something the search engines
love, and within each post you link to an important page within your site, let's say your product page for instance, you're now
building links to help your rankings using your blog. With this additional link your product page gets that much more boost in
the search engines.

Remember how I explained that links from within your own site help your rankings? Adding links within your blog posts pointing
back to your other important pages that you want to rank well is a great way to help your rankings.

And every time you publish a new post, you're giving the search engines one more entry point into your site. Your site will
quickly get bigger, and with each new page your site gets more visible.

Keep in mind that the links you make within your blog posts should be relevant. Only link to your product page from a post
that has to do with your products. And also, blog posts ought to be useful to your site visitors. The less you talk about your
products and instead offer useful, free information that people can use, the more traffic and repeat visitors you'll get.

Remember that people really don't care about you, your website or your products, they only care about how you can help them. If
you sell furniture, a blog post about how to find the best deals on furniture would be far better than a post about how your
chairs are the best in the world.

One important thing to remember is that if you plan on creating a new blog for your business as a way to augment your website be
sure you put the blog on your actual domain. This means that you would not use a remote service like Blogger.com. Instead, you
must have the blog on your business website's address (or domain). For example, if your website address is
http://www.yoursite.com/ then your blog should be located at http://www.yoursite.com/blog or http://blog.yoursite.com/

By adding a blog to your business website you are creating a way to get more traffic. You'll get direct traffic from your posts,
which get indexed by the search engines and drive traffic to your site from searches. And, you'll get indirect traffic from your
other site's pages ranking well in the search engines because they have links pointing to them from your blog posts.

You'll be regularly adding fresh content to your site, which search engines love, thereby creating more ways to be found in
the search engines at the same time. And each post provides a new opportunity to create a link or two to other pages and blog posts
on your site, thereby boosting those pages' rankings.

Like I suggested at the beginning, if your business website doesn't have a blog, go get one.
Visit http://www.robertjrussell.com 

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Thursday, October 22, 2009

A Day of Computer Prohibition!

Imagine a day coming to the office and discovering that the Internet lines are down. Is it still possible for companies to operate in these circumstances? Definitely a bad day for the average company big or small, but these circumstances would be very different for the Internet marketer. Let us see why.

Not withstanding the fact that many big companies such as hospitals, airports managements do have their private "generators" to deal with such situations, the computer in the office world can be summed up in three grand chapters namely communications, information and data processing. For the Internet marketer, if these basics are obviously similar they do not tie him down to his computer due to him having created an automatic follow-up for the majority of them.

It would be interesting to test a day in the office with no Internet access. Are people still capable of hand-writing a message to their colleagues, using a flowchart or even conceiving one? How many offices out there have foreseen an emergency plan and are set-up for such a day, heaven forbid and is it conceivable? My point is that we are very much addicted to our computers granted that they do increase the speed of daily chores, they have albeit indeed stolen human contacts and personal touches and have made every monthly bill from these conglomerates all but humane.

Conversely, the Internet marketer - and we all need to be one* - should enjoy a day or two of computer prohibition sprinkled into our weekly lives. We would use that time very productively by visiting our friends, taking a walk and thereby doing some public relations (in a small manner) as well as taking a little distance from our business to conceive some possible improvements to its approach and future; business that in any case runs without our constant presence, because that is how it must be setup. One website, an auto-responder are the basics, and upon these two essentials an empire can be build with all compatible ramifications that in time get included. The "job" of the marketer will then profit from when the office is closed due to the dreaded local Internet failure.

To find out about internet online marketing visit http://www.robertjrussell.com

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Monday, October 19, 2009

SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Learning how to get rated by the search engine can be a daunting task. What I have learned is that you don't need to be an expect. Learn to do what you are good at, writing, sales, coaching etc. Get some good content going. Get your blog SEO ready. Start to look for info on You Tube and Google for free, on how to get your site listed on the first page of Google. I have found many free You Tube video that show me how to get higher ranking. Also you can shop around to get out sourcing prices to have someone do it for you. There are so many opportunities and ways to use search engine optimization. Get a coach to help you with things that are hard for you. Start writing out a plan of action steps that you can do daily. A Daily method of operation. Include at these one action step for SEO. Just relax and take one step at a time. You can do it!

http://www.robertjrussell.com

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Monday, October 12, 2009

$8000 Home Buyer Tax Credit

Another quick blog post for We Did It Again Group Blog:
Quick passage by the House last week of a bill extending the $8,000 home buyer tax credit next year for military, diplomatic and intelligence personnel serving overseas increases the odds that Congress will agree to an extension, maybe even an expansion, of the entire credit program well into 2010.

The White House is also signaling that it sees the overall tax credit program -- currently set to expire November 30 -- as an important element in cutting the unemployment rolls and stimulating new jobs next year.

After an economic policy strategy meeting last week in the Oval Office involving President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, congressional aides said Democrats generally support an extension of the housing credit.

Reid already has made clear he wants an extension. He is co-sponsoring a Senate bill that would do so for six months.

Congressman Charles Rangel, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, sponsored the one-year extension of the credit for military and other personnel serving overseas, and is reported by aides as favoring an extension for the entire program.

The White House has not publicly committed to an extension, but has confirmed that the President is seriously examining that option.

An unexpected development that emerged following last week's White House meeting was the possibility of opening up the credit to a broader group of buyers next year - people who sell their current homes and buy a replacement home.

Though details were scanty, Capitol Hill sources said one option on the table would be to provide a tax credit -- most likely at the $8,000 level -- to replacement home buyers whose incomes do not exceed some limit.

The current credit phases out for single taxpayers with incomes above $75,000, and married purchasers earning $150,000.

A politically sensitive issue hovering over the entire debate on extending the housing tax credit is its cost - what it would add to the federal budgetary deficit. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, estimates that widening the credit to all buyers through next August could cost the government upwards of $30 billion.

Rangel's 12-month extension of the credit for service personnel is estimated to cost more than $300 million, but it's mainly being paid for through an increase in penalties levied by the IRS on taxpayers who fail to file corporate or partnership returns.

The New York Times reported that one possible solution to the cost problem would be to divert money not yet spent out of 2009's $800 billion stimulus legislation.

http://www.robertjrussell.com

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Saturday, October 03, 2009

Home Value by Square Foot

One of the biggest determining factors in determining comparable value is square footage.

When comparing the square footage of homes always try to keep comps as similar in square footage as possible. Figuring out the price of a home on a square footage basis is an excellent way to compare apples with apples. It becomes more complicated when one home has been renovated and another needs work. Don't compare a newly built home's price per square foot with an older home's price per square foot.

There's Square Footage and There's Square Footage

A square foot is defined as a two-dimensional square measuring one foot on each side. If you are looking at a home that seems a little smaller than the stated square footage, it might not be your eyes. Real estate brokers tend to measure square footage by inside room dimensions. Developers like to measure the exterior of the building. This can add considerable square footage to the home.

You also need to find out exactly what has been factored into the equation. Does the total measurement include basement space? Garage space? Deck space? Space on staircases? There's no standard way to measure square footage. Sellers will include every nook and cranny and buyers won't.

Do not solely compare the size of the land the property sits on and the price of the property. Lots sell for different prices than homes and the cost varies greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood. For example, if the house is in terrible shape, or is considered a "tear-down," a developer may only want to pay for the price of the lot, since tearing down and hauling away the existing structure is an added expense.

Side-by-Side Comparison

In some areas of the country, agents do not want to be liable for representing a total square footage of the property. Total square footage is not indicated on the listing sheet, but room dimensions are shown. The room count may not include bathrooms, hallways, closets, and other spaces. You might have to compare every room side by side and guesstimate total size.

In this instance, estimate the total square footage by multiplying the dimensions of each room. For example, if the bedroom is 10 feet by 12 feet, then the area, or square footage, is 120 square feet. Add up all of the room dimensions for a total square foot measurement. You may still have to estimate hallways and other spaces, but it gives you a good estimate.

After determining the size of the home you desire, the equation is simple. Just divide the listing price by the number of square feet and you will get the price per square foot. For example, a 1,000-square-foot condo priced at $300,000 costs $300 per square foot.

http://www.robertjrussell.com

It's always to your advantage to buy a home with a reasonable cost per square foot. A home with a square footage cost lower than other homes in the neighborhood might be a great deal. On the other hand, the home may have a lot of other things wrong with it that need renovation, and unless you had remodeling in the budget, it might not be worth it to you.

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Looking for a House, Foreclosure or Short Sale ?

Home Buyers Scouting Report (HBSR) Express. Shared via AddThis