Positive Real Estate Professionals

If you , you are not alone. In fact Twitter is probably the fastest growing social media that has ever hit the World Wide Web.  The term social media still holds some of the negative stereotypes associated with that term. But thanks to Twitter much of that negative image is beginning to diminish; think about the flow of information during the recent populist uprisings in Iran earlier this year that came via Twitter Here are some statistics from Business Insider that were released almost a month ago at Twitter’s developers conference.

• Twitter has 105,779,710 Registered Users – Just how many people do you think see that billboard, park bench, or phone book add that you PAY top dollar for?
• Twitter is adding 300,00 Registered Users A Day – Approximately the entire population of Albany, New York (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)
• Twitter gets 180,000,000 Unique Visitors – Some perspective, Brazil, the 5th most populated country in the world, has an estimated population of 192,000,000 (Source: Brazilian Official Population Clock)
• Apps are important because 75% of traffic is outside Twitter.com – PREP recently added TweetMeme alongside TwitMe to the available integrations to further the ease of use of Twitter by members
• Twitter receives 3,000,000,000 (BILLION) requests a day (Roughly the number of Tweets read per day) – This is roughly the same number Google receives per day (Source: Search Engine Land, Feb. 23, 2010)

WOW! These numbers may seem incomprehensible because they are so large; the upside to that…because they are so large, there is room for everyone at the ‘Twitter Table’. It would be very short sighted to view Twitter as people only talking about ‘…just washed the car’ or some other type of status update. Twitter is now a megaphone to what is going on in your community or around the world! Though Facebook still commands the spotlight in the social media arena, Twitter is the rising star that will continue to draw that spotlight to itself.

Again I ask: You Tweet, Who Knew?!? So dust off that Twitter account you created months ago and get to Tweeting. It is time for you and your business to shine.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

In addition to this Real Estate Network’s recent migration from Host Monster to Host Gator the admins of PREP have continued to search for tools to help enhance the performance, visitor and member usability, and overall satisfaction with the network as a whole. Just as 8 tracks gave way to cassettes, and cassettes gave way to cd’s, and cd’s gave are in the midst of giving way to iPods and USBs, so must plugins that were once quite popular and useful give way to the next generation. While you were selling houses, inspecting roofs, or pursuing the numerous other ventures that occupy our days, Zipli-Retweet went the way of the cd.

Zipli-Retweet was a very useful plugin for WordPress websites and networks. It allowed a visitor to your blog and/or website to use the enormously popular system to share with their friends on Twitter a particularly good, funny, scandalous, or whatever criteria tickled the reader’s fancy post you had written with the click of a button, the zipli-retweet button to be precise. Why you might ask would such a seemingly useful tool be replaced? To answer that we must look at some of the relevant information regarding the plugin. From a high of 112 downloads of the plugin to its current average of <1 a day, the popularity of it has been steadily decreasing. There is also a related stat in the form of its update frequency; it was last updated on 2009-11-12.With that said, many plugin designers recognize the limitations of there creation and abandon them in favor of an entirely new plugin. Please note that I am not attempting to disparage the plugin designer, many of these designers have regular day jobs and create these plugins for free.

Now if you will allow me, let me introduce TweetMeme. This Retweet button  is being touted as the latest and greatest available. It can be seen on sites as diverse as , , and So you may be wondering why would the admins of this network go with this plugin? It receives average 4 out of 5 user rating. It was last updated on 2010-2-24. It has also been downloaded 225,000+ times including 506 times today.

It has been activated sitewide but still must be setup by each member. From your dashboard, locate the TweetMeme header near the bottom of the left column (Refer to the image to the right). If you hover over it you will get a gray dropdown arrow that you should click on to reveal two options; ‘settings’ and ‘analytics’. Click on settings to setup this button. So how does this affect you as a PREP member? This button should definitely bring more traffic to your website and more traffic definitely means the potential exists for increased business. We would highly recommend that all PREP members utilize this excellent and FREE tool.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

PositiveRealEstateProfessionals.com now offers Video Blogs in conjunction with an account on our real estate network. The Video Blogs, just like the Photo Blogs and other additional blogs, can be purchased for a one time fee of $100. One of the greatest benefits of having this additional blog is that the page with all the blogs would be indexed and followed by the search engines, unlike tags or categories. In addition, you will be able to set the keywords for the Video Blog as well as each and every individual post that occupies space on the Video Blog. Any of these three blogs can be purchased from the main page of PREP.

So, what is a Video Blog, you ask. Video Blogging is also referred to as vlogging. Vlogging uses videos to create your articles as opposed to text. This creates a sense of internet television. Entries include videos or a link to the videos, supporting text, images, and other metadata. The best vlogging is done when the author provides a transcript for the article. These particular articles are drown with search engine juice. While it takes a little bit of work, the transcript can be keyword intensive.

In closing, if you are looking to increase your SEO without having to add a bunch of extra steps to do it, look into adding a Video blog or any of the other blog products that we offer to your PREP site. The additional potential for search engine juice is yours for the taking.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Marketing properties with a listings blog just became easy. Imagine walking into a listings presentation appointment armed with the ability to have your client’s property reach the top of the search engines quickly. The great thing is, there are no black hat tricks used to accomplish this. Another great thing is, you do not have to log out of one site and into another to post to this additional blog. Everything is done on the same platform and is almost seamless.

One of the things with Postlets and VFlyers is that they require more room that what is typically on a page. To make sure that we have enough room for this to set up properly, we just remove the sidebars all together. Therefore, the property is front and center and is getting all of the attention that it requires. Also, once a property is listed in PREP, it does not take long for it to climb to the top of the search engines.

Now, before many of you ask why “categories” or “tags” cannot accomplish this, let me explain this; neither of these are indexed by the search engines. If they were, the bots would crash any network once they started to crawl them. So, having the additional blog gains the ability to have ALL the listings found in a search in one spot. It also allows for ALL the listings to be ‘index, follow’ and this is huge as it will increase your SEO.

As with any additional blog add on, there is a one time charge of $100. Once that fee is paid, it will take a couple of hours to be setup. If you have questions, please call us at 865-951-0522 or email me.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Add a Photoblog to your PositiveRealEstateProfessionals.com site today and start reaping the benefits. What are the benefits you ask? Well, let’s see where I should begin. First, you can garner SEO juice from Google Images. Second, you will have ANOTHER blog indexed and followed by the search engines on your site. Third, you only have ONE login to update all the blogs. And let me dispel one myth here and now, if you think that you can do the same with TAGS or CATEGORIES, think again. Neither of these are indexed in a blog network platform like ours. When you are dealing with an online real estate network like PREP, you will find they do not allow for Tags or Categories to be indexed as it would crash the network.

Okay, now that we have gone over the benefits in a nutshell, let’s talk about photoblogs and what benefit they have for a real estate professional’s site. First off, for a Realtor®, having a photoblog would allow you to show off your community. If you are like me, you love taking your camera EVERYWHERE that you go. Adding a picture a day gives the consumers the ability to see what the surroundings have to offer. Adding an ALT Title to the picture gives Google and the other search engines the ability to place them in the searches that they should be in. For a home stager, you can add before and after pictures that can demonstrate your work. For home inspectors, you can add pictures of issues that you come across on a daily basis. It does not stop with these three professions either, but for the sake of boring you, we will leave it there.

Here are a couple of articles for further reading on the importance of proper formatting of pictures and the impact that additional blogs can have on your site:

Say It With Pictures – Photoblogs

Increase your SEO with multiple blogs on one site

At this point, PREP is the ONLY online real estate network that is offering this feature. Unfortunately we have to charge for this feature. However, the one time fee is only $100. It takes us a couple of hours to get it installed on your site, but then you are up and running.If you have questions or would like to order this, email me or call the office at 865-951-0522.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Do you have a account? Do you use it? How do you use it? In this post I want to examine the benefits that YouTube (and other video service hosting sites) can bring to your business.

Most smart business people already recognize the reach of the internet in getting their business out there. From stand alone websites like Strategic Funding Concepts to sites like RE/MAX Lakeside: Lake Arrowhead Real Estate which take advantage of the SEO juice that a network creates, a huge part of any overall business plan should incorporate a dynamic website. Dynamic websites have new material added on a regular basis.

Adding new material can be easily accomplished through adding new static pages, blog posts, images, or videos. While traditional blog posts are one of the easiest ways to add new content, both photo and video posts are growing in popularity. Here is a great post on the benefits of photoblogging Say It With Pictures – Photoblogs. You can either incorporate photoblogs and videoblogs (vlogs) into your existing blog or you can create an entirely separate blog just for these mediums. Here is a post on the benefits of multiple blogs Increase your SEO with multiple blogs on one site.

If you have a YouTube account (or an account with one of the other video service hosting sites) then using videos on your site is a snap. From walkthrus of your property listings to potential issues home inspectors encounter everyday to a walking tour of a local attraction, it has never been easier to incorporate these videos into your site. All you do is upload your video to whichever service you have an account with. This then places it in your account so that when others view it, they know it comes from you. You can then use your video’s URL to place it in your blog as a post. That is all you do! You have now added to your video library and to your website; this is a win/win on both counts.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Did you know that you could increase your SEO with multiple blogs on one site? If your answer is “No”, then you are not alone. Many bloggers do not even think that is possible. Now, for the skeptics that think “Oh, not another blog that I have to maintain” it is not like that. Actually, it is very much the opposite.

For a loan officer that has multiple blogs, they can blog about FHA Loans, Conventional loans, or USDA loans all on the same account but have the post directed to 3 different blogs. For a Realtor, you could choose to blog about short sales and foreclosures on one blog, property listings on another, and pictures on another. For home inspectors, you could write about inspections on one blog while another was centered around mold and/or radon. I could sit here and go on and on with this, but I think that you get the picture. For those of you that don’t go to Lake Arrowhead ~ Above it All and check hers out. You will notice that she has a blog under blog, one under photos, and if you look on the left hand side, you will see a picture titled Short Sales and Foreclosures. On Monday, we will be launching her 4th one that will be a Market Report blog.

So, why would I want multiple blogs one might ask. Well, first off, it is all about the refined SEO that one can get. Secondly, it is the ability to tap into additional SEO outlets that most people ignore and just don’t even think about, such as Google Images. Ultimately, the benefits are vast and can make a huge difference in your site.

Now I am sure you are wondering what the catch is. Well, frankly, there is no catch in it for us. While we do charge a fee of $100 to create these additional blogs on your site, there is not recurring charges. In the case of PREP, if you were to add an additional blog, it would cost you a fee of $100 ONCE, and then you would never pay again for that service. The annual membership of $150 would be the only recurring charges. R & D Art is the same. If we build a site for you, you can have as many blogs as you want and they can be as specific as you want.

In closing, take advantage of getting additional SEO juice that these additional blogs can provide you. Whether you have a PREP account, or an R & D Art account, get with your webmaster and see if they can assist you with adding an additional blog to your site. If they can’t, then please consider joining PREP and see what we can do for your business.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

A few days ago I had a member  of our real estate network, Positive Real Estate Professionals, ask me “What can Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn do for my blog”? I decided the best way to answer this is by writing an article so that anyone else that has this same question lurking can get the answers. Without further adieu, let’s dive into this article.

I guess the first thing that one has to understand is Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and what they are designed to do. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the term “microblogging”, this is the best way to identify each of these networks. Microblogging is very different from blogging in that the posts are much shorter. In most cases, your posts are limited in the characters that you can use. For Twitter and LinkedIn, it is 140 characters. This includes spaces and punctuation. For , it is 420 and the same rule applies for spaces and punctuations. The biggest difference between microblogging and blogging is the fact that most microbloggers use “status” messages like ” I am brushing my teeth” or “I am heading to a closing”. While these are fine, they do nothing for your blog.

Having a blogsite that is integrated with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or even FriendFeed, it is easy to have a notification go out to the systems automatically that states that a new post has been created on your blogsite. In doing this, you can actually alert readers to this fact quickly and automatically. Ultimately, this will drive more readers to your site. A integration simply sends a message to the twitter account supplied and allows for it to state that “What can Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn do for my blog” has just been published on PREP, for example. With Facebook, the best integration to use is an application called NetworkedBlogs. It allows for a short excerpt to automatically post to your profile and/or fan page. With , there is an integration to have your blog feed set up.

In closing, the answer to the question is that these networks can drive more readers to your blogsite. Ultimately, this is what we are all after.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Over my years of blogging, one of the things that I see people fail the most at is commenting. Whether it is responding to comments on their own blogs or commenting on others’ blogs, they fail. It may seem like it is a painstaking task to do either, yet if people really knew how much it impacted their blogsite, I wonder if they would change their ways. Before we go much deeper in this subject, I have to admit that I was one of the “comment slackers” myself. I used to think that as long as I wrote posts on a daily basis, that was good enough. Well, I am here to tell you that commenting really does matter. So, without further delay, let’s dive in and see what the lack of commenting does to our blogs.

Why should I comment on your blog? You never take the time to acknowledge the comment.

This might be one of the single worst things that a blogger can do. Totally ignoring comments that are left on your site can kill a blog. First off, you typically will piss off the person that took the time to read your blog and then write a response to your article. Secondly, you are loosing out on the search engines that see these comments as being new content. That fact alone makes this a cardinal sin. Eventually the commenter will quit reading your articles because they see how much they DO NOT mean to you. In a nutshell, if you have someone that takes the time to comment on an article that you took the time to write, show them respect and appreciation by responding to their comment.

Why should I comment on your blog? You never comment on mine.

Reciprocal commenting is basically one of the golden rules of blogging. If you want to see your comments increase, then interact with the people that comment on your articles. Take the time to visit their site and read an article or two. Make a comment and create an interaction. You might actually be surprised what it can do for you. You really never know what commenter might be your next client or referral source. If you are not willing to open dialogue with them now, what is going to make them think that you will open dialogue with them when it comes to business?

What good does commenting do for my site?

Believe it or not, I had a potential client ask me this very question. The first thing that I have to stress is that commenting encourages interaction. When you run a blog that is directed and designed to help you generate leads and/or business, then interaction is key. If you do not have it, you can not gain clients. Commenting can have an impact to your SEO as well as to your site’s ranking. What? Commenting can affect my rankings? Believe it or not, the answer is yes. I have watched a website/blogsite lose their Alexa ranking over a three month period for the very fact that they quit commenting. Now, they have decided to start commenting again and all of a sudden, their rankings are back on the rise. Imagine that, the lack of commenting coinciding with a declining ranking. Who would have thunk it?

In closing, how can commenting help you and your blogsite? If that is still the question, then you might want to start reading this article again. Ultimately, you control your destiny when it comes to commenting. Engage your readers and the comments will come. Respond to their comments as well as visiting their blogs and they will stick with you. Ultimately, they will help drive your site’s rankings to another level and that is what will eventually help your SEO rankings.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.

Linking is an important SEO tool for any website. If you do a Google search for ‘linking’ and you will find numerous blog posts on the subject. This is such an important topic that you can find numerous posts written by the admins right here on Positive Real Estate Professionals:

My Site Is Wonderful, Link To Me – Marketing Your Business Online

Engaging Your Site’s Visitors

Using Comments to Build Links and Drive Traffic – Part 1

Using Comments to Build Links and Drive Traffic – Part 2

Relevant Links and What They Mean To You

Link Farming is just another form of Spam.

Today I want to look at Deep Links. What is a deep link? According to Wikipedia: Deep linking, on the World Wide Web, is making a hyperlink that points to a specific page or image on another website, instead of that website’s main or home page. While the links in your blogroll are great, they by definition are not deep links. Do you see the links to the articles immediately preceding this paragraph? They are examples of deep linking because they go to a particular location (the individual blog posts) and not the overall blog URL.

Deep linking is not confined to linking to blog posts alone, though this is one of the most common practices. A deep link can also link to a non-main page, a bio page, a form, or any other informational page. You can easily create these deep links either externally or internally. An external link connects to a webpage on another website. An internal link is one that links to information on the website where the post is actually written; i.e. linking to a previous relevant post or another minor page on the same website.

Deep linking, like using keywords, should be done in moderation. Deep linking is an effective, and the easiest, of  link building tools. Though deep linking is a good tool to use, it should not become a substitute for reciprocal and one-way linking with other websites.

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.