Top 10 Things to Know About Foreclosure

1. Foreclosure is a process, not a thing: foreclosure is a series of events not a state of being. Lenders do not foreclose on homeowners they foreclosure on a property
2. The foreclosure process has 4 phases: rights and options vary on the stage of your home and the state you live in. Know what laws apply to you
3. Difficult financial situations do not mean foreclosure: steps to avoid foreclosure
4. Mortgage lenders are not real estate agents: they would rather work with you to keep your home then go through the process to get it on the market
5. You can sell you home quick when foreclosure is knocking: if you keep an aggressive, motivated attitude and keep your home in good condition to sell if can be sold fast (short sale)
6. Missed payments – all is not lost: even if you’ve missed mortgage payments there are ways to stop foreclosure
7. A short sale is better than foreclosure: what’s the difference?
8. Foreclosure has major legal, tax and credit consequences
9. Buying a foreclosure: Crunch the numbers first to make sure you really are getting a deal
10. Understand your mortgage: many homeowners who end up in foreclosure say they were unaware of some crucial pieces of information about their mortgage

Top 10 Projects That Add to Your Homes Value

1. Conquer Clutter: cleaning and de-cluttering is by far the most cost-effective way to add value to your home. Your home will look larger and more livable AND makes a great first impression on homebuyers. Buyers want to see a clean, neutral space where they can envision their own belongings.
2. Add Insulation: energy-efficient upgrades have two advantages, they add value to your home and they save you money in the long run.
3. Build a Fence: adding a fence to your property can enhance its appearance, give you extra privacy. Remember to check your local zoning codes!
4. Finish the Basement: If you’re willing to take on a major remodeling project, finishing your basement.
5. Repair and Clean the Gutters: While they’re certainly not a home’s most exciting feature, gutters should be at the top of your list of exterior updates.
6. Add Outdoor Lighting: If you have a patio or deck that doesn’t get much use, start making it more welcoming by installing outdoor lighting.
7. Tidy your Lawn: When it comes to adding value to your home, curb appeal is key! Reseed any bad areas and, season permitting, plant some colorful flowers.
8. Maximize Storage Space: Real estate professionals agree that ample storage space tops most homebuyers’ wish lists. Closet organization systems can be customized to fit most closets and you can often install them yourself.
9. Update Fixtures: Simply replacing old fixtures and hardware can give an outdated bathroom or kitchen a stylish, contemporary look.
10. Upgrade Appliance: The kitchen is one room where upgrades almost always bring a large return on investment. One way to improve your kitchen is to simply replace your old appliances. Stainless steel is the current standard.

Top 10 Reasons to Live in (your niche community/area)

This one is up to you! Select a local community or area in your niche and create a Top 10 list of reasons people/families should move there. You can also create Top 10 lists of your favorite restaurants, town activities, top 10 local shops — anything you can think of!

I hope you found these posts helpful in jump starting your content writing for 2012. What type of posts or articles have you found to get the most response from your readers?

Top 10 Tips for First Time Home Buyers

1. Do You NEED to Buy: research pros and cons for renting vs. buying
2. Getting Help: find a REALTOR® that you feel comfortable with
3. Figure Out Where You’re Going:  keep in mind proximity to your job, schools, highways, shopping etc.
4. Create Your Lists: begin a “need vs. want” list for your REALTOR®
5. Get Pre-Approved: not just pre-qualified. Pre-approval is much more thorough and basically states, Lender A will loan you “X” dollars for a house in a specific price range
6. Educate Yourself: talk to your REALTOR®, ask friends or family members questions, do internet research etc.
7. Visit Some Properties: nothing will give you a feel for a home like visiting it in person. Have your REALTOR® set up a few showings and enjoy the process. Typically home buyers visit an average of 10 properties before making an offer.
8. Negotiate the Deal: again talk to your REALTOR® see what they suggest. At one point make an offer contingent on a home inspection (you should know in advance whether you will need to put more time and effort into a ‘fixer-upper’)
9. Insure your Investment: get home title insurance
10. Close and Move In: congrats!

Top 10 Staging Transformations

1. Hide and Seek Bedroom: so you have a “toy/exercise/office” room…GREAT! You can re-purpose that room into a spare bedroom. Create purpose in the buyers eyes.
2. Update your Bathroom(s): Painting is one of the most cost-effective ways to update your home. You can also repaint or restain old cabinets and add stylish pulls for a modernized look.
3. Staging your Bedrooms: The best approach to staging is often working with what you already have. If your furniture is in good shape, experiment with various configurations to find one that makes the most of your space.
4. Update your Patio/Deck: An inviting “outdoor room” with furniture, lighting and accessories adds more useful space to a home, which equals a higher selling price!
5. Focal Point Faux Pas: Arranging furniture to sell a home takes a different approach than arranging furniture to live in a home. When you first moved in, you most likely positioned your furniture for comfort and convenience. Think of your furniture as a tool for highlighting your home’s best features. (great window, fireplace or other architectural detail)
6. Cluttered Dining/Living Rooms: De-cluttering and depersonalizing are cardinal rules of home staging. If your home is full of family items and collectibles – home buyers won’t be able to see themselves living there.
7. Update you Kitchen: This does not mean you need to start gutting your entire kitchen tonight but small updates like new hardware, a new backsplash or even a thorough cleaning can make a world of a difference.
8. Too…Much…Beige: While neutral colors typically rule when it comes to home staging, don’t be afraid to use small splashes of color to liven up a boring room. (throw pillows, artwork or vases of fresh flowers)
9. Update your Foyer: The first room buyers see when they walk into your home should be at the top of your staging to-do list. The entryway sets the tone for the entire home.
10. Reclaim your Yard: You have to keep in mind that curb appeal is an important piece of the home staging process. Remove debris, add colorful plants (season permitting), update light fixtures and/or add a fresh coat of paint to your front door and shutters.

Please follow our blog as I will be posting Part 2 tomorrow!

On Page techniques predominantly consists of keyword considerations and optimizing your page to take better advantage of the major search engines.

The following suggestions are meant as a guide and the actual weight they carry in your over all rankings in hard to determine. Google and the other search engines use complex algorithms.

Keyword(s) In Title Tags - The title tag is the line of clickable text which appears in the SERPs for each ranking page. This is also the text which appears at the top of your browser’s window in naming or identifying the page which you are currently browsing. It’s important to work your best (most relevant, highest searched, lowest competition) keywords into your title tags as search engines will consider this over most factors when indexing and ranking your page and in general in determining what it’s about

Keywords In Meta Title Tags: By writing a good title you not only help search engines better understand what your page is about but also lets the people reading your SERP what your page is about. Leaving this blank will force the search engine to write it and that could have disastrous results.

Keywords in Your Heading Tags:  Heading tags let both the search engines and the people reading your page see what information is the most important to you.  People read from left to right and top to bottom, so a good H1 heading tag will be the first text they will see and having your message clear here is vital.

As your write the rest of your page, effective use of the H2 and H3 tags are used to note the less important information but the information you still deem important.

Keywords In the Body: My resounding message for all our clients is their is no substitute for good content, and in SEO a large part of good content is effectively including keywords where applicable. Now we don’t want to do any keyword spamming and run the risk of getting filtered and many people argue over how much is needed buy my advice is write good content that uses your keywords properly.  If you are looking for a number I would not repeat them more than 10 times in 500 words and no more than 13 on the entire page.  Remember if your page is getting north of 600 words better to break it up into multiple pages

Keyword In Domain Name:  Search engines do give consideration for what is in your domain name.  So www.markmenzella.com is not as good as www.bergenountyluxuryhomes.com.  The latter more closely defines what your website is about.

Taking this s bit further if you decide to use sub-domains for pages, for example; alpine.bergencountyluxuryhomes.com, this also will help the search engines better understand what your page is about.  On your sub-domains you should be as detailed as possible. While keywords in the sub-domains don’t carry quite as much weight as the top level of the domain, they’re nonetheless important and helpful to Google in identifying what your site is about.

When designing or editing your pages every little bit helps.  Using some of these things I wrote about today will give your pages more visibility to the search engines and also make the reading of the page by your buyers and sellers more interesting.

Agent Website Solutions | Office website Solutions | SEO Solutions

“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors and let each new year find you a better man.” – Benjamin Franklin

Top 10 Most Influential Moments of 2011*

• January 8, 2011 — 10:10am Gunman Fires at Congresswoman Giffords
• March 1, 2011 — Charlie Sheen is ‘Winning’
• March 11, 2011 — Earthquake with a 8.9 Magnitude hits Japan
• April 29, 2011 — The Royal Wedding (Kate Middleton and Price William)
• May 1, 2011 — Osama bin Laden is killed
• May 25, 2011 — Oprah Winfrey’s Last Show
• August 2, 2011 –National debt hits 14.3 trillion. Unemployment reached 9.2%
• September 11, 2011 — Marks 10th year anniversary since 9/11
• September 17, 2011 –20,000 ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and flood lower Manhattan
• October 5, 2011 — Steve Jobs passes away. Apple most valuable company in world capping $347 billion

*as per AOL

Top 5 New Releases for RE/Advantage for 2012

• Office Spotlight – VERY economic way of display featured listings, open houses etc. from your office storefront window.
• Mobile Websites – whether you are just looking to get a branded IDX search or complete mobile website this is a great project to boost your business in 2012.
• Blogs – if you are looking for training classes or a customized blog with integrated IDX this solution is for you.
• New Portfolio – we’ve updated our portfolio with ALL NEW website layouts. Get an online presence face lift for 2012
• IDX for Agents and Offices – we’ve launched new 2012 updates to an already great IDX solution. Check out some of our examples and features.

Happy New Year!!

• Related query results refinements: Sometimes Google fetches results for queries that are similar to the actual search term you typed. This change makes it less likely that these results will rank highly if the original query had a rare word that was dropped in the alternate query. For example, if you are searching for [Blue Mountain Condos], you might not be as interested in a page that only mentions “condos.”
• More comprehensive indexing: This change makes more long-tail documents available in the Google index, so they are more likely to rank for relevant queries. Great news for you Agents that are creating long tail keyword pages.  I wrote an post titled “Long Tail Keywords Power Hyper Local Content” which explains the importance of long tail keywords and how you can use them in your real estate business.
• Fresher and more complete blog search results: Google made a change to its blog search index to get coverage that is both fresher and more comprehensive.  As I mentioned in previous posts blogs are great for the real estate agents and now you will be getting even more attention. Megan at our office wrote a great post “I’ve Set Up My Real Estate Blog…Now What?” which she explains how to use a blog in your real estate business and another good post; “Tips for Writing a Market Leading Blog.”
• Original content: Google added new signals to help them make better predictions about which of two similar web pages is the original one.  Remember I always said, original content is very important and that it is important to always write good fresh content that is enticing and interesting. “Some Common Mistakes Writing Good Content” explains how to avoid some of the common mistakes when writing quality content.
• Top result selection code rewrite: This code handles extra processing on the top set of results. For example, it ensures that Google doesn’t show too many results from one site (“host crowding”). They rewrote the code to make it easier to understand, simpler to maintain and more flexible for future extensions.  This I think it great news for the smaller sites (i.e., agent sites vs. the bigger franchise sites) because the larger sites may loose some SERP’s in light of this update.
• New “parked domain” classifier: This is a new algorithm for automatically detecting parked domains. Parked domains are placeholder sites that are seldom useful and often filled with ads. They typically don’t have valuable content for users, so in most cases Google will prefer not to show them.

Google is always tweaking its search engine algorithms to make for a better user experience.  If you follow my updates regularly and try to leverage some of these improvements by either making changes to your pages or changing your marketing plans to make better use of the changes you can not only gain better visibility but also keep exiting pages from falling off of Google’s SERP’s.

Happy Holidays to ALL!  We at RE/Advantage would like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday as well as a prosperous New Year!

Providing Website, IDX, Mobile Solutions, Social Media, and Training to the Real Estate Industry for over 20 years.

By understanding these items you can improve your sites visibility to the search engines and hopefully provide a boost to your SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page).

Social sharing integration

This almost goes without saying, but I still see so many websites not involved socially with their visitors.  Social integration for the REALTOR® is a MUST.  Real Estate is so personal and a big part of your success is all about the conversation.  Since Social Media is all about the connecting and conversation they are natural partners.  At the very least get buttons embedded into your pages so your visitors can share content with their friends and followers.  AddThis is a great Social plugin you can use and it is simple to install.

Title, Description, Alt Tags, etc.

This is perhaps the easiest item on the list but the most often forgotten.  Having a good title, description and alt tags are vital to your websites SERP success.

A quick note on the meta description.  While writing unique descriptions for each page won’t vault you necessarily to the top of the search engines – it can make a difference when a searcher is looking at results and likes your description over the others.  Better to have your words appearing in the search results than random text that search engines take from the page because your meta description was low quality or empty.

Content

This might seem pretty obvious to talk about but this is a huge issue for many Agents.  You just built a new website and never change any of the information.   I talked about how to build good content in a previous post but I still see websites with little effort put in to building good, original, and dynamic content.  Take the time to write keyword rich content and become the expert in your area.  Your reward will be an elevation in the search engine rankings.

Sitemap.xml

The sitemap.xml is a file that search spiders use to find all the pages in your website.  This is especially important when you either have a lot of pages on your site or they are hard to crawl.  If you do not have a sitemap, talk to your web designer about getting one.

Verification access

This is pretty straight forward.  You need to be able to place the verification code in place to use Bing’s or Google’s webmaster tools.  The verification process is used to among other things autorize Google and Bing to read your sitemap.  Authorization can be done by embedding a tag in the code of your web page or by a notation added in the DNS for the website.  No matter the option used, you need to have access to make this happen.  If you do not then you cannot take advantage of the many things Google and Bing have to offer your website..

UX improvements

If you don’t have a website your visitors love, you’re missing an opportunity.  Get cracking on a user experience review and see where you’re bleeding users.  By staying in tune what users like and dislike about your website, you can make the necessary changes needed to field a UX-winning site.  And if you keep your visitors happy they may share you more often with friends netting you more links.  Visitors are also more likely to come back to you again in the future if they like the site and find it easy to get what they’re after.

It might seem like a small thing to focus on the user experience but that UX directly influences the happiness of visitors.  If you don’t have input on UX improvements, you need to push.  This is an important aspect of optimizing any website.

Rel=canonical

Canonical is a useful tool if you have multiple pages all pointing to the same thing.  Using this you can tell the search engines which URL is the most important to you and combine them into one URL location boost the rank of that one you deem the most important.

The hard part is finding all the instances and getting the code on the page.  This is usually a web designers job but once done will provide a clearer picture for the search engines when they crawl your website.

Robots.txt

I bet many people are not even sure what the robots.txt file is or that they even have one.  but having one  setup properly is vital.

Search spiders use this file to understand how to interact with the website. The Robots.txt file tells the search engines what they can and cannot do when indexing, how often to index and if they should exclude any pages.  This is something your web designer usually sets up but it is a good idea to make sure you have one and that it is setup correctly.

All the items above are not in any particular order and aren’t meant to cover every single thing you need to be in control of, but should at least get you started down the right paths.  Once you get these items under control you can then think more about your website in terms of its SEO (Search Engine optimization) value.

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The Pinnacle in Houston is Condominium living at its best.  As you enter The Pinnacle, prepare to be overwhelmed by breathtaking views showcased through high ceilings and curved glass walls spanning half the floor. This luxurious penthouse, featuring 2 BR + library and 3.5 BA, offers amazing scale and a spacious layout with a gourmet kitchen, marble bathrooms and expansive walk-in closets. Everyday amenities include concierge services, underground parking, and a fitness center with a 75-foot pool — all in a vibrant location just minutes from the Transit Building. Undeniably, the best of luxury living taken to new heights.

The Pinnacle Residences

The Pinnacle offers a wide variety of floor plans to suit your lifestyle. Residences feature 9-foot ceilings and expansive windows to maximize your view of the city or private courtyard while inviting abundant natural light into each home.

• LOBBY – Your stylish front door gives way to an elegant, light-filled lobby where you will be greeted by a lobby ambassador.
• LIVING ROOM – The flowing curves of The Pinnacle are as distinctively inspiring inside as they are from the outside.
• KITCHEN – The kitchen has been artfully designed to cater to the needs of the most discriminating chef.
• BATHROOM – There is a wonderful sense of richness in the design of the master baths.

The Pinnacle – Houston Condominium Amenities

In addition to being visually stunning, The Pinnacle in Houston amenities are defined by a combination of sublime luxury and superior functionality.

• RESTAURANT – The celebrated culinary team of Scot Desort, Dan Cotto, Beverly Lazzaro and Lyndsey Mavi are set to open a new restaurant in The Pinnacle.
• CONCIERGE – Homeowners enjoy the benefits of a full-time, on-site concierge team.
• FITNESS CENTER – The 5,000-square-foot fitness center is fully equipped with state-of-the art cardio and weight training equipment.
• SWIMMING POOL – Your 75-foot lap pool features an intricately designed mosaic wall, and shimmering natural light from the skylights above.

For additional information on please contact Megan Lade at 555-555-3000 or inquire online here.

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Here are the factors I considered when I wrote this post.  I also explained each one of them so you can understand how they were used in the post.

Keyword Phrase: The Pinnacle Houston

Total Post Word Count: 325

Keyword Frequency: 2.5% (Keyword density refers to the ratio of keywords within the total number of index-able words within a post.  Good rule of thumb is to have this ratio between 2%-8%.)

Keyword Density: 8 (Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a post.  Good rule of thumb is I like to follow is having my total word count between 300-500 words and my keyword density between 7-12.)

Keyword Prominence: 1 (Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a post. The general rule of thumb is to place important keywords at, or near, the start of a post, sentence, and in your META TITLE, META KEYWORDS, and META DESCRIPTION.

Keyword Proximity: Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.

For example:

• The Pinnacle in Houston – Luxury Condo’s
• Houston’s Luxury Condo’s – The Pinnacle

Using the example above, if someone searched for “Pinnacle Houston,” a post containing the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second. The reason is because the keywords are placed closer together. This is assuming that everything else is equal, of course.

Notice my first keyword phrase in the actual post was “The Pinnacle in Houston”. Most people looking for The Pinnacle in Houston Texas would type into Google; “Pinnacle Houston”

Tags: The Pinnacle, Houston Luxury Condominiums (Blog post tags.  Use them to describe your post)

By thinking about this style writing for keyword rich posts you can hopefully gain some good SERP results.  If you consider writing good quality content coupled with smart use of your keyword phrases you can most likely build a good post and have some success with SEO. Remember while I like to always think SEO on every post, sometimes that is simply not possible or the post itself does not lend itself to any relevant keyword terms besides broad terms like Real Estate.  In these cases, quality writing is most important because ranking higher in broader keyword terms is extremely difficult.

Five differences between desktop and mobile internet use:

1. Type-search: we all know how to execute an internet search – open Google, type in your keywords and BOOM; results. But mobile technology has changed that process (making it easier for the user) by using ‘predictive text’ keyword strings. This is going to change the keywords used when searching for real estate related results. Link building and long tail keywords are great for desktop internet searches but be sure to do your homework on keyword strings for mobile devices before you spend your time and money on optimizing your mobile website.
2. Voice search: there has been a rise in popularity of using voice search on mobile devices via Google and Yahoo search apps, or Apple Siri for example. This, again, makes internet searching easier for the user but requires more optimization from the REALTOR®. Instead of a prospect typing “New Jersey Real Estate” into Google they may say “Affordable Housing in New Jersey with Top Rated Schools” — so again comes that research needed to maximize your keywords in order to optimize your mobile websites.
3. Sociability: mobile internet use is dominated by social media, topping 90% of total use already! I’ve stressed the importance of social media in real estate marketing plans in previous posts so I am going to keep this bullet short — if you are not using Facebook, Twitter, a blog, YouTube or any other social networking platform now good luck my friend!
4. Geo-Targeting: geo-location is used to enhance website and search functionality to show localized search results. Mobile users are on the move (DUH!) therefore search results are highly likely to fluctuate more on mobile devices than desktop computers because of the change in location where the internet search is being preformed. Make sure your mobile website is built with the tools necessary to offer the best localized information.
5. Immediacy: mobile users want information on the spot, so giving them the resources needed will enhance the ‘stickiness’ of your mobile website (stickiness – meaning prospects keep coming back to your site/app). If you have an easy to use/understand listing search solution, dynamic content and great response time on your lead follow up you are definitely ahead of the game.

So with that in mind REALTORS® and their web masters have a lot on their plate. Technology is always changing and we need to keep up! Be sure to think about the list above when managing your internet marketing presences. Good Luck!

RE/Advantage has the tools and knowledge necessary to give you a great mobile solution with built in location based search-ability (in regards to listing searches for your prospects) and SEO friendly content building for your mobile website. Let us know what we can help you with!

Predefined Searches

One great add-on is to create predefined search parameters with unique content (language that targets that audience) and use that throughout your website to create dynamic content that is seen by search engines AND human eyes.

An example would be: Bergen County, New Jersey is known for its secluded, luxury homes tucked on acres of Northern New Jersey wooded landscape. Towns such as Alpine and Upper Saddle River are home to beautifully designed custom houses with indoor pools,  tennis courts and the privacy needed for the most discreet home buyer. These luxury homes are more fairly priced now more than ever – view luxury homes in Bergen County. (let’s pretend I linked that to a listing search for all Bergen County communities for homes only $1.5 mill+…notice I did not say ‘click here’ but I hyper-linked an actual description of the page I am taking you to. That means big SEO points!)

Inbound Links

Another great way to bring home buyers to your website is to make sure you have inbound links to your listing page. This means your website link is on other websites – so for example if I am reading your blog post I can click on ‘Rentals in Orange County’ and up pops your IDX results page for rentals in Orange County. This is just the next step once you’ve mastered the predefined searches above. Again these links should appear on your:

• blog
• other websites
• social networking pages
• mortgage broker’s website
• newsletters
• email marketing
• press releases

User Portfolios

IDX user portfolios are used to capture leads as well as offer buyers listing information at no cost of time or energy to you! This tool allows a user to input and save search information and listings which can be compared to an MLS database — new listings will then be emailed to that user that match their home criteria automatically. This also makes your website ‘sticky’ meaning those users will continually come back to your website to search for homes.

Listing Teasers

This goes hand in hand with the IDX portfolio mentioned above. A teaser allows a home buying prospect to search 1, 2…5 (whatever limit you desire) properties before they are prompted to sign up for a portfolio account. There contact information and homes they’ve viewed can be seen.

What other IDX tools do you use to generate and capture leads? RE/Advantage has a great, multi-MLS supported IDX solution for agents and brokers that includes everything described above!