This is a niche product with a specific purpose. Creating individual websites for each property an individual or company wants to market on the internet. I believe this product will be a HUGE hit in the marketplace. Not only do I believe it is an industry leading product, I am offering it at a price lower than my competitors.

Accounts are FREE to sign up and “Try Before You Buy” and each website is priced at $43.95 per website and bulk purchases can bring the price down to as low as $36 dollars per website. One of the great aspects of the internet is that it legitimizes niche products as you are able to reach a far greater audience for pennies. As a result, we are able to pass on the cost savings to the consumer. If we had to use traditional marketing vehicles to market this product, we would have to charge $100 per website.

So now that all the elbow grease has gone into creating the product, I know must use all of the knowledge I have learned over the past 4 years to see if I can market the product in a cost effective manner to generate a product. Wish me luck, check out the website and if you know a real estate agent, rental agent, property manager, investor or FSBO, please tell them about this product. The website should be able to answer all their questions, however if they still have questions, please feel free to give them my information.

This is MAJOR project for me so any assistance with word of mouth advertising is greatly appreciated.

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We are entering an economic period not seen by this generation. I believe that we have a stronger infrastructure based on the principles of Adam Smith but if our political leaders try to hard to manage this correction, we will only be extending the inevitable.

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Over the past 3 years, we have built a business based on the concept of providing our clients with a solid platform in which they themselves could grow their online business from either the knowledge they learned from us through our consulting program or through other means like the various real estate fourms or real estate social networks currently online.

The ongoing challenge throughout this process has been finding a platform which was scalable (read search engine friendly CMS system) or a manual process which was cost effective enough to compete against every web designer and developer on the planet. This was a problem because to create a strong solid platform for agents to use to grow their business is not cheap. Our packages cost on average $5000 for a 20 page website.

The crux of the issue is that when the potential client is being told that it will cost that much to build from us and the guy down the street will do it for $1,000 what do you think the non educated agent will do…….build the cheap site or maybe buy a templated site thinking that they will upgrade in the future. They don’t realize the mistake they are making until it is too late. At the time of the decision however it makes sense when you think about it from the realtors point of view. 

However, If you are successful because of your track record or sales skills and sign on a client, conventional wisdom dictates that even an educated client wants instant results from the money they are investing. The reality is that isn’t going to happen from an organic point of view. 

So where is this leading. Well, I don’t know Morgan but know that people either like him of hate him.  What I can’t necessarily blame him for is trying to give clients instant results for the money they are paying him.  If I was a client, I would want results and from what I know, he charges far more then we do. As a result,  he needed to be agressive in his optimization strategy. I am not making a case for him, but am trying to understand what happened and how if may or may not affect our business moving forward.

We stopped doing any link pages over a year ago for two reasons.

• It did not make economic sense from a business perspective
• It created an undo risk for clients who spent the money.

By making this decision, it definately affected our ability to bring on new clients as we could not be as agressive in our belief to generate results for the clients, but it also soilidified our standing with our existing clients because it gave them the confidence that we would always operate in a manner which was in their best interests.

So how is this recent decision by Google going to affect our business. Well, as I have always said, until the consumer better understands the product they are purchasing and the search engines perfect their process, there will always be companies pushing the edge of the envelope. In the meantime, our job as a company is to continue to figure out a way to provide the best possible service at a competitive price.

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For much of 2005 and 2006, most people looked at the internet as only a lead generation vehicle. With the advent of myspace.com, facebook.com and other networking websites, people are starting to realize that the internet has multiple faces. Even as I gave this advice to many clients, I did not take my own advice. It seemed to me a great avenue for people whom were good communicators of the written word, but very difficult for those who were better at speaking, not writing. (ie…real estate agents).

I now believe that internet networking is not just for those who can write. It is for everyone who is looking to build or increase their business using the internet. For example, in the online real estate world, networking websites have taken hold in 2007. The top sites are Active Rain, Wanna Network and Real Town. These sites don’t require you to write lengthy articles to gain exposure. You can but it is not necessary. They are networking sites where you can share information, exchange stories or just keep up to date on the the world of real estate.

Now these networking websites are not new. What they are is an extension of various forums of communication which have been available on the web for many years. What makes them different is that they offer multiple forms on communication under one URL. For example, in the past there were bulliten boards which were used by die hard internet geeks to communicate. These still exist today. Then came forums like the real estate forum, which were user friendly places to communicate with other real estate professionals. Now people are singing the praises of blogs which are an additional tool to provide people to communicate. Now tie all these forms of communication together, and add the ability to connect with others whom have the same interests and you have the boom of social networking.

So the next question to ask yourself is, how do I take advantage of internet networking. As a real estate agent, I would recommend the following:

• Install a blog on your website and commit to updating it at least once per week. This serves as 2 purposes. First, it allows you to communicate with clients on a weekly basis without having to call them on the phone each week. Second, it increases the overall content on your website which will allow you to generate more traffic to your website.
• Sign-up and participate in these online networking groups focused on the real estate industry. They are listed above but again they are Active Rain, Wanna Network and Real Town.
• Sign-up and participate in some of the older forums on the web. My preference would be the real estate forum which is owned by Site Tutor. We have over 10,000 members and an active community posting between 50 to 100 comments each and every day. (My shameless plug)
• Lastly, look into some of the general social networking websites. I have found great success using Linkedin for my general networking and Facebook for my personal networking.

We are at a time during the year when business historically is slow, so why not take some time and try some of the websites above. I think you will find that after a couple of hours of researching these websites, they won’t seem as daunting and for some like me, they become very addicting. Good Luck and Happy Holidays.

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