Your success revolves around listings.

We help you market them through audio, advertising, and a great website.

The vendors in the Alliance Member Program have the knowledge and experience to help you see the success and revenue you want to see in 2011.

Check out what we have to offer!

Agent Reboot is a one-day power session of hands-on learning about the latest in business development, technology, and marketing.  It’s a must-attend event for both new and seasoned real estate professionals alike.

With sessions discussing social media, how to market your listings online, killer business strategies, lead generation from your website, and much more; you will come away from Agent Reboot with an arsenal of tools to command your business and take it to the next level.

The Agent Reboot 12-city tour will be hosted by two emcees – Nicole Nicolay and Daniel Rothamel.

Hosted in cities all across the United States, you can find an Agent Reboot session near you.  The first two sessions have already taken place but there’s still time to register for and attend upcoming sessions.

Register today for $79 (regular price $149) Use Promo Code: POINT2

Register online at www.agentreboot.com

Building a website is easy.  Getting traffic to it is not.

Do not lose hope however, as there are small adjustments and changes that you can make to not only drive traffic to your website, but also keep those people there.

1. Content is King

People go to websites for one thing: information.

When using search engines, we all enter in search terms for the information we want to find, whether it be movie titles, band names, or listings in a particular city.  These terms and nuggets of information will go a long way to attracting people to your site and keeping them there.

What information do your clients often ask for when speaking with you?  That content should be on your website.  What information do you ensure you give to new clients?  That content should be on your website.  What knowledge about your local area do you possess through experience?  That content should be on your website.

One of the best things you can do with your Point2 Agent website is adjust the default content you received when you first created it.  While it is great content to start out with, our content pales in comparison to the knowledge, experience, and expertise you have about your local market, its neighborhoods, its listings, and its people.

Want some assistance with ideas?  Check out the Education Sessions on editing and design strategies.

2. Search Engine Optimization

Each search engine possesses what they term “crawlers” or “spiders” whose job it is to navigate through websites and make note of the information they find.  Again, content is king – and those crawlers love the king.  They worship the king.  The more custom content you have on your site, the better.  While we don’t know the formulas those crawlers live by, we do know that they prefer fresh content that they cannot find elsewhere.  Providing your own information that is different from everyone else will help you stand out to those crawlers.

Crawlers look at things like page titles, meta information, and the domain name you purchased for your website.  Sound confusing?  Join the SEO Education Session for ways that you can get started on your SEO to drive traffic without having to pay a single dollar.

3. Linking

Ever taken a look at the list of ‘friends’ someone has on Facebook?  That feature makes visible groups of people and how they network amongst themselves.  You even receive suggestions as to people you may know through someone else, or a friend can suggest that you ‘friend’ someone.  It’s all about forming bonds with others.

Linking of websites works in the same way.  Website A provides a link to website B’s domain name, which tells the online visitors looking at A that they may also enjoy reading the information on B.  Now, if B is nice, it will also have a link telling its online visitors to check out A.  That linking and backlinking not only helps to drive traffic (sending people to another site and receiving traffic in return), but it also aids your SEO efforts .  Crawlers recognize the linking and networking that is occurring and pay particular attention to the number of people who are following those links.

As an interesting note, referral traffic from website linking accounts for over 40% of the traffic we receive on our own Education Team website.  I just created another link to our website…it’s that easy!

4. Blog

A great place to start linking between your website and others is a blog .  While a website provides consistent information, a blog can be more “this moment now” in providing information on market statistics, open houses, local attractions, etc.  It can also be a great way to quickly disseminate brief pieces of information that just don’t seem to fit in with your website (ie. roadwork construction, being out of the office for a few days, etc.).

This online web journal provides you the opportunity to not only talk more about real estate, listings, and market trends, but also about other topics that matter to you.  Have a particular hobby that you are passionate about?  Put it on your blog.  Have an opinion on that trendy new restaurant that opened last week?  Put it on your blog.

It may seem trivial and inconsequential, but remember that people go online for information.  Often the information is related to entertainment, which may account for the incredible popularity of YouTube.  Whether it is music videos, ’stupid pet tricks’, or some dude doing an AC/DC cover in his basement, it’s on YouTube.  Your blog can be business related, but it can also have an element of fun to it that showcases who you are outside of real estate.

Think of your blog as as your website’s mullet.  Business in the front, party in the back.  It’s all good.

5. Marketing

Of course, no matter how much great information you have on your website or blog, no matter how much you link to other sites, and no matter how good your SEO work is, you will not see the increase of traffic to your site if you don’t market it.

What does “market it” mean?

It means that wherever you advertise yourself, your listings, your business, your website address should be there too.  Business cards, email signatures, sign riders, bus benches, magnets, keychains, pens, listing brochures, listing presentations, mugs, shirts, hats…you get the idea.  From this point forward, wherever you would put your name, put your website address with it.  Your website is your twin.  It is the online version of yourself.

This may sound extreme, but it will make your website stand out from your competitor’s websites.  Chances are, those online visitors will form a relationship with that online version of you well before they actually meet or talk to you.  With over 80% of the real estate market going online first to look for potential houses, this trend won’t be changing anytime soon.  Learning more about online marketing strategies will be key in driving traffic to your website.

Online visitors are a lot like drivers on the road.  They know what their final destination should be, so take the streets and avenues that they feel will get them there.  The destination for online visitors is information.  They know what they want to learn or find, so look for websites that are going to provide them that information.  You can’t control where they go, but you can put up the road signs and help the search engines provide the maps to the information you provide on your site.  With any luck, those visitors will love what they see so much, they’ll stay.

So build it.  Customize it.  Blog about it.  Market it.  They will come.

Alright, alright, I’ll stop shouting.  But just in case you haven’t been subject to the media bombardment surrounding Apple’s newest tech toy, the ‘bigger-than-an-iPhone-and-smaller-than-a-laptop’ gadget has been causing quite the stir among technology lovers everywhere.

Reminiscent of Star Trek’s PADD (Personal Access Display Device), the iPad has been proclaimed as “the best way to experience the web, email, and photos”.  This may be true, but I was hoping the newest Apple wunder-gadget would have a few more of the things that most people consider essential in a personal computing device.

No USB port?
No multitasking?
No camera?
No SD Card Slot?

I mean, c’mon…when held captive, Dr Arik Soong was able open every lock in an entire San Francisco prison using nothing but his PADD! Alright, maybe that was in space, on television, and about 150 years in the future. But still… no camera?!  Even my bulky laptop has a camera in it.

Call me a Luddite, but I’m pretty content with my current technology setup.  Perhaps I will be more inclined to pull out my credit card when version two or three comes along – or when the elements I consider a necessity are included.

But that’s just my opinion.  The bigger question is:  How will the iPad fare in the eyes of increasing tech-savvy real estate agents?  The iPad has the potential to be a game changer for real estate.

Just how, you ask?  Here’s just a few of the benefits we spotted…

- Real Time Access – make appointments, check your email, or make VOiP calls anywhere
- High def video, pictures, and virtual tours of properties
- Digital listing presentations
- Bring up neighborhood goodies from the likes of Google Street View, Yelp, or Zillow
- Possibilities for future killer apps are almost limitless. Custom mobile-CRM anyone?
- Go paperless – take care of contracts on the fly. Faxes are so 1980.

So what do you think?  Do you plan on investing in your very own modern day PADD?  Will you pre-order or brave the mobs when the iPad hits store shelves and give ‘the best online experience ever’ a try, or is this just another case of too much hype and not enough substance?

However, she is a determined, resourceful, and intelligent woman who knows what she wants – and what she wants is to rediscover education so that she can be a more effective educator.

I’ve been thinking a lot about her choice, especially after having talked to her students this morning as part of the Education Week happening here in Saskatchewan.  Seeing their shining young faces and discussing careers and education with them has put me in an introspective mood regarding their future careers, the teachers who work with them, and my friend’s choice to progress her own education.

In our discussions regarding educational theory, practice, and implementation, it is incredible the varying approaches and opinions that people have towards education.  The spectrum runs from people who go out of their way to avoid any “learning”, to those who eagerly pursue it and search for new things to learn each day.  Ultimately, I feel that whether or not you are conscious of it, we are all learning each and every day.

Progressing, changing, adapting, living, learning.

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” – Will Durant

In today’s tech-literate world, it is very easy to gain access to the information and answers we desire.  We “Google” terms and phrases to obtain further details.  We search online for market trends.  We peruse houses on Agent websites or via the MLS system.

As much as we don’t see it as such, this is all education!  We’re seeing new photos, reading new information, making connections to things we already know.  Our quest for information then leads to us looking for more information, talking to other people, sharing this information learning, or leveraging it in our own businesses.

“The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.” – Herbert Spencer

The same can be said for this article.  Usually my articles focus on strategies or features that are interesting and can benefit you in your business and lives, but this month is a bit different.  Rather than sharing something new, I’m throwing out a challenge to you.

Go to www.Point2AgentEducation.com.  Register for a live Education Session, read a previously-written article, check out the blog tips, watch a Training Video.  Then, take that knowledge and apply it to your Point2 Agent site.  Don’t worry about making mistakes:

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – John Powell

If something did go wrong, how did you rectify the situation?  What did you learn that you need to consider in the future?  What went well?  What progression or changes did you make on your website?  What did you learn?

We all learn each and every day.  That is what keeps us motivated.  That is what keeps life interesting.  That is what makes us interesting.  That is what keeps us alive.

“Education is too important to be left solely to educators.” - Francis Keppel

My friend is taking a chance and jumping in head-first into a new chapter of her life, taking her future by the horns and giving it a shake to not only improve her life and job skills, but also the education that her students receive from her.

Your education is in your hands.  What are you going to do with it?

It’s almost here.  Next week marks the start of the migration to the new Point2 Agent Rackspace email accounts!

Between the weeks of September 15-October 9, current email accounts through Point2 will switch over to Rackspace email accounts.  Due to the volume of emails within Point2 Agent, this migration will be done in stages.  Users will receive a migration notification email indicating when your specific email address(es) will be migrating over to Rackspace.

Email addresses will remain the same, but all new emails will be delivered to the new Rackspace email account(s).

Here are a few answers to commonly asked questions:

What happens to all the emails in my current email account?
In the weeks following September 15, they will be migrated over to a new email account.  During the migration time-frame, you will still be able to access previous emails in the old account.  Once migration is complete, all older email will be reunited and accessible in your Rackspace account, which provides users with further spam filtering, task management, time organization, and email messaging options.

What do I need to do prior to my migration date?
Exporting contacts from current accounts, so that they can be imported into your new Rackspace account.  This will allow users to retain all of the current prospect information, as well as provide opportunities to add further information, add prospects to mailing groups, and having a Frequent Contacts list of those who are emailed the most.

I need more information or assistance.
To help the transition between email providers, we have created email migration FAQ’s (which includes information regarding downloading email to Outlook) and pulled together key information about Rackspace.

If you are a Point2 Agent user keep an eye out for your migration notification email!