Have you considered EDUCATION as one of your New Year’s goals?
Learn to Grow Your Business through Online Marketing
Our next courses are being held January 19th & 20th in Vancouver. The class is small – only 10 people (ONLY TWO SPOTS LEFT!) – for the best learning environment.
The Vancouver Reachd.com course dates have been added to the website. You will notice some of the courses are back to back. That is done to accommodate our out of town students that want to take more than 1 course at a time. You can register for April and May courses here.
We were just teaching a 1 day web marketing in Toronto to a group of Realtors here. This question each time I teach always comes up “I already have a full-time job and you want me to add Facebook and Twitter and Online Video to the mix – there is no way.”
Many people would answer that question by saying you need a strategy or build some objectives, goals and then start working your social media plan.
I think before you do that you need to “believe” As a business owner there needs to be some buy in from you. You must start to see web marketing as a way to build your business. Honestly, I could give you all the stats in the world and you would still not be convinced. The truth is, you need to choose to make web marketing a part of your strategy.
Here is what you should do if you are brand new to web marketing.
1. Set aside 30 minutes a day for web marketing.
2. Start a blog. It is simple to setup and doesn’t have to take a lot of time.
Why start a blog? Blogging is great for SEO and also still important for social media.
Marketing on the internet can be frustrating. Sometimes you try everything and do exactly what you are “suppose” to do and you have zero to show for it.
Frustrating!! Below is a little video, my attempt to encourage you to keep at it with your web marketing efforts. If you’d like to chat about your frustrations, email me or drop me a message on twitter
I posted this video, because I met a guy this morning that was frustrated. He is paying $400 for an internet marketing program and said he is following all the steps but nothing is happening. I understand the frustration. It is annoying to be spending money with no results.
Here was my advice to him and my advice to you if you are trying to market your business online but not getting anywhere
Be patient – sometimes it just takes time. You never know which of those seeds that you planted will sprout and grow.
Narrow your focus. In the case of the guy I talked to he was doing everything (Twitter, Video, Facebook, SEO, Adwords, etc.. etc..) but none of his efforts seemed to be very focused. Remember you only have to do 2 things – Get TRAFFIC and CONVERT the traffic.
Get a diagnosis – It is likely with web marketing you have 1 of about three different problems.
Not enough traffic
The wrong kind of traffic
The wrong message to convert traffic
Before you start messing with your system try and analyze where things might be broken.
If you’d like help with a diagnosis – drop me a line on Twitter and we can schedule a 15 minute web marketing audit. NO charge, just a fresh set of eyes looking at your website trying to help out. If you are not on Twitter you can schedule your audit via email
“Ubertor, which simplifies the process of Web site design for real estate professionals with a powerful and easy-to-use online platform, won the Most Innovative Web Service award”
Ian Watt, a Vancouver realtor, was nominated for the most innovative blogger award. Unfortunately Ian was not chosen for the award. He lost out to another innovative blogger, the Pheonix real estate guy. Ian was present at the Inman Conference to accept the web innovator award on Ubertor’s behalf. Here is a video below that Ian shot from the Inman conference.
I am a bit biased when it comes to real estate websites, but I’ve been evaluating several other options with my move to Wichita and compared to some of the others that I have seen, Ubertor wins in my book hands down for a few reasons.
The sites are easy to update. Each time I sign someone up for Ubertor they comment and say, “Really that’s all? That seems so easy!”
All the SEO features necessary to get Google’s attention are built in.
New templates and features (video especially) that are top notch
Customer service that is remarkable.
Another killer thing about Ubertor is that it is NOT just for real estate agents. Lots of small business can use their services to host great looking and great functioning website!
You can take Ubertor for a test drive for free and it only takes about 5 minutes to have a site up and running. Go to Ubertor.com and sign up or drop a comment below if you have any questions.
Setup web analytics on your website! I still come across many people that are spending money with adwords, with no idea about where those clicks are coming from or how long they are staying or what other pages they are navigating to.
Or you maybe someone that is on Twitter or using Facebook but you not tracking the click throughs to your website with Analytics.
This is a big mistake. It is like you are marketing in the DARK!! Don’t do it. Before you think about search engine optimization or give any thought to marketing online, be sure you take some time to setup Google Analytics on your website.
Google Analytics is free. All that is required to set Analytics up is
In the market we are in Branding and especially personal branding is key. I think your brand is basically the first word or two that comes to mind when people think about you. When someone mentions your name, whatever they say next is probably a part of your brand (whether you like it or not). When you are marketing online it is important to give thought to SEO and high rankings and click throughs and ROI, but also think hard about your personal brand.
You must spend some time with your website if you want to see a return on your web marketing efforts.
Anyone can put up a website, but you need to always be thinking about how, will I get people to my website and how will I get those visitors to take some type of action.
Don’t build a website or buy some web hosting package or setup a blog if you don’t have a plan for marketing that website. Your website and your presence online really is like a living breathing organism. You have to feed it, water it, care for it, if you want it to grow.
6 Things that you can do each week so help improve your “presence” online
1. Blog. Blogging seems sort of old school with Twitter and Facebook on the scene, but blogging is still critical
2. Submit an article: Take a blog post and submit it to an article directory.
3. Google Analytics: Check out your analytics. Are you noticing any trends? Is time on site increasing? How is your bounce rate?
4. Drive Traffic with Social Media: Engage in the conversations on Twitter and Facebook that matter to you and drive some traffic to your website.
5. Add video to your blogs. The reach of video is amazing. Not only can you post your video on your website or blog, but it also goes to YouTube, Facebook, Viddler, MetaCafe, Yahoo, Myspace.. on and on.
6. Drive some traffic with PPC: PPC is pay per click advertising. In the new world of Social media people are discounting the value of PPC. I’m not a big believer of putting all my eggs in one basket and I know that my followers on Twitter can be fickle. Fork over a little cash to Google or Yahoo! and drive some targeted traffic to your website.
My challenge to you is to pick one of the 6 things listed above. For example, build a habit of blogging over the next month and then try out video blogging.
Committed to Your Success,
Rodney Bartlett
Lead Instructor – Reachd.com
Congrats to our sister company 
