Are you one of many who think social media is a Fad and you and your real estate business don’t need to be there? I was! This video by Erik Qualman at Socialnomics.net will change your mind!

As a real estate virtual assistant, I have been blogging for years and have understood the seo value of blogs. I also have personal profiles on the prominent social media sites, as well as created profiles for clients. But I have to admit, I did really GET social media.

This video and a webinar course with Social Media Magic his opening my eyes. You will hear more about what I am learning and how to make money with social media.

Real Pro Gold websites now have snippets of each blog post on the Home page which provides fresh content that search engines just love. Using the correct keywords and meta-tags, you should see remarkable improvement in your search engine placement. Mind you this will not happen overnight or if you only blog once a week. But with effort it will happen! 

Real Pro Gold and Twitter

Another new feature you will be excited about is being able to submit your blog post to Twitter with the click of your mouse. Yes, you do have to have a Twitter account set up, but after that, tweeting is a piece of cake. 

If you have not heard of Twitter and don’t have a clue what I am talking about…you are not alone. Contact me. As your Real Estate Virtual Assistant, I’m glad to help.

Follow me on Twitter!

First, let me say that I am a fairly low key person. It
takes a lot to get me riled up. I also don’t get wrapped up in what is going on
in the real estate blogosphere and pretty much just do my own thing.

Reading a blog post today by Mary McKnight of rsspieces.com, telling the saga of real
estate blogger, Vlad Zablotskyy,
being sued by ePerks got me riled up. The
more I read, riled up turned to mad as hell…and I hope it does the same to you!

The first thing that gets your attention in Mary’s post is
her offer to give a free
Blog to anyone writing a blog post in support of Vlad. This is another
whole story, so visit Mary’s blog for details.

Back to this story…Mary’s offer for a free Blog got my
attention, but not enough to actually write in support of Vlad. As I said, I
pretty much do my own thing. But it did get my attention enough to start
reading.

ePerks is a 3^rd party lead generation website.
Real estate professionals buy a zip code for a monthly fee, get the leads
generated from that zip code and then pay ePerks a referral fee when a closing
takes place. ePerks rebates a percentage of the referral fee to the
buyer/seller lead and pockets the rest. Nothing new, we have all seen this
scam…I mean scheme (you get the picture) before!

As a startup, ePerks paid real estate bloggers to write
about nice things about them. There are those who think this is an underhanded
tactic. I happen to think it is an interesting marketing tool and this didn’t
bother me at all.

Read: Real estate rebates and referrals with a twist

Vlad’s article generated much attention and comments from
real estate professionals, some had positive experiences with ePerks, others
did not.

Vlad then wrote a
follow-up article in response to reader comments questioning what type of company
ePerks really is.

Read: ePerks- A Scam
or A Gem?

Then, as they say, the shit hit the fan.

When you read the
post in question, there is no slander involved. Just a blogger giving his
opinion in response to his readers, which unless there has been a change in the
constitution I don’t know about, Vlad has the right of free speech.

I am not going to
get into the details. They are included in the following articles:

Get the story:
ePerks Sues Real Estate Blogger, Blogosphere Unites to Destroy the ePerks Brand

Read also: Eperks: How
to kill a startup

Read also: ePerks
& iHype – Legal Kneejerk – Sues Blogger

Too make a long
story short, Vlad was presented with a cease and desist letter, has been
personally attacked and called a child molester and is now being sued. I never
heard of Vlad Zablotskyy until today, but anyone who is being slandered
and sued for exercising his right to freedom of speech deserves my
support…especially if he belongs to the real estate community.

Gregg Swann, BloodHoundRealty,
has set up a legal
defense fund for Vlad. Clicking on the ‘Donate’ button is helping to
defend, not only Vlad, but all of us!

Support Vlad Zablotskyy’s Defense Fund
Defend your own right to free speech!

This entire story
is despicable, highlighting the worst of the Internet. I encourage everyone
to talkabout it, write about it, get angry about it and demonstrate to ePerks
the best of the Internet…the banning together of the real estate community in
support of their own.

For me, the story
doesn’t end here. While reading about Vlad and ePerks, I saw a video ePerks has
on YouTube, advertising the ePerks website.

Of the 34
comments on YouTube, 33 thought this video to be funny. I don’t think it is funny at all…it is vile, crass, disgusting,
repugnant, and an insult to the very community ePerks’ business model is
dependent on…real estate agents. I hope any real estate agent seeing this video
would think twice before giving ePerks a dime of their hard earned money.

Supporting Vlad’s
defense fund is important and I encourage you to donate. I also encourage you
hit ePerks where it hurts…their pocketbook. If you are considering subscribing
to their product…DON’T. If you are a subscriber, end your subscription NOW! Let
ePerks know, You are mad as hell…and won’t take it anymore!

Who visits real estate blogs? 

Visitors who enjoy a particular community or political blogger will most likely visit that blog on an ongoing basis¦probably until they get pissed off at something the blogger has to say. On the other hand, real estate blog visitors are transactional visitors. They only really care what you have to say while they are buying or selling a house. They may visit for a few months and then are gone. And what they really want to do is look at homes for sale! 

RssPieces.com did a survey of their 2500 blogs and found that buyers spend an average of 15 seconds reading a blog post before clicking on a call to action button¦15 SECONDS! What buyers are most interested in is looking at homes. What you are most interested in is selling homes. Why wouldnt you post your listings on your real estate website? Post away and dont forget the photos¦buyers are more interested in the photos than the story you have to tell about the house. It is a good idea to include the MLS# also.  

Need help with your blog? As a real estate Virtual Assistant, I am at your service. You can contact me by visiting my website, myREassistant.com, sending an email to info@myreassistant.com or calling 757-271-6047.

What’s in a name? EVERYTHING when it comes to the domain name for your blog! Actually, it is only EVERYTHING IF you want your blog to make you money¦and of course that is the point, isnt it? Your blog domain, title and site description need to be keyword rich in order to please the ˜Internet Gods¦search engines. Blogs can be search engine magnets, but only if they are keyword rich. You may be asking yourself, what constitutes keyword rich? Generally speaking, your best keywords are your farm area plus the words ˜real estate. Example: Virginia Beach real estate, Orange County real estate or Tampa Real Estate.

You can research the best keywords at KeywordDiscovery.com. The site says there is a $49.95 subscription fee, but click on the Free Trial button (center page, near the top). My free trial has lasted 3 weeks now. If I am your real estate virtual assistant, I have probably already done this for you. Or contact me and I am glad to research this for you, 757-271-6047 or info@myreassistant.com.

You may want to consider having a keyword rich domain name and having a secondary url, pointed to your keyword rich domain for marketing purposes. I mentioned in my last post that I have a new blog ˜under construction with RssPieces.com. My keyword rich domain will be RealEstateVirtualAssistant.net, but I will be using VAGrapevine.com in my marketing. Have questions? Need help with a new or existing blog? Need a real estate virtual assistant? Let me know. Im here to help.

Blogging became popular in the real estate community about 3 years ago and we have come a long way. One thing I have learned is how important your blogging platform is.

Just like it mattered to the 3 Little Pigs if their house was made of straw, wood or bricks, it matters to you what blogging platform you are on.  For this example, I have broken down blogging platforms into 3 types: website integrated, free platforms and paid platforms with SEO optimization built in.

1. Website Integrated
Website integrated platforms do not have a separate, keyword rich url of their own, but are internal pages on a website. This blog is a good example. There is a url, www.VAGrapevine.com, but it is merely pointed to an internal page of my website, www.myreassistant.com/blog. Yes, I am guilty as charged and am not doing what I am suggesting you do, but as you will see, I am remedying the situation.

After a year and a half of working in these platforms and not seeing much in the way of results, these platforms are like having a house of straw. You can say you have one, but page views are at a minimum and they really arent generating you business. The main reason for the poor performance is the content and links are embedded so deeply into the website, the search engines never find them.

2. Free Platform
Free platforms, such as WordPress, are definitely a step up from website integrated options. This is a platform made of wood and if done right can be extremely effective. What makes them effective? Good keyword rich content and SEO work on your part.

3. Paid Platform
As you can imagine, the paid platforms are your house of bricks. BUT, not all paid platforms are created equal. I will use my husbands (Dave Macklin) real estate blog as an example. Dave had a blog on a VERY expensive platform for 1.5 years. He wrote keyword rich content and the most page views he ever had in a day were 84. He put much time and effort into a mere 84 people reading his posts. To give credit where credit is due, the blog did pull his website, www.BulterTeamHomes.com up in the search engines.

Dave is now using an www.RSSPieces.com platform, www.AllVirginiaBeachRealEstate.com. It has only been online for a month and is not ranked by Google yet. He is writing the same keyword rich content and his best day, to date, for page views is 337. Certainly better than the previous 84 page views. With the SEO built in this platform, the results in a few months should be even more dramatic.

I am so impressed with Mary McKnight and the RSSPieces.com platform, I am in the process of moving this blog over to them¦so stay tuned!

Questions about blogging platforms or how I can help you with your blog as your real estate Virtual Assistant? Visit my website, www.myREassistant.com or give contact me at 757-271-6047 or info@myREassistant.com.

When marketing a new real estate blog, one of the first things you want to do to register it on Blog Directories. Whe your website was new, you registered it on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. Registering on Blog Directories does the same thing for your real estate blog. It is how people find your blog and can read your latest post.

RssHugger.com is one of the neatest and easiest to use directories around. You can actually see how many peole have visited your blog. I registered my husband’s blog, AllVirginiaBeachRealEstate.com, a few weeks ago and it was fun to go back there today and see that his blog is in the Top 100.

I have just registered this blog and would like to go back in a couple of weeks and see that I am in the Top 100. Please visit RssHugger.com and help me out.

Are you one of those real estate professionals who knows they need a blog, but don’t have the time nor the inclination to learn what it is all about, set one up, market it and then post to it on a regular basis. As your real estate virtual assistant, I can do this for you. Visit my website to learn more, or give me a call at 757-271-6047. I am glad to help!

The first question most people ask is, “What is a real estate Virtual Assistant and what can you do for me?”

First, a real estate VA, or Real Estate Virtual Assistant, is an independent contractor providing administrative, creative and technical support for real estate professionals. I work off site…at my own computer in my sweatpants. Believe me, this is one VA who will never use a webcam!! Thus, saving you overhead costs. You don’t provide space or equipment for me.

And because I am an independent contractor, you don’t pay benefits, vacation time or employee taxes. I’m the best of both worlds! I offer the benefits of outsourcing along with the dedication of a valued Team member. You can find a more detailed explanation on my website, myREassistant.com.

What can I do for you as your real estate Virtual Assistant? My specialties are systems development, marketing, listing coordination, Internet marketing, lead coordination, and blogging. The only thing I can’t do for you is make copies and put up signs & lock boxes.

If you are wondering if you need a real estate VA, ask yourself how much time you spend sitting in front of a computer or fooling with paperwork instead of being in front of Buyers and Sellers. If your answer is “too much”, then you need my help.

Learn more about me and my services by clicking here. Then e-mail me or give me a call and we’ll figure out how I can help YOU!

I feel like the plumber with the leaky faucet. I write blogs for a number of real estate agents and never seem to find the time to write my own. You’ll notice my last post was August sometime. Well…that is changing! I was motivted by the fact that 2 of the blogs I write have made it to the Pittsburg Home Daily’s 500 Real Estate Blogs To Watch list. Blog’s on the list I write are Knox County Ohio Blog and Okemo Mountain Real Estate.

So, I decided what I do for other people, I will do for myself. This is my first of many regular posts to come. I’ll enjoy sharing with you on a more regular basis.

Are you a real estate agent and want to get on the blogging bandwagon, but don’t have the time? blogging is just the kind of task a Virtual Assistant can do for you! Visit my website and drop me an email. I can help!

The definition of a Blog, which is short for weblog, is a journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.

But, I have a website you say, so why do I need a blog? Heres why according to About.com¦

1. You can share ideas with a larger audience, saving you time and money.

2. The software is relatively easy to use and in many cases free. Who can pass up free?

3. When linked to your websites, your search engine rankings can increase dramatically.

4. It is a convenient solution to communicating fresh and up to the minute information.

So, OK, you agree a Blog would be a benefical tool in your real estate marketing arsenal, but you just dont have the time to devote to updating a Blog 1 or 2 times a week.

The good news is, you dont need to. I can do it for you. I will:

1. Set up your Blog.

2. Link it to all your websites.

3. Incorporate RSS feeds¦this is how the blog search engines find you.

4. Get other agents to link to your Blog, increasing your rankings.

5. Add content to your Blog once or twice a week and notify you when it has been updated.

You don’t do a thing!

Give me a call, 757.271.6047 or drop me an email. As your real estate Virtual Assistant (www.myREassistant.com) …I’d like to Blog for you!