Greater Cleveland Real Estate Blog

What people want? There are few ways to figure it out:

• Ask
• Test
• Check out your web site statistics.

I love statistics. It tells you more stories than morning news. At least, these stories are more relevant to what you do as a professional. As Real Estate agents, we sure try to do our best to attract more potential home buyers and potential home sellers whom we can help to solve their problems. But - before we can solve the problem, we should at least this problem identify.

Everyone who ever worked with any customers, know that it's not easy. "Buyers are liars, and sellers are worse", don't they? Or our diagnostic skills are too poor to understand what people really want?

Google Gods and Goddess not only connect those who have questions to those who have answers to them. They bring us opportunity to figure out what is really on people's minds.

Search Key phrases, which brought visitors to our web sites help us to fine tune the content of our site or blog, and identify people's interests. It's not a surprise that key phrases vary from season to season, and do not totally reflect our search optimization efforts. It's a good reality check. If my web site or blogs do not deliver what people seek, I know what to do - just write a relevant content with all the answers to unanswered or poorly answered people's questions.

What people want to find on the Internet today? Just few examples of real keyphrases are:

"First time home buyer agent in cleveland ohio";

"locate condos in solon OH";

"where can i make a property tax payment in cleveland ohio";

"global realty marketing ohio", and many more.

Sounds like a perfect plan for blogging for the next few days for me. At least, there is no need to invent the topics for new posts:)

 

EXCITING CAREER OPPORTUNITIES WITH LOCAL-N-GLOBAL REALTY

The only reason why I decided to buy iPhone at first place was that I noticed how my clients used its applications for search of Real Estate information while we were touring the houses.That was a shame that I knew nothing about it and was not able to share their experience or give some advice on better use of it.

So - as I like to be where my clients are - I buy my first iPhone and immediately fall in love with it.

 

    What a treasure for Real Estate agent!

Excellent maps, very good GPS help us plan and navigate our showings seamlessly.

Built-in compass helps answer the questions "Does this house face East or what?"

Very convenient contact system and calendar help organize our appointments and contacts.

Safari Web browser is very decent and  works wherever 3G connection or Wi-Fi is (almost everywhere).

E-mails are easily accessible.

Instant access to Facebook, Skype and Twitter keeps you connected with your clients and sphere of influence.

That all is great but better news is that iPhone is a real treasure for the marketer on the go!

It has a very decent built-in photo camera. And you can immediately share your pictures via e-mails, Facebook or Twitpic Poster. All these applications are free and very easy to use.

Thanks to my iPhone I start fighting my video-phobia. First time I experimented with my iPhone video at one of my Open Houses in South Euclid. When it's a low traffic at your Open House, why don't you try to invite more people via short video? So, I shoot a minute of a video and post it on Facebook. It would be even better to post it on YouTube but I had no time to learn how to do it at that time as new visitors stopped by and I decided to try it later.

Here is another sample of a short video of a very good house in Pepper Pike listed by Local-n-Global Realty. It's very amateur but, please be kind not to nail me down for unprofessional video shooting. I am the Real Estate broker, not a videographer after all :) !

The whole idea is that you can do any video in few minutes, post it on YouTube, use right tags and description and publish it on any site or blog using embed code. Very easy, very mobile and very effective way to promote your listings!

 

 

 

 

 

I will keep sharing more ideas of using iPhone in Real Estate practice. Do you have any good stories or experience?

 

Cleveland Real Estate: Is On-line Marketing Efficient Enough To Attract Buyers To The Best Deals?

Every good Real Estate agent knows about necessity of on-line marketing. After all, over 80 % of all home buyers start home search on the Internet!

Every productive Real Estate agent knows about nice "side effects" of on-line marketing, such as name recognition, 24/7 acessibility, ability to communicate your message to thousands of Internet users.

Every excellent Real Estate agent knows about challenging, yet winning combination of almost instant communication with potential customers and long-lasting effect of any smartly designed on-line marketing campaign. On-line marketing in Real Estate is all about long-term and long-lasting benefits.

But what about short-term, immediate benefits?

Just an example. We in Local-n-Global Realty currently have listed ten wonderful properties. We take Real Estate marketing very seriously.

• Each of our listings has its own single property web site

• We showcase all Local-n-Global listings on Realtor.com

• We take part in Internet Data Exchange program, so all our listings get a very good exposure on all NorthEast Ohio Real Estate broker's web sites,  including www.Local-n-Global.com 

• We publicize our Ad on Craigslist.com and PluggedinCleveland.com
  

• We syndicate our listings on literally hundreds of Real Estate portals, including Trulia.com and Zillow.com

• We blog about our listings

• We notify our fans and followers about our listings on Facebook and Twitter

• We create individual property web sites on RealBird.com

Still - immediate response depends on too many factors rather than diligent and creative on-line marketing.

I have exciting Short sale listing for serious buyers - excellent, young, priced way below market house in Northfield, OH. It will be Open toady between 1 pm and 3 pm.

My sellers need an immediate attention from the right buyer!

Don't miss it!

 

Real Estate marketing becomes more and more expensive, sophisticated and competitive. It's harder for today's Real estate agent, especially a listing agent, to keep up with competitors, impress the selling clients and attract more people to our listings and our services.

I want to share with you information about another technology to wow your clients and to boost your Web visibility. It's a text-to-movie program, which allows you convert any article into a movie. I just experimented with one of my Active Rain posts about the importance of checking out a credit score. Here what I've got:

You can easily do it, too.  Just go to Article Video Robot website. 

Register and follow the instructions. 

I am looking forward to researching a big SEO and sales potential of this tool. If anyone have any experience in using it or any similar programs, please share your ideas.

Web analytics can help sell more Real Estate in Cleveland.

Few months ago I was lucky to read the Lisa Udi's blog here at Active Rain. Lisa posted about advantages of a Get Clicky analytical service for your blogging.

Being a "try it all" person myself, I immediately signed up for Get Clicky and registered my Greater Cleveland Real Estate Active Rain blog.

 

Today I want to share with you how this amazing analytical tool literally helps sell more Real Estate in Cleveland.

I learned to regulary check out what exactly my blog's visitors are looking for.

Just go to your Get Clicky and see what search phrases have driven visitors to your blog.

 

It's amazing how often Search phrases which people type in their Google or Yahoo search boxes, look like questions to be answered immediately. I.e. the phrase "Does both spouses have to be first time home buyers to qualify for tax credit?". I am glad that my post Who is the First Time Buyer? Does the Real Estate tax credit applies to condos?  got a Number One position on Google to answer that question.

 

 

Here is a little secret of getting to a top position on specific search. The idea and the title of the post about First time buyers tax credit came from my Get Clicky analytics. That was exactly how one of the visitors phrased the search on Google, according to Get Clicky.

I was amazed how many people typed the same phrase and got to my blog after I published this post. It works! People get helped with information they need, Cleveland Realty Blog gets popularity and top position on Google, Local-n-Global Real Estate agents get more chances to serve more home buyers and home sellers in Greater Cleveland.

Let's get back to the topic of How web analytics can help sell more Real Estate in Cleveland.

Here is one sample of how neat the analysis by Get Clicky is and how targeted our posts can be.

This visitor who was looking for "Condo in Richmond Heights OH"  found my blog at Yahoo search. I know that it's a local buyer. At the same day one of my Open House visitors mentioned that he got information about this Open House from the Internet. Guess from what? From my Active Rain blog!

It's a win-win situation to write and publish the articles which answer the questions, which our potential home buyers or home sellers are trying to get answered at the different Search engines.

 

 

This post has been inspired by featured article writtten by Midori Miller Please take safety precautions when displaying addresses on the net and the following discussion about this issue.

Midori pointed to a danger of increased exposure to criminal activities or unsafety for both agents and clients when address along with the lister's remarks that house is vacant is being displayed on the Internet.

In most cases I get authorization from my sellers to display the address on the Internet. Even more. As a marketer for my clients' properties listed with me, I love the 24/7 exposure of my Internet listings. For example, I aggresively use  the marketing potential of single property web sites. I admit, and many of my clients agree with me: these web sites work great.

Here comes the controversy. 

When Agencylogic.com started offering individual properties' web sites - powersites, they came with the idea of buying www.123AnyStreet.com-like  domains for these sites. Actually, all major providers of single property web sites offer this kind of domain names.

First, I liked this idea. It's easy to remember, easy to advertise in printed media, etc. Then it came time when my first listing, and the other one, and more with theirs personal web sites sold.  The question What to do with these sites? needed immediate answer. One of the Agencylogic's ideas was o.k. - offer the site as a gift to the new owner. I even tried this couple times - no real response from the other agents' past clients (that who most of the buyers of my listings in reality are).  No real use of this site for new owners, too as I keep and can not pass on all administrative tools for all my sites.

Marketer's greed did not let me just shut these sites off, as they started to be real visible by Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.

However, I made a very tough decision to let most of my first individual property sites go. Why? Because new owners have never authorized my company to use their property address as my company's marketing tool. Because they may not be willing to get 24/7 exposure of their property address on the net! Because I don't want to be sued for unauthorized use of other people's property for my personal, or my company's, or my other clients' listings marketing.

Addresses on the net used as the domain names can become a source of unnecessary litigation.

Now I do it differently and highly recommend my experience to all agents who like using the great advantages of individual property web sites. I buy more generic domain names for my sites, like www.SolonHome.com or www.WaldenFarmsLand.com .

I will write about advantages of using generic names in my next posts.

Have a great selling season and more creative yet safe ideas for marketing on behalf of our clients who sell the houses in Greater Cleveland and other areas.

 Sincerely,

I admit it - I am proud to anounce that one of my listings, the condo in Richmond Place just sold for full price. That was very nice and smooth transaction: wonderful reasonable sellers, appreciative buyer, cooperative buyer's agent, very professional mortgage and title people. It was as good as it should be.

I don't ask what it takes today to attract the right buyer to the condo or house in Cleveland. The answer is clear: extensive Web marketing of homes for sale. I use the proven power of single property sites, listing syndication, blogging, classified ads sites like Craigslist.com, and right placement of my listings on major Real estate search portals like Realtor.com.

Any buyer who starts his home search on the Internet will not miss an opporunity to find my clients' Cleveland homes or condos for sale. 

The question is, What to do with all these great home selling tools after closing? The best answer would be: offer it to those owners of Richmond Place condo who need to sell their unit today.

Dear owners of Richmond Place condominium! If you are planning to sell your condo, please contact me at 877-770-5551 or via e-mail: Realty@Local-n-Global.com.

Why should you just try the market when here is the proven selling force and Web marketing tool kit ready to use for sale of your Richmond Heights condo.

Just take a look at some statistics.

• Web site www.RichmondPlaceCondo.com (I use Power Sites by Agencylogic.com) created for sale of this particular condo got 6,078 visitors and 12,106 hits for 129 days. Google position # 3 for Richmond Place condo search phrase.

•  
  • Mini-site at Realbird.com attracted 1,112 visitors. This site is in Top 10 at Google search for"Condo in Richmond Heights OH for sale".
  • Prime placement at Realtor.com helped 36,250 people to preview this Richmond Heights condo.

Result? Sold in three months for the full asking price. Want to sell yours? Ready to move? Call me!

Sincerely,

Svetlana Stolyarova, your Cleveland Realtor(R)

216-548-4663 or anytime Hotline 877-770-5551

I like to explore new widgets and tools to promote my client's properties for sale in Greater Cleveland.

I've already posted about benefits of using Listings on map provided by RealBird.com.

I also gave my credit to an exciting marketing tool to promote our Greater Cleveland listings offered for free by Propertypreviews.com in my post:

Another great marketing instrument to promote our listings. My condo at Mayfield Rd. is a movie star!

Today I want to introduce you my new discovery: animoto.com. Please preview my first video created at Animoto.

Need to sell your home in Aurora, Solon, Beachwood, Pepper Pike, Mayfield? Need a knowledgeable, creative, responsible agent to market and sell your Greater Cleveland Real estate?

Please call Svetlana Stolyarova 216-548-4663

Realty@Local-n-Global.com.

That's amazing how many free tools we can use today to promote our listings and our exceptional services. I've just got one of the best e-mails in my life from the lady who found my profile and listings on Zillow.com. Honestly, I don't even pay a proper attention to my Zillow account as all Local-n-Global listings are being submitted to Zillow automatically.

This made me revise the list of free services which I use for my listing and services promotion. I will need a good plan for 2009 to market my listings and services more effectively. I will definitely keep blogging at Active Rain. My Active Rain blog finally got to the 2nd position in Google!  

I like the propertypreviews.com a lot. In one of previous posts  I showed how to utilize the propertyrpeviews services to promote your listings.

I've already posted about amazing RealBird.com with its free and effective lisitng services.

Here is one more tip - just use your free Picassa  services at Google to create nice looking albums for your listings. The tip is to use the caption feature smartly - promote your web sites as much as possible!

Here how it looks:  

Thornbury of Solon, OH