Positive Real Estate Professionals

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.

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.

A few days ago, a potential new member to PREP asked me why we were always talking about the additions and changes that we were making to our real estate network. He wanted to know how stable the network was or if we were spending our time fixing issues. The answer to that is real simple; Positive Real Estate Professionals is always evolving. We have made a commitment to our members and readers. That commitment is to provide the best platform that we can for ease of use for both the members and readers. To do that, we have to continue to research tools that are available to make sure that they can benefit us as a network.

With that said, PREP is once again going through a metamorphoses. The front page will be changing to more of a clean cut streamlined look. Registering to become a new member will also be simplified as well as the launch of a new Affiliate Program that will include tracking tools that will blow your mind. An Instant Chat function will be available for ease of communication with potential consumers. I could sit here and go over all of these changes, but why spoil the surprise. If you are interested, then you will need to wait until tomorrow. We will be writing a new post detailing out the changes as well as the new free and premium services that will be added.

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.

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.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that these are difficult economic times for many people. From Realtors® to mortgage professionals to home builders, the Real Estate Industry is feeling the pinch as well. We at Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) truly believe that our network is one of the most cost effective ways to reach your target audience. On top of being cost effective, the reach of the internet in general, and Positive Real Estate Professionals specifically, is much broader and deeper than traditional media.

In spite of how effective we believe our real estate network to be, we recognize that some potential members are feeling the pinch of today’s economic realities. We want to do what we can to add ethical and professional Real Estate Industry professionals to our network. You may be thinking that we should simply allow people to join Positive Real Estate Professionals for free. While this might sound like a good idea this is not practical from a business point of view. The enormous amount of time and resources we at PREP utilize in looking for ways to further optimize the network and promote our members’ posts to the general public easily justifies the normal twelve month membership fee of $100. A membership fee that is well below most of our competitors.

That being said, we are fully aware of the impact more members have over less members and we have decided to formulate a PREP stimulus package. It is our hope that a reduction in the membership fee covering a twelve month period to $50 will help those Real Estate Industry professionals who have wanted to join Positive Real Estate Professionals more financially able to do so. Of course additional members will also help  generate an additional depth of content and perspective for consumers. This PREP stimulus package will run from 8:00 AM (est) on Friday, July 10, 2009 to 11:59 PM (est) on Sunday, July 12, 2009.

Still need more encouragement? Here are some bullet points of a few recognizable benefits of PREP membership for professionals from all facets of the Real Estate Industry:

• PREP is drawing in well over 1,000 visitors a day
• PREP is a network, meaning, members help to bring in additional readers; Readers = Potential Clients
• PREP encourages networking with other Real Estate Industry professional but our focus is reaching consumers
• PREP has the ability to pull in articles you write on other sites which means you do not have to blog anymore than you currently do
• PREP is continually adding new forms from every aspect of the Real Estate Industry for use on members’ pages and we are actively developing more forms suggested by both members and consumers

We know, and our current members will attest to, what Positive Real Estate Professionals can do for you. Don’t let this three day opportunity to become a member of PREP at a deeply discounted price slip by. Get your part of PREP’s stimulus package.

Over the time that I have spent on the internet, I have seen many people employ this strategy when it comes to blogging and social media. The first thing they do is take the proverbial “big bite” out of social media and sign up for all of the networks they can not really understanding what they can do for them much less knowing how to use them. Many people think that they can accomplish so much more by doing this. However, it goes back to the old way of thinking that the fact of the matter is, ‘less is really more.’

We can use quotes like putting the cart before the horse, leaping before looking, or speaking before thinking, and they all can refer to what people do wrong in the social media avenues. While social media is meant to help you succeed in gaining exposure, it can also help bury you just as fast if used wrong. So, now that I have told you what people are doing wrong and what the consequences are, would it be nice to hear what path should be taken? Fair enough. Now let’s move forward and get the horse in front of the cart where it belongs.

Before you take the time to join the possible 200 social medias that are out there, you need to first create a strategy. So many times I have seen people get involved in Facebook only to get sucked in to all the games and extras that can really become distractions with a system like that. Instead of networking with potential clients, they are defending their Mafia family. The same thing can be said of Twitter. While Twitter is great to keep up with updates from people, it too can be a little addictive when it comes to tweeting. You can also get spammed to death if you aren’t careful. Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Mixx, and more are great for sharing articles. However, if you continuously share your articles, the other users in these systems can bury you so deep that there is basically no getting out.

So, with all of these road blocks, how does someone navigate through the land mines to get themselves recognizable on the internet. Well, I think the first part of being recognizable on the Internet is what I state in my article Internet Business Requires Internet Presence; creating a unique brand. Once you have been able to do that, then it is time to start blogging. Putting together a bunch of articles and just throwing them out there is not really smart. You have to think about what it is you want to say and then put it into words that people can understand. The last thing anyone wants to read is an article that talks over their head. Speak to the masses, not to the few. Once you have accomplished that, then it is time to move into the social media springs.

If you have the ability to be on a network like Positive Real Estate Professionals, then you have 50% of your job done for you, maybe even more. The network is designed to feed into Twitter and Facebook automatically as well as allowing you to tweet right out of your blog dashboard while never having to open another internet window. The biggest work that you have to do is set up your two accounts and then let it do most of the work for you. However, it does not stop there and this is where most people fail. In either of these systems, you have to create a following. It is great that PREP has their followings and you get to use theirs, but you also have to have your own as well. That means that you have to get into the system and locate not only people that would be interesting to you, but people that are interested in what you have to say. Once you do that, then you are ready to move forward.

Now, for the people that do not belong to a network like PREP, then you have even more work to do because you have to carry the entire burden yourself. If your system that you use can not be automatically integrated, then you have to share your articles with each site. Once you have figured out that part, it is up to you to get into the social media systems that you join and create a mutual following. The associations that you create will become important and you need to take this into account; if the person that you want to connect to is not very active, then they will actually just weigh you down. What do I mean by that? Well, when a person is not active and they sit on your list, then you need to get a least one more person to pick up the slack that the inactive one is creating. Now, before anyone jumps up and throws something at me, I am not saying to not friend these people. I just want you to understand what you are getting into in terms of social marketing.

So, in an effort to recap this article, let me give you an outline.

• Unique Branding
• Fresh relevant content
• Join a few social networks and learn the ins and outs of them
• Be active in the social networks
• If you do not want to be faced with this task, then pay the $100 and join a network like Positive Real Estate Professionals and let them do most of it for you.

In popular culture there are many brands that are so instantly recognizable that the company’s name pops into our heads seemingly without thought. Take for instance some of the branded logos below:

Just glancing at these logos I bet you were able to identify most if not all within a few seconds. These logos represent everything from technology to sports to non-profits to a nation. Logos are a pictorial representation of your business or organization. Granted we are a young organization but Positive Real Estate Professionals employs a logo on each page of this website and in the other media provided to the public. The effective use of logos should quickly evoke thoughts of what it represents. This is a prime example of how logos are used as a branding tool.

You may be wondering why I am writing about branding? The answer to that is simple, most business people use some form of branding. Do you have multiple websites with a similar look and feel that all center around your business? This similar look and feel is the basis of branding. Now consider the images that are common among your websites. These images could be a straightforward picture of you, the geographical area where you do business, or a logo similar to the ones above; all of these images are tools for branding.

If you are looking to establish a brand recognition for your business, I would suggest that you take a look at what you are already doing from your business cards to your websites. Are you using a logo? If you are using particular colors or a logo are they present somewhere on the material consumers are getting. Having your logo on all of the materials you disseminate to consumers promotes brand reinforcement. Brand reinforcement is what helps to create the association between your logo and your business in the mind of consumers. Take for example the following logo:

First off, I am fairly certain that you knew almost immediately what organization this logo represented. From television ads to internet marketing, this logo is included in virtually all of the material that this organization disseminates. This repeated use of a logo promotes brand reinforcement and general ideas of the organization’s purpose. You may be thinking that it is difficult to promote a message through a brand but consider this. After identifying the organization associated with this logo, what thoughts popped into your head? Were they general thoughts like charitable organization or something similar. There can be as many thoughts that pop into one’s head as there are people. For the logo and its meaning to convey what is intended it must be easily recognizable and backed up with positive actions by the organization to reinforce the intended message. Are you branded? And what message does your brand convey?

Positive Real Estate Professionals welcomes The Arkansas REALTORS® Association as it’s newest member today. You can see their new blogsite at The Arkansas REALTOR®. We are very excited about this organization joining our Real Estate network. We look forward to all the information that this organization can bring to our readers as well as to our members. I was able to sit down with Ethan Nobles, the media guru for Arkansas REALTORS® Association to pick his brain in what attracted them to our site as well as how they planned on using this. Here is the response that I got from Ethan:

As the director of media relations, I’ve managed to develop a very large presence in the traditional forms of media — print, radio and television. While we have registered a number of successes in that regard, we are severely lacking in developing a platform through which we can get our word out on the Internet.

That’s where Positive Real Estate Professionals comes in. That blog has a built in readership and is a growing real estate community. For some time, we have posted our magazine — REALTOR® ‘Rightings — on the Internet, but few people look at it. Further, we post our magazine in a static manner — people can read the articles but they can’t respond to them.

It was my thought, then, that reproducing our magazine in a blog format would be very useful as people can both read articles and interact with them by responding through our comments section. That level of interaction, we hope, will generate more interest among people in the real estate profession in Arkansas (certainly) and throughout the country (hopefully). And by “the real estate profession” we mean Realtors, mortgage bankers, title company folks, appraisers — anyone with an interest in the performance of real estate markets.

Also, we view the blog as an avenue through which we can attract people to the information we routinely distribute. That includes my “House to House” columns, market statistics, general press releases and everything else I do. Why? Again, we want to build a strong presence on the Internet so that we can get “our side of the story” to more people. Of course, there is a lot of value in allowing people to interact with that information by responding to it through comments.

In short, we hope the blog will allow for a free and open exchange of ideas. We also believe the title of the blog — “The Arkansas REALTOR®” — become the chosen destination for anyone wanting to find out what issues are important to real estate professionals in Arkansas and how are markets are performing in the Natural State. Our members are excited about this endeavor and I am confident that Positive Real Estate Professionals can deliver on the goals I’ve set out here.

Since Rich Dansereau and myself started Positive Real Estate Professionals – A Real Estate Network back in March, we had a vision of being able to help each and every member gain more exposure on the Internet. Since the launch in March, we have been able to do just that. Members that have started writing articles on their blogs are seeing almost instant Google alerts. With that said, I find that I am still being asked what PREP can do for it’s members. So, I thought that I would just take a little time to tell you what PREP is designed to do.

First and foremost, PREP is designed to make your goal of becoming more visible on the Internet easier. Our goal here is for you to write posts on your blog and let PREP do all the other work. However, if you are currently running a blog and do not want the added post that it takes to run 2 blogs, we can syndicate your blog right into PREP and make sure that you are not getting hit with the double content whammy. At the same time, we are set to increase the Google juice that you are so thirsty for. And we can get your articles indexed quickly in Google. But, that is just the tip of the iceberg.

PREP has the ability to integrate with social networks like Twitter and Facebook. You can check us out on both of these sites by clicking the links on each of them. PREP has 815 followers in less than a month of being on Twitter and has 145 on Facebook. However, the business page on Facebook for PREP has 943 fans at the point of this article and the Networked Blogs page currently has 173 subscribers to the feed. As a site that is less than 4 months old, this is impressive. But, it does not stop there as PREP has built it’s RSS feed subscribers as well. And this is just one of the ways that PREP helps to drive traffic to you. Their increased involvement in the Social Media networks help to aide you in gaining more and more exposure. Add to all this the low Alexa ranking for a site this young and you spell out a successful union when you decide to join Positive Real Estate Professionals.

Top this with the ability to network with other professionals that you can learn from as well as share ideas with and this just becomes another benefit. However, PREP is geared toward reaching consumers and this is what we sit here and do for 16 hours a day. Driving more and more potential consumers to our site as well as to your articles is what has helped in the success that PREP and it’s current members have enjoyed. The first few months of this start-up has been exciting and as we are getting ready to turn the page, we are wondering what is keeping you away.

We are very much for people having their own blogs, websites, and other web presence, so we are not going to try and get you to leave anything. Whether you talk to Rich or to myself, you will always hear us state that you never want to leave all your eggs in one basket. Doing this might gain you some exposure, but the question is, when that exposure starts to fade away, what is your contingency plan. Having a presence that is spread around the world wide web helps to maintain that presence when and if another site starts to lose out on some Google juice. Bottom line that you have to look at is can your business sustain having to rebuild your Internet presence from scratch all over? If the answer is “NO” then you need to be calling 865-951-0522 and asking for Rich or Danny today. Getting your PREP account going could not be any easier.Oh, and before I forget, it is just $100 a year. If you break it down over 12 months, it comes out to $8.25 a month, basically the price of one entree at dinner.

Now, let me leave you with this thought. I have barely scraped the surface of what PREP can do for you. If I were to sit here and detail it out, you would be reading for a while. So, if you are intrigued, then check out our Test Account and see some of the added benefits that our network has to offer. If you have questions, you can call us or you can email Rich or myself anytime. Also, take the time to see what some of our members have to say about us.