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All Posts By

Mike Blaney

Sep 04
Love0

Single Property Listing Websites

By Listing Presentations, Marketing Strategy, Realtor Marketing, Website Design

Do you have a unique property you want to showcase? Are you in a competitive situation where you need to wow the vendor to get a listing? Do you simply want greater exposure of a listing?

A single property website is the solution for all three. A unique, customized single property listing website using the Ubertor platform dedicated to a single listing address enables you to display a property that is for sale and put it in the spotlight.

Every property has a personality that a single property website can spotlight. With all of the search sites available, homes and properties get grouped with other listings and they get lost in the mix. In today’s media rich world every property for sale deserves its very own website.

Single Property Websites are the best way to showcase a home as you have the undivided attention of the buyer.  Our single property websites feature:

  • Custom Banner
  • Huge high definition photos
  • Photo Slideshow with Captions
  • Pages for videos and or virtual tours
  • Community and area information
  • Floor Plans as pdfs and images
  • Google Maps and Streetview
  • Colour Feature Sheet that visitors can print off
  • Unlimited Property Description Text
  • Apple iPad/iPhone Compatible
  • Fully optimized for search engines
  • Social sharing via Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
  • Google Analytics to track statistics
  • Open House Announcements
  • Integrated blog

We will customize the graphics, the menu, the pages to showcase your listing.

FAQ’S

Who purchases and owns the domain name?

To save you time we will purchase the domain name which will be the listing address. If you already own the domain we will simply point that domain to the listing website.

How long is the single listing website active for?

The fee includes 6 months of hosting. After 6 months the monthly fee is $25.00. All sites are cancelled when the listing is sold unless you instruct us otherwise. You may want to keep it live and refer prospects to it.

How will prospective buyers find my single listing website?

Ideally we will create the website and launch it before the listing is on the MLS which will greatly improve your search results. Regardless every page will be optimized with key search terms, your site map will be submitted to Google Webmasters and we will blog about the site to improve search engine results. You should also advertise the website on your main website, direct mail and in any newspaper ads.

Will I receive updates on visitors to the website?

We will set up a weekly email from Google Analytics to keep you informed.

What if I have an open house or need to change information?

Simply email us the open house date and time or any new information and we will add it to the website?

What do I need to do to get the single property website under way?

Provide floor plans, photos, property description and video for the listing as they become available. We can glean information off of the MLS to get the website under way. We will probably need a photo of you and any branding you can provide. After that we do the rest.  We will also need a credit card for payment.

Here is the sample website:

SIngle Property Website

Here is a live single property listing website using the Ubertor platform.

whistlerakasha_com Single Listing

View Sample Website
Sep 02
Love1

5 Tools To Help Your Real Estate Marketing

By Uncategorized

The key to marketing success lies in focus and consistency — creating a meaningful message and repeating it to those most receptive to it. The following five tools, in no particular order, are a combination of technological time savers and organizational tools to make your marketing programs and client contact easier to manage. Any Realtor will find them useful.

#1 Dropbox

dropboxDropbox is simply a great tool to share documents with others, and store all of the stuff you need to keep. It is called cloud storage and is like having a second hard drive to store documents and photos. It is secure, easy to use and can be a real time saver.

From a client perspective it is a great way for a photographer to provide photos for your listings and in turn you can share listing photos with your clients or website provider. You never have to worry about sending emails that bounce because the attachments are too large.

Instead of filling up the hard drive on your computer with contracts, addenda and other documents of your previously closed deals, they can be stored on a service like Dropbox. You can also use it to sync files between your home PC, office PC and iPad.

If you are getting design work done or printed materials have the designer share proofs and finished material in Dropbox so you can review them from any computer or smartphone and in turn share the folder with anyone else involved.

#2 Evernote

evernoteEvernote is a fantastic tool for information gathering and storage. For a Realtor it can be real time saver and streamline your marketing efforts. You can clip articles, websites, images and content from any website and store it for easy retrieval from any device and any place. Great for gathering content for blog posts.

Keep notes about every conversation in specific client notebooks. Group notes by buyer name in a buyer notebook and keep qualification notes, consultation notes, property tour notes, negotiation notes and transaction notes, as well as all associated documents in one place.

Create a customized property tour including the MLS sheet of all homes customers will preview. Include hyperlinks to the map and a calendar entry for the associated showing times right inside one single note.

Forward all client-related emails directly to your Evernote account for a complete repository of all communications with your buyer over the course of the buying lifecycle in one, easily searchable place.

You can even snap a photo of your handwritten notes and send it to your clients Evernote account for review later.

#3 MailChimp

mailchimpThe MailChimp newsletter program is one of the top email marketing service providers around and it is free up to 12,000 emails to 2,000 subscribers a month. It is used so widely I don’t think anyone ever gives a second thought to the MailChimp branding at the bottom of your emails.  With one of the most complete platforms available MailChimp has proven itself as an extremely useful and effective email marketing provider. It has great analytics for tracking emails. Lots of templates to choose from and importing client information is intuitive.

MailChimp is excellent for “drip” email campaigns where you create a series of four emails that go to your new prospects on a timed basis. After you have met someone add them to the mailing list and the first email can go out the next day. A second email can be sent a few days later explaining more about the service you offer, what you do and inviting them to join your newsletter mailing list.

You can also set up a market update newsletter template that you email monthly to your mailing list just changing the statistics each time, but retaining the same look and feel.

You can create a signup form which you can add to your website to manage newsletter signups. They enter their information and it goes directly into the mailing list.

#4 Google My Business

google my bizFormerly Google Places For Business or Google+ Local, Google My Business is a new platform that makes it easy to manage all of your Google accounts in one place and add in your real estate business hours, photos of your company, and information about your services. This will not only help you get found better through organic searches, but also get more visibility for your Google+ profile.

Setting up Google My Business can easily improve your online presence for real estate by keeping your business information centrally located for Google. And as long as you continue to follow SEO best practices for your real estate website and Google+ page, this will boost your brand awareness and search optimization.

If you want to be found in a Google search for Vancouver Realtor as an example, setting up a Google My Business account is a key step in the process.

#5 Hootsuite

hootsuiteSocial media is now a must-have for good real-estate marketing, and managing your various channels becomes much easier with Hootsuite. Think of it as a dashboard where you can monitor everything going on in your social media accounts and you can post to one or all from one place. It lets you update and keep track of your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media accounts all in one spot — a huge time saver.

Hootsuite is particularly useful for Twitter. With Hootsuite, Twitter users can:

  • Schedule tweets for specific times and dates.
  • Tweet the same content from multiple Twitter accounts, simultaneously.
  • Track retweets and mentions of user-selected hashtags or keywords.
  • Track tweets that mention you or a topic you are interested in on  any or all of your Twitter accounts.

There are many more tools out there, but these are the ones we feel are most practical for most Realtors. If you have any favourites, please share them in the comments below.

Aug 14
Love2

Dedicated Single Condo Building Website

By Marketing Strategy, Realtor Marketing, Website Design

A dedicated single condo building website is the best way to dominate sales in a condo building by projecting yourself as an expert and providing a valuable service to the owners in the building.

Condo buyers often know what building they want to live in and condo sellers are looking for a Realtor with experience selling condos in their building. How do you become the Realtor they call? Set up a website using the Limelight Marketing dedicated condo building platform and watch your search engine rankings soar.

Are you trying to focus your marketing on a specific condo building? Our new unique, customizable dedicated condo building websites are designed to feature a building address and name enabling you to dominate the searches for that building. Buyers will find current listings and sellers will find an expert who knows about the building. Single building websites allow you to showcase the building and provide floor plans, strata minutes, photo gallery, amenities, rental service and much more.

For some cities we can also list all of the current MLS listings* in the building by bedrooms to further enhance your marketing. In today’s media rich world every property for condo building deserves its very own website.

Building Website* Listings available for buildings in Victoria, Vancouver, Fraser Valley, Chilliwack, Northern BC, Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatoon

Aug 07
Love1

Tips for the Ultimate Listing Presentation

By Listing Presentations, Realtor Marketing

Limelight Marketing writes weekly guest blog posts about Realtor Marketing for the Real Estate Weekly website; one of the leading real estate websites in Vancouver. This weeks post was titled Tips For The Ultimate Listing Presentation. Following is a brief summary (as search engines frown on duplicate content). You can read the whole article by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

The blog post is about the three elements of a listing presentation;

  1. The meet and greet
  2. The actual presentation: the three Ps
  3. The physical material you provide

The Meet and Greet is a far more important stage than you might think. The post summarizes research into how important your non-verbal communication is versus what you say and what you present. We also expand on how to improvey our nonverbal communication style?

According to Cindy Stockhaus, a successful listing agent from Jarvis Realty Group in Indiana, there are four keys to creating a personal connection. The 4 main points are:

  1. Mirror and match
  2. Listen
  3. Build commonality
  4. Be genuine

The article goes on to the elements of the actual listing presentation or “The Three Ps”

  1. Prepare with property knowledge
  2. Prepare with accurate market data
  3. Prepare to impress

What should be in your listing presentation?

The first thing to remember is what the seller is thinking as you are presenting:

  1. How much are you going to sell my house for?
  2. When will you sell it?
  3. When do I get my money?

If you are using a “canned” presentation from your broker, your current listing presentation is 90% about you and 10% about selling the home. Check out a recommended general table of contents in a recent blog post for a seller-centric listing presentation:

How will you know if you are on the right track? Your job is to create an environment of trust, respect, and collaboration where your seller feels supported to make the best decision possible… and that decision is to sign your listing agreement.

You can read the whole article by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

Aug 07
Love1

Advertising a Listing? Good Grammar Matters When Selling a House

By Realtor Marketing

A recent study from property firm Redfin has revealed just how damaging bad grammar can be for a listing. In an online survey of 1291 people, 43.4 per cent of respondents said they would be less inclined to attend an open house if the listing featured had spelling mistakes and poor grammar.

Here’s some advice from Refin and Grammarly for writing the perfect property listing:

  • Check for literals as well as spelling errors. A spell check will only pick up a typo, not wrong words that are correctly spelt. Think “walking closet” or ““stainless steal appliances”.
  • Avoid capital letters and exclamation marks. A good description with some beautiful photos should be enough to get buyers’ attention.
  • Break it down into bullet points that are easy to read. Summarise the highlights of the property briefly then list its main features in dot points.
  • Use descriptive sentences and plenty of adjectives to really sell the property to prospective buyers. But be careful not to go overboard.
  • Finally, keep it short. Property-hunters will likely be short on time. The ideal length for a property description, according to the Redfin study, is about 50 words.

Real Estate Weekly in Vancouver recently published an excellent article detailing the top 10 confusing words that they see most often used incorrectly in listings. Here is n image from the post.

confusing-words-for-realtors

They go on to explain the right use and wrong use of all of the words circled above. For example:

principle-rooms-confusing-words-for-realtors

Principle/Principal Should be principal rooms. These are the most important ones, just as the principal is the most important person in a school. Principle is a noun that means an underlying law or assumption, as in, “It’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing.”

Memory Aid For principal rooms, think “princi-palace” or “princi-palatial.”

 

plurals-confusingwords-realtors

Plurals Plurals don’t have apostrophes. When you turn one into more than one, just add the s or es and you’re done. Really. It’s that simple. Those quartz things in the kitchen are countertops.

Memory Aid The plural of apostrophe is apostrophes, with no apostrophe.

Read the entire article by clicking here.

Aug 06
Love1

Shay Mitchell’s Lifestyle Blog Relaunched By Limelight Marketing

By Website Design, Wordpress

We are excited to be a part of the successful launch of the new lifestyle blog for Shay Mitchell, the Pretty Little Liars star and Michaela Blaney. Over the past few months we have been working with Shay and Michaela to introduce a new, fresh look. While Shay and Michaela had the vision we had the expertise to bring it to digital reality.

The new look uses a scalable WordPress theme and we added all of the bells and whistles to make it ecommerce ready.  Amore & Vita is the go-to lifestyle, fashion and beauty tip resource for young women.

During a People Magazine Style Watch interview Shay talks about the vision “As for the name, which translates to “love and life,” Mitchell says it was an easy pick. “They’re words I live by. Our site is mostly our experiences continuing along the same vision as the first blog: lifestyle, travel, health, beauty and fashion —[just with a more current, fresher and revamped look,” she says.

“I’m sharing everything, from my experiences sitting at home checking out a new bikini line to having fans weigh in on a red carpet look. I want to get feedback, have help selecting what dress to choose [for an event],” she says. “The clothes we feature won’t be extraordinary — affordable, mix and match of high and low price points.”

Shay Mitchell and Michaela Blaney - Amore and Vita

Jul 30
Love1

Social Media for Realtors: How to Use the Key Platforms

By Realtor Marketing, SEO, Social Media

Limelight Marketing writes weekly guest blog posts about Realtor Marketing for the Real Estate Weekly website; one of the leading real estate websites in Vancouver. This weeks post was titled Social Media for Realtors: How to Use the Key Platforms. Following is a brief summary. You can read the whole article by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

Where do you start?

Facebook

Facebook is good for interacting with people on a more personal level, so it is useful for real estate. You can use your personal page, but a separate business page is recommended to keep your personal life separate.

Twitter

Compared with the lifespan of a Facebook post, where 75% of engagement occurs within the first five hours, a tweet has a life span of about 18 minutes.

YouTube

Posting a video of a listing on YouTube works the best for exposure.

Instagram

This is purely visual – showcase your listings by adding key photos to Instagram.

Pinterest

People will see your pictures, re-post them and provide free traffic to your website.

LinkedIn

Building a network of potential buyers and sellers is difficult on LinkedIn, but within the real estate industry, LinkedIn can serve as a means to participate in community discussions with fellow professionals and those interested in real estate.

Google+

Google+ is the second largest social media network behind Facebook.

You can read the whole article by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

 

 

Jul 23
Love1

SEO for Realtors: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

By SEO

Limelight Marketing writes weekly guest blog posts about Realtor Marketing for the Real Estate Weekly website; one of the leading real estate websites in Vancouver. This weeks post was titled SEO for Realtors: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Following is a brief summary. You can read the whole article by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

The “Good” Things to Do for SEO

Blogging: Blogging is one of the most important tasks you can undertake.

Sitemap: Make sure your sitemap is submitted to Google Webmasters.

Analytics: Set up your Google Analytics so you can monitor visitors to your website and their activities while visiting.

Page titles/descriptions: Add page titles and descriptions using keywords and phrases that best describe the communities you work in and the types of real estate you sell.

The “Bad” Things Not to Do

Hiring an SEO amateur: Employing an amateur to optimize your website is like hiring your neighbour’s teenage son who is taking a high-school auto mechanic course to fix the brakes on your family car.

Duplicating content: Buying content for your website runs the risk of the content being duplicated across many websites and Google will penalize your ranking.

The “Ugly” Things to Avoid

Unnatural links: Buying links from unknown websites was popular a few years ago, but recent Google algorithm changes actually punish websites that have “unnatural links” coming in to a website.

Believing the marketing hype: Falling for SEO claims to get your website on page one is like believing in the tooth fairy.

Read more by visiting the REW website by clicking here.

 

Jul 22
Love1

The 8 R’s of Client Relationship Marketing for Realtors

By Marketing Strategy, Realtor Marketing

You have heard of the 4 P’s of marketing; product, price, place and promotion, but have you ever considered the 8 ways you can interact with clients and prospects to build your business?

R1 – Revitalization and Renewal

How to revitalize your value proposition with new services, sharper differentiation and premium pricing. Do you need a new look? Do you need to redefine your products and services?

R2 – Retention

How to hold onto your existing high profit, repeat business and high referral clients. Stay in touch programs.

R3 – Reacquisition

How to win back your inactive and lost clients. Getting back in touch through phone calls, emails, letters or newsletters.

R4 – Referrals

How to woo profitable prospects by networking with the right people. Ensuring your clients know your business relies on referrals and you will make them look great in the eyes of the person referred.

R5 – Regeneration

How to rebuild and grow your client base with precision marketing. Again this can be through newsletters, personal mail or phone calls.

R6 – Rainmaking

How to target and win new high-profit loyal clients. Using networking, seminars, face to face meetings. Any way and any place you can hand out business cards. Social events, sponsorships etc

R7 – Related Sales

How to grow revenues and margins by up-selling and cross-selling. If they bought from you once they are more likely to buy from you again. Is there a complementary service or product you can offer?

R8 – Reputation Building

How to brand your business to attract premium clients and customers.

Please email us at info@limelightmarketing.ca or call us at 800-568-8338 to discuss how Limelight Marketing can assist you with any of these 8 client relationship strategies.

Jul 08
Love0

Real Estate Websites and Social Media

By Social Media, Website Design

Your website is your brand. It is how you represent yourself and your business. It is where you present your listings, accolades and client testimonials as well as a fountain of knowledge for buyers and sellers. Unfortunately in a profession like real estate, it is important to have an esthetically pleasing site but even MORE important to have a well optioned site also. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be your number one priority because without it – you will be lost in the sea of Google pages.

Like you would stage a house to sell, you need to also stage your site properly. Make it user friendly with links to help the “not so world wide web” familiar customers easily navigate the information presented to them. Also make it easy for them to find your listings as about 80 – 90% of your visits are to your listings.

With these two things to consider – invest your marketing budget in continuous Search Engine Optimization (SEO), continuous website development and treat your real estate website as YOUR prime realty!

Capitalize On Your Existing Clientele

Though an existing client isn’t always ready to immediately buy again they are also your most valuable sales force. One happy buyer or seller will lead to a future buyer or seller. Not to mention, word of mouth and happy customers will create a broader customer database. Return clients are the BEST clients so focus on the existing ones to ensure the best customer service…it will serve you well.

That being said, whilst you nurture your existing relationships, the new customers will be doing their due diligence which is where the importance of SEO and Site staging will come full circle.

Let’s get started with some revenue generating tips:

Local SEO

The good thing about the real estate industry? Doing local SEO is easy.

The bad thing about the real estate industry? It’s so easy, a lot of realtors forget to do it.

The number one place to start is getting set up on Google Places for Business.

Some things to consider:

  • Local Reviews on social platforms such as Yelp
  • Local city directories
  • Trusted Service referrals
  • Email newsletters
  • Donate to local community initiatives
  • Volunteer your time in some way in the community
  • Piggyback on local events and sponsorship

Social Media

Social Media is excellent for creating a community. Find interesting articles, real estate updates, home decor, local news etc with appropriate hash tags to gain a following. Don’t forget to include all of your social platform links on your website. The world runs on social media and it is a good idea to jump on this bandwagon because it is an important tool that isn’t going anywhere

Twitter

  • Twitter can be a great way to let everyone know about an open house, a reduced price listing, a new listing – anything at all.
  • Use it to link back to your site to gain traffic, use appropriate hashtags (#OpenHouse) and invite people you know using their appropriate handle.
  • Interact with your followers and ask questions or for their opinion…form that community!

Facebook

  • Facebook is good for interacting with people on a more personal level, so it can be very useful for real estate.
  • Post photos, ask questions, reply to all inquiry’s.
  • Treat all communication like a personal conversion and educate everyone else who may come across the post.

Instagram

  • This is ALL visual – showcase the excellent and beautiful elements of your listings.
  • Create a well curated and album of all your clients listings.
  • Tag appropriately and try to post often to create a beautiful display of all your listings – it will be a plus to your clients

Pinterest

  • Don’t just use this to push a sale – use it to become an expert in design, DIY, real estate, decor and anything home related.
  • People will see your pictures, re-post them, and provide free traffic to your website.

YouTube

  • Posting a video of a listing works. If you have ever searched for a house by address and the Realtor has a video of the house it is almost always on page 1 in the first 5 results. Google will rank your video higher than your web page.
  • After uploading your video to Youtube you can also take the embed code and add it to your website.
  • Remember to provide a long description full of keywords and add as many Tags as you can think of.

Website Blogging and Content

You can really stand out among your competition with a well thought out, keyword-rich real estate blog. If you are trying to attract people moving to your city when people buy a house that is far outside of their previous residency zone, they usually immediately need the following:

  1. Information about local schools, daycares, universities.
  2. Information about summer camps.
  3. Information about prospective employment.
  4. Information about entertainment.
  5. Information about sports, music classes, art, and dance.

Think about the kind of information that you search for with regards to where you live and what you do around there, and write about it. Think about questions that people have that deal with where they live:

  • Which restaurants have outdoor seating? Which ones are within walking distance?
  • Are there any good outdoor camps for my kids this summer? What’s the transportation situation for them?
  • Where can we see a professional ballet performance or a play that’s geared towards preschoolers?
  • What are the options we have for my children when they go to high school? Are there early college programs available?

BECOME AN EXPERT IN YOUR COMMUNITY!

The Most Important Blog Posts You Can Write

While blogging about mortgages, renovations and home care tips is nice and may attract a few people interested in advice the most effective real estate blog post is writing about what buyers and sellers are searching for. A blog post titled “New Listings of Homes For Sale in Anytown” will attract all of the early buyers who are “tire kicking” on the internet. Writing a blog post titled “Anytown Homes For Sale From Your Anytown Realtor” will help you get found if someone is looking for a Realtor in a specific area. Even “Anytown Recent Sales and Market Update” is a great way to attract visitors.

A Few Other Website Tips To Consider

  1. Your title and description should look good in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
  2. If you have other social platforms that you use, put that on the home page.
  3. Make sure your site works on mobile!
  4. If you have an open house advertised on your site, list the hours.
  5. If you only sell houses in one area, list it in the title and description of your site.
  6. If someone has given you a bad review on Yelp or any other site, respond to it. Make things right if you can.
  7. If you sell houses in 1,000 different cities, don’t list links to those 1,000 cities in the footer of every single page of your website.

Just like with food, houses are something that people (usually) want to buy. You aren’t trying to sell a product that no one wants. You’re trying to make sure that the people who want to buy something are finding you and buying it from you.

Making heavy use of visuals without forgetting the basics or neglecting social media is key – visuals alone won’t be worth much when your competitors are doing all the other stuff better than you.

Michaela Blaney

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