Palm Beach Regional MLS IDX (RMLSFL)

RE/Advantage is proud to offer you an IDX search from the Palm Beach Regional MLS (RMLSFL)!  Now agents and Brokers from the Palm Beach Regional MLS can bring a search solution to their website.  Offering your buyers a branded IDX search empowers you to keep control of your website visitors and also places you first in the transaction in the home buying process.  An RMLS IDX search sends all buyers directly to you on all leads forms used on your search.

Today’s home buyer searches the Internet to find listings.  Don’t be left out of the sale because you do not have the listing inventory on your website.

Our Palm Beach Regional MLS (RMLS) IDX search solution is packed with benefits for any member of the Palm Beach Regional MLS (RMLS).  Each agent or office can enjoy these benefits:

• Custom IDX Integration
• Multi MLS Support (Run one search across multiple MLS’s)
• Custom IDX Search URL’s – Customize niche searches, Foreclosure, Short Sale, and other types of property results.
• Personalized MLS Data – Each listing is customized with your information.
• Statistics – Know how your IDX data is being searched with powerful reporting tools.
• Appointment Scheduler – “Schedule A Showing” link on every property listing
• Photo Gallery – Photos from your MLS will appear next to each listing
• Virtual Tours – If your MLS displays virtual tours they will also appear
• Lead Generation Tools
• Cell Phone Alerts – We will send IDX leads directly to your text enabled cell phone for instant access
• Compare Listings – Allows users to compare listings
• Mapping (where available)
• Portfolio Manager – Allows visitors to save their favorite listings
• Daily Email Updates – Automatically notify your clients of new listings
• Prospect Manager – Easily manage your new leads
• Mortgage Calculator – Easily calculate estimated monthly payments
• PDF Print Branded Color Flyers

Why IDX?

IDX (Internet Data Exchange) or Broker Reciprocity as some call it, provides you the ability to put the Palm Beach Regional MLS (RMLS) on your website.  Branding is important for today’s REALTOR on the Internet.  The times of sending your prospects to REALTOR.com or your MLS’s website are over.  Stop playing roulette every time you send someone off your website.  An IDX search solution keeps buyers on your website.  All lead forms come directly to you.   Take advantage of the Internet by providing your prospects with a comprehensive IDX search solution.

• Brand yourself as the source of the listing information (Buyers will not see you as the source of the listing information).
• Retain Internet buyers by providing them with the inventory to search with.  When someone searches for listings in your area, a search engine my return hundreds of agents.  If you do not have the listing inventory you bet someone else does.
• Bring thousands of listings from the Palm Beach Regional MLS to your website.
• Put yourself “First in the Transaction”.

Prospecting

If you have a tech savvy client base that wants to stay up to date with what’s happening, they can even set up their own profiles and register on your website just like any other network. Users can have saved searches and favorite properties for retrieval later. Every search they make can be saved so if they ever want to revisit a search, it’s literally just a click away.

Why wait?

If you’re going to expand your real estate business professionals agree that IDX search solutions are the way to achieve growth in your sales.

RE/Advantage supports IDX Search tools from MLS’s throughout the country.  If you would like additional information on the RMLS IDX Search tool or an IDX solution from any other MLS please Contact Us via the Internet or call us at (877) 791-4825.

Some Basic Dos and Donts When Building your Web Presence

Many real estate agents always ask me for some basic Dos and Don’t s when they want to initially build their real estate web presence. I have compiled some of my basics and am sharing them with you. Remember, in today’s competitive real estate market, its important to stand out.

Again, these are some basic helpful tips:

• Do make your agent website home page simple with links to your important informational pages prominently marked and positioned so they appear on the very first screen.
• Do Integrate IDX to your web site, as you will showcase thousands of listings branding your site as a source for all real estate in your area.
• Do use pictures to create warmth and emotion, but don’t overdo it and be sure that the pictures are formatted so they do not take a long time to download.  They should not be more than 10 to 15K at the most. Don’t use too many of them on any one page.
• Do make sure that you and your web site developer understand the trouble you can get into if neither of you is aware of the basic necessity to protect yourself with all the disclosures required by your broker, your professional organizations (such as your state and local associations of REALTORS®).
• Do develop an individual look for your site that is consistent throughout.  Have a simple consistent navigation scheme. Contrary to belief most prospects are not highly sophisticated on the Internet
• Do learn more about blogging as it will provide another way of communicating with potential buyers and sellers
• Do establish your very own Facebook profile and invite your friends and groups to see your Web site.

• Don’t ‘borrow’ material from other sites even if they are public domain because it will be obvious that you have done so and, trust us, you don’t want to mess with copyright law.

• Don’t use very small text.  If text is formatted smaller than 10 point (this is 10 point) it may appear miniscule

• Don’t make the first page your ‘resume’ page.  Make the resume a secondary page that your prospect can choose to examine or ignore. Remember that the object of your site is to sell a prospect the idea of contacting you for more information –not to impress the world with your accomplishments.

• Don’t put a site on the Internet unless you plan to do it very well. Having a plain vanilla, flyer type page that really doesn’t offer much of value, will actually diminish your prestige as a real estate professional.

• Don’t build a site unless you plan on marketing it!!!!!!!!!

• Don’t Have a ‘build it and they will come’ approach. Just because you paid to have a real estate agent website designed by a ‘professional’ company does not mean you will make any money from your site.

• Don’t The site design has too many links. Many agents try to put a zillion links on their site in hopes of giving the customer a choice to click on something that might interest them. This is a HUGE mistake

• Don’t have a ‘flyer’ type page with slogans, mission statements and repeated exclamation points.  They tell the prospect you are offering nothing but hype.

• Don’t load your Home Page up with pictures and animations that don’t contribute to advancing your prospect’s interest.  You have about 10 seconds to capture the browser’s attention before they click on their ‘back’ button and try the next site on their list.  All of these elements slow down the download process of your home page

Our team at RE/Advantage can guide you when developing your Web presence. It is very confusing to most agents when they begin as they have no idea where to start or who to turn to when getting a Web site.  Give us a call or contact us if you need some good advise.

New Jersey MLS (NJMLS) IDX Search

Search the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service IDX for a home in Northern New Jersey.  Imagine the Internet traffic you will get to your professional Real Estate website by advertising Bergen County properties and other listings of the New Jersey MLS. With RE/Advantage’s New Jersey MLS IDX search solution you can give added exposure to all your MLS listings in the New Jersey MLS and close sales easier than ever!

New Jersey MLS IDX includes such communities as:

• Alpine
• Allendale
• New Milford
• Cresskill
• Oakland
• Palisades Park
• Tenafly
• Saddle Brook
• Westwood
• Wyckoff

Since the New Jersey MLS IDX solution from RE/Advantage now gives your office listings added exposure think of the relief that will come to mind when you direct your client to use your New Jersey MLS IDX solution to search for homes. The simplicity of this listing service cannot be compared to any other; it is easy to use yet comprehensive enough to supply you and your clients will the in depth property information they need to make a decision to purchase a home with you.

RE/Advantage’s New Jersey MLS IDX solutions includes a new unified MLS feature that allows REALTORS® to display listings from multiple MLS’s all at once within the same property search.

Now more user friendly than before clients will have access to:

• Mortgage calculator
• Custom URL’s
• Property map
• Enhanced photo gallery
• Listing comparison
• and so much more!

With the a New Jersey MLS IDX search solution, prospects can filter their real estate searches to view only listings with virtual tours or view the newest listings first. In my opinion the best feature of all is the administrative panel – potential clients have the option of creating an account where they can save favorite listings and sign up to receive automated emails when a new listing is submitted to the MLS that matches their search criteria. From there you as the REALTOR® have access to contact information, therefore generating a lead.

Join the community of REALTORS® that have integrated RE/Advantage’s New Jersey MLS IDX search and increased their sphere of influence! Take charge of your marketing plan and leap ahead of your opponents with the New Jersey MLS IDX listing service.

Why wait?

If you’re going to expand your real estate business professionals agree that IDX search solutions are the way to achieve growth in your sales.

RE/Advantage supports IDX Search tools from MLS’s throughout the country.  If you would like additional information on the NJMLS IDX Search tool or an IDX solution from any other MLS please Contact Us via the Internet or call us at (877) 791-4825.

Keyword Strategy

Keywords are the fundamental backbone of your SEO strategy.  Choosing the correct keywords become vital to your overall SEO success. Long tail keywords driving hyper-local content are the REALTORS best friend.  Leveraging this can be a key to your successful SEO campaign.  Knowing your market is also important to your success.  Perhaps the most overlooked and underused concept is keyword research.  Keyword research is vital to your success but I see very few of my Real Estate clients using it.  When you research keywords you are also breaking down your market segment.  By understanding your market you can then begin to know which keywords to choose.

Using a ‘keyword analyzer’ for this task is critical.  A keyword analyzer is just as the name applies.  It is a tool that assists you in finding the right keywords to build your SEO around.  Google offers a few free ones that you can use to research which phrases are popular as well as diving into which long tail phrases might be good to use. The first keyword analyzer analyzes phrases and search volume.  The second one analyzes phrases based on specific websites.   Keyword analyzers also offer feedback into search volume, page counts, and competition among other things.

Another research technique is to see who is ranking on the keywords you would like to use.  So run some searches to see who is in the top 5 spots.

Your best course of action is to choose keywords that will generate a reasonable amount of traffic but do not have a lot of competition.  That is why long tail keywords are a popular choice as they offer both of these attributes.

Once you have some keyword phrases assembled you now want to begin to build pages around these.  Another idea is to blog about them.

A quick note about Title Tags.  Putting your keyword phrase in the Title Tag is another good idea and should always be used.

If you are an Agent a good title tag might be;

Anamda Reens – Nevada Real Estate

of if you want to be more specific

Anamda Reens – Las Vegas Nevada Real Estate

or get hyper local

John Townsen – Whispering Hills – Deer Park Maryland Homes

Some people argue on where to place the keyword text.  Some say in the beginning, i.e.

Nevada Real Estate – Anamda Reens

I am not convinced either is better and sometimes it comes down to how it looks to the reader as well.

Whatever you choose to do, a bit of preparation is always a good idea.  If you do not have the time, hire a professional to do the work.   But either way preparing is the keyword here.

Writing Better Blog Posts

Good writing is the key to any blog post or web page.  When you decide to write something keep it interesting, compelling, exciting and unique.

Here are a few ways you can enhance what you write:

1. Size Matters

Most people tend to read the first few sentences and then begin to scan your post.  So try to grab your reader in the first paragraph or two.  Also try to keep your posts short.  Writing a 3,000 word post might be a lot for a reader to digest.

2. Shorten Those Sentences

Short sentences tend to be easy to read.  Bulleted lists are another way to keep the attention of your reader.  I know sometimes you need those longer sentences but use them sparingly.

3. Repeating Is So Good

Repetition is a good thing.  It reminds the reader of your main theme and helps to set the tone throughout the article, just do not over use it.

4. Get To The Point

Don’t fluff your post to try to make the page seem full just because you think your article needs to meet some magic word count. Write concise and your audience will thank you for it and come back for more.

5. Writing Style

When I am writing a blog post, I like to write informally.  Now don’t think informal means un-professional.  Being informal helps you become more personal to your reader.

When I am writing a web page I tend to write more structured and formal.  Unlike blog post, web pages are a formal platform where you should be more structured.

6. Don’t Give It All Away

Unless you are writing a post that is detailed, your posts should poke and prod your audience.  The purpose is to have them interact with you by creating feedback, so don’t give it all away, leave room for discussion.

7. It Is All About The Benefits

Unless you are telling a story, your post should be all about the benefits.  Why is this good?  How will it help me?  By writing about the benefits of your subject you will keep your reader coming back for more.

While this is not the holy grail of copy writing, it certainly highlights some good practices.  Do you have any others you can add?

Create an Internet Resource to Service the 4 Major Personality Types of Buyers and Sellers

As a member of a Real Estate website design company too often do I see REALTORS® who are so engrossed in what they feel they’d like to see on their website that they simply look past the main reason they should be purchasing a website – to create a useful and informative resource for potential clients to search for listing and Real Estate services. I constantly hear “I” and “me” when I should be hearing “my clients would like…” and “this would be useful to the real estate buyers/seller” – so before you, as a REALTORS®, decide to purchase and provide input on a website design take a step back and remember who you are really creating that resource for!  Become the buyer or seller and provide the benefits that attract them.

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I read an interesting article on ActiveRain this morning from Loreena Yeo, Broker of Frisco TX Realtor®. She discussed the 4 major personalities of a home buyer and seller and how to service each type of person based on their individual characteristics.

Amiable buyers and sellers typically fall under the personality type of individuals that service others like, teachers, nurses, care-givers, pastors etc. They most likely will be kind-hearted and soft spoken, which means they may not be as decisive as you may want a buyer or seller to be when initiating a business transaction. What you can do to match that type of personality – be agreeable and relaxed, logical and systematic. Create your business plan with written guidelines to avoid some of the “why” questions you will most likely be confronted with. Most of all, you should have a bit more patience with this type of buyer or seller!

You website should carry complementary information such as school information, trend reporting, and tips to assist in the buying/selling process

Analytical buyers and sellers typically fall under the personality type of individuals who are highly detail oriented, very perceptive and may not follow through with a business transaction if they do not get ALL the facts. Analytical individuals could be engineers, accountants, stock brokers etc. What you can do to match that type of personality – be systematic, thorough, deliberate, and precise. Create your business plan with that is logical and accurate to avoid some of the “how” questions you will most likely be confronted with. Most of all, you should all time for evaluation on the clients side and expect to repeat yourself!

Online listing information for these people is a must so IDX certainly comes into play here.  Also housing statistics would re-enforce the need for their research.

Controlling buyers and sellers typically fall under the personality type of individuals who are objective-focused, hardworking, high energy; the risk takers! Business executives, entrepreneurs, and CEOs would fall under this personality type. What you can do to match that type of personality – be organized and concise yourself. Create your business plan with that is logical and accurate to avoid some of the “what” questions you will most likely be confronted with. Most of all remember that with this type of person always provide options AND solutions.

Similar to the above, these people also need an aggressive follow-up campaign as time is usually a critical factor.  Also strong information on the benefits of using you as a REALTOR.  These type of people usually demand a strong and experienced professional to work with.

‘The Promoter’ buyers and sellers typically fall under the personality type of individuals who enjoy the spotlight; are warm and enthusiastic. They may also be good motivators and communicators but in the same respect may talk a big game and not follow through in the end. More often than not sales people, ‘celebrities’ and prominent speakers fall into the promoter category. What you can do to match that type of personality – be enthusiastic, open and responsive right back! Develop a relationship that minimizes the buyers or sellers work and always be forthcoming. Create your business plan with that is logical and accurate to avoid some of the “who” questions you will most likely be confronted with. Most of all try to press upon the idea of how you and going to help them!

In this scenario your follow-up ability is going to be critical and personal people skills come in handy.  People of this type often like to see your past accolades so testimonials might also be helpful.

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This is why RE/Advantage develops Real Estate website layouts that are USER friendly as well as REALTOR® friendly. Our designers have incorporated a Featured Listings widget right on the Home Page of our website designs to enhance exposure of personal or office listings individual to a REALTOR® or office as well as custom layouts that are easy to navigate with community, school and listing information right at your fingertips.