Positive Real Estate Professionals

One of our greatest features is the fact that we are constantly evolving. When we come across a great tool, we test it out to see if it fits our real estate network and would be a benefit. What is even better than that is when one of our members sends us a message on a tool they have come across that will be a huge benefit to our site. That actually occurred this morning and I would like to thank Ramona Strojevs of Burlington HomeForYou, your connection to Burlington ON real estate.

Ramona had came across a great application this morning and then pasted a link to that on my own wall on FaceBook. She had found Tynt. I immediately went to work checking out this new potential tool for PREP. My first instinct was that I really did not want to have a new tool that we would have to go through each and every account to get it added to our members’ sites. My first path was to go to WordPress.org and see if there was a plugin for easy integration. Fortunately, Tynt had been integrated into a plugin called easy tynt.

Once I got it loaded into PREP, I went to work testing it out. What I found was just extraordinary to say the least. In today’s world where people take content from your site without thinking much about it, this tool will alert you to that very fact. If you look to the left, you will see a screenshot from the plugin that I took this morning. If you can’t make it out, just click on the picture and it will open to original size in another window. Being able to track the content from my site that has been copied and applied elsewhere on the world wide web is a huge benefit. Also being able to tag that content with a license is an even bigger benefit.

With that said, the benefits do not stop there. Another great feature is the SEO benefits that you can actually track using this new tool. Each and every time that someone copies content from your site, you will get a link back to the original content. The more that this happens, the stronger your content becomes. However, it does not just have a positive effect on your content. It also creates more links to your site. That in itself makes the plugin well worth the time to set it up.

So, let’s talk about setting it up on your PREP account. You can ONLY use this if you have an account that is MAPPED. No sub domains or sub directories can be used. Once you are logged onto your dashboard, follow these instructions:

1. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu under ‘Post’ in WordPress.

2. Click on the Easy Tynt settings link in your WordPress settings to configure Easy Tynt. Easy Tynt will not work until this is completed.

3. Visit http://www.tynt.com and log in or register a new account.

4. Chose the options you are interested in. I suggest looking at the Attribution Link. We are using the ‘Attribution No Derivatives’ License.

5. Once everything is setup to your satisfaction, copy the provided “YOUR SCRIPT” code into the Easy Tynt settings in your WordPress dashboard. Hit “Update Options” and you are done!

Now that you have done that, all you need to do is login daily to check your stats. Everything else is done for you. Once again, I would like to thank Ramona for sharing this awesome tool with me this morning.

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.

It is with great pleasure and pride that I am happy to announce that our online real estate network, PositiveRealEstateProfessionals.com, has come to an agreement with Jen Monastero. We are officially making her our newest Community Recruiter. We are excited in this newest edition to our staff and want to publicly welcome Jen aboard. It has been a long time coming.

So, what does a community recruiter actually do you ask? Well, that is quite simply to answer. Jen’s main focus is to help us continue to recruit members to our online real estate network. For those of you that do not know Jen, she has spent several years in the mortgage industry. Most recently, she has jumped on a start up called Know your Pro. I first met Jen about 2 years ago when our paths crossed on ActiveRain. At that point and time, I knew that she would be someone that I could definitely work with and respect. Today that thought has become reality.

While Jen is still focused on Know Your Pro, her sole responsibility with us is to help us grow. In turn, PREP will also be promoting Know Your Pro as we believe that they are onto something over there. If you are not a member of their site, I would highly recommend becoming one. Enough said on that matter.

Please join me in welcoming our newest admin, Jen Monastero.

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.

When I logged into Facebook this morning, I was greeted with the picture to the left. I am sure that many of you have already seen this. I am also sure that many started out the same way I did; looking for the path to add the “like” button to your site. With that said, I decide to write a post for all to read and learn. After spending nearly an hour trying to find this, I thought that I would save you all the headaches of tracking down how to install this little tool to your site.

Before I go into deep detail, I thought I would share what this button can and will do for you. If you look to the right, you will see this button in action on our real estate network. As you can see at this point, not many have used it. Over time, the number will grow and people will be able to share our network with their facebook friends a lot easier. All one needs to do is to click the “Like” button once, and it adds them. Below is an excerpt from the facebook page explaining this a little better:

The Like button enables users to make connections to your pages and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the button can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into your site. For logged-in Facebook users, the button is personalized to highlight friends who have also liked the page.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take a look at how we add this neat little tool to our own sites. If you look to the immediate left, you will see the picture of the Like Button Generator. As you can see, I have filled out the fields that I need in order to create this button for our main page. Now, in theory, I could do this for each and every page that I wanted to on PREP, but at some point, you run into overkill. This is one of the reason why we use “sociable” on PREP. It already has Facebook’s share function in it.

Once all the pertinent information is entered, all you need to do is click on get code. Once that is done, it will generate 2 codes; one is an iFrame code and the second is a JavaScript code. Personally PREP stays away from the JavaScript coding as it can lead to some security issues, especially for a multi user platform such as ours. Once this is done, all you need to do is add this into a “Text” widget in your sidebar of your site. If you do not have access to do that, then contact your webmaster and they can instruct you more on this subject.In some cases this can require coding added to the theme itself or some adjustments to certain parameters that can only be done by an admin or webmaster. In our case, each and ever member has the ability to add this on their own site and place it any where on their sidebars without having to contact us. With that said, if you run into issues, please feel free to call us and we can walk you through the process.

OK, now that we have the why and how to out of the way, let’s get down to the where. I thought long and hard of how I could help each and everyone of you get this tool on your site the easiest way. With that said, I decide that I would just iFrame their page into this post. Hence, you will be able to generate your own code right from this article and there will not be a need to bounce around. I hope that you find this both helpful and useful.

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.

As always, we here at Positive Real Estate Professionals try to stay on top of the latest tools and integrations for our real estate network. Today is no different as we are prepared to offer The Events Calendar to each and every one of our members for FREE. We have tested this events calendar to see how it would integrate with our online real estate network, and frankly I am pleased to announce that it has passed each and every test that I have thrown at it.

Below is the description straight from the plugins page on wordpress:

The Events Calendar plugin enables you to rapidly create and manage events using the post editor. Features include Google Maps integration as well as default templates such as a calendar grid and event list for streamlined one click installation.

Looking to track attendees, sell tickets and more? Go download the Eventbrite for The Events Calendar plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eventbrite-for-the-events-calendar/). Eventbrite is a free service that provides the full power of a conference ticketing system. This plugin upgrades The Events Calendar with all the basic Eventbrite controls without ever leaving the wordpress post editor. Don’t have an Eventbrite account? No problem, use the following link to set one up: http://www.eventbrite.com/r/simpleevents.

The Events Calendar

• Manage event details right from your post editor
• Upcoming Events Widget
• Provides full template out of the box (month and list view)
• Extensive template tags for customization
• MU Compatible
• Google Maps Integration
• Posts are automatically moved to the top of the loop on the day of the event
• Calendar Month view with tooltips
• Includes support for venue, cost, address, start and end time, google maps link
• Optional Ticketing With Eventbrite Integration – http://www.eventbrite.com/ – though the Eventbrite for The Events Calendar plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/eventbrite-for-the-events-calendar/).
• Support for international addresses, time and languages: ** Swedish ** French ** Italian

Upcoming Features

• Option to disable re-posting of event
• Ical Feed
• Improved international features (calendar start day)
• Option to exclude events from main loop
• More bug hunting and support (huff puff)
• Improved error checking and reporting
• Calendar view widget
• Reoccuring events
• Sync with facebook events
• Saved venues
• Global event maps
• Dynamic categories (rather than requiring the use of event)
• Event subcategories

Now, here is how you can access this neat tool. First, contact our office if you are interested in using this tool as we have to turn it on individually. Then, login to your dashboard and scroll down to the “Settings” and look for “The Events Calendar”. Once there, simply click on it and set your options. When that is done, contact our office for your Events Calendar page to be set up on your navigation bar. We will structure it and then setup the redirection that is required to make the page appear correctly. Once it is done, we will test it to be sure that it works properly.

With that said, here are a few things that I see that will be a HUGE benefit. For any REALTOR® that uses this calendar and lists their open houses, the post will display a Google Map automatically to the listing. This feature is available for everyone that uses this new calendar. Another GREAT benefit to this calendar is it is managed right from your posting screen. This means that all you need to do is go to write a new post just like you normally do, add a prelude, and then simply input the day, time, location, and any other info that is important to this event. The tool will do the rest for you.

If you want to see one being used on our network, simply click here.

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.

PREP adds tool to speed up owner verification of sites today. Instead of having to get codes from Webmaster Tools, SiteExplorer, Webmaster Center and Siteowners and having to locate the section where you have to insert these codes, we have made it much easier. So, you are asking me how this might actually help you. Well, let me explain it all from the start and lets go over each and every one of the four search engine tools that are listed in this article. Also keep in mind that our real estate network is progressive when it comes to technology. Our goal is to bring our members and our readers the best in technology that we can.

First off, let’s take a look at Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! SiteExplorer, Bing Webmaster Center and Alexa Siteowners and how each of them can help us. For Google, their Webmaster Tools are designed to provide you with Google’s view of your site as well as help you diagnosis any issues or problems. However, it goes deeper than that by allowing you to provide a link to your sitemap so that Google bots can crawl the site more efficiently. You can also research internal and external links to your site as well as search for keywords that are driving people to your site. With Yahoo! SiteExplorer , you are able to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. You can also view the most popular pages from any site, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any other pages. With Bing Webmaster Center, you can use the Webmaster Tools to troubleshoot the crawling and indexing of your site, submit sitemaps and view statistics about your sites. Alexa Siteowners is really no different except that it allows for you to add detailed information about the ownership of the site.

The biggest question that I get asked when it comes to these four is “Why use all four if they provide almost the same info?”. The answer to that is simple. While they provide much of the same information, they provide it from their perspective. Hence, why you want to use all four. If you walked into your doctor’s office and he told you that you were dying from some serious untreatable disease, you would more than likely ask for a second opinion. With each of these tools, that is basically what you are getting; a second opinion. With that said, remember this fact: each of these webmaster tools provides information that is unique to them.

Lastly, the addition of the tool is simple to setup. For members of PREP, all you need to do is log into your dashboard. Then go to Settings on the left side and look for “Fast Verification”. Once there, click on the link. When it opens, there will be four large blanks. Below all four will be 4 different links to each of the respective sites. Click on each and look for the code that it is requesting in the examples below each blank. As always, if you have issues, please call one of admins. Unfortunately, this is not something that we can do for you. With that said, it is definitely something that I highly recommend that each person uses. In the long run, it can help you show up higher in SEO and SERP.

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.

Positive Real Estate Professionals administrators Rich Dansereau and Danny Thornton spent about 10.5 hours on Christmas overhauling our online real estate network. When it was all said and done, PREP re-launches with new FREE features to make the network even better than it was. The reason we did this was twofold: we added a massive amount of new tools for our members to use and we changed the front page in order to make it more streamlined. We added more of our members’ recent posts to the front page as well. We also wanted to add a feature that would allow potential members to setup an account based on their finances. You can now get a three (3) month, six (6) month, or the standard twelve (12) month membership. Even though the 3 month and 6 month are more expensive over time,they allow professionals to get on the network and start building their SEOs.

You will find a list below that will detail  the new tools that are available for our members. If you have questions, please ask.

Customized Theme – 12 Month Membership Required

Branding is huge when it comes to the Internet. Being able to have a theme built just for you might be one of the biggest features of this site.

Google Translator

Our readers are not limited to the US nor are they limited to speaking just English. With that said, we have a Google translator available for all members sites. With the click of a button, an article can be changed to one of 30+ languages.

Google Chat

This provides the ability to chat in real time with potential clients and reader that visit your site. Two setup options, please request admin assistance.

Newsletter Integration

Excellent newsletter integration and email database management through MailChimp. This integration is currently only available if you use MailChimp for your newsletter. MailChimp is FREE with some limitations; click here to visit their site. Be aware, PREP admins do not support MailChimp; you must contact MailChimp directly for support.

Domain Mapping

Allows  members to bring their own domain name to use in place of http://positiverealestateprofessionals.com/USERNAME The big difference between domain mapping and domain masking (most sites allow masking) is that the domain name that you provide is mapped into each page as opposed to the masking of a domain which leaves only the network domain name for each page. EXAMPLE: domain mapping would replace http://positiverealestateprofessionals.com/USERNAME/about-us with http://YOUR DOMAIN NAME.com/about-us

Affiliate Referral Program

Become an affiliate member by entering your PayPal account name. Choose from three different banners or use the available link. Our program allows you to track unique clicks, signups, and paid members. Be aware that although their are various membership durations available, our affiliate program only pays out for twelve (12) month signups.

Windows Live Writer

Produce posts with ease from your desktop without ever logging into your WordPress account. Simply download Windows Live Writer to your desktop and fill in the required setup info. Windows Live Writer has multiple options for displaying images. Be aware, PREP admins do not support Windows Live Writer; you must contact Windows Live Writer directly for support.

Google Maps Embed

Adds an icon to the WYSIWYG (visual) editor that allows a user to easily embed a Google map into a post or page.

Posterize

Automatically sends an email to Posterous that will link to your post. Be aware, PREP admins do not support Posterous; you must contact Posterous directly for support.

Click Tracker

Tracks all links in posts and pages for click throughs. Distinguishes ‘unique clicks’ from ‘all clicks’.

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.

Many of you know the story of Positive Real Estate Professionals. However, there are still a lot of people out there that do not, this post is being written for you. It will tell you how we turned this real estate network from a dream to a vision to a reality. It has been a long road, but we have overcome many obstacles to get to where we are today. We have more than 50 members, almost 40 active blogs, a Google ranking of 3 and an Alexa ranking of 49,829 as of writing this article. I am often asked what this means for a new user. In simple terms, it basically allows you to start a web/blog site and get instantaneous results from it. That in itself is worth it’s weight in gold.

So, lets go back to November of 2008 when PREP was no more than a dream. One day I was sitting back thinking about all of the negative media and press that was swirling around about the housing industry. Whether it was all the foreclosures that were happening or all the builders running out of money and leaving subdivisions unfinished, the media would grab onto it and project their doom and gloom outlook. I sat down and talked to my business partner, Rich Dansereau, about the possibility of starting a website that was designed to counter the negativity. We decided to start Positive Real Estate Professionals at this time, however, it started as a single member site. Even though real estate professionals could join, it was not a real community. We had successfully turned a dream into a vision, but it was not complete.

In February of 2009, we decided that it was time to look at changing the system to one that people could actually join. We did not want them to be just be able to join the network. Even bigger, we did not want the to be able to just blog. We wanted to create a site where a new member would be able to have multiple options. A site where a visitor could read a REALTOR® blog, search for properties, request a CMA or information on relocation, and anything else that the member would want to provide. On top of that, we wanted to be able to add and offer similar features to loan officers, stagers, RE web developers, title companies, home inspectors, appraisers, and anyone else that has a business associated with or servicing the industry.

In March of 2009, we released the version of PREP that is currently standing. This is the version that we first dreamed of, then turned into a vision that soon would become a reality. We accomplished some great feats along the way, but none of it would be possible without the 57 members of PREP. I would love to sit here and name them out, but that would take all day. So, I will close it out with this question: What is keeping you from becoming a member today?

Hopefully the title made you smile, that was its intention. It is also a title loaded with high placement keywords. Now before I am accused of keyword stuffing, which is a definite no-no, all of those keywords are actually what this post is about! In a competitive industry like real estate it is important to take advantage of all the tools that are available to you. This means not only having a website and/or blogsite that looks good and is easy for visitors to navigate but having a site that is optimized to return high in search engine results. You can have the most beautiful site in the world but if nobody visits, it is like having a Picasso hanging in a closet.

So how can you determine if your site is loved by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines? One of the best ways to evaluate how loved your site is by the search engines is by determining a general idea of how often your site is indexed. When your site is indexed it means that the search engine spiders have crawled your site and cataloged what they have found there. Everything from text to media can be indexed. This indexing is how search engines return results when you (or anyone) perform a search on the internet. An easy way to determine how often your site is indexed is to take advantage of the alert system that many search engines offer, i.e. Google Alerts. When your site has been crawled and new information has been indexed you receive an alert via email notifying you of what has been found. Another way to get an approximation of how frequently your site is being indexed is to perform periodic searches for your specific new information after you have posted it; search for what you have posted. Once your information has been indexed it should return in search engine results. Indexing algorithms are proprietary so it is impossible to determine an exact frequency. For example, The Arkansas REALTOR® wrote a post entitled The Three Rs Every Realtor Needs to Embrace, and it was indexed very quickly. See the following screenshot using the periodic search method talked about above.

You want to be indexed as frequently as possible as this helps you to return high in searches. The old mantra that content is king can be specifically tied to indexing. The more frequently you add original or syndicated material to your site, the more often your site will be indexed. If content is king, then the queen has got to be your keywords. Keywords are what the spiders will literally ‘key on’ when determining what the new information on your site is about and how it should be indexed. Unlike your meta keywords, which give an indication of what your overall site is about, the keywords in your articles or posts are more specific. So when you are writing your articles be conscious of sprinkling keywords throughout your post that you believe visitors will use in their searches. This does NOT mean stuffing your posts full of keywords while sacrificing the clarity and integrity of your post. Keyword stuffing is penalized by most search engines. While opinions on keyword frequency vary, many SEO enthusiasts agree that keywords should compose no more than 9-10% of your total word count. As this figure is only an estimate, there really is no need to use some mathmatical formula to make sure you fall within these parameters. You should be able to use your common sense to know if you are stuffing your posts.

Positive Real Estate Professionals as a network is being indexed mutiple times throughout the day. This means our members’ articles are being indexed very fast and very frequently. How quickly and how frequently are you being indexed?

There is a slogan that became quite popular in the past twenty years, ‘Membership has its privileges.’ So if it is possible to set aside the somewhat needling classist implications of such a statement and look at the slogan in a totally different manner, we can examine how it can be applied in a positive way to membership in this real estate network. Positive Real Estate Professionals is a premium network so there naturally are members; this is where the membership aspect comes into play. The benefits of membership are numerous so I have composed the following bullet points that illuminates some of those benefits:

• PREP is drawing in well over a thousand readers a day on the main site alone. We do this from having a very SEO friendly site that is loved by Google and other search engines.

• PREP is a network, which means the other members also help to bring in even more readers and ultimately, that means more readers for you as well. Readers = Potential Clients.

• PREP encourages networking with other industry professionals but our focus is to reach consumers and the general public.

• PREP has the ability to syndicate the articles that you write on your existing sites so that you do not have to write any more than you already do.

• PREP has an excellent Facebook integration that allows for the automated feed of your PREP posts to your Facebook page.

• PREP has an excellent Twitter integration that allows for the complete control of your Twitter account from your PREP Dashboard.

• PREP members have access to numerous forms specific to the area of the Real Estate Industry they work in. New forms are being suggested by both members and site visitors all the time.

• PREP is now fully integrated with most cell phones and PDAs. This allows for mobile viewing and updating.

These are just some of the highlights that PREP Members enjoy. All of these features are integrated in a way that allows consumers to utilize them without ever leaving your PREP website; no need for consumers to repeatedly hit the back arrow. For $100 a year, membership in PREP really does have its privileges. Please let me know what questions I can answer for you. If you are interested in joining our rapidly expanding network, all you have to do is complete the Membership Request Process and an admin will be in touch with you.