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New Sequoia Real Estate Agent Site Launch: Christine Lacava

Christine Lacava is an agent with Jack Conway & Co. When she needed a new website, she came came to Boston Logic and the Sequoia platform in order to leverage all of the great tools she came to know and love on the Jack Conway corporate site!

Christine needed a great site at a great price, so she took advantage of one of our ready-to-deploy design themes for the Sequoia platform.
Choosing a standard theme allows you to have a new, fully functional website up and running in minimal time. For a low startup cost, you can have your new Sequoia site live to the world in less than 24 hours if you choose one of our standard themes. This is a great option for anyone on a budget - or in a hurry!

Our Real Estate Agent Sites offer all of the great features of our sites for entire offices, as well as integrated lead management - which enables you to get leads assigned to you from your brokerage as well as from your own website! No need to log into two systems; leads captured on your office's Sequoia site can be sent directly to your real estate agent website for you to manage directly. This system cuts down on much of the time and effort required to maintain your own site while still working as a member of an office.

Contact the Boston Logic sales team today at 617-266-9166 to learn more about the Sequoia platform and our various real estate web design options.

Christine Lacava represents residential buyers and sellers in Plymouth and Bristol counties.

New Sequoia Features and Upgrades! 1/21/2011

The latest Sequoia real estate websites feature releases and site upgrades - if you are a Sequoia client, be sure to check them out on your own website!

We’ve upgraded our system emails in many ways; the most noticeable being the email address and name the emails come from. Now each company’s system emails, such as daily email updates for leads, messages generated by the LogicLeads CRM system, and more will reflect the appropriate company or agent name. Emails to assigned leads will come from the agent, with their email address and name in the “From” fields in the message. Unassigned leads will get messages from the company’s name and default email address, set in the Settings portion of the back end of each site.

We’ve added an optional email signature on every agent’s profile. Agents can edit this signature at any time, and it is appended to any email sent on their behalf by the Sequoia real estate software system.

We’ve expanded the back-end property search functionality to include rentals from LogicRentals or RentJuice. The back-end navigation item that used to be titled “Search Sales” is now titled “Property Search” – and if you have a rentals component, there are two sub-items; Sales Search and Rentals Search. The back-end rentals search shows agents and brokers comments and remarks that are not publicly available, such as showing instructions. Just as the back-end sales search provides a comprehensive property overview for MLS listings, our new back-end rentals search allows brokers and agents to get as much intelligence as possible on any given listing – without having to log into two separate systems!

We’ve added a great new feature for brokers and agents who need to show multiple listings to one client, or to organize their showings for the day. You can now create Showing Sheets on the back end – these are helpful sheets with basic property info that allow agents to print a list, with images, of the day’s properties to be shown, or to email the list to a lead. Now when you execute a search on the back end, whether for sales or rentals listings, each search result has a checkbox to add the listing to a showing sheet. Sheets can be associated with leads, or printed simply for agents’ own use. If you set a start and end time for a showing sheet tied to a lead, this gets saved as an Event in the LogicLeads CRM system – the same is true for emailing a sheet to a lead. There’s a new tab on each lead’s profile titled “Listings” which shows any listings that have been emailed to the lead – and now and showing sheets for either sales and rentals as well!

Like what you see and want to learn more? Contact us about your own real estate website design today!

Sequoia Site Launch: Tory Row Real Estate, 12/21/2010

Tory Row Real Estate came to Boston Logic looking for an upgrade. They added themselves to the long list of real estate firms who have taken advantage of our Modified Theme realty web design package for the Sequoia platform.

Starting with one of our standard property web design themes, our team worked with Tory Row Real Estate through several rounds of revision to get them the site they wanted. The result, with minimal investment, Tory Row now has a uniquely branded real estate website.

The new Tory Row Real Estate site is clean and modern, and gives users easy access to the many tools that make the Sequoia platform the best in the industry.

By far our most popular design package, the Modified Theme lets you alter one of our standard themes through several rounds of revision. Home page layout, color schemes, global elements such as headers and footers, and many more elements that can be changed to suit your needs and brand identity.

Contact a member of the Boston Logic sales team today at 617-266-9166 to learn more about this great way to make your new Sequoia site unique and targeted at your specific audience.

Tory Row Real Estate is a leader in Cambridge apartment rentals, with a further specialization in apartment and home rentals in the surrounding areas of Arlington and Somerville.

Real Estate Website Q&A Tuesday: SEO and Sequoia 10/5/2010

For today's installment of Q&A Tuesday, where we discuss Frequently Asked Questions we receive from clients or potential clients regarding our Sequoia real estate website platform, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about website optimization. We are constantly being asked about search engine optimization and how our Sequoia websites can help our clients in their search engine marketing efforts.

Here at Boston Logic, we realize the importance of search engine marketing and optimization for your real estate business. Search engines are the way most people find information and services they want- and if your website is not optimized, it is less likely that potential clients will find you.

Even if you've never heard of Search Engine Optimization, a Sequoia website will make optimizing your web presence easy!

Q: How will switching to a Sequoia website help me with SEO?

A: The Sequoia platform was designed specifically with search engine optimization in mind! Sequoia is a cutting edge website platform that integrates the most advanced real estate website features enabling leading-edge marketing campaigns- and we're constantly improving it! Whenever there is a Sequoia system upgrade, your site is upgraded automatically, so your website will always be using the best technology in the real estate industry.

Q: I don't understand SEO. Will I still be able to benefit from the SEO features of a Sequoia website?

A: Yes! With a Sequoia website, adding important Meta Data (such as Page Titles, Page Descriptions, and Keyword Tags) to your website pages and creating custom URLs (essential elements of a well-optimized page) are as easy as filling out a field on a form! You don't have to be an SEO specialist or know HTML to improve your search engine ranking! Simply fill out the fields provided as you create your pages!

Adding Essential SEO Elements to a Sequoia Website is EASY!

Adding Essential SEO Elements is EASY!

Q: Is there support available if I need help with my SEO?

A: Yes! Your Sequoia website comes with a very informative Users Guide tab you can access from your Admin dashboard. We are constantly adding easy-to-follow demos and step-by-step instructions to the Help Section of this blog, and articles on SEO best practices on our blog at RealEstateSEO1.com.

Here are a few suggested links to help get you started:

Real Estate SEO is a Process

Optimize Your Site to Get More Traffic and Leads

Simple SEO for Your Blog

Q: I heard that using Social Media could help my SEO; how do Sequoia websites integrate with popular social sites?

A: You heard correctly! Utilizing social media sharing and social media websites are integral parts of any good search engine marketing strategy. We are constantly upgrading our system to keep up with social media trends.

Sequoia websites also give you the ability to add Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn icons to your website's footer that link to your profile pages on these social media sites. Setup is easy! Simply copy and paste the URL of your profile page into the 'Social Media' fields on your 'Configuration' tab from your Admin dashboard, click 'Save' and your icon links appear automatically!

The more ways you give potential clients to connect with you, the better! We can also help you set up MLS and rental property searches on your Facebook Fan Page that connect to the property searches on your website, and help you set up an RSS feed from your blog to your social media profiles!

Drive more traffic to your real estate website with your Sequoia Blog! 9/2/2010

Why Blog?

Blogging is an important aspect of establishing a web presence for you and your website. Not only does it pump your real estate website design with keyword rich content that allows leads to find you through search engines, but it also helps you establish your brand identity and can color your business with a personal touch.

You'll now be writing for potential clients and people interested in real estate, so think about topics that you think they could find useful, or what you'd like to read about. For real estate SEO purposes, it is also helpful to center most of your blog posts around some of your keywords that you've identified with your real estate website.

Lastly, blogging is about being active. Read other blogs within your industry, have guest bloggers, and comment frequently. You'll be surprised how these things can increase your website traffic, and how you will become part of an online community!

Outlined below are some of the basics of your blog's toolbar. Feel free to experiment and explore other tools and capabilities that your blog has!

If you don't already have a blog integrated with your website, contact us and we can set you up with one for only $20 per month!

Blogging on Your Website

To write your first blog post, follow these steps:
1. Log in to your website, this will give you the ability to create, edit and delete blogs.
2. Go to Settings > Bloggers in the backend to add the users you would like to have blogging capability

Setting Potential Bloggers on your website

3. To blog, stay logged into your system and go to your blog (www.yourdomain.com/posts)

4. As a blogger, a link will be available at the top of your blog to "Create Post"

Select Create Post to start blogging

5. Now you are ready to start writing. Choose an accurate title that describes the text, and hopefully contains a keyword.
6. In the large white section, you will type your blog text.

Note: If you have already typed up your first post in Word or you are copying and pasting text from an email, be sure to highlight the text you paste into the blog, and then click the small eraser icon in the toolbar. This gets rid of unwanted code and formatting, and will keep your blog's font consistent.

7. To insert a link into the text of your post, simply highlight the selected text you'd like the link to be. Next, click the globe with the chain (i.e., "link") icon in the toolbar, and a window will pop up and prompt you to enter the URL for link. You can type this out or copy and paste it.

Note: Search engines love blog posts that have lots of outbound links. Be sure to link to other sites of interest or relevance when you can. It's also a great opportunity for you to create internal links to pages on your own site, like Town Pages if you are writing about a featured listing or neighborhood.

8. To insert an image, click on the yellow icon with the mountain in the foreground. From here, an "Image Properties" window will pop up.

Insert an image into your blog post

a.   Click on the "Browse Server" button to be re-directed to your website's image server, called the FCK Editor.
b.   Click "Browse", then select the image you'd like to insert into your blog post.
c.   Your image is now uploaded to the server. Locate the file name in the list of images, click it, and hit "Upload".
d.   Your image is uploaded into the "Image Properties" window. Click "OK", and your image is now inserted into your blog post!

9. You can also adjust the size of the image by double clicking it, and then clicking on any of the corners (which should have a white square) to drag your image to the desired size.

10. To change the image's alignment, (centering an image is recommended) click the image, then click any of the 3 alignment options on the toolbar.

Your first blog post

These are the basics of your blog's toolbar. Feel free to experiment and explore other tools and capabilities that your blog has!

Ready, Set, BLOG!

Okay, so you have a blog and are ready to start writing: now what do you write about? Or maybe you have been blogging for a while but now you are stumped? Here are some suggestions to get you started!

· Featured property listings. This is a great way to hand-select and talk more about certain apartments that you have, and potential leads love reading additional info on a listing.

· Attend a real estate conference or networking event and write about your experience

· Write a book review that can provide relevant insight to the real estate industry

· Browse through real estate blogs that you find interesting, and think about how you can take the aspects that you like and make them your own.

You can also visit our real estate SEO blog to read more about real estate blog post suggestions. And browse through real estate blogs that you find interesting, and think about how you can take the aspects that you like and make them your own.

Town Pages Improve Your SEO & User Experience

If you’ve started reading any of the blogs here or at RealEstateSEO1.com or BostonLogic.com, then you know that for a successful SEO campaign, unique high quality (and keyword-rich) content is king! But how do you add that type of valuable content to your real estate website?

LEVERAGE WHAT YOUR ALREADY KNOW:

One of the easiest ways to leverage your expertise in the real estate industry - and provide your real estate agent website design with keyword-rich content that is useful to search engines and visitors alike - is by adding Town Pages. Town Pages are pages with a paragraph or so you create with helpful information about an area, and dynamic search results you control by setting criteria when building the page. If your offices' websites for realtors currently does not include town pages, you can upgrade your website to include town pages for only $20 per month!

The information on these pages can be what you would tell someone looking for a new home in the area in question; you can talk about the demographics of the area, the great amenities, the architecture, the public transportation, etc. Basically anything you think clients would find useful or interesting. In addition, information on properties in the area such as average price, number of properties on market, and more is automatically added to the page.

HOW TO CREATE A TOWN PAGE IN THE SEQUOIA SYSTEM:

1. Log into your website. Click on the 'CMS' (Content Management System) Tab.

2. Select the 'Pages' text link from the sub-navigation menu.

3. From the 'Pages' menu, click on the 'Create New' button with the green plus sign icon. Then fill out the form in the 'Create Page' pop-up window that appears.

4. Fill in the Town Page information:

a. Name: This is your internal reference for the page- visitors won't see it. We recommend including the words 'Town Page' at the end so they are easy to find in the Pages Menu.

b. Path: This is the URL your clients will see in their navigation bar and it is also used by Search Engines to help rank your site. Make sure you use a keyword you want to rank for ('Fenway Apartments', in the example above).

c. Redirect URL: Leave this blank for your Town Pages unless you want to redirect your visitors to a different page on your site.

5. Page Content:

a. Page Header: This is the headline of your page that visitors will see when they land on this page. Make sure it is relevant, and utilizes one or more of your keywords.

b. Body Content: This is where you enter that paragraph of useful text you created. If you are pasting your text from a Word Document or Text Pad/ Notebook program, make sure to use the appropriate pasting option from the tool bar. You can edit the text within this box much like a Word Document, changing text with Bold or italic styles, adding hyperlinks, etc. using the icons in the tool bar.

6. Meta Data: This section is where you enter your SEO Title, Description, and Keywords as covered in our earlier email about Optimizing Your Pages. Remember to make sure your Title and Description are readable to a viewer and not a rambling list of Keywords.

7. Don’t worry about the ‘Footer Content’ or ‘Who Can See This Page’ for this lesson. The default settings are fine.

8. Hit the 'Create' Button when you are finished!

9. Your new Town Page will now appear on your 'Pages' list. Ta-Da! Congrats! You've just created your first Town Page!

You can now link to this page, using the URL you created, from blog posts or other pages that mention the neighborhood. The more relevant internal links your site has, the better for SEO and user experience. For example, if you mention something about Fenway Condos for Sale in your Fenway Apartments Town Page, make the words 'Fenway Condos' a hyperlink to a Town Page about Fenway Condos for Sale. If you talk about the Fenway's proximity to another neighborhood, link to that Town Page, too! Your potential client might not be sold on the Fenway area and you can keep them looking on your site longer by providing them with helpful links to other information they might find useful. To automatically boost SEO for your site, be sure to ink each of your Town Pages to dynamic (c0nstantly updating) Property Search results!

LINKING YOUR TOWN PAGE TO DYNAMIC CONTENT:

By linking your Town Pages to a Sales or Rental Property Search for that area, you will create a page with not only great text for visitors and search engines, but also a page with constantly updating information, which is great for SEO! We recommend making a Town Page for every area you want to increase your Sales or Rental activity in, to help improve your real estate online marketing campaign.

1. From the 'CMS' Tab, select the 'Town Pages' link from the sub-navigation bar.

2. Click the blue link for a 'New Town Page' from within the Town SEO Pages Menu.

3. The 'New Town Page' popup window will appear. Select the Town Page you just created from the 'CMS Page' dropdown menu.

4. Select the 'Search Type' you want associated with this page (Sales or Rentals).

5. Then select the search parameters for the listings you wish to show to visitors on this page, such as price range and the location (Fenway in this example). Be sure not to leave the price range blank or it will cause errors on your page or lead visitors to believe there are no listings available in this area.

6. Click the 'Create Page' button at the bottom of the screen once you've entered all your information.

Your new Town Page now appears in your Town Pages menu under the 'CMS' Tab and is linked to a relevant search to keep your page constantly refreshed with new information and no more effort on your part!

You're ALMOST DONE! Now you just have to make it so visitors can find your new page without knowing the URL through real estate website marketing. The best way to optimize your new Town Pages is to create a link to it that can be clicked on from any page of your website. This will ensure that users and search engines can find it!

MAKING YOUR TOWN PAGE EASY TO FIND:

Did you know that search engines cannot see information in forms, such as the drop down menus used in your property searches? In fact, search engines often only 'crawl' within 3 clicks of your website's Home Page. Search engines and users alike will find it easier to navigate to your Town Page if it is prominently displayed.

The ‘Town Page Footer Navigation Menu’ feature of the Sequoia system offers a great solution to this SEO dilemma, allowing you to create a text link (which search engines DO see) on the bottom of every page of your site (including your Home Page) using the keywords you chose when creating your Town Page. Adding each Town Page to this menu will increase real estate internet marketing presence, SEO, and promote ease of use for your customers.

1. From your ‘CMS’ Tab, select the ‘Menus’ link from the Sub Navigation Bar.

2. Select the link ‘Menu Items’ from the ‘Town Pages’ row on the Menus List.

3. In the ‘Menu Items for Town Pages’ drop down that appears, click the ‘Create New’ button.

4. Creating Your Footer Link:

a. Menu Text: This is the text that will appear at the bottom of your pages as a hyperlink to your new Town Page. Make sure the Menu Text you create is one of your keywords, so, in our example, the Footer link would say ‘Fenway Apartments’.

b. Page: This is where you select the page you want this link to go to. This is why we find it helpful to include the words ‘Town Page’ in the name of the Town Pages you create.

c. External Link: Only use this if you want to create a Footer Navigation Link to a page outside of your website, such as to an affiliated site, instead of an internal link.

d. Click the ‘Create’ button.

You're DONE! Your new Town Page now appears in the ‘Town Page Footer Navigation’ Menu, and in the footer of your website.

Once you create multiple Town Pages, you can change the order in which they appear in the footer navigation by click and dragging the menu item up or down by the green arrows icon to the right on this screen. Below is an example of what a hyperlink for your new Town Page will look like in your Home Page footer.

Now all the valuable content your wrote for your users and search engines is just 1 click from your Home Page, helping you begin to rank higher in organic search engine results for the keywords you are targeting!

Boston Logic offers various SEO and Social Media Services if you’d rather focus on your clients instead of your website! Feel free to contact me with any questions or for more information about our services!

Agent Websites Now Available on the Sequoia Platform! 7/16/2010

For Boston Logic's Agent Sites, we employ the same industry leading technology as found behind our broker web design office sites - in addition to enhance personal real estate online marketing features.

Until now, Boston Logic did not offer a cost-effective solution for Real Estate agents who wanted to have their own personally branded, custom real estate website. Well, so many individual agents asked us to create such a product, that we couldn't say no any longer!

Like our sites for Real Estate Offices, Agent Sites are designed to help you rank in the search engines, leverage social media, produce more traffic, and convert more of that traffic into leads. The difference is ownership - Agent Sites not only work seamlessly with the LogicLeads system of your company's Sequoia site, they can generate their own unique leads which go directly to the agent who owns the site. Aggregating leads from your Agent Site and your office's Sequoia site will increase the amount of business going directly to you.

Of course, Agent Sites have all New Sequoia Features of the best-in-class features that make Sequoia the leading platform in Real Estate agent website design: branded site designs with an unlimited number of pages, advanced lead management, unlimited editable lead capture forms, MLS property search with Google maps, extensive interactive user tools, rental search, and much, much more.

Our websites for Realtors offices consistently produce leads, traffic, and search engine ranking. Positioned at the cutting edge of online marketing and technology, Sequoia sites support next generation marketing campaigns, work seamlessly with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and give offices the edge over their competition. Now individual agents can tap into the power of the best software platform in the industry - by using Sequoia Agent Sites.

Explore the power of your personal brand and the unlimited lead generation potential the web has to offer. To find out more about Agent Sites and the Sequoia platform: web design for realtors, contact Boston Logic today.

Continued Innovation with New Sequoia Features: 6/30/2010

We are constantly innovating new real estate website design features here at Boston Logic, and here are some exciting new releases for the Sequoia platform!

We've added the ability to send leads to iContact automatically. Boson Logic has been integrated with Constant Contact for some time now. Clients requested that we add iContact to this short list. Now, your leads can be automatically sent to the iContact realtor internet marketing system too.

Email marketing through iContact allows you to create, send and track your email messages with ease and efficiency. For this feature, all you need to do is create a list in iContact and enter the list name and your client number into your Sequoia System's settings - the system will then send your leads' info to iContact whenever they sign up on your site and every time you enter a lead using LogicLeads. This eliminates the need for exporting and importing lead lists.

We've also added a college search option for LogicRentals clients. Now users can search by proximity to the college or university of their choice! The search will return all properties within a mile of the chosen school that meet the searcher's criteria. You can see a great example of this feature in action on the Warren Rentals website.

We've now added the Similar Properties feature to rental searches. Just as for sales, you can choose in your websites for realtors settings whether or not to display similar properties on your property details pages. As many as six properties will be displayed, all within 10% of the price or rent of the original property and from the same town or neighborhood!

Realtors Now Looking to the Web for an Edge

In an article by Jennifer LeClaire of the Boston Business journal, real estate brokers are relying more and more on online marketing in this current market. Email marketing alone was hailed as a vital component of realtor internet marketing, as is an extremely effective way to engage and communicate with existing customers and future prospects - and has led the way in taking real estate services to the next level.

ConstantContact has recently conducted a survey in which nearly 60% of respondents indicated that they currently use real estate web sites and email marketing to drive more potential customers to their businesses. Now, more than ever, it is important for real estate agents and brokers to establish effective means to build and maintain strong customer relationships. And with the right website and online marketing campaign, more contacts = more leads = more closings.

But simply having a web site is not enough - you have to advertise it to gain drive traffic to your site to get leads. And furthermore, you must understand where your traffic is coming from so that you can narrow the focus of your advertising efforts. When executed and maintained correctly, as much as 50% of your business can come through your website. And if maintained and tended to consistently correctly over time, you will see a growth in business. The National Association of Realtor data states that more than 80% of home buyers will start their property search online, and 70% will then work with the agent that contacts them first.

Blogs are also a key tool for real estate businesses, and they are great resources for search engines to crawl for relevant search content. After time, blogs can attract much organic search engine traffic because of their keyword-rich content. So your real estate internet presence can make the effectiveness of print ads or billboards a thing of the past - as long as you work consistently on your website, blog, and email marketing campaigns, customers will find you.

New Features on Our Websites for Realtors: 6/22/2010

Another round of system upgrades and features now available with Sequoia's realtor website hosting!

Sales and Rentals property details pages are now integrated with Walkscore. Walkscore is a comprehensive site that helps you find a walk-able place to live by calculating a “Walk Score” for any address. You can register for your Walkscore ID here. Then go to the Settings / Configuration page to enable the Walkscore setting, where you can enter the key that was emailed to you. Here’s an example of Walkscore integrated with a listing.

Welcome emails now enabled when new users register! When a new user registers from the "Sign Up" page and the company does not have lead email verification turned on, that user will automatically receive a new "Welcome" email thanking them for signing up. This is great news for your realtor internet marketing strategy: you can now retain new signups more effectively, as they are receiving emails regarding their new activated account.

Luxury building prices now included with the mortgage calculator! The mortgage calculator now pulls its price from luxury buildings as well as properties. Currently, luxury buildings can have 3 sales prices: 2 Bed Start, 1 Bed Start and Studio Start. When users utilize the mortgage calculator, the price is now pulled in that order. For example, if a user searches for a 2 Bed Start, the 2 Bed starting price that has been entered uses that by default. Then, it looks to 1 bed start price, then studio price.

ConstantContact marketing tool is now integrated with your website leads! Your ConstantContact account information can now be submitted to now have verified leads pushed to an email list when the lead signs up. To configure, simply go to the Settings / Configuration page in the admin section, and enter your ConstantContact username and password, then the email list you'd like to add leads to. A great feature for your real estate online marketing campaign!

New Sequoia Real Estate Agent Site Launch: Christine Lacava

Related Links:

New Sequoia Features and Upgrades! 1/21/2011

Related Links:

Sequoia Site Launch: Tory Row Real Estate, 12/21/2010

Related Links:

Real Estate Website Q&A Tuesday: SEO and Sequoia 10/5/2010

Related Links:

Drive more traffic to your real estate website with your Sequoia Blog! 9/2/2010

Related Links:

Town Pages Improve Your SEO & User Experience

LEVERAGE WHAT YOUR ALREADY KNOW:

HOW TO CREATE A TOWN PAGE IN THE SEQUOIA SYSTEM:

LINKING YOUR TOWN PAGE TO DYNAMIC CONTENT:

MAKING YOUR TOWN PAGE EASY TO FIND:

Related Links:

Agent Websites Now Available on the Sequoia Platform! 7/16/2010

Related Links:

Continued Innovation with New Sequoia Features: 6/30/2010

Related Links:

Realtors Now Looking to the Web for an Edge

Related Links:

New Features on Our Websites for Realtors: 6/22/2010

Related Links:

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