Search engine optimization was once the “Wild West” of marketing, but today’s SEO practices offer standard and advanced options that require an appreciable degree of coordination with different marketing strategies. One of the stumbling blocks for some companies is the connection between on-site SEO and off-site SEO (or SEM), which are elements that must work together, but which are often handled by internal and external marketing teams.

On-Site SEO
During the design of a website and building of pages, different tags and text must be included that offer “search engine friendly” content, and this might include items like full meta and H1 tags, optimized and fully labeled graphics, creative written content, and a host of programming elements and internal linking.

Off-Site SEO
Most of the off-site SEO projects happen off site (as the name would suggest), and there are a host of different types of posts, analyses, and directory projects included in this type of optimization work. The keyword work, blog posts, and programming work done on site aren’t beneficial until the off-site SEO team takes those concepts and feeds them into different marketing projects.

Cooperative SEO Practices
Because these two elements are so dependent upon one another, ensuring that the teams responsible for such work are in close communication offers the best results for SEO work. Both teams need to update and refine keyword strategies and programming on a regular schedule as consistently updated content remains the biggest draw for positive search engine results.
 
Projects for Cooperation
Some of the projects required for on-site and off-site SEO remain separate, but often there is an on-site prerequisite for a project that happens off site. For example, internal blog posts or updated content might require submission to search engines, social media publicity, and expansion of local SEO projects. As is to be expected, much of the off-site SEO projects depend upon full implementation of content and updates with on-site plans.

Planning the Coordination
In many cases, the teams responsible for on-site and off-site SEO projects will be separate, and the off-site SEO team might even be in a different building, a different state, or from a totally different third-party Internet marketing company. If possible, it’s a valuable exercise to coordinate a face-to-face meeting between teams, although a video conference will suffice if the teams are far apart geographically.

Steps included in the integration between on-site and off-site projects may include:

1. Create a list of on-site SEO projects

2. Create a list of off-site SEO submissions

3. Write up a schedule for implementation of all SEO plans

4. Define points of intersection between on-site and off-site SEO arrangements

5. Keep lines of communication open between teams

Continued Evaluation
One of the defining elements of a smart search engine optimization strategy includes revisiting initial plans and revising the approach on a monthly basis. After completing implementation of the initial plan, regular meetings between teams offer valuable opportunities to add projects to the SEO plan and to drop or change projects that aren’t offering significant results.

Beginning the Process
Coordinating efforts between internal and external teams assumes that a company already possesses a competent search engine optimization specialist on staff, but in some cases a company might not have experience with full online implementation of various SEO practices. An external SEO company may consult with a company’s internal staff for on-site SEO implementation, although having someone on staff for this specific purpose may provide a suitable return on investment. Young companies will want to continually reevaluate room in the budget for an Internet marketing specialist.

This article was written by Sheldon Armstrong, a regular contributor at The Tech Scoop. He writes this on behalf of OrangeSoda, your number one choice when looking for local online marketing services. With packages starting at just $475, they are sure to help you get in front of your target customers while delivering the best value. Check out their website today to see what they can do for you and your business!

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Sheldon Armstrong

Sheldon Armstrong is a regular contributor to The Tech Scoop. He's a techie who loves keeping up with the latest gadgets and technologies in the market while writing about them during his free time.

Like many people in the Internet technology industry, you may have reached a point in your career when you begin to ponder your future. You may ask yourself if you’re doing all you can to excel in the workplace. You may wonder if there are more satisfying challenges in other companies waiting for you. And, finally, you may consider going back to school to further your education.

Returning to college to get a Master’s degree in Internet Technology is not an easy decision. Master’s degrees take time, focus, sacrifice, and money. However, the benefits can be significant in the end. Below are several ways a Master’s degree in IT can make your career path a little smoother.

It Will Allow You to Become More Proficient in Your Field
With a Master’s degree, you will gain a deeper and broader understanding of Internet technology. Not only will this allow you to take more pride in your work and show dedication to your field, but it will also allow you to be a leader among your peers. With more knowledge come more projects, new challenges, and greater respect. Not only is this good for career advancement, but it is also good for career protection – greater knowledge and a larger skill set make you more valuable to your company and more immune to layoffs and recessions.

It Will Give You Better Job Opportunities
A Master’s degree in IT qualifies you for more job opportunities. It will give you justification to request a raise, a promotion, or more responsibility. It will also open the door to new companies, firms, and programs. It offers you more leverage when dealing with both present and possible employers and qualifies you for positions that include IT risk manager, chief operating officer, database administrator, software engineer, infrastructure architect, and network security engineer. If you want to go outside the office, a Master’s degree also allows you to teach at many colleges and universities.

It Allows You to Take Control of Your Career
Acquiring a new level of knowledge in aspects like Telecommunications Management, Software Engineering, E-business, Project Management, and Homeland Security Management not only allows you the option to apply for jobs you might not be qualified for otherwise, but it also gives you the opportunity to set out on your own. If you’ve ever considered starting your own business or freelancing as a consultant, this arsenal of knowledge can help you amass projects and clientele.

It Earns You More Money
Last, but not least, a Master’s degree gives you something that appeals to almost everyone: more money. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a Masters Degree is worth more than $400,000 in a lifetime of earnings when compared to those who hold only a BA or BS (and more than a $1 million more when compared to those with only a high school diploma). Of course, the field also plays a role; while a Master’s Degree in Internet Technology or an MBA can help you earn more money, a Master’s Degree in Anthropology or Geography may not be as profitable.

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Sheldon Armstrong

Sheldon Armstrong is a regular contributor to The Tech Scoop. He's a techie who loves keeping up with the latest gadgets and technologies in the market while writing about them during his free time.

Our worlds, both professional and personal, revolve around social interactions.

When it comes to taking those interactions digital and utilizing the vast platform of the internet, many can quickly become overwhelmed with the sheer size and scope of some of the networks readily available to us (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, etc.) – let alone, how to use these networks effectively (and not be considered a troll…)

That’s where the Social Media Marketer comes into play. A Social Media Marketer is an individual, or team, that has the core focus of helping their client drive traffic, build, promote and remain readily engaged with their online community. Again, this can be useful for both professional and personal situations.

Check out this neat infographic that shows some of the highlights and statistics of the positive impact Social Media Marketers are having.

Courtesy of: Schools.com

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James Hicks

James is the Founder and Chief Technologist of HicksNewMedia, a technology consulting and digital publishing firm providing effective and relevant solutions to individuals and businesses looking to utilize all things on the interweb. Follow him on Twitter | about.me | Facebook | Google+

As a business manager, you know that politics plays an important role in everyday life, influencing not just who the next president will be but what kind of marketing strategy your firm will adopt. Politics consumes some employees, making it very difficult to work and leaving an overall feeling in the office of intimidation, condescension, and fear. No one wants to work in this type of environment, and as a manager, it’s up to you to set the tone of the workplace. Politics will always exist because people instinctively choose sides. Whether they’re supporting someone’s budget proposal or playing flunky to an upper-level ally, people stick with what they know to the detriment of business development. The following offers a guide on what you can do as a manager to rein in your office politicians.

Recognize the Value
First and foremost, you need to understand that you can’t eliminate office politics. At some point or another, employees will shift their energies into making alliances, as if the office is a war zone and every cubicle a battleground. The need to survive, even in something as innocuous as a run-of-the-mill corporation, supersedes logic, even in the best of employees. As a manager, you should recognize the key players in the office politics game. Who garners the most respect, and how can you use each person’s role in a positive way? Establishing guidelines for the politics game will reduce the amount of backlash generated by those playing it. Alliances, after all, can be fruitful if focused in the right direction. Figure out whose strengths can be utilized in a productive way, and manipulate the situation to yield the best results. Do keep in mind, however, that some people will take a mile if given an inch. Don’t let the strong personalities bully others into submission. Instead, redirect their energies onto complex tasks that require their energy on a deeper level. You’ll get more out of your employees and avoid nasty situations.

Set Up Task Forces
Once you recognize your key players, pair them up with people who will complement their abilities. Natural leaders need natural followers. Creative types need deadline-minded coworkers. Opposites may not necessarily attract, but in the world of office politics, pairing people with complementary skills will ensure that no one gets overtaken and that your company achieves its greatest potential. In addition, establishing small task forces to get special projects done ensures that those people with inherent leadership skills have a place to shine while limiting the scope of their power. In the future, when you have openings for additional management, you can draw from these people without feeling that they bribed their way in. The key is to take control of the situation by preemptively assigning tasks.

Stick to Your Guns
If all else fails, then play the boss card. It’s okay to play into office politics, especially if you’re the one in charge. The key is remaining fair and balanced in your dealings and not letting someone back you into any uncomfortable corners. If people start staging a coup, then you know something needs to be done. People respect authority over tyranny. Stick to your guns and let the rules of the office be your backup when necessary. At the end of the day, you need to go home knowing that you handled every situation with the appropriate fortitude and moral integrity.

This article was written together with Richard Craft, an MBA student who’s passionate about sharing his knowledge with small businesses so they can manage their company better. He writes this on behalf of Continental Office Group, your number one choice when looking for used office furniture in dallas. With their high quality and affordable office furniture, managers would have one less office conflict to worry about!

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Sheldon Armstrong

Sheldon Armstrong is a regular contributor to The Tech Scoop. He's a techie who loves keeping up with the latest gadgets and technologies in the market while writing about them during his free time.

Google has recently released technical specifications for the new Google Glass device, a wearable computer with a heads up display, to mixed reactions across the internet.  Some people believe that it is the future of portable computing, while some publications such as PCMag have compared it to the oft-maligned Segway.  There are currently 8,000 prototypes of the Google Glass being tested by lucky consumers, but what does this mean for the future of mobile computing?

Fun

Let’s admit it — one of the first things we think about with any new technology is the possibilities for games and gaming. A video by creative agency Playground Inc explores the idea of apps for the Google Glass that track fitness goals, keep up with sports, and transmit gaming data into the Glass HUD.  While Google has yet to mention games for the new device, the potential for location based, augmented reality games is fascinating.  A game like Ingress, which is currently in closed beta, requires you to walk around the real world with your Android at the ready- connecting portals, meeting faction members, and dueling over territory.  A persistent, massive online game constantly being played through the Google Glass may very well be the next step in truly immersive online gaming, and gamers should anxiously await the opportunity to download games for Glass.

Functional

Google Glass will boast a 5MP camera and be capable of taking 720p video with as little effort as a wink, and viewing it’s high resolution display is the equivalent of watching a 25 inch HD screen that is eight feet away, according to Gizmondo.  In addition, it will use a bone conduction transducer for audio output to it’s wearer, and will come with 12GB of storage memory.  If 12GB isn’t enough, Glass will also also synch to the Google Cloud.  While it’s currently unclear whether or not there will be a GPS on-board the device, the Glass will be capable of linking up to any Bluetooth enabled mobile device.

The current apps for the device are more than just video and pictures.  Glass utilizes Google Hangouts to video conference, and allows users to share live streaming video from the Glass with others in the Hangout.  An app called InSight is currently being developed by a third party, and will allow users to digitally identify people in a crowd based on photo references, according to TechRadar.

Fail

Despite all the starry-eyed wonder surrounding the Glass device, there’s a surge of negative attitudes as well.  Consider the massive privacy concerns surrounding being able to surreptitiously video without consent.  According to PCMag, this possibility has caused a Seattle bar to already ban the devices to protect it’s patrons.

A prevailing attitude seems to group the Glass with certain other designs such as the Segway, Bluetooth headset, and even the pocket protector: They make you look like a dork.  Despite Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s attempt in a 2013 TED talk to suggest Glass will be more macho than using a Smartphone, the public doesn’t seem ready to buy into that attitude.  What could better evidence that we think Glasses are dorky looking than a Tumblr called “White Men Wearing Google Glasses?” Spoiler alert: it includes a guy in a cat-hair covered fedora.

Sergei Brin’s TED Talk:

Guy Fawkes and Google Glass image from Flickr user Mali: Lingeswaran Marimuthukumar.

About the Author: Ben Werner is excited about his new career as a sports writer and consumer reviewer.

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The information age has showered us with almost too many benefits to count; from facilitating global interactions, to streamlining our lives and managing our educational, financial and personal details. Assuming you’re old enough, you’d probably have to sit down and really think about just how far-reaching the internet has become, and how intertwined it is with your daily life.

The Costs of Being Online
These benefits, unfortunately, do come at a cost; it is now easier – in principle, and without the proper safeguards – for the unscrupulous element to mine your personal data from your PC. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t realize just how much personal information you have in various forgotten folders in your hard drive. There are untold thousands of viruses and malware out in cyberspace, constantly searching for vulnerabilities in computer systems, so that they can infect it and gather financial information. Fortunately, there are just as many ways to keep your information safe from hackers, as there are ways to compromise it:

• If you’re using a Windows-based PC, then make sure your Microsoft-provided firewall is enabled at all times – especially when downloading over the internet. You can also purchase more robust firewalls if you download often, or run a home business with important personal details for employees on your server. Both your computer’s defensive measures and the hacker’s program are sophisticated, so the hacker will usually move on to a more vulnerable system if it faces even the slightest resistance.
• When you protect your private accounts, be sure to choose passwords that are complex and varied. Never use only small-case letters, or common names. Mix in upper and lower case, numbers and special characters, to form a reasonable facsimile of something that would only be memorable to you.
• One of the biggest problems comes from email, which is why so many service providers have taken such lengths to relegate spam to the dustbin. Email attachments are notorious carriers of virus programs and malware, often enticing you to open and download some new formula for getting rich, or a free lottery ticket, etc. People click on them and infect their computer with password-stealers and other unwanted junk; many of which are time-released and won’t even show up for months after you’ve downloaded them. You have no way of knowing the source; as such, do not open unsolicited emails, and never download attachments from them if you do.
• If you employ a personal email service saved on your computer, the fact is that you’re more vulnerable to viral attacks. Opting for an online email account from one of the major providers makes you infinitely safer, as it is unlikely that even the most sophisticated hackers can break into their veritable fortress of defenses – they have the money to go all-out when protecting their servers. Intern-based emails are simply safer – and you rarely need to pay for them.
• Lastly, in addition to your firewall, you need an antivirus program. Firewalls protect your hardware and software from random threats surfing through cyberspace; antivirus is a much more robust and specialized weapon against targeted, malicious attacks.

Keeping your information safe from hackers requires a concerted effort, and the last line of defense after your system has been breached, is contacting a licensed professional or visiting an online tech message board. You can even launch your own financial crime investigation on certain sites. There are plenty of people out there who have impressive stores of knowledge regarding particular infections and how to get rid of them.

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The first step to understanding VPN is learning what the acronym stands for. “VPN” stands for Virtual Private Network, a term that is fairly self-explanatory if you have even the slightest idea how computers work. For those of you who still occasionally put discs in the toaster by mistake, a Virtual Private Network allows computers that are not physically connected to one another to share files and information across the internet as if they were connected. Only certain computers are allowed onto the VPN; not just anyone can barge in on one and start looking at files. Information on a VPN is chopped up, juggled about and translated into meaningless code during a process call “encryption” – even someone who accesses a VPN through clever trickery won’t be able to read their stolen bounty of files without the encryption key. A VPN can be thought of a series of secret “tunnels” through the internet – you can travel through cyberspace and share information, but no one can see what you’re doing.

Virtual Private Networks are most commonly used by large businesses that need share information across a country or even around the world. A company’s home office will begin by deciding that the company has grown so big, communications are beginning to be a problem. Then will then gloat about all their success. When the gloating over, the company will contact their Internet service provider and arrange to have an intranet set up. The substitution of a single vowel makes the difference between a public network that everyone can access, and a private one that nobody else can see. The initial setup of an intranet is costly, but after the Internet service provider has extracted enough money from the company to put one in place, if it’s a good VPN, it will be easy for the company to add more computers. If the initial VPN is set up using server technology that simply can’t handle too many computers, the VPN will have to eventually be taken down and replaced as the company grows; for this reason, companies should be careful to select a good VPN service from the start.

Once this is all set up, a person wishing to access the network will need to establish a regular internet connection on their computer. This can be achieved by plugging in an Ethernet cable or stealing your neighbor’s unprotected wifi connection. From there, you’ll need to know the IP address for the network you wish you connect to; this can be obtaining by calling your world-weary “tech guy” several times until you finally manage to copy the number down correctly. Then, you’ll need to bring up the VPN client on your computer. Most new computers come pre-installed with one; you can find it lurking in the mysterious abyss of your computer’s “networking” menu. Feed the IP address into the VPN client’s hungry text box, and enter your login information. Call the poor tech guy back to harass him further if you’ve forgotten your login information. If you manage to get all the appropriate numbers and letters crammed into their correct places, you’ll be rewarded with access to the VPN and the untold information treasures within.

Mike is a VPN service expert. His blog at BestVPNSites.com will help you find the best VPN service that you can use.

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Smartphones are amazing devices. They allow us to stay connected to the internet when we’re on the run, and they let us take pictures and video and share them instantly with our friends and family. We’re never more than a finger tip away from our email or website. They even help us navigate through unknown territory. We can stream music and videos on them, too, which is another nice feature.

But watching a movie on a 3-1/2 or 4 inch screen is less than ideal. It gets the job done, yes – but it’s just not as relaxing as kicking back in front of a 42 inch big screen in the comfort of your own home.

Did you even realize that you can enjoy any audio or video file you have on your smartphone or tablet on your TV? Surprisingly, a lot of people have no idea this is possible.

While there may be some tablets and smartphones that don’t have this capability, the vast majority do. The iPhone and iPad, for example, can wirelessly stream video to an HDTV via AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring, but most smart phones have the ability to connect via cable, providing HDMI input to your HDTV set with an HDMI adapter.

The majority of smartphones on the market today have a Micro D HDMI socket, whereby a micro HDMI to HDMI cable can be used to watch video or audio files contained on your smartphone on your TV screen.

The Micro D HDMI connector you will plug into your phone looks like this:

and the other end, for the TV set, looks like this:

As you can see below, the micro-D HDMI port on your phone may appear very similar in size and shape to the micro USB port, so don’t just grab the first cable that seems right – they’re not interchangeable.

Most smartphones have a micro USB port, so if you own one that doesn’t have a micro-D HDMI port, cables to connect the micro USB on the phone to the HDMI connector on a TV are readily available, if you didn’t receive one with your phone. Some have a power port on the adaptor, so that the phone will not run its battery down during playback. One company even offers an HDMI adapter which will power the phone during play to prevent battery discharge.

What is the down-side?

Just as you can’t expand a 150 x 150 pixel image up to 1200 x 1200 without a loss of quality, you can’t expect a 320 × 480 image to look the same on a low resolution 27″ TV screen. However, the 320 x 480 resolution of one of the first three generations of the iPhone is only slightly better than that of a 1920 x 1080 27″ TV. So if you have an old iPhone (or a low resolution smartphone of another brand), there will be an almost imperceptible loss in picture quality.

And if you have an iPhone 4 or 5, which have 640 x 960 and 720 x 1080 resolutions, respectively, you won’t see any degradation at all in picture quality.

Another down-side is that most smartphones come from the factory with a charger that isn’t really designed to simultaneously operate the phone and charge it. If you try to display a 2 hour movie on your TV with the charger connected, the charger will probably overheat and eventually fail.

Yet, if you display a 2 hour movie without a charger, there’s a chance your phone will deplete its charge before you finish the movie, depending upon the state of your battery. To avoid these problems, you’ll need to either acquire a heavy duty phone charger or use an adaptor which also provides simultaneous phone charging, such as the HDMI SlimPort.

Finally, if your phone and TV are HD capable, but your adapter isn’t, you will experience significant degradation of the image quality. Be certain to use an adapter that is suitable for HDMI signal quality.

And the up-side?

Obviously, viewing lengthy videos on a large HD screen is greatly preferable to peering at a 4 inch iPhone screen. Even a 9.7 inch iPad is a less than ideal viewing experience for a long movie.

With the right adapter, such as the SlimPort, which is specifically designed to maintain signal quality from the Smartphone HDMI to your TV screen, you can concentrate on enjoying the experience. Your eyes will appreciate the upgrade.

Analogix creates Slimport branded products designed for maximum compatibility with DisplayPort Standards. Slimport products can connect any display type from HDMI adapters to VGA and DisplayPort adapters. 

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Your Internet business doesn’t start until you have a functional, professional-looking, and attractive website. This is the shop where all your customers come to interact with you. The first step in creating your website is domain registration. Your domain name is your unique name on the Internet that ensures that no two companies have the same address – without this the Internet would be in total confusion. Here are step-by-step details of how to register your unique domain name.

Select a domain name

The first thing to do is to register a domain. The name must be unique, clear, easy to memorize and should represent your brand. It can be between two and sixty-seven characters, and contain only alphanumeric characters and hyphens. However, hyphens are not allowed at the beginning and end of the name. Then you have to decide your extension option which will be at the end of your name. These include .tv, .com, .org, .biz, .net, .uk, et cetera. The extension you choose should be based on your type of business, your location, or even your personal preference.

Make sure that the name you select is not too long. This is to help you in your branding efforts since customers can only remember short names that are unique and catchy. A very unique name ensures that people don’t get to other sites when they mistakenly type in a domain name too much like your own. You can also try out a search engine optimization technique where people try to get their site better recognition by including business-relevant keywords in the domain name.

Look for a domain registrar

Once you’re happy with your name selection the next thing is to look for a domain registrar that will help you check for the availability of the name you’ve chosen. There are many of such companies online but you need to be very careful and read reviews extensively before making your final decision. Most companies offer name availability checks for free, but you have to pay for the domain name once it has been confirmed. However, some web hosting companies offer free domain registration when you purchase a full web hosting package from them.

Start the name search process

You don’t need a professional for domain registration as long as you know how to operate a computer and are familiar with the way Web sites work. All you need is to enter the name you have selected into the domain registrar search box and click search. This process only takes few seconds and you’ll get information to confirm whether the name has been taken or not. If it has you can either change it completely or make a small adjustment. You can also try checking any name that has been taken with a different extension and see if you’ll be lucky. Once the availability of the name is confirmed then you can register it. This is a very simple process that takes only a few minutes of following very simple instructions.

Register a Singapore domain or any .com domain with DomainName.sg. We provide almost any kind of domain registration! Serving over 150,000 customers.

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With the Australian property market static and displaying signs of a continued recession, sellers are in a more difficult position to put their property on the market during fiscal financial times. Nonetheless, there have been success stories that have emerged from what has been a changeable real estate climate in the last twelve months, proving that some owners have benefited from embracing non-traditional methods of selling, such as using social media, to promote the sale of their property.

Although still relatively unpractised, blogging has emerged as another tactic to enter the real estate market, both in Australia and in the United States. When exploring this method of online marketing, it is important to think about the narrative that you are creating and lifestyle you are promoting, what the blog should include, in addition to your overall social media approach.

Creating a narrative, not an advertisement

Selling a property is not just about advertising; it’s about selling a lifestyle. Using a flash WordPress blog template, Instagram imagery, video footage and listings of hip local neighbourhood haunts, Laura and Rohan Bell used their experience in marketing and web design to put together a picturesque blog in order to sell their Erskineville apartment, which sold for over $600K earlier this year. The response from social media and local press was exceptional, with Sydney Real Estate agent Braden Walters assisting the couple with the successful campaign.

“What we’ve done is add warmth and emotion to the sales process by connecting the buyer with the seller. We’re showing the buyer that they are buying from a real person who has loved the property and that they want the buyer to love it just as much they have.”

By using Instagram photography beyond the features of the house, such as surrounding attractions of parks, local cafes, street art and amenities, the owners portrayed a lifestyle about the property which was appealing to potential home buyers. Although standard real estate listings allow for property photography, they tend to look characterless and do not evoke a sense of story. The features of a blog can be personalised to suit the tone and theme of the property, and this may appeal to particular groups of people who are drawn to a certain lifestyle. The Erskineville apartment was an obvious hit in the west of Sydney, nestled close to the bustling, arty hub of Newtown, appealing to a younger, ‘trendy’ demographic of potential property buyers.

“This new style of property marketing is to put a face on the property and sell the lifestyle and attractions around it,” commented Walters.

Blogging is a chance to get creative, so think beyond taking images of the living room and bedroom and think about what makes the property unique; is it originally built from the structure of an old Warehouse, and if so, what are the original features? Including history in your property description may entice buyers to the nostalgia about the building.

For example:

“The Star Printery is an adaptive reuse of a disused industrial building adjacent to the railway line in Erskineville. The existing building fabric is retained where possible including over-scaled columns with mushroom capitals and exposed concrete soffits. The rear building is precast concrete to the rail line with small punctured windows of glass block with lightweight metal cladding, glazing and balconies fronting to another landscaped courtyard,”

(erskinevilleapartment.com.au).

Selling real estate on other social media channels

In addition to using a blog, Kurt Oprey and local real estate agent Hocking Stewart sold his Northcote home earlier this year for over one million dollars, taking an additional $130K above the reserve price. Oprey employed the use of a blog, as well as a Twitter feed, YouTube videos and a Picasa photo page. His attempt was to create an online presence in as many forms as possible, enhancing the chance of a profitable sale.

Real estate agents have been taking advantage of social media not only to promote their business but to also assist in building the profile of their client’s properties.

“We’ve been using social media for all our properties and directing posts to our property pages for a while, but this is the first time we’ve combined them all and given the vendors their own site…I will be recommending this strategy to clients whose property is perfectly suited to a first home buyer,” commented Braden.

Sellers should also be aware of the networking capacity that LinkedIn offers as a way of connecting real estate vendors with those wanting to sell their properties.

Why does it work?

Although it is still considered a novel practice, using a blog to sell a property has some immediate advantages. It is a good way to stir up media and online discussion, as witnessed with the previously mentioned examples of the Erskineville apartment and Northcote home, which happened to make local and international news.

Secondly, it is a highly accessible platform, being both free and easy to set up, in addition to being easy to navigate by users. People are able to leave comments and questions on a blog and they can be answered quickly and directly, with the answers being available for other online users to read.

It also marries perfectly in with accompanying social media channels, which can further enhance the presence of the property’s sale.

By giving a blog its own individual domain address, it also gives the property its own independence from real estate websites and classifieds which deal in thousands of daily listings.

Relying on traditional selling methods

Selling a property involves high financial stakes, so it should be exercised that embracing any new method of real estate marketing should be used only in conjunction with expert advice. Relying on blogging and social media channels alone may not drive the sales process directly, so you may still need to enlist the help of a real estate agent. If your listing still isn’t getting any nibbles after employing all the known (and new) tactics for selling a property, you may need to revisit your asking price and whether you need to invest in some repairs or renovations to help make the sale more attractive.

While you may be ready to embrace a new way of property marketing, such as blogging, remember that buyers may still be traditional in their property search approach.

“Most people think it is too difficult or they are simply stuck in their ways” commented Braden.

Many people are still used to dealing in conventional methods of buying a house and will therefore not be accustomed to searching social media channels for house sales – this is why you may still need to enlist the help of a real estate agent to help take the reins of your property sale.

First impressions

It may not cost to set up a blog, however, it is a time consuming process to implement. If you are not willing to put in the hours to populating it with copy, images, video and information, it will look like a normal real estate listing.

Treat all forms of communication as a form of first impression, and put yourself in the buyer’s shoes as if they are seeing your property for the first time; blog, open inspection or auction. Buyers need to be able to picture themselves living in your property, so it is important for them to feel welcomed and humbled on their first visit. It is more than an advertising pitch…it’s selling a lifestyle.

Some helpful items to include in your blog

·         Accurate property description

·         Blog posts leading up to the sale or auction

·         Images and Videos

·         Listings of nearby attractions, such as markets or entertainment/sporting venues

·         Utilities break down per quarter/year

·         Strata break down per quarter/year (if applicable)

·         Number of neighbouring apartments (if applicable)

·         External storage

·         Car Parking

·         Access to lifts (if applicable)

·         Pet friendly

·         Air conditioning/heating/gas

·         Closest transport, supermarket, gym, park, coffee, pub

Fiona Hamann is the senior PR manager at reputable lender, Aussie. She is passionate about all facets of communications including PR, writing, editing, website content, new media, crisis and issues management and branding in the finance industry – home loans, personal loans, credit cards, and insurance.”

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