If you are not on page one but want to get eyes on your website, there are a few things you need to do BEFORE investing any money in Pay per Click for your Real Estate Marketing.

First, you MUST have a good landing page.

What’s that you say?

A landing page is where you are going to send people to with your advertising and it is composed of exactly 2 things: 1) An irresistible offer and 2) A lead capture form

The page should have exactly one purpose and that is to get the prospect to fill out the form to get whatever it is you are offering. You could offer a “special report” or you could offer a special “white paper”.

HERE is a great example of a “landing page”. Notice that it is highly targeted AND it has one purpose… to capture the prospects information. Once they fill in the form, the prospect is given what is offered.

Once you have the “offer” and lead capture form set up, now all you have to do is DRIVE traffic to the page and the simplest way to do that is with “Pay per Click” advertising.

Here’s the way pay per click works:

You set up an ad that is targeted for your offer or landing page. Then you place a bid saying how much you will pay for someone to click on the ad. When the prospect clicks the ad, they are taken to the webpage you want them to go to.

Again – that web page MUST have an offer for SOMETHING that they can fill in a form for. If you just take them to a web page that has your listings, you are wasting your money and you will spend and spend and spend and won’t get anything for it.

Google Adwords is the #1 online Pay per Click sevice and has millions of advertisers and generates billions in revenue for Google. It has a learning curve but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy to use. It is free to set up an Adwords account and you can set one up HERE.

Just look on the left hand side of the page and click sign up now.

Now – before you go settting up ads and bidding on keywords, there is a LOT of stuff that you need to know that will save you a LOT of money. Watch for my next few posts or subscribe to this blog so you can get the step by step information on how to PAY LESS but get TOP POSITIONS for your ads on Google.

I’ll also be posting videos of how to set up advertising campaigns – stay tuned!

It’s about a minute long but the important part is at the end (good sound, too!)

Most of us think just having a website up is good enough – NOT SO!

A website on page 521 of Google won’t help you any, right? You need to be on page one or page two. So – how do you get there?

The fact is that it may be impossible to get your main website to page one. Sure you could spend $35k on an all out SEO campiagn but who’s going to do that?

So what to do? Simple: set up traffic funnels that lead prospects to your website. Traffic funnels are easy, just a few clicks, and they’re free to set up.

Check out the video at http://www.realestaterocketfuel.com/secrets

Hope this helps,

Mike

BEFORE you set up a blog or a new web page or even a new website, you should ALWAYS decide which “traffic stream” you want to target.

Each keyword or keyword string will result in different amounts of traffic to your blog, and each will have a different amount of pages that you have to compete against.

So the KEY is uncovering the keyword that will result in the most traffic with the least competition. The video below uncovers a keyword that is producing more traffic than a similar keyword and has LESS competition.

Before you watch it, realize this:
“Homes for sale in burlington vermont” IS NOT the same as
“Burlington vermont homes for sale”

Check out the video:

This is important. REALLY important.

For 23 years I have seen REALTORS call advertising “Marketing” and here’s a little secret… They are NOT the same thing.

Before I explain the difference and why it’s so important, let me take you back in time to 1997. I was working in a large office of about 100 agents and I actually had a computer on my desk – and used it! I had the ONLY digital camera in the entire office.

Every month, I would crank out a newsletter to my list of 4500 prospects and I’d include color pictures of events, listings, etc in my target area.

Almost every month, without fail, another agent would stick their head in my office and say “Watcha doin’?”. And I would show them what I was up to. Invariably they would say… “Wow – you should be in marketing”.

And I would sit there and think, as they walked off down the hall, “what business does he/she think we are in?”

You see – YOU are NOT in the “Real Estate Business”. YOU are in the “Marketing business” and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll start having multiple transactions EVERY month.

So here it is – the difference between Marketing and Advertising:

Marketing is a pre-programmed campaign targeted at capturing leads and turning them into customers. It is measurable. It is specifically targeted to a “market” of prospective consumers who may want to use your services. Marketing has exact, measurable parts so that we can determine a cost per lead and a cost per customer conversion (a closing).

Once you have your “Marketing plan” set up and in place and ready to roll, THEN you use Advertising to put in in motion.

So Advertising is what you do to Initiate a Marketing Plan.

The two are obviously different animals.

Since the dawn of the “Real Estate Business”, very very few Agents have understood and applied “marketing” to their business. But YOU know who these agents are… They are the MEGA producers. The 50 Million and 100 Million per year producers. You may even have one in your local market.

If you think advertising a house is marketing, you are missing out on the big money. Sure – you’ll get a customer or two from time to time from that kind of ad. Sure, you think it works. And it does – in a very limited way. But you are missing out on the really big bucks AND you are spending way too much of your valuable time dealing with every phone call.

What you are not seeing is the big picture because you have no marketing systems in place. There is no plan. It’s just put up an ad and wait and hope and when you get a call, try and make an appointment. That is NOT a system or a plan. It’s not measurable. It doesn’t leverage your time.

Think of the last time you ran an ad. How many calls did you get from the ad? (don’t guess or estimate – be honest)

Have NO idea? Join the crowd. 95% of Agents are doing the same thing. BUT – there’s 5% who “get it” and have a marketing plan and you probably know who they are in your local market.

In my next post, I’m going to begin going into detail HOW to set up a marketing PLAN. A system that will crank out ready to buy buyers and ready to sell sellers BEFORE you ever talk to them. The first phone call you get from the consumer will be for an appointment. THEY will come to You.

Sound interesting? Stay tuned…

After you have spent a few months building up a “friend” list of people who live in your area, the next step is to start posting a few tips for buyers and sellers.

And I REALLY MEAN a few…

Like 1 a day or even 1 every 2 days.

Why not post more?

Here’s the big pitfall that a lot of real estate agents overlook: there is a “HIDE Joe the Realtor” button.

All a prospect or friend has to do is hide you just one time and they’ll never see you again.

If you go on facebook and post several houses or several “home buying” tips with an hour or so, it may seem to you that they scroll off of your page pretty fast.

But that is because you have 300 to 1000 friends. Most people don’t have that many – they have 100 at the most.

Your prospects pages scroll SLOW – they don’t have as many people posting. And then when you come in and post 4 or 5 things in a day – you’ll get the HIDE JOE the Realtor done to you.

When they log into their facebook account, all they will see is 6 or 7 posts from you and they won’t be able to see what their “real friends” are posting. So – you’ll get either deleted as a friend or you’ll simply get the HIDE.

So – to sum this up – if you want to get the most mileage out of facebook – use it sparingly: 1 time overy few days or so.

I have put up this post with one single goal in mind: to help YOU get what you want out of your real estate business and to share some of the secrets that have helped me get the most out of mine.

I’ve broken this down into the 5 Rules for marketing your business online. If you have suggestions for more OR you have questions or comments, please add them at the bottom of this post.

I sincerely WANT your feedback.

So here’s my 5 Golden Rules for marketing yourself, your listings, and your business on the internet:

————————————–
Golden Rule #1: Get Your Mind into the
GIVING Mode – the cornerstone of it all
————————————–
Now here is the *KEY* difference between me and the
majority of people out there.

The way people’s brains are traditionally engineered
is as follows..

“If I give you money/my time what are you going to
do for me”

And this mindset goes deep into everything we do in
our daily lives from..

Getting a job – what are my benefits, my perks, my
salary

Dating – I’ll take you out for dinner if you spend time
with me, if I gain favour with you

Now think about this for a moment…

What happens if you were to do the opposite?

When I take people out to eat I don’t say
“Please give me money for the food”

When I had a great bunch of people round for
a Crawfish Boil event, after I didn’t say “Please give
me $50 a head”

I focused solely on ONE thing only..

To make sure people enjoyed the day and to
give back to everyone.

To have fun, to network and to chill out.

And to pig out on some amazing food…

So if we revert back to the question..

After the event I had people asking “Well
was it worth it – do you think you will
get anything out of it?”

I can safely say now that if I ever need advice,
have a question on a contract, or just want some
new ideas to make a new marketing plan, those
who attended my event would bend over backwards to help.

You gotta program your mind to GIVE!

Help people get more out of life, and trust me
it will come back 100 times over.

——————————————-
Golden Rule #2: Break the Rules, Decide what
YOU want to do, set a date, and then DO IT
——————————————-
The trap that most people fall into is the “Next week
I’m gonna do this, next month…”

Everyone is guilty of this. Including myself!

For the last few months I’ve been meaning to add
2 more videos and 4 more books to our 21st Century
Agent’s Toolkit…

I’ve been reading a lot about
‘incremental’ steps to success.

To lose 10 llbs you must lose the first lb first.

To make a million dollars it all starts with the first
$1.

To get 50 listings, first you have to get one listing.

It’s a very simple philosophy but incredibly
powerful!

For example if you want a to set up 50 blogs to capture
leads on the internet, you can start
smaller. Just set up one blog and get it to the
top of Google. Later – set up one more.

You see the point.

We all have to start somewhere, so aim and PLAN
to start your own lead generation and set a starting date.

Stick to it as closely as you can.
——————————————–
Golden Rule #3 – Follow the right people and
learn from real life mentors
——————————————–
I’ve always had a very simple philosophy in life.

“Follow the people that are successful in what you
want to achieve”

For example if you want to learn how to invest
in property, listen to someone who has done it
over YEARS the hard way, made mistakes and
learn from their advice. I only listen to
people I trust 110%.

There nothing more I hate than ‘fly by nighters’
who try to claim they are an expert in marketing
but really don’t have a clue and are just trying to
empty your wallet.

I have 3 different “online marketing gurus” that I follow.
These guys take down several million a year in
their businesses. They are, to me anyway, the kings
of the online marketing and sales process and I’ve seen
their numbers with my own eyes.

—————————————————-
Golden Rule #4: Be Willing to invest in yourself and
take action on what you learn.
—————————————————-
Over the recent months I have purchased..

- Commission Blueprint by Steve Clayton and Tim Godfrey

- STORY by Robert McKee

- Product Launch Formula by Jeff Walker – Just a pile
of rubbish but very entertaining (Just kidding
Jeff’s stuff is really on the cutting edge and worth
every penny)

Here’s the most important lesson to
take away..

Even if I put the material in my computer
watch it and think “Whoah that’s cool Jeff
how you used that blog to get 400 new leads?.

IT WILL NOT MAKE ME A SINGLE PENNY!

You need to take action on what you learn
and implement it in your business and systems.

If you buy a course, a book, or take a training class,
learn the stuff and THEN TAKE ACTION.

Which leads me on to the ULTIMATE lesson..

———————————————–
Golden Rule #5: Take responsibility for your actions
and answer to yourself
———————————————–

This is one thing that REALLY bugs me.

And it’s probably the #1 difference between
people who are successfully selling homes and
those that seem to get no where and never even start.

When you buy a new product or guide or take a
class…

You need to take action and use/read/watch the
item you have just purchased to get a result.

It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work.

In fact the scary thing is nearly all successful
real estate agents try things that DONT work!

But they take responsibility say “Ok cool -
I’ve tried that it didn’t work so well so lets move
on”

Rather than the attitude “Nothing ever
works for me – I can’t do this”

Even at 15 years old I always told my
school teachers “I am going to be really good
at something”.

They laughed and thought I was crazy.

But I took responsibility for myself and what
many thought was nothing more than a
pipe dream turned into reality.

Because I accepted the consequences of my
actions and when things don’t work out,
I held my head high and kept going.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the
Five Golden Rules of marekting your business
on the internet and got something good out of it

COMPETITION TIME TO WIN a FREE Copy of the upcoming
Real Estate Rocket Fuel DVD Course I’ll be releasing soon.

It’s a very space limited ‘Complete Online Marketing Course’
in DVD format that was recorded live at the most recent sold
out class I did and I’m sure you will love it!

If you’ve enjoyed my blog post then
comment below and let me know…

1) What you liked most about it…

2) What action YOU are going to take in
2009 to achieve your personal real estate goals?

I will select someone in my next blog post
as the lucky winner

Wishing success and health to you and your family
and talk to you all soon!

Take Care,

Mike

(Enter Comments Below)

It’s one thing to have a really nice virtual tour that prospective buyers can take a look at. It’s another thing to turn that virtual tour into a video and then have the ability to broadcast it all over the internet with links coming back to your site.

The virtual tour alone won’t do much for you as far as generating buyer traffic.

BUT – turning the virtual tour into a video has a LOT of advantages. As soon as the tour is in video format, you’ll have the ability to put the video on 25 different video sharing sites.

Once your video of your listing is on the video sharing sites, it has a much greater chance of showing up directly in search engines results. Especially if you title the video the Address of the home or even the subdivision name. Using the title of your city for the title of the video probably won’t help much due to too much competition.

So – how do you make a video of the virtual tour?

You’ll need one tool called Cam Studio – and it’s FREE. (it’s included in the 21st Century Agents Toolkit over at www.RealEstateRocketFuel.com)

Open Cam Studio and adjust the recording area so that it’s the same size as your virtual tour. Start the recording by pressing the RECORD button, and then click on your virtual tour and let it play. If it requires you to click the arrows to move through the home, just do it as a prospective buyer would do it.

Once you have gone through the virtual tour click on Stop or Finish and save the video file as a .wmv file or a .avi file.

Now the video is in the correct format for YouTube and all of the other video sites.

To broadcast the video to all of the video sharing sites, you’ll need another free tool that’s in the Agent’s Toolkit – it’s called Tube Mogul. Tube mogul is a one click way to broadcast to all of the video sharing sites at one time rather than have to go to each individual site and upload the video. This is a HUGE timesaver.

You will need to spend a little time setting the application up but once it’s set up, you can use it over and over again for free – upload your video one time, then click BROADCAST and you’re done.

Within 24 hours, you’ll start seeing your video everywhere – in the search engines, on Viddler, on Metacafe, on Youtube and many more places.

Another cool feature of TubeMogul is that it tracks how many times your video has been viewed on each of the sites – a really nice feature.

One last thing – when you title your video, you’ll have some space to describe what the video is about. BE SURE and put the address back to your website as the FIRST thing in the description. Also – include the “http://” IN FRONT of your website address. This will make the link to your site live on most sites and people can find you with one click after they have watched your video.

All of these tools are free and I have compiled them onto one easy to access page at www.RealEstateRocketFuel.com

Hope this helps!

Mike