Internet Marketing Rss Feed

MLS Policy is Crushing Innovation

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:40:00 GMT

Learn the promise and the betrayal of technology and the user experience by the major MLS systems.

Why are they working so hard to limit clients access to data and stifle technological developments.

When web templates are a good thing

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:33:00 GMT

Templates suck.

Isn't that what people say?

That must be why there are so many template sites out there.

Let's face it, marrying cross browser compatible code with good design is not something that you can't whip together in an afternoon.

It's one of the reasons that we designed our suites the way we did, so that we didn't have to make things from scratch everytime.

That's what computers are for right?

To take the tedium out of our jobs and hopefully lower the cost right?

So... here's the deal.

Want to customize one of our suites and make it look great?

You could spend a few thousand dollars to hammer through a bunch of revisions.

Or ... you could choose a base template you like, and tweek it out with some of your own pictures, colors and elements.

Don't use it AS IS ... but it doesn't mean you can't take advantage of making less work of it all (and less cost of course)

Pick any template on Dream Template and we can skin it to your suite for you often for just a few hundred dollars.

Add the $60 you pay for the subscription and you can download any one you want (hell, grab a few and lets get some holiday specific themes in there for you so you can flip between them whenever you feel like it).

The Argument(s) For An Open Source Real Estate Listing Service

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:00:00 GMT

There are many arguments on both sides of this issue, what do you think about an open source listing service for the real estate industry.

Leverage Social Media

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:58:00 GMT

Is social media taking up too much time?

Have you got a successful strategy?

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr ... the base updates

Friendfeed, delicious, last.fm, upcoming, qik ... the channel updates

Vimeo, bambuser, foursquare, craigslist, meetup... how many updates are you doing?

Social media has 2 sides, the intended social networking of bringing like minded people together as well as the second ...

Building links back to your site and growing your popularity in the search engines (also known as SEO).

We've talked before about keeping social media relevant to the topic that your user subscribed to...

Now lets talk about getting some leverage with your social media.

First off, look for leverage wherever you can.

More and more sites can "retweet" things, or 'post to your wall' ... use this leverage wherever you can.

One trick that I recommend is to use FriendFeed to automate reposting your blog, videos and other content (flickr? videos? you can hook up all sorts of feeds) to place like Twitter and Facebook.

The other type of leverage that I'd like to talk about is the kind you get by being the center of the community (as you would with a LiveIn Site).

What if you could own facebook?

What if you ran a social network and other people were doing that content creation for you?

That's the idea behind our neighborhood websites, they get the community talking and with every new voice, your popularity and presence in the community is growing... and so is your popularity in the search engines.

With the LiveIn Sites, you can leverage community participation while providing a community service and becoming a trusted local expert.

You didn't want to be a writer, film maker and a journalist did you?

Let other people do the content creation for you.

Our sites reward visitors with points for participation. There are also ways for them to make money by promoting pro memberships, ebooks and other products, by becoming a Community Ambassador.

If you would like more information about how you can start a livein site in your neighborhood, fill out our free quote form or contact us.

Marketing Power Using Online Video

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:53:00 GMT

Using video for SEO is a great way to get found quickly online.

You can shortcut a ton of link back activities with a couple of well titled videos that then link to the appropriate page on your website.

Don't be afraid to use redirects to make nice looking URL's that are easy to remember and shorter to link to in the youtube description box.

This video shows you how I get my listings ranked in the search engines in just minutes by using videos and links back to our sites.

I seriously suggest you give the free trial at Animoto a try, it's a really easy tool to use to make videos from pictures and stills, perfect to leverage your photo's, floor plans and other media resources into a video format quickly and cost effectively, which you can then use for SEO

How to Domainate Local, Real Time Searches

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:02:00 GMT

I've got a killer report that I've created that shows you step by step, what you need to do to instantly dominate the search engines using "REAL TIME LOCAL SEARCH".

With just a few tweeks, you can automate your social media posting and take control of Google by harnessing their latest formulas in your favor.

Here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to trade it with you for some simple information.

Take 2 minutes to answer these simple questions and I'll GIVE YOU my report for free ... I don't even want your email address (though that would be nice)

Thanks for your insight

Live Mobile Video Blogging From Real Estate Connect 2010

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:17:00 GMT

Mobile Video Blogging From Inman Connect 2010

I've been playing with this new app for my phone called "bambuser", it's pretty cool it lets you do live broadcasting from your phone, direct to the web.

There's feature with the site which lets you setup an event, and then people can join it with their mobiles as well, if there are multiple broadcasters at the event, users can choose different camera views and switch between the multiple camera views.

Since we're going to the Inman Real Estate Connect 2010 show in New York in January, we thought that it would be a good place to hook up with some other tech savvy bloggers that would play along with a multi camera live streaming of the show.

If you're planning to go, download their app and lets try to have a multiple camera feeds from the event... it'll be fun

The event channel is located here: http://bambuser.com/node/492335
Signup if you're going to be at the event and would like to play with some mobile video blogging

Always be closing (ABC)

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:45:00 GMT

First prize is a Cadillac
Second prize is a set of steak knives
Third prize is "you're fired".

The famous Glengarry Glen Ross speech is a classic that really does a good job of laying out the basics.

A = Attention

I = Interest

D = Decision

A = Action

The more I do the internet marketing thing, the more that I realize it's exactly the same as any other sales channel.

You know what it takes to sell real estate?

Brass Balls (love that line)

Don't be afraid to ask for the close, push for the decision, make them take action.

If I give you leads from our community websites, I want to know that they're going to closers.

Are you a closer?

We want you closing our leads

Close more leads with a LiveIn site of your own.

We'll be at Real Estate Connect

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:37:00 GMT

StrataXL is going to New York City!

We've been selected as a Start-up Alley paticipant at this year's Real Estate Connect Conference.

Every year the most innovative, best and brightest in real estate technology and marketing from throughout north america attend this conference. It's an honor for us to be participating and we are thrilled to be showcasing our network of community based websites at this year's event.

The list of high-powered speakers is just too long for my blog, but it includes the founders of Craig's List, Trulia, Zillow, and many other Real Estate Innovators. For a complete list click here.

In preparation for the conference we will be fast-tracking some awesome upgrades and features, so stay tuned to the LiveInSites for details!

Real Estate Focused Community Websites

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:33:00 GMT

StrataXL Builds Real Estate Focused Community Websites for real estate brokerages, agents, buildings and developers.

We build social media enabled websites that help get neighbors talking.

Our sites encourage community participation by providing engagement tools like blogs, comments and rankings.

These sites generate leads, build brand engagement and serve as passive marketing channels.

If you are a brokerage, a developer or a progressive real estate agent looking for ways to leverage social media and the internet to grow your business, we'd like to speak with you.

When No Name is Better Than Name Brand

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:19:00 GMT

Rick talks about reselling his real estate business in the future and why he likes the fact that the LiveIn sites don't promote a specific real estate agent.

Have you thought about reselling your real estate business?

Have you bought someone else's business?

What tangible assets are there after the "black book" has traded hands?

Is there more than good will attached to the name in a real estate business?

Getting Real Estate Leads From The Internet

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:13:00 GMT

Rick Stonehouse has been in the real estate game for quite some time, never one to follow the heard, he got off direct mailers and other forms of print marketing a long time ago.

Over the last 4 years, Rick has poured all of his marketing money into the internet and developing a series of sales funnels that drive traffic to him.

In this video, Rick talks about how the web in general has made his job easier, not just from the point of view of marketing, but also from the point of view of how educated his clients are now without having to come to him for every little detail.

What are you doing to build your online business? Tell us in the comments below.

Web Marketing Platform Tour

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:40:00 GMT

Is it time to update your web technology?

Are you ranking at the top of the search engines for your area?

Join Web Strategy and SEO expert Riel Roussopoulos as he walks through best practices for website technology.

How to use on and off site blogs to improve your SEO
Social Engagement tools, are your visitors engaging with you?
Social Marketing Automation

If you're looking for a platform that can help you grow your business online, you won't want to miss our live webcast.

For more info on times and dates.
Visit: Agentxl.com/live

Free Website Trial

You can install a free trial of our agentXL platform. There is no credit card, no auto billing, no restrictions. It's a 60 day trial as a subdomain. If you like it and want to map your domain name to it, we can start billing you from that point on.

Vic Jang on Real Estate Marketing

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:55:00 GMT

Vic has been in the real estate business for many years and recently stepped down as managing broker at Sutton West Coast.

We spoke with Vic recently about our community marketing strategy specifically and more generally about the social media and online marketing trends that he's seeing in the industry.

This is a short piece that we took from the longer interview, but it's a great one for laying down the new rules of the game when it comes to personal branding and real estate marketing in general.

I asked Vic what has changed in how agents market themselves and what would he say to someone just starting out.

Tips on Curb Apeal for your listings

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:48:00 GMT

I'm trying to be nice here, but it's one of those things where I really wonder what people are thinking.

The Curb appeal is pretty important when you're listing a home, here's a good example of things you'd like to avoid.

Leading Tribes | Internet Marketing | Seth Godin

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:06:00 GMT

Seth Godin is a well known marketer who recently published a book called Tribes.

It's well put, but not a new idea. We've seen grass roots movements and other such influences over the years that have moved everything from policy changes to products.

The cult of Mac being my favorite example of a high tech tribe.

I digress ... the point being that leading a tribe .. .building a community... being the connector is the way marketing is going.

As you know, this is very much in line with the direction that we've been going with our community websites.

Have a listen to his speech at TED, it's good food for thought.

Seth Godin published a new blog post that I thought really summed up what I've been trying to communicate with agents, but in a much more effective way. (That's where the whole "internationally renown author and speaker" stuff starts to show I guess)

He speaks about the change of the relationship between marketers and audience, how it's moving from renting the audience from the media company, to owning your own publishing platform and audience.

He singled out real estate agents in particular in one of his analogies and here's what he said.

"Consider the local real estate agent. She can spend to run ads every week in the local paper, or she can use the same money to start a legitimate media channel, a digital magazine, say, one that cheers on the school and gives the local paper a run for its money. And oh yes, the only houses listed for sale are hers. It might take a lot of work and even some money. But what does she get? A platform forever."

Read Seth's Full Post Here

In an earlier post about the results of building a community network for Rick, I outline the growth effect that it's had on his business. The interesting thing to note is that while the title is "40% Increase in Business, Not a Dime In Advertising" it's not entirely accurate.

As in most marketing, a catchy headline is good to get your message read.

In reality Rick has spent a ton on developing this platform and evolving the concept. So while it's true to say that he hasn't paid any money to traditional media advertising, he's spent that marketing budget on building out his own platform with multiple income streams and in multiple communities.

Looking at the date, it's very clear that while the first year or so was nothing to get excited about, as we've continued, the revenue has also been growing at an exponential rate.

Clearly, the investment in building his own platform and connecting with the community will continue to pay off exponentially as the years go on.

Rather than his advertising ROI staying constant, year after year it costs less to market himself as he's moved from a "New Client Acquisition" model, to an "Inside list" model, where his clients are already on his list and part of his circle of influence and thus much more targeted and cheaper to reach than trying to acquire new clients through costly ongoing media buys (paper / ppc / bus ads ... you name it)

Looking to build your platform? We can help.

Talk To Us

How to video blog

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:29:00 GMT

This is a short video that I made using Jing on how to configure a button.

Hope you enjoy.

Pricing Options for Livein Profiles

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:48:00 GMT

Many of you know that i've been growing our community sites here in Vancouver.

We've added the ability for other agents to list themselves and show their properties in the websites, this means that a true representation of the area can be made.

The free level allows you to set up a profile on the site and start your own blog.

There is a paid level also which gives you more benefits (outlined here: http://liveinmyneighbourhood.com/upgrade-now#agents

I'd love your feedback in this short form on both our pricing and the features offered in terms of value and if you'd consider something like this if it was available in your area.

List Building Techniques | Real Estate Marketing

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:08:00 GMT

List building is a part of every marketers job, and real estate agents are ultimately marketers.

As the old saying goes, the money is in the list.

See the video as I explain to you the concept and you'll see how a little bribe can go a long way.

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Signed up to get your Free Private Label Rights report "Everything you need to know about home inspections". Use it today to build your list.

You can buy the full package of 4 PLR audio and reports:

Suck Highly Targeted Leads In Like A Shop Vac

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:53:00 GMT

Watch this video and see how I can get 100's of new leads in just minutes.

Finally get the power of the web working for you, this tool will ferret out new buyers and listings for you like nothing I've seen before.

Order Lead Magnet Now

This is strong stuff, you need to be careful how you use such a powerful tool. So much so that I'm going to send you a side product, a report that shows you how to get the most out of this tool and how to keep yourself out of trouble.

Watch this video it's got all the gory details on how you can use it to get a ton of new leads in your sales funnel. You'll need a towel to mop up the drool you're going to have all over your keyboard when you get a load of this :)

You can order the product here:

The Real Estate Agent From Hell

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 30 May 2009 00:57:00 GMT

Thought this was pretty funny, this would be the agent from hell.

There was a part that hit me though towards the end. He's talking about tire kickers.

How would you handle this differently?

Eco Friendly Open House Opt In Forms

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:44:00 GMT

This is the first time that we've done this but I think it worked pretty well.

We'll improve it in coming open houses, but building in an auto responder with the area info, listing details and comparable area listings, sent to their email address, proved to be a good idea.

It's ecologically more responsible and at the same time it encourages our mailing list to grow, so it's good on multiple fronts.

Here is the video I shot that outlines the benefits (and weaknesses) of the system.

Additionally, we had a live stream happening using ustream.tv - I recorded it and got the following video footage. The only drawback was that we did not have functioning audio on the laptop I was using, so therefore it has no sound unfortunately... oh well, next time.

How to make forms on your website using Google Docs

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 09 May 2009 07:44:00 GMT

This is a short post where I'll show you how I put this form together using google docs.

It's not a real job, so please don't apply.

There is a video below that shows the process.

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Commissions vs Referrals - Which is better?

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 03 May 2009 20:50:00 GMT

Advertising vs Referral commissions.

Take a minute to fill in our survey and see what people think.

Twitter Automation Tools

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:09:00 GMT

If any of you have followed my twitter feed, you'll notice that fairly soon after, I follow you back.

This is with the help of a little automation help from a great piece of software.

In addition to automating my follows, it can schedule tweets for me, and provides keyword reports about my brands and interests so I keep abreast of tweets that are of interest to me.

I have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending this service, you should check it out

Rem20.com/likes/tweetlater

Return on Investment on a Community Website

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:50:00 GMT

Of course this would be dependent on what area you are selling real estate in but here in Vancouver the numbers work out something like this.

We've been struggling with a monthly recurring fee and in the end, compared to the expected return on investment it's really a non issue.

By paying a monthly fee, you're ensured of fresh content and link building is done on your behalf. Without this type of ongoing marketing and development the site would not generate the leads desired so it just makes sense to provide it as a built in service and not leave it up to each agent to do, since in the end, that's really our expertise, not the agents.

We all benefit from the added exposure and having the referral fee ensures that we are promoting these sites as hard as we can since in the end, we benefit proportionally from how well the sites are doing.

The following assumptions are extremely low. In reality we've been very conservative as the sites we have up now are already performing better than this as it is.

What do Agents want from a web marketing company?

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Always interested in what agents are looking for, please take a minute to answer these questions for me.

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ReTweet Contest

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:56:00 GMT

Retweet Give Away | Get a Report on how to dominate google local search just for following.

Work Less and Make More with Internet Leads

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:20:00 GMT

This video is an interview with Rick where he outlines the ways that the internet has changed his business and made it easier to do his job.

New Leads Keep Coming

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:24:00 GMT

There have been several new leads that have come in of late from the livein sites. We have not really started to do any specific marketing for them, this site (commercial drive house for sale) specifically has not been marketed and is delivering results based on search engine ranking alone.

Watch this video to see what I'm talking about.

Remember we are selling a very limited number of Livein sites:
Make sure you get the details here:

Big Announcement Coming For Vancouver Agents

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:51:00 GMT

3 years in the making and our community software is almost ready for a release.

We're going to have a "LIFE TIME LICENSE" sale for a very limited release of names.

What's this? Simple, you pay one price, and then you never pay again. For Life.

No hosting, no monthly, no traffic charges... we'll eat it all for one low price.

I'll be releasing more info soon about this one of a kind opportunity to pay one fee and get free hosting for life and a very valuable piece of software to help grow your business.

First let me give you a little history here:

Next thing you'll want to do is read the deal here:

Live In Sites For Sale - Very Limited Quantity

Example of Bad Pay Per Click Marketing

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:42:00 GMT

I hate to pick on people .. but I had to point this out as a waste of money.

Facebook and google adwords can be good traffic sources to get people to your listings, but you have to know how to do it right.

Always create a landing page with a contact / register for more info ... if you can give them a freebie for signing up for your newsletter or something .. just don't send them blindly to your home page and hope for the best.

Might as well print door hangers and give them to some kid in the neighbourhood to put them up (read: in the garbage) for you.

Here's a guy who "gets it"

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:22:00 GMT

Watch this video about local real estate agent Ian Watt and how he markets himself using online tools.

This is a guy who "get it"

If you'd like to replicate what he's doing... read our book and get on the list at YourFarmer.com

Give Free Advertising

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 03:04:00 GMT

Watch this video where I outline how our system works and how we've been promoting it to grow it.

This is early stage, but very happy with the overall success and reaction.

Move the Free Line as Eban says.

Links we talk about in this video are : http://LiveInMyNeighbourhood.com & http://XLsuite.com

How Real Estate Has Changed

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:22:51 GMT

How Has Real Estate Marketing Changed?

Dominate Google With Social Marketing

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:52:00 GMT

This is one of those simple things that can have a dramatic effect on your rankings.

You can download my report on Social Media Marketing for a detailed list of social bookmarking sites

Delicious has since added "no follow" tags which devalue the links you make back to your site, however this doesn't change the fact that the strategy works like a charm.

I've also found a tool that makes bookmarking on multiple sites a LOT easier. Have a look at BookMarking Daemon, it'll save you a ton of time and is well worth the low cost of the software.

If you fail at first... Try again

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:37:00 GMT

Seems like simple advice doesn't it?

I know it sounds simple but how many of us do it?

It's so easy to simply walk away and focus on something else when you don't get immediate success, but in the end where does that leave you?

Watch this video, if this guy with no arms and no legs doesn't inspire you, check your pulse... I think you're dead.

If he can do it, so can you... get back up and try again.

Advertise your blog by joining communities

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:18:00 GMT

Something that you will find, especially if you join something like LiveJournal, Jing, ActiveRain, Inman, or linkedIn is that users just like you have created communities for people with common interests.

There are communities for just about any subject, and if you find that there isn’t a community for the subject you can create one.

These are great places to advertise your blog.

The nice thing about communities is that there isn’t any limit as to how many communities that you can join.

For example, say that you love blogging about books, real estate marketing, and skiing in the Rockies. All you have to do is look through the communities for ones that have those interests and join them.

As long as you post something on topic of the chosen community, people will see you many will check out your personal blog. (make sure you put a link to it when you set up your profile).

Something to remember is that you don’t want to write a post that is one sentence long in order to get people to go to your blog. They will want to know that what you write is interesting and is something worth reading.

Joining communities can be a great way to advertise your blog and to drive traffic to it. If you are referring to something that you posted about on your blog, you can use a link back to your entry in your post.

Twittering about your new blog posts and communities that you join is also a good way to get more attention to what you're doing online.

As with posting comments on someone else’s blog, you don’t want people to think that you joined a community simply to get traffic. Otherwise, people won’t visit your blog and you may get banned from the community as well.

Make sure that you actually participate in the communities that you join, take some time to help others and answer questions, otherwise you'll be branded a spammer.

Live feed from your Open House

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:21:00 GMT

Here's a great technology that makes it simple to hold a live video conference.

http://ustream.tv

I had a few ideas about how you could use this to get more exposure including hosting a live telecast about market conditions, making a show out of local updates (read the new listings every morning if nothing else) and of course the best application I can think of for this would be to actually broadcast live from your open house.

Talk about adding value to your services in the eyes of your clients, and a great way to increase your personal branding.

Viral Listings Report

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 20:30:00 GMT

10 ways to make your real estate listings go viral

In today's market, you need to take advantage of every opportunity you can get to gain more awareness for your name. One of the most tried and true forms of advertising your name and real estate listings is in the Newspapers or magazines.

You know the type of ad, you buy a half page or a full page ad and put your banner at the top with your photo and contact information, then below, you stick 6 to 10 listings that you are currently promoting.

You pay them for the ad space, regardless of if it actually results in a sale, and lets face it, aren't you really doing that for your client? So you can show them “just what you're doing to promote their listings?”

What if you didn't have to pay for your advertising until it actually made you some money?

That's what Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) advertising is all about. Paying not for eyeballs or clicks, but for solid sales. Obviously it's worth more to you to have a client in hand, over simply another person glancing at your advertising message and not purchasing anything.

That's where the idea for ViralListings.com came from.

Let's apply the same affiliate marketing concepts to your real estate business, give a commission to people who drive business to you. Besides just giving them a commission, don't forget that you're also adding real estate listings to their site, free content that people like and that they don't have to maintain themselves will also help their site be more interesting.

So with no further ado, here are 10 places that you can put your listings to get more exposure.

- search for local bloggers, particularly community bloggers and offer to put your listings on their site

- talk to the local business improvement association and put a page on their site

- talk to the chamber of commerce about adding listings to their site

- talk to the local newspaper about adding listings to their site

- talk to the church about adding listings to their site

- start a new community website and put your listings on it

- offer your listings page to the community center and put them on their site

- get your mortgage professional to add listings to their page

- get together with various networking groups and offer your listing to members to place on their sites

- any one who is involved in your value chain: movers, insurance agents, roofers, contractors, landscapers... they're all possible affiliates for you.

Auto Follow Twitter Tool

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:42:00 GMT

If you're not using twitter yet ... start now!!!

If you are, you should check out this tool to set up an AUTO FOLLOW on twitter.

That way, whenever someone follows you on twitter, you can follow them back (good for growing your business, don't bother if you're just tweeting about when you take a shower).

The site is Tweetlater.com

Here's a video on how to set it up

Yellow Pages Advertising Fading Fast

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:41:00 GMT

This post about the yellow pages "bleeding more money into online advertising" caught my eye this morning.

"Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like ReachLocal and Yodle. Factors like an acceleration of the print "fade rate" and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught."

This is in line with what I've been seeing in real estate marketing as well, and tells me that it's no different in other businesses. The use of print advertising in it's various forms is dying and that rate at which it's dying is increasing year over year.

If you're reading this post, most likely you already know this and you're one of the ones that is already doing something about it. If you're not, then you need to start thinking about how you're going to drive business to you in 2009 because likely it won't be the same way you've been driving business to yourself in past years.

So... Do you still use the Yellow Pages? I'm curious how many people still use the yellow pages in their marketing plan and how many of you have completely given up on this archaic form of marketing. If you are still using it, I'm guessing you're not still getting the results you were a few years ago.

Blog, list yourself in online directories, comment on other peoples blogs, become the local expert on your community, publish articles about your industry, if you are going to spend money on advertising do it in pay per click and CPM deals on larger portal sites that have mass traffic appeal already...

Make sure you're able to track your ads and the traffic they generate so you can see what kind of return you're getting from your ad spend.

This is all stuff that the yellow pages can not offer you and things you should expect from your advertising in this day and age. Let's face it, that era is already over, it's time to do things more effectively, more cost efficiently and get more predictable results.

I value your comments, please tell me how you're marketing yourself in 2009.

Free Review Copy Of My New Book | Real Estate Marketing 2.0

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:19:00 GMT

I am going to give away some pre release copies of my new book - Real Estate Marketing 2.0

I've written a new book on Real Estate Marketing 2.0

It's packed with tips that I've learned over the last few years working in the business.

I'm planning to sell the book, but I'd like to offer you a review copy.

Here's the catch though.

You need to provide me with a quality testimonial
(assuming you like it of course)

So, I'll give you my new book, you give me a testimonial that I can use on the website and in my promotions

Register below with your name and email, then return to this page and refresh, the download link will show itself then.

Besides the value of the information in the book, The added perk is that it'll give you some added exposure for your site as well and give you some extra exposure.

How did the LiveIn sites come about

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:53:00 GMT

This is a brief history of where the idea for the "LiveIn" websites came from.

Our Revenue Share Model

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:57:00 GMT

In the end, it's really all about "what's in it for me" right? Let's get into the nitty gritty details.

Besides the fact that you'll be growing your presence and your reputation in the community, skyrocketing up the google ranking and getting real estate leads that convert at an unheard of rate... You'll also have several revenue generating methods built into the community website itself. Both onsite in the form of featured directory upgrades, paid link lists and onsite advertising, you'll also have the ability to profit nicely off of our web services as well.

Here are the details of how we see breaking down the revenue model with our hosting service.

Revenue Share Model

This is an outline of how we give realtors the incentive to go out and sell websites for us while they are building their profile within the community

Simultaneously we offer incentives to graphic designers to contribute templates to the template engine as their designs will be used by multiple store in multiple cities, thereby encouraging them to contribute better and better templates.

We're hoping to create competition amongst the designers and stimulate more submissions as a result.

Be the expert in your community

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:52:00 GMT

Take a look at how easy we make it for you to be the local area expert.

Press the arrows to flip through the slide show.

Don't Sell, just provide information

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:01:00 GMT

Real estate marketing does not have to be an "in your face" thing. There are many ways to work your way into people's awareness. Try to find ones that don't involve making them call you for information.

Website TuneUp

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:19:00 GMT

If your website was a car, you'd want to put some oil in it at this time of year, and make sure you've got all weather tires on it for the coming season.

Bring us in for a
SEASONAL WEBSITE TUNE UP.

We'll take her for a spin, listen for clunking sounds, and give you some suggestions on how you could get your website purring like a new Ferrari.

Our 12 point inspection includes:

Keyword Review
Back Link Check
Page Rank Check
Sales Funnel Test
Copy Writing Review
Onsite Optimization Suggestions
Offsite Optimization Suggestions
New Revenue Discovery
New Media Fuel Injection
Social Media Strategy Session
Analytics Observations and Insights
Personalized Traffic Strategies for your website

We'll take a walk through your website and record everything that we see and do, to give you a first person perspective on what we think can be done to push your baby into high gear.

You will get:

Thorough screencast review video of your website.
Separate screencast video walkthrough of your analytics or web stats
List of actionable items you can do to improve your current results including.
Traffic Building strategies
Link Building Strategies
Social Media Strategies
Monitization Ideas

---------------------------------------
This is a combination of our Website Review service - $297
and our Discovery and Strategy Sessions for which we regularly charge $497
Total value on the package is $794.00
----------------------------------------

Take Action quickly

If you're first to act, you'll get it for just $97 - sold out
For the next 5 clients it will cost just: $197 - 3 left
For the next 5 clients that act: $297
For the LAST 10 clients: $497

Last?
Yes, you read it right...

we put a lot of energy and time into these reviews so we are limiting this offer to the first 21 people that take action.

......... $97 GONE!

BONUS:
We'll also give you a copy of our latest social media reports
Dominate Local Google Search ($27 value)
Squidoo Marketing 101 ($47 value)

Sold on SellFM and Our Real Estate Marketing Tools

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Rick sold one of his listings in record time and the owners credit his strategy and cutting edge tools. Nice for us.

Google Docs Explained

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:00:00 GMT

I love these guys, common craft is great at explaining things in simple, easy to understand terms.

They have a great show you should check out called The Common Craft Show.

With no further ado, I'd like you to see this simple explanation which does a much better job of explaining why google docs ROCKS... and why I get all my clients to switch over to google apps as part of our AgentXL marketing suite of tools that we deploy for our clients.

On a side note, may I say how cheezy I think it is that Top Producer ripped off common crafts style, see their latest demo's and you tell me ... should they get their own creative concepts? Or is this just business as usual

AgentXL | Video | Real Estate Marketing 2.0

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

This video was made by our good friends down at Media2o

It's designed to go onto both the yourfarmer.com and the agentxl.com websites.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Rockin' Google with our SEO Action

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:33:00 GMT

It's great when you see your work giving you results.

We've been working on optimizing our google performance for our AgentXL application.

Having the MLx(can't use due to cease and desist letter from CREA for trademark reasons) number show up in a google search may not be the most important SERP result to shoot for, I admit there are going to be less people searching by MLx(can't use due to cease and desist letter from CREA for trademark reasons) number ... but it DOES happen and it IS cool that we OWN google for the MLx(can't use due to cease and desist letter from CREA for trademark reasons) numbers (interesting that MLx(can't use due to cease and desist letter from CREA for trademark reasons) isn't on the list ... tee hee)

See how we have 7 of the top 10 spots on google (including the top 3)

Overlay Signup

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 07:56:42 GMT

I wanted to mess around a little bit with the concept of putting the coaching for how to sign up for things, right into the application.

We should be able to create these types of interfaces to help users with adoption.

(course some better lighting and a prettier face than mine, but overall I think it'll be a winner).

Keyword Domain Strategies

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:58:00 GMT

A few months ago, I spoke to a room of people about web strategy for Real Estate Agents.

Someone captured it on video and after reviewing it, I thought it would be good to share it here.

How Search Engines Work or Keyword research 101

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:19:08 GMT

This is a little slide show that I did up to show how search engines work and how you can do your own keyword research.

Pay particular attention to slide 6 - it's got all the links to "the good stuff".

This will help you research the popularity of specific search terms so you can use them for domain names, url structures and keywords in articles and titles.

Beginner Realty AgentXL

lee@strataxl.com (Lee Down) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:48:01 GMT

Conducting a first formal training group that arose suddenly this week. A quick crack at laying out the steps for the beginner Realty Agent using AgentXL toolsets, we first cover Adding/Creating New Contacts, and then Adding New Listings to your pages. We'll cover some other Q&A along the way.

What is Real Estate Marketing 2.0

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:01:24 GMT

While there are surely many replies to this question, we have defined it basically as cultivating community and creating a permission marketing system that attracts leads to you, rather than forcing you to go looking for them, they come to you.

Here are some screencasts that outline how we are achieving those results with our platform (AgentXL) and our domain name strategies.

AgentXL Broker Edition

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:33:52 GMT

AgentXL Full Market Presentation

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 09:30:29 GMT

Keyword Research

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:53:37 GMT

Have you done your Keyword Research?

Do it before you build your site, not after.

Even before you buy your domain name.

Video Blogging on a Cell Phone | Web Marketing

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:28:12 GMT

Web marketing takes all sorts of forms, but at the end of the day it's about letting your audience find you and connecting with them in a personal way that is more than just a sales letter. Giving them something of value in exchange for their attention. If they then decide to buy, you've done your job well.

Here is my video introduction to where i'd like to see our blog REM20 (Real Estate Marketing 2.0) should go.

Active Local - Trends in Real Estate Marketing

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:10:20 GMT

This is an interesting post about Localism.com which is the community facing part of the Active Rain Network, a realtor focused website.

"It is a social network based around communities," said Jonathan Washburn, ActiveRain CEO. "We're trying to bring the geographic community back to the beginning -- to bring people close together who are really close in proximity."

It's interesting to note that they are retooling the Localism site to be more community focused.

The pricepoint to sponsor a community is worth taking note of, they have to have a lot of communities active before it starts to pay off. But they do have the realtor database already, so they probably have a good head start on that content already.

The other nteresting point is that they recently raised $2.75 Million in funding which gives them some money to grow with. It'll be interesting to see how localism performs in the search engines and if they are successful in attracting the main stream community, not just the tech happy realtors.

Community Marketing for Real Estate Advisors

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:00:00 GMT

This is a series of screencasts that outline the way to use community groups in your real estate marketing.

We found our market validation pt.1

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:53:22 GMT

I discovered this last week and have been very pleased to see it's positioning in the market place as I think it is a great validation of our Community focused LiveIn websites as a marketing tool for realtors.

We found our market validation pt.2

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:50:24 GMT

Recently discovered a company called Dominion that is a total validation for our business model in my opinion.

Proof that we're definately on the right track with how we've positioned our technology.

Marketing with Communities

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Wed, 28 May 2008 09:30:31 GMT

This is a good outline of StrataXL's "Live In" brand of community websites.
How they work, where we're going with them and what we're looking for.

With an average referral commission over $1K the benefits can add up fast.

See the full screen version of this slide show here: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dfzrfpvh_295hg7b4qds

Here is a guided tour of how they work.

AgentXL back office

riel@ixld.com (Riel Roussopoulos) — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:19:04 GMT

Take a tour of the agentXL back office and some of the functionality and applications of the AgentXL platform.