How To Promote Your New Website: Part I

TIPS FOR INCREASING TRAFFIC

Special Three Part Client Consult

YOU’VE GOT A NEW WEBSITE- CONGRATS!

Every day Boston Logic helps Real Estate brokerages and independent real estate agents leverage the web in promoting their services and listings online to help them generate more leads- and ultimately, close more deals. Being a seasoned leader in the real estate technology space, we know that your success in competing for business online is tied to the usability and value of your website to your potential clients, as well as how easily your website can be found on and off-line.

And this is precisely why you, our clients, come to us. You recognize the value of having a best-in-class website that provides user-friendly features that buyers and renters want- like advanced MLS search options, the ability to save and “favorite” properties, live chat with agents, and more- all bound by our powerful Sequoia system– served with accessible, friendly product training and support. (We really don’t mean to toot our own horn!) But now that you're armed with great technology and tools…

HOW DO YOU GET YOUR NEW WEBSITE NOTICED?

We get lots of requests from our clients for suggestions on what to do to market their new (or newly redesigned & upgraded) website. I thought others would find this list of suggestions helpful. I’ve included a lot of low-cost options, things you can do before and after your new website launches, as well as long-term strategies to increase traffic to your site.

ONLINE TECHNIQUES – SOCIAL MEDIA & SEARCH MARKETING

Company Facebook Page

Be sure to add the URL to your website (and your other social media profiles, for that matter) on your company’s Facebook Fan Page’s Info Tab. Make announcements about the new website when it’s ‘coming soon’ and when it launches. Post screen shots in your Facebook Page Photos and ask your followers for feedback!

Employee’s Facebook Profiles

Employees can link to the Company Fan Page in their personal Facebook profiles in the ‘Employment’ section of their bios. Over time, this will encourage their social network to visit your company Facebook Page, and then lead those people to your website. Have your employees review this helpful LogicClassroom presentation about Facebook Privacy Settings, too!

Company & Employee Twitter Profiles

If you don’t have a company Twitter, create one! Add a link to the website in the profile. Just like on Facebook, you’ll want to make ‘coming soon’ announcements, and link to the site when it’s live and ASK for feedback and/ or a Retweet! Consider sending a Direct Message to important followers. If you change your Twitter handle, make sure to keep the old one in the profile bio for a prolonged period of time so if people do a search for your old Twitter name, they can still find you.

Encourage employees to engage with the Company Twitter account (@mentions), retweet announcements about the new website, etc. If they want to include something about their position at the company in their Twitter bios, encourage that too because it will give you exposure to their social network. Just be sure to have a clear Guidelines Policy in place so your employees know what is/ isn’t allowed if they are representing the company online. I’ve seen a lot of Twitter profiles that say things like “CEO at XYZ Company, opinions are my own!”

LinkedIn Employee & Company Profiles

Employees should update their personal LinkedIn profiles to include the new website URL. Does your company have a listing on LinkedIn? If not, create one! Having a company listing on LinkedIn is a great way to promote your products and services, improve your credibility, and boost your SEO.

For tips on how to customize the anchor text linking to the website on your LinkedIn profiles and other optimization tips, view our recent LogicClassroom on Marketing Yourself on LinkedIn.

Yelp Listing

Is your company listed on Yelp? Yelp is an ever-growing social networking site where users review local businesses and give them a rating of 1-5 stars. Even if you haven’t created a Yelp listing, one of your past clients may have added you to the site without your knowing. Do a search in your area to see if your company appears in the search results. If so, claim your Yelp listing! If not, create one! Make sure you optimize your company listing by filling out all the available fields. Make an announcement about the new website and maybe offer a small percentage off for mentioning they found your new website on Yelp.

There are LOTS of review sites like Yelp, such as YP.com, SuperPages.com, Merchant’s Circle, CitySearch, etc. There are also a large variety of industry-specific directory/review sites available online. Do your research, and register your new website!

EXPERT TIP:

Once on Yelp, it’s important to add new photos to keep your listing fresh. You also want to encourage your happy clients to review you on Yelp so if the occasional unhappy customer leaves a bad review, you’ve got enough good reviews to soften the blow. Set up email notifications so that if you get a review on Yelp about a negative client experience, you can respond to it promptly.

Google Places Listing

If you need your website to be at the top of Google’s search engine results for some marquee keywords asap (don’t we all?), one of the ways to help that happen faster is by registering your website with Google Places! You’ll need to register your company with an actual physical address where you receive mail, but if you run a small business out of your home, you can hide your street address from your listing and only show your city and state.

A Google Places listing is FREE and you can make announcements, add photos, service area, company history and other business information, feature YouTube Videos, and more! This is a great way to showcase your business and increase clicks to your website without having to shell out lots of money for PPC advertising!

Your company may have been added to Google Places by a user and given a review and star rating. In that case, all you’ll have to do is click the “Business Owner?” link in the upper right corner of the listing page and follow the directions to claim the listing. Google will send a postcard to your attention via snail-mail to your business listing with a verification code you will enter online to claim the listing.

Add Links to Company Social Media Profiles to Your Site

Say WHAT?! You just got your visitors to land on your new website, and now I want you to lead them away again? Not exactly. It’s just a good long-term investment for your relationship with that lead. You want people using your site as much as possible, but if your potential clients and clients want to check in with you via the social media channels they use regularly because it’s convenient for them- make it easy for them to do so and give them access right from your home page.

Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Site Content

Make it easy for your website visitors to share and syndicate your content for you! Add quick-share options such as the Facebook ‘Like’ Button, the Twitter ‘Tweet’ Button, and the ‘Google +1’ Button to your blog posts and property listings, etc. Utilize social sharing plugins for your blog like ‘AddThis’ to let readers quickly syndicate your blog posts to popular bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, etc.

Blog About It – Share, and Syndicate

Your first blog post on your new website should essentially be a press release about your new website that you will syndicate to your social media profile & share on popular and industry social bookmarking sites. If you already have a blog, consider doing a ‘coming soon’ teaser blog about the upcoming relaunch.

Guest Bloggers

Invite a vendor (like a landscaper, interior designer, or exterminator, etc.) you frequently do business with to post as a guest blogger on your site, and link their blog post back to their website. As a Realtor, you can pick local business in the areas you serve to spotlight and invite someone to guest blog from that business about their company and the neighborhood. These ‘First Tier Guest Bloggers’ will promote their blog post on your new site for you and will appreciate the exposure and inbound link from your site!

Once your blog is more established and you begin to get a substantial amount of traffic to your site and blog, you can start to attract ‘Celebrity Guest Bloggers’, industry leaders and experts that are fairly well-known and will drive traffic to your site because they have a big following or good name recognition or are in the news frequently, etc.

Watch the Recent LogicClassroom on Blogging for Business Here

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Analytics

To get the most out of your content creation efforts, it’s important to optimize your pages with meta data, headings and subheadings, keywords, internal links, images, etc. so that search engines can properly index your site and potential leads can find your content when they search for your services online.

In order to run a successful SEO Campaign, add Google Analytics to track visitors to the site, and find out what content they find the most valuable (i.e whatever gets the most traffic). This will help guide your content creation over time. If you sign up for SEO and Online Marketing Services through Boston Logic, we will help you! We also have a blog full of resources on SEO and Social Media at www.realestateseo1.com to provide you with helpful tips and education on best practices and industry updates.

Optimizing your website pages and content should be an ongoing process, especially because you’re going to have a very active blog (right?!). Plan to review your SEO campaign keywords and strategy regularly to ensure you’re on track.

301 Redirects

301 redirects are an important, yet often overlooked, part of an SEO campaign if you already have an existing website. Essentially, 301 redirects are a little snippet of code that directs any search engines and visitors trying to reach URLs on your old website, that are no longer on your new website, to the appropriate replacement page on your new website. 301s are convenient for users and help ensure your company’s website won’t lose any SEO ranking it had with its old website. Boston Logic can help implement 301 redirects for your website upgrade - just ask!

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

pay per click advertising There are a variety of PPC advertising options available to you. I encourage you to take the time to look into each option. Find out what type of tracking each option offers (Google Adwords data tracks nicely in Google Analytics, for example), as well as the type of exposure your ads will get, and what type of competition they’ll be up against.

Facebook and LinkedIn PPC advertising may not offer the exposure of Google or Bing PPC ads, but you can make your ads extremely targeted based on geographic region, workplace, personal interests, industries, relationship status, etc. This kind of highly targeted advertising may be a better place to start for smaller budgets. LinkedIn PPC ads are best for B2B or recruiting ads.

You may also want to consider industry-specific venues like the real estate section of Boston.com or other popular industry websites that get a lot of traffic. Boston Logic’s Sequoia websites feature an Inbound Leads API so we can track leads from sources like Boston.com and enter them directly into your Sequoia CRM. Talk about Analytics!

Think outside the social media box, too...

There's still a bunch of ways to get the word out about your stellar new website! With a little creativity and good communication, you can be proactive about getting found. Stay tuned for the next part of our consultation to learn more about How To Promote Your Website: Part II.

We'd love to hear some anecdotes in the comments section from your own website launch experience- and check out our SEO blog for more on how to get your web pages ready for Google

New Agent Site Designs Added to Theme Gallery!

Go ahead, judge a website by it's cover...

Boston Logic's creative team has added a slew (31, to be exact) of new Individual Agent Themes for Realtors to choose from as they begin the website building process. Choosing a website framework and design that aligns with your personal preferences and specific business needs is an important part of developing your "web presence" and creating a strong personal brand online.

Our designers worked off three basic, user-friendly layouts each with different color schemes.

Agent 3- Black

They also added some additional layouts which match the branding for some of our biggest clients (i.e. Gibson Sotheby's, RE/MAX, Jack Conway and more). And the best part about these newly crafted templates is the auto-populated homepage that will pull information from the profile you create on the back-end of the site (i.e. your picture, contact info, and bio). So after choosing a template that fits, you'll have a quicker path to launching your site.

Conway C

If you are a Real Estate professional looking for a personalized or customized website that will help you get recognized by more prospective clients online, check out all of the designs in our Theme Gallery, or contact us for a free consultation today!

Jack Conway Passes Go with Award-Winning Website!

Boston Logic is thrilled to share the latest and greatest news from one of our highly valued customers, Jack Conway, Realtor: on July 1st, 2011, Conway's talented team passed the one year go with an award-winning site design in hand- which, we are proud to say, was artfully constructed by Boston Logic's in-house web designers, and powered by our industry-leading Sequoia Software System.

JackConway.com was honored for web excellence by the Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®, earning the Website Quality Certification (WQC). LeadingRE is a global network of 550 premier real estate firms, and this prestigious certification is presented to members who demonstrate excellence in cutting-edge web design and functionality.

The team at Conway has classified their site as "Next Generation", and reported that since June 1, 2010, when Conway redesigned and retooled the website, traffic and customer engagement has risen dramatically. They cited the Sequoia system 'Mapped Search Tool' as one of the featured enhancements behind the traffic increase. This tool is part of LogicMaps, a fully customizable property search interface which displays search results on a map, in a structured list format for maximum user engagement- in other words, it shows your buyers exactly where they may want to live!

Boston Logic's mission is very much aligned with LeadingRE's President and CEO, Pam O'Connor's statement of realization that,

“with more than 90-percent of people using the Internet in their home search, it is essential for any successful real estate firm to have an engaging, informative and easy-to-use website".

The Marketing team at Boston Logic worked tirelessly to implement a comprehensive Online Marketing campaign for Conway since they signed on a little over a year ago, and the results are clear- the Web 2.0 stars have aligned!

To learn more about how Boston Logic can take your Real Estate business to the next level,sign up for a no-pressure demo today

More Sequoia System Updates!

New Sequoia Real Estate Website Launch: Phoenix Realty!

Phoenix Realty Group had Boston Logic build a custom website for their real estate business several years ago, and has worked with us ever since to help build their presence online through real estate SEO. In order to take advantage of all of the cutting edge tools we've created since, Phoenix Realty Group recently opted to transfer their existing design theme to the Sequoia platform.

"It was a pleasure working with Boston Logic. They did a great job of listening to my needs and building my site to perfectly suit my business." - Ken Glass, Principal

Working with Boston Logic over several years, Phoenix Realty Group first built a fully customized website, and also took advantage of our LogicRentals rental inventory management system. Realizing that the Sequoia platform offers not only the best suite of tools available today, but that that toolset continues to grow constantly, Phoenix Realty Group recently moved their existing design to the Sequoia platform. In addition, they are also now using the RentJuice system, fully integrated with Sequoia to offer rental agencies a managed listing database solution.

Our Mimic Theme design option lets you keep the look and feel of your site intact, while moving onto the best software platform in the real estate industry. For Phoenix Realty Group, this was an obvious choice. The process is smooth and painless, and can typically be accomplished in very little time.

Phoenix Realty Group is a sales, leasing, and property management firm with offices in Allston and Brookline. Their rental-friendly website is easy-to-use and easy on the eyes, featuring key features such as a custom graphical map search interface which allows users to easily find their next great apartment.

Learn more about the Sequoia platform and our various design options - Contact a member of the Boston Logic sales team today at 617-266-9166!

New Sequoia Platform User Guide! 5/11/2011

As part of the unlimited support and training we provide to all Sequoia platform clients, we’ve recently launched a new online User Guide. This easy-to-read “instruction manual” gives you simple, step-by-step directions on how to use virtually all of the tools and features Sequoia offers.

When you are logged into your Sequoia real estate website, simply navigate to the Admin section (back end) and you will see a User Guide link at the far right of the admin panel navigation menu as before. This now takes you to the updated, expanded Sequoia User Guide.

With concise directions and sharp, full-size visual aids, the new User Guide is designed to help you learn not only how to use all of the great Sequoia real estate features, but to really make the most of them. Sequoia is designed to not only make your job and your life easier, but to help your site achieve higher organic search engine results right out of the gate. The more you know about how the Sequoia suite of tools can empower you, the greater your potential for success.

In the coming weeks, we’re also adding video guides to all of the topics covered in the User Guide. Along with the visual aids already in place to augment the written instructions, we’ll walk you through the process with recorded screencasts of the real estate Sequoia platform in action. Each section will feature a short video of exactly the process described, walking you through the written instructions in real time.

Of course, if you feel like anything is missing, we’d love to hear from you so we can improve the guide. If there is anything you’d like to ask a question about or need more detail to fully understand, please don’t hesitate to call or email us!

New Video About the Sequoia Platform!

There's no doubt that the Sequoia platform encompasses the most cutting-edge real estate website software available on the market. But how is this done? What features are available on a Sequoia website? How does Sequoia help you succeed in your real estate business?

We've put together a great real estate website video that breaks down exactly what it takes to make your real estate online marketing campaign to be successful. Click the image to view the video, or visit the Boston Logic YouTube page.

First, you need to drive traffic to your website. To do this, the Sequoia platform helps your site rank higher in search engines for highly applicable search terms. The platform also helps you leverage social media websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. All of this is tracked using state of the art Analytics so that you can hone your campaign based on performance and actual usage statistics.

Next, when users arrive at your site, they should intuitively know where to click, and they should be able to quickly find what they came looking for. For example, many users on real estate websites arrive and want to immediately search for their perfect home. Once they’ve found what they want, or feel like they’re getting close, we want to compel them to provide their contact information. This is when the visitor converts from an anonymous user into a lead.
Throughout the user experience, prominent calls to action give easy access to tools which allow your customers to contact an agent, schedule a showing, save a favorite property, take notes on listings to help organize their search – even share a listing by broadcasting it to social media sites or emailing it to a friend.

How Can Sequoia Help?

The Sequoia Platform educates your clients by showing them the complete MLS listing. In addition, we’ve integrated the Sequoia platform with Yelp!, Walkscore, Education.com, Google Maps, Zillow, and myriad other data resources to provide relevant information about the town or neighborhood where your customers are looking to buy or rent. All of these tools help educate the user and ensure that your website becomes the foundation of their search for a new home.

Now that you have generated lots of leads and your site has become the foundation of their online home search, you’re going to need tools to incubate those leads until they’re ready to buy or rent. Not all leads are ready to close at the moment when you first identify them. So, we’ve built extensive functionality designed to maximize the ease of workflow and help you manage your pipeline.
We’ve also automated many of the tasks that you perform most often. The Sequoia system makes it quick and easy to create and print listing sheets, communicate with clients, schedule and coordinate showings, print showing sheets, search your MLS or rental database, send listing updates, follow up, and never forget a task.

While you’re at it, you’re going to want a record of your communication with each client. The Sequoia platform helps you precisely track your website’s user activity. You’ll know exactly what your clients are doing on your site, including how often they’re coming back, what they are searching for, homes they’re looking at, which listings they liked the most, and much more. All of this data will help you serve your customers better and close more deals!

When it’s time to put in an offer, the Sequoia platform helps you stay organized with our deal tracker component and virtual documents feature, making the process an organized procedure, rather than a mess of paperwork and tasks to juggle.
By facilitating this process, Sequoia makes your real estate online marketing campaign successful while making you more efficient! The Sequoia platform even helps you sign new seller clients by making your listings look great and maximizing the exposure of those listings on sites like Facebook, Trulia, and Zillow.

To learn more about Boston Logic, and how we can help you achieve results online, please give us a call or contact us for a demonstration.

Find All About Boston Logic with Our New Video!

Looking for a new way to appeal to potential customers and those real estate brokers or agents looking to invest in new real estate websites or real estate SEO services, Boston Logic's talented Design Team created the following video to enhance the understanding of what we do here at Boston Logic.

Click the image below to watch the video on YouTube, or check out the embedded video on the BostonLogic.com home page!

The following is an excerpt of the video transcript:

Attention Realtors! Are you tired of spending money online without seeing results?

After years in the real estate business, and working with thousands of Realtors, we know that if you’re watching this video, you’ve either tried to leverage the web and haven’t seen the results you need, or you have yet to make an investment online and you know that now is the time.

At Boston Logic, every product and service we offer is designed to help your real estate business grow and succeed by bringing you more customers and more deals.

At the heart of this mission is the Sequoia platform - the most advanced online marketing and lead management software available for the real estate business! Powerful and easy to use, Sequoia saves you time and money, and helps you work less and earn more! Let’s explore just how we do this.

Our experience has taught us that almost every broker and agent wants and needs the same things to succeed online.

Realtors want:

A great looking website
That ranks in search engines
And generates lots of user traffic and high quality leads.
Better lead management and Customer Relationship Management software -
That’s built for the real estate process from first contact to the closing table.

Realtors need:

A highly interactive MLS search which keeps users coming back to your site
Easy to use Social Media tools
Friendly support and training personnel who are only a call away
AND they want all of this to be easy to use and manage.

Watch the full video to find out more about the Boston Logic Sequoia platform, or contact us to schedule a demo of the Sequoia Software to see what the most cutting-edge real estate website software can do for you!

Warren Residential New Real Estate Site Launch!

The Warren Residential Group has been a Boston Logic customer for many years, and their custom website brought them much success in that time. Looking to build on that success with an eye to the future, the Warren Residential Group recently opted to transfer their existing design theme to the Sequoia platform.

The Warren Residential Group's successful Newbury Street real estate brokerage is a perfect example of how leveraging your Web presence can grow your business exponentially. Working with Boston Logic over several years, the Warren Residential Group first built a fully customized real estate website, taking advantage of every tool available at the time. Realizing that the Sequoia platform offers not only the best suite of tools available today, but that that toolset continues to grow constantly, Warren recently moved their highly acclaimed design (also by Boston Logic!) to the Sequoia platform.

Our Mimic Theme design option lets you keep your aesthetic, emotional, and financial investment in the look and feel of your site intact, while moving onto the best software platform in the real estate industry. The Warren Residential Group constantly receives amazing positive feedback on the look of their website, so this was an obvious choice for them.

We can talk at length about the power of the Sequoia platform and how it can benefit your business, but this testimonial from The Warren Residential Group sums it up nicely:

"Boston Logic has been a huge part of my company's success. Their technology and design have helped move Warrenre.com to the top of search engine rankings and convert visitors to customers. But, most importantly, they have acted as a part of my team just as if they worked directly for me. They don't just build websites, they help build businesses." - Nick Warren, Broker

The Warren Residential Group is one of Boston's leading full service real estate agencies. Located in the Back Bay, they focus on luxury residential properties in the Boston area and beyond, and their focus on technology and customer service consistently earn them rave reviews from their clients.

Learn more about the Sequoia platform and our various design options - Contact a member of the Boston Logic sales team today at 617-266-9166!

Client Testimonial: New Boston Logic Real Estate Website Sees Results!

We are occasionally fortunate enough to receive glowing client testimonials and feedback about our real estate websites once they go live. In the following testimonial, a client experienced a significant dropped Bounce Rate, and is seeing that his website users and visitors are increasing their Time on Site!

"Dear David,

So as not to let the moment pass, I want to thank everyone involved in the launch and ease of implementation of our new real estate website. We still have a steep learning curve ahead but are enjoying the process.

Boston Logic designs stellar real estate website that produced results!

See the new Boston Logic site at www.mvbuyeragents.com

Statistics a bit hard to gauge in a few days particularly our 2 slowest days of the week. However, our two prime concerns have had a dramatic turnaround in Google Analytics: Bounce rate has dropped 46% to 35% and Average Time on Site increased 187% to 4:53.

Thank you again, and I look forward to years of successful association." Fred, Martha's Vineyard Buyer Agents

Visit the Martha's Vineyard real estate website at www.mvbuyeragents.com to see more of Boston Logic's work and real estate website design and functionality capabilities!

Ready to get started with your own real estate website? Contact Boston Logic today to get started!

How To Promote Your New Website: Part I

TIPS FOR INCREASING TRAFFIC

Special Three Part Client Consult

ONLINE TECHNIQUES – SOCIAL MEDIA & SEARCH MARKETING

Think outside the social media box, too...

We'd love to hear some anecdotes in the comments section from your own website launch experience- and check out our SEO blog for more on how to get your web pages ready for Google

Related Links:

New Agent Site Designs Added to Theme Gallery!

Go ahead, judge a website by it's cover...

Related Links:

Jack Conway Passes Go with Award-Winning Website!

“with more than 90-percent of people using the Internet in their home search, it is essential for any successful real estate firm to have an engaging, informative and easy-to-use website".

To learn more about how Boston Logic can take your Real Estate business to the next level,sign up for a no-pressure demo today

Related Links:

More Sequoia System Updates!

Related Links:

New Sequoia Real Estate Website Launch: Phoenix Realty!

Related Links:

New Sequoia Platform User Guide! 5/11/2011

Related Links:

New Video About the Sequoia Platform!

Related Links:

Find All About Boston Logic with Our New Video!

Related Links:

Warren Residential New Real Estate Site Launch!

Related Links:

Client Testimonial: New Boston Logic Real Estate Website Sees Results!

Related Links:

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